Alan Simpson

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Ohio.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a document from the Congressional Budget Office setting forth the estimated budgetary effects of the pending legislation be printed at this point in the Record, and I further note that the reference in this letter to S. 269, as reported by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on April 10, 1996, means that these estimates apply to the legislation pending before the Senate as S. 1664.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that John Ratigan be granted floor privileges during the pendency of S. 1664.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I appreciated very much my friend, the Senator from Ohio, yielding. I certainly would yield additional time. But we have a time constraint with the ranking member and would like to, at the direction of the majority leader, present some amendments for disposition tomorrow. So, with that explanation, let me proceed. Amendment No. 3669 (Purpose: To prohibit foreign students on F-1 visas from obtaining free public elementary or secondary education)

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I have a unanimous-consent request. I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the Congressional Budget Office addressed to me as chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration, dated April 15, 1996, be printed in the Record.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the resolution appear at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Senate Resolution 242 submitted earlier in the day by Senator Warner.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Therefore, I ask for its first reading.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I now ask for its second reading, and I object.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I inquire of the Chair if H.R. 3103 has arrived from the House of Representatives.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today it stand in adjournment until the hour of 9:45 a.m. on Tuesday, April 16; further, that immediately following the prayer the Journal of proceedings be deemed approved to date; no resolutions come over under the rule; the call of the calendar be dispensed with; the morning hour be deemed to have expired; and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; and, that there then be a period for morning business until the hour of 10:45 a.m. with Senators to speak for up to 5 minutes each except for the following: Senator Grassley for 15 minutes and Senator Hatch for 45 minutes. I further ask unanimous consent that immediately following morning business the Senate resume consideration of S. 1664, the illegal immigration bill.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in recess from the hour of 12:30 until 2:15 for the weekly policy conferences to meet.

Mr. SIMPSON. I ask unanimous consent that the vote occur on Wednesday, April 17, at a time to be determined by the two leaders, and that the mandatory quorum under Rule XXII be waived.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I now withdraw the motion.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I now ask that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order following the remarks of my good colleague, Senator Abraham of Michigan.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Senate Concurrent Resolution 51 submitted earlier by Senator Warner.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, because we recently shouldered the important matter of extending the debt limit, I feel obliged to address the provision in that bill that increases the earnings limit for Social Security beneficiaries aged 65-69. As my colleagues know, this is a change that I have expressed serious concern about in the past. Now that enactment of this provision has come to pass, I want to state my views about the general issue of the earnings limit. First, let me pay tribute to a fine chap, my esteemed colleague from the great State of Arizona, Senator John McCain for his dogged determination and tireless efforts to effect this change in the law. I know that my past intervention on this issue has not always been truly welcome to my colleague--but I trust that my intentions, which were always constructive, were apparent. It has never been my intention to permanently forestall all changes to the earnings limit. I trust that the provision attached to the debt limit extension provides the best available means of achieving the objectives of my friend from Arizona and all others who are interested in raising the earnings limit for seniors. Clearly, I appreciate the fundamental principle behind the earnings limit legislation. Americans are living longer, are productive for more years, and our retirement systems need to recognize these facts. As chairman of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy, I have a demonstrated interest and responsibility to see that we adapt wisely and properly to these changes. One of my charges is to monitor any changes in Social Security policy and to ensure that those changes are not detrimental to the long-range solvency of the Social Security system. I have expressed my misgivings about previous funding mechanisms to ``pay for'' this legislation, and I am pleased to note that the offsets now come in a more straightforward manner from Social Security spending. Ultimately, Congress must come to grips with the fact that American society is aging. For the benefit of today's workers, we must act to address these issues very soon, or the cost to our children and grandchildren will be catastrophically high. We must make changes to ensure the solvency of future retirement programs--we should increase the retirement age while at the same time offering inducements for Americans to work longer without suffering penalties that discourage continued participation in our work force. We can't have it both ways--handing out plums that allow workers to stay in the work force in a productive way, while at the same time avoiding the hard choices that must follow--meaning raising of the retirement age. I hope that this first step will lead Congress to confront the next necessary decision. Increases in the Social