Paul Simon

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, one of the finest public servants in my years in Congress was Joseph Califano, who headed what was then known as Health, Education and Welfare for President Carter. He wrote a story in the Sunday New York Times on the drug problem that makes eminent good sense. Recently, the Chicago Sun-Times had a front-page story saying that 95 percent of those who apply for drug treatment are being turned down. I visited Cook County jail with 9,000 inmates. In a minimum security barracks, with about 45 men sleeping on cots, one of the prisoners told me he wanted to get into drug treatment. I turned to the assistant warden who was with me and asked why he could not get in, and the warden said they had only 120 spots for drug treatment for 9,000 prisoners. I turned to the rest of the men and asked how many of them would like to get into drug treatment and about 30 raised their hands. Our failure to provide drug treatment for people who need it is short-sighted. We demagog on the crime issue and pretend we are really doing something when we create 60 new causes for capital punishment and set more mandatory minmums. The reality is, we are rate. Senator Kennedy uses the figure that 75 percent of those who do receive drug treatment while in prison do not come back, and 75 percent of those who do not, do come back. I don't know if those statistics are precisely accurate, but the general principle is clearly accurate. I am grateful to Joe Califano for providing sensible leadership once more. At this point, I ask that his statement be printed in the Record. The statement follows: [From the New York Times, Jan. 29, 1995] It's Drugs, Stupid (By Joseph Califano) Despite all the Republican preening and Democratic pouting since Nov. 8, neither political party gets it. If Speaker Newt Gingrich is serious about delivering results from his party's ``Contract With America'' and if President clinton means to revive his Presidency, each can start by recognizing how fundamentally drugs have changed society's problems and that together they can transform Government's response. For 30 years, America has tried to curb crime with more judges, tougher punishments and bigger prisons. We have tried to rein in health costs by manipulating payments to doctors and hospitals. We've fought poverty with welfare systems that offer little incentive to work. All the while, we have undermined these efforts with our personal and national denial about the sinister dimension drug abuse and addition have added to our society. If Gingrich and Clinton want to prove to us that they can make a difference in what really ails America, they should ``get real'' about how drugs have recast three of the nation's biggest challenges. Law, Order and Justice--In 1960 there were fewer than 30,000 arrests for drug offenses; in 30 years, that number soared beyond one million. Since 1989, more individuals have been incarcerated for drug offenses than for all violent crimes--and most violent crimes are committed by drug (including alcohol) abusers. Probation and parole are sick jokes in most cities. As essential first steps to rehabilitation, many parolees need drug treatment and after-care, which means far more monitoring than their drug-free predecessors of a generation ago required, not less. Yet in Los Angeles, for example, probation officers are expected to handle as many as 1,000 cases at a time. With most offenders committing drug- or alcohol-related crimes, it's no wonder so many parolees go right back to jail: 80 percent of prisoners have prior convictions and more than 60 percent have served time before. Congress and state legislatures keep passing laws more relevant to the celluloid gangsters and inmates of classic 1930's movies than 1990's reality. Today's prisons are wall to wall with drug dealers, addicts, alcohol abusers and the mentally ill (often related to drug abuse). The prison population shot past a million in 1994 and is likely to double soon after the year 2000. Among industrialized nations, the United States is second only to Russia in the number of its citizens it imprisons: 519 per 100,000, compared with 368 for next-place South Africa, 116 for Canada and 36 for Japan. Judges and prosecutors are demoralized as they juggle caseloads of more than twice the recommended maximum. In 1991 eight states had to close their civil jury trial systems for all or part of the year to comply with speedy trial requirements of criminal cases involving drug abusers. Even where civil courts remain open, the rush of drug-related cases has created intolerable delays--4 years in Newark, 5 in Philadelphia and up to 10 in Cook County, Ill. In our impersonal, bureaucratic world, if society keeps denying citizens timely, individual hearings for their grievances, they may blow off angry steam in destructive ways. Health Care Cost Containment.--Emergency rooms from Boston to Baton Rouge are piled high with the debris of drug use on city streets--victims of gunshot wounds, drug-promoted child and spouse abuse, and drug-related medical conditions like cardiac complications and sexually transmitted diseases. AIDS and tuberculosis have spread rapidly in large part because of drug use. Beyond dirty needles, studies show that teen-agers high on pot, alcohol or other drugs are far more likely to have sex, and to have it without a condom. Each year drugs and alcohol trigger up to $75 billion in health care costs. The cruelest impact afflicts the half- million newborns exposed to drugs during pregnancy. Crack babies, a rarity a decade ago, crowd $2,000-a-day neonatal wards. Many die. It can cost $1 million to bring each survivor to adulthood. Even where prenatal care is available--as it is for most Medicaid beneficiaries--women on drugs tend not to take advantage of it. And as for drug treatment, only a relatively small percentage of drug-abusing pregnant mothers seek it, and they must often wait in line for scarce slots. Pregnant mothers' failure to seek prenatal care and stop abusing drugs accounts for much of the almost $3 billion that Medicaid spent in 1994 on impatient hospital care related to drug use. The Fight Against Poverty.