Security eligibility age must be enacted soon, and the change will have to be phased in over a long period--perhaps 20 years--in order to be fair and effective. Such a plan will allow today's workers to plan for these changes. This legislation to increase the earnings limit is offset in large part by terminating the disability benefits for drug addicts and alcoholics. Many have considered the payment of benefits to these groups to be an abuse of the Social Security system. This measure passed by the Senate makes a clear choice that we will subsidize the continued working activity of senior citizens instead of subsidizing these addictions of alcohol and drug use. Clearly, the Senate is appropriately going on record as to what activity we wish to encourage and what we want to discourage. Another change that will offset the cost of this legislation is the increase in reviews of those people who are currently receiving disability benefits. Such payments were never intended to be a lifetime allowance to substitute for employment or self-employment. For years, the Social Security Administration has been unable to complete these required reviews--the result of which is that people are receiving disability payments long after their disability has either ceased or improved to the point where a return to work is possible. Not only will these reviews result in savings for the trust funds, but they will place able Americans who can return to work back in the workplace. I congratulate Senator McCain for finding the offsets that enable us to pay for the increased earnings limits for seniors. I am very pleased--you can hardly know how much--to be able to speak to this issue without having thrown a monkey wrench into the works and frustrating my colleague from Arizona. I am most hopeful that this measure will be merely a prelude to Congress coming to grips with the much larger issue of the aging of America and the future of our retirement programs. The steps that we must take in the future will never--in any way--be as popular as this measure, but we must have the political fortitude to make those decisions as well. That is our job, that is our duty.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, today we debate a bill of tremendous importance to my State and to many Americans who draw their livelihood from the land. I am speaking specifically about ranchers, that often maligned group of individuals who have played such an enduring role of the development and prosperity of our Western States over the years-- and individuals they are. It is difficult to conceive of a greater distortion than the continuing ugly portrayal of those in my State being described as big- time cattle barons, Cadillac cowboys, few in number and great in wealth and rapacity and greed. The reality is far, far different. There are more than 25,000 ranchers whose livestock grazes on these western lands all over our Western States. In Western and Midwestern States, more than 50 percent of all beef cattle graze these lands at one time or another during the year. If cattle were driven from these lands--and this administration seems to advocate that; that has been the pressure from them--large numbers of ranchers would surely go out of business. That is the stark reality. It is also a very cynical and deceptive canard that alleges that if this bill were to pass, public access to these Federal lands would be simply cut off. Instead, this bill reaffirms that use of these public lands for nongrazing purposes, shall continue in accordance with State and Federal law, already in effect. I am very pleased to support this bill. So many have worked so hard. I commend the occupant of the chair, Senator Domenici, and so many people who have worked so hard. My colleague from Wyoming, Senator Craig Thomas, has done a yeoman's task, and does it well. I support Americans who make their living off the land. I support a healthy environment. Who does not? I get tired of that argument. Good Lord, I have lifted more lumber on the environmental laws when I was a State legislator than half the people who bark and howl at the moon in this place. I support public access to our public lands. I support the principle of multiple use, an unknown description to several people in this body. It is indeed impossible to believe that we cannot pursue all of these objectives simultaneously, which this bill does. What I do not support is this one-size-fits-all solution for local problems. These are issues which very much require a rich participation in the form of the expertise and concerns of the local people, those who are closest to the problems and those who, I might say, care the most and are affected the most. It makes little sense for the beltway environmentalists to have veto power over the common sense and experience of those who have lived and worked and grubbed that land from nothing for generations. Mr. President, this bill is moderate and balanced and inclusive and fair, and yet it is being described by certain special interests as a sinister, venal, even Republican conspiracy--we have had some good bipartisan support on this issue through the months--to turn back the clock on environmental protection. That shows up, I guess, in focus groups. That is not what this is. This charge is preposterous and made by people who do not want to stop with simply regulating the proper role of livestock on the public lands. It is made by people who would abandon all concept and principle of multiple use altogether. Let there be no mistake here--the groups opposing this bill hold as their ultimate goal the outright abolition of livestock from public lands. Let us be very clear. I believe that is very evident in slogans such as ``cattle free in '93,'' which was gleefully chanted into the vapors with such fierce conviction, less than one Presidential term ago, as the type of genuine extremism which has played too great a role in this debate. From a purely scientific perspective, there is not a scintilla of evidence demonstrating that responsible grazing has been detrimental to the rangelands--not one--rather, an ever-growing body of scientific data suggesting it has been a critical component--critical component--of good range health. It is also irrefutable that the range is in far better condition today than it was 40 years ago. That is not my opinion. That is according to the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. The condition of the public lands is the best it has been in this century. Yes, we have more cattle grazing on these lands, but we also have more elk, deer, antelope, and even coyotes. We take good care of them, too. How can this be so? The good stewardship of our ranchers, that is how. Mr. President, I want to just briefly show some photographs. They are rather remarkable. The first, I think, if you can discern--these are unique in their own historical context because the top ones on each of these panels were taken in 1870 by the renowned William Henry Jackson during his photographic survey of the Wyoming Territory. He was working for the USGGST, the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories at the time. This same expedition eventually reached the Yellowstone area. When he got to Yellowstone, he took some extraordinary photos that were so influential in gaining national park status for Yellowstone National Park in that spectacular region. He, along with Thomas Moran, the artist, upon returning with the material and presenting it to the Congress in 1872, formed Yellowstone Park as a pleasuring ground for the enjoyment of the American people. You would never know that, as people forget the organic act. That is what it was set up for. When these photographs were taken, all of the pictured lands were Federal. They were all owned by the Federal Government. But here we are, and over 100 years later, then Prof. Kendall Johnson, of the Range Science Department at Utah State University, attempted to exactly re-create the location and the exact point from which Jackson set up his extraordinarily cumbersome equipment. And with the great plates and the weight of them and hauling them through the West--which was a feat in itself--he re-created Mr. Jackson's photos as a means of studying the condition of rangelands in Wyoming. I am indebted to him for the use of these photographs that were published in his book called ``Rangeland Through Time.'' Some of the lands pictured in the lower panels are Federal and some are private, but all of them are livestock grazed. Every single photo in the lower area is being livestock grazed, all of them. So the top photograph here shows land about 50 miles north of Rawlins, WY. This photo was taken in 1870, August 28, about the same time that the Sun family started ranching there. It looks as if the original ranchers took some pretty tough-looking country to decide to work on, but they have been right there ranching ever since that picture was taken. If you look at the bottom photo just taken a few years ago, the exact same location, you will see the fruits of their stewardship. Do not tell me about environmental devastation wrought by selfish and greedy ranchers. We see trees, cottonwoods. We see extraordinary vegetation, hay lands. That is it, right there. This was the way that God had it. God has had some helpers. These two photos then were taken on the Laramie River about 5 miles north of Wheatland on August 10, 1870. The top photo was taken in 1870 and the bottom was taken over 100 years later. You will notice that the riparian habitat has been so lush that you cannot even see the river. Here it is in the original form, and here it is 20 years ago. Here is the riparian habitat, and this is all grazing country. As I say, you cannot even tell where the river is because of the lushness of the growth. Again, do not tell me our ranchers do not understand good ecomanagement. The next pair of photos were taken about 40 miles south of Douglas, pretty rugged country, the same respective time as the previous pair of photos, August 12, 1870. Now, this is a real one--notice the pine and the growth, and here is one taken almost 100 years later. Look at the trees, look at the pine. All of this is grazing land. Look at the grass. This is just rock. Here is grassland, and here is all of this being grazed for decades. Do not tell me, again, about ranchers devastating the land. Another pair of pictures, the fourth, showing this widespread phenomenon, same timeframe, 1870, August 20, northwest of Douglas, WY. The scene shows a treeless and barren landscape. There it is and there is the camp. People were camping there, probably the first white people to go through--not the first humans. This entire area is near the old Bozeman Trail, Ft. Laramie, up past Ft. Phil Kearny, into Montana. Of course, it was just 5 years after this, on June 25, 1876, that Custer had his rather unfortunate occasion at Little Bighorn. At the bottom we see, again, 100 years later, the grasses are lush and thick, trees are abundant by prairie standards--cottonwoods, water, grasslands, all of it grazed. It was not a Ph.D. in ecomanagement that resulted in this recovery. Rather, it was the common sense of ranchers who depend for their survival upon the health of these lands. When your family depends on your stewardship, you pay awful close attention, very, very close attention. Finally, two photos taken on the North Platte River. This was the area of several great Indian struggles in the history of my State, southwest of Casper, WY. A young man named Caspar Collins was killed in an Indian skirmish there. In 1870, these lands were totally overgrazed and treeless; August 25, 1870. By 1986, they had recovered to become well grassed, with riparian habitat abounding. Here is the same photo. Here is water. Here are trees, cottonwoods, native grasses, hayfields, irrigation. So do not tell me about ranchers being poor stewards of the land. I always like to ask environmentalists what it is they find so appealing about my beautiful State of Wyoming where I am a fifth generation. My grandfather came to this rugged country in 1862 through Ft. Laramie. He was with the Conner expedition, and he ended up going up that trail to Ft. Phil Kearny and was there during what was called the Fetterman massacre. He was a sutler. That is a chap who sells tobacco, boots, and booze to the soldiers. He was good at that. Fincelius G. Burnett. He was there when this great historical battle took place. Then he lived in what was called Fremont County, and he became the boss farmer of Chief Washakie. One