--Drugs have changed the nature of poverty. Nowhere is this more glaring than in the welfare systems and the persistent problem of teen-age pregnancy. Speaker Gingrich and President Clinton are hell-bent to put welfare mothers to work. But all the financial lures and prods and all the job training in the world will do precious little to make employable the hundreds of thousands of welfare recipients who are addicts and abusers. For too long, reformers have had their heads in the sand about this unpleasant reality. Liberals fear that admitting the extent of alcohol and drug abuse among welfare recipients will incite even more punitive reactions than those now fashionable. Conservatives don't want to face up to the cost of drug treatment. This political denial assures failure of any effort to put these welfare recipients to work. The future is not legalization. Legalizing drug use would write off millions of minority Americans, especially children and drug-exposed babies, whose communities are most under siege by drugs. It has not worked in any nation where it's been tried, and our own experience with alcohol and cigarettes shows how unlikely we are to keep legalized drugs away from children. Drugs are the greatest threat to family stability, decent housing, public schools and even minimal social amenities in urban ghettos. Contrary to the claim of pot proponents, marijuana is dangerous. It devastates short-term memory and the ability to concentrate precisely when our children need them most--when they are in school. And a child 12 to 17 years old who smokes pot is 85 times as likely to use cocaine as a child who does not. Cocaine is much more addictive than alcohol, which has already hooked more than 18 million Americans. Dr. Herbert D. Kleber, a top drug expert, estimates that legalizing cocaine would give us at least 20 million addicts, more than 10 times the number today. It's especially reckless to promote legalization when we have not committed research funds and energies to addiction prevention and treatment on a scale commensurate with the epidemic. The National Institutes of Health spend some $4 billion for research on cancer, cardiovascular disease and AIDS, but less than 15 percent of that amount for research on substance abuse and addiction, the largest single cause and exacerbator of those diseases. Treatment varies widely, from inpatient to outpatient, from quick-fix acupuncture to residential programs ranging a few weeks to more than a year, from methadone dependence to drug- free therapeutic communities. Fewer than 25 percent of the individuals who need drug or alcohol treatment enter a program. On average, a quarter complete treatment; half of them are drug- or alcohol-free a year later. In other words, with wide variations depending on individual circumstances, those entering programs have a one-in-eight chance of being free of drugs or alcohol a year later. Those odds beat many for long-shot cancer chemotherapies, and research should significantly improve them. But a recent study in California found that even at current rates of success, $1 invested in treatment saves $7 in crime, health care and welfare costs. Here are a few suggestions for immediate action to attack the dimension drugs have added to these three problems: Grant Federal funds to state and Federal prison systems only if they provide drug and alcohol treatment and after- care for all inmates who need it. Instead of across-the-board mandatory sentences, keep inmates with drug and alcohol problems in jails, boot camps or halfway houses until they experience a year of sobriety after treatment. Require drug and alcohol addicts to go regularly to treatment and after-care programs like Alcoholics Anonymous while on parole or probation. Provide Federal funds for police only to cities that enforce drug laws throughout their jurisdiction. End the acceptance of drug bazaars in Harlem and southeast Washington that would not be tolerated on Manhattan's Upper East Side or in Georgetown. Encourage judges with lots of drug cases to employ public health professionals, just as they hire economists to assist with antitrust cases. Cut off welfare payments to drug addicts and alcoholics who refuse to seek treatment and pursue after-care. As employers and health professionals know, addicts need lots of carrots and sticks, including the treat of loss of job and income, to get the monkey off their back. Put children of drug- or alcohol-addicted welfare mothers who refuse treatment into foster care or orphanages. Speaker Gingrich and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton have done the nation a disservice by playing all-or-nothing politics with this issue. The compassionate and cost-effective middle ground is to identify those parents who abuse their children by their own drug and alcohol abuse and place those children in decent orphanages and foster care until the parents shape up. Subject inmates, parolees and welfare recipients with a history of substance abuse to random drug tests, and fund the treatment they need. Liberals must recognize that getting off drugs is the only chance these individuals (and their babies) have to enjoy their civil rights. Conservatives who preach an end to criminal recidivism and welfare dependency must recognize that reincarceration and removal from the welfare rolls for those who test positive is a cruel Catch-22 unless treatment is available. Clinton are certain not to legalize drugs. Unfortunately, it is less clear whether they will recognize the nasty new stain of intractability that drugs have added to crime, health costs and welfare dependency, and go on to tap the potential of research, prevention and treatment to save billions of dollars and millions of lives. If a mainstream disease like diabetes or cancer affected as many individuals and families as drug and alcohol abuse and addiction do, this nation would mount an effort on the scale of the Manhattan Project to deal with it.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. I thank the Senator. If I may make another comparison. It is like Fannie Mae or Sallie Mae. They are entities created by the Federal Government. Their boards are appointed by the President of the United States. But if Fannie Mae gets into some difficulty, they have to raise their own revenue. We are not going to come along and help them. I do not want Social Security to be in that situation. I want us to feel an obligation to make sure that we fund Social Security. So I think we are not just talking about something that is off budget where we have an obligation. In this case, we are talking about something that is a Federal Government-created entity, but they have to take care of their own revenue. And if they run into some financial difficulties, they have to raise power rates or, in the case of Fannie Mae, may have to raise interest rates or something else. But we are not going to come along and bail them out.