of the great Shoshonie leaders of all time had my great grandfather as his boss farmer. That is what he called him. He even gave him land on the reservation. He said, ``I will not take it because it will cause you a lot of pain in the years to come,'' and my grandfather deeded it back. It was a good thing to do because the lands that are there now that did go into private hands have caused some pain. I ask these environmentalists about Wyoming and what they find so appealing about our great State. The answers I always get reference such things as rugged, natural beauty, the wildlife, the clean streams, the clean air, and great fishing. I say, well, how in Heaven's name do you think it has managed to stay that way all these years? Somebody must have been taking care of it. I tell them that we have been engaged in land use activities for over 100 years. How do you think Wyoming has managed to remain the natural jewel that it is? It is because those of us that live there refuse to let it become ripped and ruined and torn to bits. It is because those citizens who depend upon these lands for their livelihoods have taken such good care of them over time. That is how. When you are a Republican from Wyoming, you get accused of some very interesting things on the issue of the environment. But I was in the State legislature for 13 years. In the State legislature we put on the books the toughest mine land reclamation law in the United States, in the largest coal-producing State in the United States, Wyoming; the toughest Clean Air Act, which was six times more stringent than the Federal Clean Air Act; a Clean Water Act; a Plant Sighting Act which said, if you are going to come and set up a great type of structure here, an infrastructure, you will see to it that you address the accompanying social and domestic problems. We made them cough up the front end money. That is what I did when I was in the legislature. I do tire of the paternalistic approach of people who come up to me and ask about saving the State that we already saved. We get a little tired of them hanging around. In this kind of debate, they all use the same fax machine, and all the organizations that chop you to shreds all having interlocking boards of directorate. They really are something. They all live pretty well, a lot of them on inherited wealth. If they do go to work, they find out what the rest of us find out: Work is healing, therapeutic and keeps your mind off cows messing around on the riparian bank and streams. It clears the air. I want that to happen. I get tired of that paternalistic business. Mr. President, it is no accident that our public grazing lands, each parcel of which is the responsibility of the lessee, are in such good shape today. We have other areas of our planet which are not in good shape, where people have ripped, ruined and torn it up, whether in the oceans, the mountains, or the plains. And this bill puts the powerful tool of self interest to work in favor of the environment instead of against it. It recognizes the basic law that its opponents seem not to understand--that the worst thing in the world for the environment is not mining, logging, ranching, or multiple use; the worst thing in the world for the environment is poverty. Look at every past civilization of the Earth; before disappearing into the vapors of history when they have finally used up every resource, cut the last tree, shot the last deer, caught the last fish, overpopulated the entire system, their last contribution is a devastated environment. That is what happens. Travel anywhere in the world to any impoverished developing country and you will see the truth of that. You may even come to understand that one of the most important human rights is the right to a job. I know that sounds evil. But that is a great human right--the right to work, the right to make a living. So I can tell you what will happen. Here is one for the greenies to mull as they are sitting there having a little chardonnay by the campfire with their pals singing songs, of course, in the evening. Here is one for the greenies to mull: What do you think is going to happen when these old cowboys lose their grazing permit, lose the ability to use that land which they have been using for 60, 70 years? I will tell you. Do not miss this scenario. You lose the permit, you gather the kids around--some of them are downtown, or maybe they are working at the courthouse, or wherever they are--and make the decision to sell the place. Then start talking to your pals on the county commission, those county commissioners that you helped elect, and they will direct you to the zoning and planning commission; go to the zoning and planning commission, and they will say, Yes, we have a subdivision regulation there, you bet; go to the old local civil engineer and draw up the plans for the subdivision; and then sell the property for a subdivision in the midst of this magnificent kind of country, just so you can do a silly thing--eat. And then instead of cows for those same greenies to worry about--as they slosh the chardonnay on their shoes--they can worry about people messing up the area--a few hoof prints beside the creek will then start to look pretty good compared to septic tanks and leach fields. That is exactly where this one is going. So get involved in the great emotion of it, and watch these wily, canny people, who do not like to starve to death, pedal off their land and remove even the Sun family--Kathleen, Bernard, Dennis and the rest--perhaps, after 5 generations--remove themselves from ranching and decide to sell it and spend the winters in Arizona and the summers on that magnificent part of the ranch they kept for themselves. If anybody cannot understand this is what will happen, the drinks are on me. Thank you. Mr. MURKOWSKI addressed the Chair.