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, let me just say if we were to rephrase this, I would say the first paragraph we are talking about ``among the federally created programs'' would have language that is more clear. the report for that reason, that is fine but just vote for the constitutional amendment. Let me respond to my friend from Nevada, because the paragraph that he quotes is correct. The REA serves people in Nevada, California, Idaho, and Illinois. We do permit Government-backed bonds. Now, when we put out those REA bonds we put a little bit into the Treasury. Whatever CBO determines is a risk factor, that is put there. Now, when my colleague from California says, well, if Bonneville went down the tube, we probably would rescue then, I think that is correct. I would just remind the Senator that we also rescued Lockheed. We also rescued Chrysler. We will not put any more in here from Michigan for Chrysler or Ford or General Motors, but we do put whatever risk factor we have to when there are federally backed bonds.

Mr. SIMON. I will be pleased to yield.

Mr. SIMON. Just a response to this question, and then I will yield to my friend from Pennsylvania.

Mr. SIMON. I differ with my colleague on that.

Mr. SIMON. Will my colleague yield?

Mr. SIMON. I do not disagree.

Mr. SIMON. Let me add that the treaty was signed in Paris in May. In those days you did not find out what had happened for a while. When word got to Washington, DC, in July--and I apologize to my colleague from North Carolina--when word got to Jefferson in July in Washington, DC, he was as startled as anyone else by the Louisiana Purchase. Our Secretary of the Treasury at that point was a man named Albert Gallatin, many States have Gallatin counties named for him. Most people do not know for whom Gallatin is named. Albert Gallatin objected to the Louisiana Purchase, or part of it, because part of the agreement was that the bonds were 5 percent. They could not pay back any of it for the first 15 years. He wanted to pay it off very, very quickly. But the really important point here is that there were two votes in the U.S. Senate on the Louisiana Purchase. There was one vote in the House of Representatives on the Louisiana Purchase. I do know the precise totals. It was something like 26 to 3, or something like that, in the Senate, and all of them were far more than the 60 percent required by this constitutional amendment. So this amendment would not have blocked the Louisiana Purchase, I want to assure my colleague from West Virginia.

Mr. SIMON. My colleague is absolutely correct. In fact, he illustrates the point that this constitutional amendment has that flexibility.