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I strongly oppose the pending amendment. I believe Senator Hatfield and the Appropriations Committee have recommended a very prudent policy with respect to international family planning assistance. To strike the language as they have proposed--as the pending amendment would do--I think would be a very serious mistake. On Thursday of last week, I spoke in this Chamber about the severe restrictions the current continuing resolution places on U.S. funding for international family planning. If these restrictions remain in place, I too, fear that abortions will come to be regarded as the only form of birth control in many desperately poor developing nations. I know some of my colleagues would prefer that we not raise such an unpleasant prospect, but this is exactly what will occur. As family planning services become less accessible, more unwanted pregnancies and more abortions will be the inevitable result. The language in the bill before us simply stipulates that the restrictions on family planning assistance will be lifted if it is determined that they will result in a significant increase in abortions and a greater unmet need for family planning services. It surely seems to me that those who are eternally concerned about the practice of abortion--and we all should be--would be eager to embrace this or any other policy that helps to reduce the number of abortions that are actually performed. That is where we are. It is an extraordinary thing through the years for me--and, yes, I am pro-choice on abortion, and, yes, I believe that men should not even vote on the issue. That is my view. I have held it for many a year. And I respect those on other side of the issue. It is a deeply personal issue in every sense--an intimate personal issue, and not one of us will ever change our opinion. If you can reflect on why we are not getting things done in the appropriations area, you might reflect that four appropriations bills have been stalled continually on the issue of abortion. Let us just vote up or down somewhere along the line about once a year on abortion, and then move on instead of hanging on, tacking it on, driving us all to an emotional and tattered edge continually. That is what we do with the issue, and we are all good at it. The population of the Earth has doubled since 1940--since the beginning of mankind to 1940. Since 1940 until 1996, the population of the Earth has doubled. If anybody can believe and tell me how it doubles again in the year 2067, how the resources of the Earth can sustain human beings who will be starving, who will be out of water, food, clothing, timber, just because of how many footprints will fit on the Earth, and then what legacy have we left but poverty and starvation and all the rest--which to me is really a remarkably bizarre result. That is where we are. So, I thank the Chair. I thank Senator Hatfield and all of those who admire him in all things that he does to try to bring reason and responsibility to all of our debates and good common sense. Thank you.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Finally, a comment on family planning funding. I want to express my serious concerns about the severe restrictions this Congress has imposed on U.S. funding for international family planning assistance. My colleagues will recall that the Senate successfully avoided a partial Government shutdown on January 26 by passing H.R. 2880 on a bipartisan vote of 82-8. At the time we faced a midnight deadline for passing legislation to avoid yet another Government shutdown. Because no one in this Chamber wanted another shutdown to occur, we passed this measure in the exact form it came to us from the House without amending or striking any provisions which we considered to be objectionable. We had no choice in the matter. It was a frustrating and vexing experience for many of us. I was and continue to be deeply troubled by a provision of H.R. 2880 that prohibits funding for international family planning assistance programs until July 1 unless a foreign aid reauthorization bill is enacted prior to that date. After July 1, funds will be provided at only 65 percent of the fiscal year 1995 level, with a requirement they be spent in equal amounts over the following 15 months. I believe that policy to be very shortsighted. It is preventing the U.S. Agency for International Development [AID] from increasing access to family planning services for millions of citizens in the developing countries around the world. The ultimate result will be more unwanted pregnancy and even higher population growth in the poorest, most heavily populated nations of the globe. Ironically, this policy, if it is not corrected, will also inevitably lead to more abortions, many of which will be performed under unsafe conditions that will surely result in infection, infertility, and death. This outcome deeply concerns me. The people who so often resist these programs are talking continually about abortion, unwanted pregnancy, population and so on. I strongly urge all of my colleagues, whether they be pro-choice, pro-life, Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal, moderate, to consider the tragic consequences of what we have done. Restricting access to family planning services--I did not say ``abortion,'' and it is not there, either--restricting access to family planning services will assuredly result in more abortion. If anyone can refute this I welcome them to do so and come forward. The harsh reality is that this misguided policy is contributing to a scenario where abortions are or will be the only form of birth control in some of the most impoverished places on Earth. This outcome sharply collides with the stated views of the very people who support it. Of all the issues the religious groups may consider when they compile their scorecards--I know where my scorecard is because I happen to be pro-choice, and I have always been pro-choice; always. In fact, I do not even think men should vote on the issue. So mine is rather clear and has been. So when they are compiling their scorecards on the performance of Members of Congress, I think this is surely one of the most important because it might be that they would show that these people somehow were in favor of abortion because of the misguided way they try to distort the issue. The abortion issue alone offers a compelling reason for the Congress to reconsider the current restrictions on international family planning funding. But we should also contemplate the consequences of unrestrained worldwide population growth. One study by the United Nations Population Division has estimated that if the world population trends of 1990 continue indefinitely into the future, worldwide population will increase to 694 billion by the year 2150. This is the equivalent of 12,100 people for every square mile of land on the Earth's surface. The possibility of this occurring is self-evident. The real issue is whether we will take thoughtful, rational steps to prevent this scenario or will we do nothing and simply allow nature to prevent this outcome in its own less civilized way? Since the beginning of mankind to the year 1940 was a segment of population growth, and since 1940 to this day it has doubled. The population of Earth has doubled since 1940. It is now 5.5 billion, and this study shows in the year 2150 it will increase to 694 billion. And where is the most rapid population growth occurring? Desperately poor countries that have to cope with poverty and malnutrition and ill health and lack of education and environmental damage and famine. These countries simply do not have the resources to effectively solve all of these problems on their own, or maybe any of them, any more than they are able to stabilize their population growth. It continues to compound and exacerbate so many of the other difficulties. Fertility rates, lack of education for women, these things lead to grievous problems. I am not suggesting the United States bear the sole responsibility for addressing this problem. Nor is the rest of the world suggesting this. In September 1994, I and Senator John Kerry attended the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo. Mr. President, 179 nations participated in that conference, and the final ``programme of action,'' which was adopted by acclamation, estimated that the nations of the world would have to spend $17 billion annually by the year 2000 in order to meet the needs of developing countries for basic reproductive health services, including family planning and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. This ``programme of action'' estimated that up to two-thirds of these costs would be met by developing countries themselves--two-thirds; self-determination--with the other one-third coming from ``external sources.'' To put that in perspective, consider the United States Government's expenditures on international family planning in fiscal year 1995 represented less than 10 percent of what is needed from these external sources by the year 2000. To retreat from this modest commitment would be a grave mistake. So, as this legislative session continues, I believe we should restore a more appropriate level of funding for international family planning programs. Senator Hatfield has previously advised the Senate of his desire to rectify this situation, and here is a man who holds a view different than mine on abortion, but a very sensitive, sensible human being. I richly commend my friend Mark Hatfield for his commitment to this cause, and I stand ready to assist him in any way possible. He does his tasks so very well, and we should not impede him. It is not too late for us to reverse our course and embrace a more sane, rational and sensible policy. I thank the Chair.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I recently came upon some statements offered by Thomas Jefferson, which, I think, appear to bear some remarkable relevance to our current predicament. To quote from one of them from 1816, in a letter to Governor Plumer, he said: ``I place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.'' On another occasion, he made the same point, perhaps even more dramatically, in a letter to Samuel Kerchival, also in 1816: ``We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.'' It is when we are having the most difficulty attending to and resolving the most vexing issues of the day that we can profit most from such reminders and that much of what confronts us today has been dealt with by so many of our greatest public servants who came before us. One simply cannot read many of the statements of our third President, Thomas Jefferson, without coming upon repeated, potent references to the necessity of eliminating public debt. I suggest that he would be horrified to learn that we would ever consider allowing our current impasse to stand and to leave deficits and mandatory spending to spiral upward unabated. It is all very well, politically, to say that we will--our two parties--take our respective cases to the electorate in November to ``let the people decide'' as to who failed who in the realm of public responsibility. But, in the meantime, I think we do a tremendous disservice to our citizens for as long as we leave this situation unresolved. Here is another quote from Thomas Jefferson, stated to Thomas Cooper in 1802, which says it perhaps more vividly and relevantly even than the others: ``If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.'' Well, I think that is the nub of it. ``If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.'' I certainly agree with that. I can think of few things more dangerous and more cruelly deceptive than to suggest that we must continue to pile debt and misery upon our children's heads because we dare not slow down, in any way, the current engines of spending growth, which churn out funding for various beneficiaries of Government largess. We do not ``take care of'' anybody when we do this. We do not take care of anyone's children by forcing tomorrow's children to pay lifetime tax rates of 80 percent. That will, I assure my colleagues, lead to more misery, more poverty, more hunger and need and deprivation, and more intergenerational hostility than anything ever contemplated in any balanced budget agreement. Mr. Jefferson was fully acquainted with the dangers of mounting public debt. Indeed, one might say that the principal challenge of the young republic was how to discharge the massive debts compiled by the individual States in the course of the American Revolution. Alexander Hamilton was, of course, instrumental in diagnosing the severity and nationality of this problem, arguing that the Federal Government must bear the burden of lifting the national debt burden because we would all collapse together anyway if this was not properly done. That brings to mind Daniel Webster's remark about Alexander Hamilton. If you think of rhetoric today and the emotion and passion of speech, Webster