Mr. SIMON. I would be pleased to respond, because George Washington operated this country very frugally. Then, in his Farewell Address, George Washington warned do not get the country into debt. We followed that advice, really followed it up until not too many years ago. Then we lost that sense of responsibility. But it is very interesting in Thomas Jefferson's first term he reduced the small Federal debt we had in this country by 50 percent. advantage of the opportunity--I am glad he did--to buy the Louisiana Territory, 1,827,000 square miles for $15 million; less than 2\1/2\ cents per acre, extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border, from the Mississippi to the Rockies. I am glad he did. He went into debt for it. Where did he get the money? He borrowed it from the banks. That debt, $15 million in that day, was 1.9 times the total budget for that year. If that were to happen in this year, when we have a budget of $1.6 trillion, and if we bought the Louisiana Territory and it cost us 1.9 times the amount of the Federal budget, you could figure that for yourselves. That has to be something like, about $3.1 trillion. I am glad he did. I am glad he went into debt. When going into debt, he benefited all of the ensuing generations from then until kingdom come.

Mr. SIMON. But one of the things those who founded our Government talked about is taxation without representation. And one of the reasons that Thomas Jefferson favored a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution is he said one generation should no more be obligated to pick up the debt of a previous generation than to pick up the debt of another country.

Mr. SIMON. I will take your word it is nine rather than eight. But the point is, this is not something startlingly new. Those provisions are in to prevent Government abuse. And I think we have had Government abuse. The second point I ask----

Mr. SIMON. On most things, he is correct.

Mr. SIMON. I beg to differ with my colleague.

Mr. SIMON. Is it not true that there are eight provisions in the Constitution right now requiring a supermajority?

Mr. SIMON. Will my colleague yield on that question, on that point?

Mr. SIMON. Will my colleague yield?

Mr. SIMON. We are. Well, what I am simply saying is we have built into this the flexibility to take care of the kind of unknown kind of situations that you are talking about.

Mr. SIMON. Pardon?

Mr. SIMON. We do not know that until sometime later. That is why we make this adjustment. And that is when we will make the adjustment. I think--and I respect----

Mr. SIMON. All right. And the reality is we do not know--when we come to September 30, we do not know what the deficit is, or what it is precisely.

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I thank him for yielding. You have to put that together with the language about estimates, together.

Mr. SIMON. The Senator is partially correct in that.

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, let me just add, we have a contract not only with people who are on Social Security today. We have a contract with those three groups that Senator Feingold mentioned in the future. And how is the Social Security trust fund protected? It is protected by U.S. bonds. If you take a look at the history of nations, when nations get around 9, 10, or 11 percent of deficit versus national income, with the exception when you are in a war, then nations start printing money. What the economists say is they monetize the debt. The latest CBO projection is we are going to end up, in the year 2030, with 18 percent. That suggests that the only way we can protect Social Security is to make sure that debt does not rise, and that we do not monetize the debt, because if the dollar is only worth 25 cents, those bonds are only worth 25 cents on the dollar. Senator Ford is correct. Social Security is not causing the deficit. I have voted for statutory provisions, and I will again as we move ahead. But we also have to recognize that if we separate Social Security and say this is not our direct responsibility, starting in the year 2012 or 2013, Social Security starts to go into a deficit situation. What we ought to be doing, if this passes, is sitting down with senior groups right now and saying how do we plan for this? Do we have to have a half-percent increase in Social Security in the FICA tax to pay for it? Should we, over a period of 12 years, each month increase the retirement that you need to have? I do not know what the answers are, but I know that if we just put this off and say this is not our direct responsibility, we are asking for trouble. Here let me just add, we ought to be listening to Bob Myers, for 21 years the chief actuary of the Social Security System. He says it is absolutely essential for the future of our system that we pass the balanced budget amendment. I hope we do that. Let me just add one other point. There are those who philosophically just are opposed to a balanced budget amendment, period. My friend, Senator Byrd, is one of those. Senator Feingold is one of those. But let no one use the defeat--and I think this amendment will be defeated--let no one use that as political cover and say, well, I cannot do this because I want to protect Social Security recipients. The only sure way to protect Social Security recipients is, as Bob Myers has pointed out, to pass the balanced budget amendment. And that is what I hope we will do and do in a responsible way. The Reid amendment, in my opinion, should be defeated. Then we should do the right thing by those who are on Social Security now and will be on Social Security in decades to come by adopting the balanced budget amendment. Mr. President, I yield the floor.