said this about Hamilton: ``He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of Public Credit, and it sprung upon his feet.'' Now, you can see that quote etched at the base of the Hamilton statue at the Department of the Treasury, if you so desire to check it. Mr. Jefferson, again in a letter to Governor Plumer, stated his recognition of the necessity of reducing public indebtedness. Mr. Jefferson did not always agree with Alexander Hamilton's solutions and methods, to be sure. But they were certainly in agreement as to the necessity of eliminating the poison of mounting public debt. To Governor Plumer, Jefferson wrote: ``We see in England the consequences of the want of economy; their laborers reduced to live on a penny in the shilling of their earnings, to give up bread, and resort to oatmeal and potatoes for food; and their landholders exiling themselves to live in penury and obscurity abroad, because at home the government must have all the clear profits of their land.'' That sounds like a pretty fair description of what is going to happen to us. Our own Government continues to increase its share of the Nation's ``profits''--the savings and investment--which it must absorb in order to finance the massive spending increases we have programmed into our laws. Indeed, the burden of paying for that irresponsibility falls ultimately on the taxpayers, our taxpayers, our citizens, and cuts into the share of their own pay, which they would otherwise be able to use to provide for themselves. I fully recognize there are many Senators here on both sides of the aisle who are equally committed to confronting and resolving these woes resulting from our debt. There are sincere disagreements as to how to accomplish that goal. I do believe there is now widespread recognition that the goal must be met. I, therefore, close by reiterating my belief that we must not give up on this process. We must not give up on coming to agreement merely because of the disagreements which have divided us to this point. I do not find any reason to ``give up'' to be a convincing one. Give up because we believe we might hold political advantage if the impasse persists, or because we cannot agree on the size of a tax cut? When ``our cause'' is the elimination of increases in the public debt, these are simply not sufficient reasons. As a member of the bipartisan Senate group headed by Senators Chafee and Breaux, I have joined approximately two dozen Senators, from both sides of the aisle, in putting forward our best hope of ``splitting the difference'' between the two sides in order to get this job done. It might not be the only way and might not be the magic formula which produces an agreement, but it is certainly better than ``packing it in'' and, instead, morosely retreating to consult with our political advisers as to how best to cope with the public anger in the wake of our failure to complete our work--sitting with our gurus saying, ``How do we get around this if we do not do anything?'' Well, you do this and do that. We all know what that is. So I suggest to my colleagues that they pay heed to these words of Thomas Jefferson and be reminded that we are truly facing a choice between ``liberty'' and ``servitude'' when we choose between a balanced budget and mounting debt. That is very much the choice that confronts our children and grandchildren, and we have now to make the choice for them. I do hope and pray that recognition of this will spur all of us on to renewed efforts to reach an agreement and to defer any further thoughts of simply extracting political advantage from failure. That would be terrible.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I have a comment on a rather elusive matter. We work in an arena where truth is always a rather elusive entity. Many statements in this place seem to be repeated ad hominem and ad nauseam, however inadvertently, without regard to any basis in fact. A mischievous speaker may do this because he or she believes that, as has often been said, ``A falsehood repeated often enough will be believed.'' Equally often, this happens because this is simply what the individual has been told, perhaps several times, and thus the rash assumption is made that a statement made so often ``must be true.'' Thus, often, in good faith, speakers perpetuate ideas and statements which are simply and totally at complete variance with the facts. To cite one specific case, I wish I could count how many times it has been stated as an article of pure faith by those on the other side that we have had however many hours of hearings on Whitewater and Travelgate, but only one, or none, on Medicare. The Democratic policy channel on the televisions in our offices also plays this old and tired tune. Many speakers on the other side of the aisle have repeated it in old and tired phrases. The only problem is, it is just simply not true. It is not even close to being true. It is one of those myths which has developed, somehow directly, in the teeth of the facts. I did a little checking of the record. I know that is not what we are supposed to do. I did a little checking of the record on this matter. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a listing of all of the hearings held in the last year in the Senate Finance Committee alone on the subject of reforming Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, the Consumer Price Index, and any number of other related matters.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I am now a member of that committee and I sat in on those hearings. They were often held at 9:30, 10 o'clock in the morning. Had I been chairman I might also have sought to have them in the afternoon. I was there for almost all of them, usually arriving after some haste ill-attained in getting through the D.C.'s fabled rush hour traffic from my home in Virginia. We held 10 full Finance Committee hearings last year on Medicare alone--10. They were not about abstract, philosophical topics, but subjects directly related to the solutions presented in our budget proposal. On May 11, 16 and 17 we had hearings specifically on the question of how to restore solvency to the Medicare Program. We tackled the issue of payment policies in hearings on July 19 and 20. We explored more comprehensive reforms on July 25 and July 26. On August 30 we dealt with the subject which I personally think requires much more, much more attention--the 30-year future of Medicare. That is when the real problems all coalesce. This is only part of the list, as the record will show. We also had multiple hearings on Medicaid. The proposals which we made in the course of budget reconciliation were all explored in depth at those hearings. The opinions of the Governors regarding our plan was heard on June 28. The importance of flexibility for the State Governments in administering Medicaid was explored July 12. The proper way to calculate the distribution of funds under the Medicaid formula was explored on July 27. Again this is only a partial list. Even the issue of the Consumer Price Index reform, which so many have said we should ``not rush to do,'' especially not rush to do in budget reconciliation, the CPI reform was the subject of several full committee hearings on March 16, April 6, and June 6. When somebody tells you we have not done anything--and looked into CPI; we do not want to rush into it--cite those, please. Having been right there personally I can tell you few experts believe we are acting with any sense at all on either side of the aisle in allowing the expensive errors in the CPI calculation to persist. That is absurd. It is out of whack either .5 or up to 2.2. Everybody that testified said that. If you dealt with it, knocked off a half percent or full percent in the outyears, in 10 years, at 1 percent, it is $680 billion bucks--billion bucks--and we do not even play with it. The senior groups all seem to flunk the saliva test when we begin to talk about the CPI. ``Oh, break the contract, break the contract.'' I am telling you, they will break America. We are not talking about them or to them. None of them will be hurt in anything we are doing. No one over 60 is even affected by the things we have in mind, but people between 18 and 40 will indeed be on a destructive path. Mr. President, I do not know what to make of these assertions that we have not had hearings on Medicare or Medicaid. We have had many. The record speaks clearly. On Medicare alone, 10 full committee hearings. It seems to me be a trend in Washington saying that what has happened has not happened and vice versa. The media plays that well in their recountings of these things. Perhaps the assertions will be revised to state that we only had a minimal look at Medicare. That would probably be the result of the response to my remarks. I do not know how many dozens of hours were needed to spend on that to escape the application of that term. I also note that this work continues on in the current year. We had another remarkable hearing on Medicaid last week with six of our Nation's Governors testifying--three Republicans, three Democrats--in describing the desires of the State governments with regard to Medicaid. So I ask these items be printed, and I ask my colleagues to perhaps refrain from repeating the charge that we have not thoroughly explored Medicare in committee hearings. The facts are exactly otherwise, and I wish my good colleagues to know that.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to recognize a courageous group of 1.25 million veterans whose contributions in our victory in the Second World War have gone for too long largely unnoticed. The military policy at that time, of segregation and exclusion from combat roles, would make one believe that there were no African-American combatants in the war against Nazi Germany. In late 1944, German forces mounted what would be their final offensive in the Belgian Ardennes. This maneuver, later to gain infamy as the ``Battle of the Bulge,'' pressed into service 2,500 black troops as separate platoons in white companies. Black units, like the 333d Field Artillery Battalion, would also participate as combatants. These brave young men performed superbly. They were part of the valiant effort to hold off the Germans until help, in the form of General Patton's 3d Army, could defeat the last gasp of the Third Reich. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I feel it is so appropriate that we recognize those soldiers who served their Nation so proudly overseas--despite the second-class treatment they then received here. Specifically I would like to single out a group of 11 soldiers from the 333d Field Artillery Battalion who made the ultimate sacrifice in the defense of our Nation. It is common knowledge that the battle in Bastogne saw the massacre of American POW's by German troops. The tragedy of Malmedy immediately comes to many minds. The event was well documented and the town's inhabitants erected a monument in honor of the troops who were trying to deliver their town to freedom. A similar horrible event occurred only 14km away in Wereth. Here the 11 black soldiers who were executed and tortured there, go almost wholly unmentioned in most texts about the fight for Bastogne. Their unit had become bogged down in the mire and mud and had suffered casualties from both artillery and Luftwaffe attacks. Much of the unit was captured. These 11 men escaped on foot, armed with only 2 rifles. In the town of Wereth they found refuge with a Belgian family, but were later captured by German troops. Because they refused to tell the Germans the identities of Allied sympathizers, they suffered a similar fate as their comrades in Malmedy. The Panzer troops first humiliated, then beat, and finally executed the 11 black soldiers. War crimes investigators had no witnesses to the massacre and the inquiry was ended. The incident was nearly forgotten after the war. After many years the town of Wereth dedicated a permanent monument to the men who lost their lives to free Belgium and defend liberty. It is long past time that America too learn of and appreciate the sacrifice of these soldiers. During this Black History Month let us commemorate the supreme effort and sacrifice of the men of the 333d Field Artillery Battalion and all patriotic black veterans who have answered the call to defend this great Nation of ours. Many faced cruel prejudice at home and in the military, yet they went on to truly distinguish themselves when their country needed them most. May they rest in peace. Thank God for them.