Craig Thomas

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I recognize there has been a good deal of discussion in the last day or two with respect to Iraq; much of it, of course, as a result of the President's State of the Union Message the other evening, and, of course, it is a legitimate discussion about where we are with respect to Iraq and terrorism. I believe the President's message was very complete. I thought he spelled out exactly what his plans are and the reasons for them. I think he has pursued the proper course over a period of time. Certainly, there is no one here who wants to have to go to war. No one here wants active military intervention if that can be avoided. On the other hand, this is a progressive situation that has to be resolved, which started back in 1991, and has not yet been resolved. So I think the only legitimate, reasonable course for us is to go through all we can to avoid military action, but if we do not get the results that need to be had, then that is our alternative. I think we have been on the right course. And we are not finished. Certainly we are not finished. There is all kinds of evidence that things that were promised or ordered to be done have not been done. I think one of the things we need to consider is times have changed. Times have changed since September 11. Years ago, when there were threats of war, what it involved, of course, was tanks and divisions landing and all kinds of very obvious military activities. Now the real threat is not that, it is terrorism; it is for things that could happen in this country similar to what happened on September 11--without all that preparation, without all that warning. It just happened in very terrible kinds of incidents. So I think in protecting our country, we need to understand the situation is quite different than it was. There has been a great deal of talk about smoking guns. Frankly, I do not believe you need to see a smoking gun if you go back to the beginning of this whole enterprise. Go back to 1991, when there was a cease-fire arrangement after the gulf war, after Saddam had been driven out of the country he had invaded. And there was a legal basis for it. There was a cease-fire, an agreement, and a succeeding U.N. resolution which was the sound basis for our action in Iraq. The Council Resolution 687 was adopted in 1991. At the heart of it was a disarmament obligation from Iraq. Then you remember we had inspectors there up until 1998. There was very little cooperation during all that time, and the evidence they had accumulated then is still available. This was all done under international supervision. But nothing was completed. There was not success in forcing Saddam to disarm. So that is where we are at this time. I think the policy we have to take takes into account what should have been done, what has not been done--this irresponsible activity on the part of Iraq's leadership--and, therefore, we are in the position to have to be prepared to do whatever is necessary to make that happen. I certainly hope that can happen. And I presume there is going to be some more time for inspectors. Hopefully, based now on another U.N. resolution, which, of course, was done in November of last year, we can put on more pressure to have him comply with that resolution. The key to this situation, I hope everyone remembers, is to disarm-- not necessarily to attack, not to go into Iraq if we can get disarmament. That, obviously, is the thing we are set up to do. I believe we ought to continue to follow the vote we took in the Senate. I think it was 77 votes supporting the President to do what he has to do. Now there are suggestions of having to go back and do that again. I do not understand that, frankly. The basis for that vote is still the basis for where we are today. The authority there is the authority to finish the job that is very threatening to everyone and, indeed, must be completed. I certainly support the President and his team in terms of trying to come to a resolution on this situation, being prepared to do what we have to do--hopefully, not having to do it--but to be sure we do everything we can to protect Americans, to protect the world, to establish the responsibility that countries have with respect to the U.N. If we are going to have a U.N., if we are going to have U.N. resolutions, then they should be enforced, and they should be expected to comply. I believe that is where we are. All of us hope for the best and continue, I hope, to support the President to do what is necessary to protect us from another September 11. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, how much time have we remaining?

Mr. THOMAS. I thank the Chair.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I have listened to some of the conversation that has gone on. Obviously, much of it has been pointed toward this evening's speech that we all look forward to from the President, the State of the Union, at which time he will outline at least some of his plans for the direction this country will take. I am looking forward to it. The President has committed himself to going in certain directions. All of us understand that. All of us are in favor of the things the President wants to do. I suppose we have different views of how that might be done. That is the way it ought to be. I do hope we don't spend all of our time simply criticizing; that we not use this as a sort of political fulcrum, but we really talk about the issues. No one could disagree with the notion that we are looking for ways to grow the economy and create jobs. Who can argue with that? No one. How you do it, yes, I suppose there are different views. To strengthen and improve health care, certainly that is one of the issues all of us are faced with, whether it be Medicare, Medicaid, the CHIP program, or just general health care. We are all very much interested in it. In my State of Wyoming, a rural State, we have a little different problem, but interestingly enough, we have problems the same as they do in Chicago or New York City. The cost, for instance, of liability insurance is higher in our State than it is some others, which is kind of strange. Nevertheless, we would all agree with the fact that we need to do something about that. Obviously, the defense of our country against terrorism, the defense of our country against challenges overseas and security at home, no one disagrees. Again, we have different ways of doing it. I would like to deviate from the issue for a moment to talk a little bit about--I guess, philosophically or in a broader sense--the notion of dealing with these issues in terms of a longer term view. We have held in my State of Wyoming over the last couple years several meetings; in fact, about 26 meetings in 23 counties. We call them Vision 20/20. We met with the people in the community, all of whom would come--some invited for special reasons--to talk about what they wanted their community and their family and their business to be in 20 years or 10 years or 15 years, how they envisioned the way things should be. Of course, as you might imagine, we found out there are different views from different people, but pretty much some of the same consistency in terms of wanting better jobs, better security, having health care, having freedom. We find ourselves in this body, as in many bodies, as a matter of fact, dealing almost exclusively with those issues that are right now upon us, fixing what is going to happen tomorrow. Of course, that is necessary. But it seems to me we would help ourselves a great deal and help our country a great deal if we could look a little further out into the future and say: What do we want this Government to look like in 15 years, what kind of a system would we think would be best for health care in 15 or 20 years, and then begin to get some kind of a general conception of where we want to be and where we think it is best to be for our country and for the people who live here. And then as we move through the daily issues and as we move toward the issues that we have to resolve, we can measure those against where we want to be and see if in fact they are contributing to the attainment of the goals we have set. One of them certainly is the role of Government. We haven't talked about this as much lately as we used to. What is the role of the Federal Government? How much Federal Government do we want in our lives over a period of time? This, after all, is the United States of America. This is a federation of States. Most of us would agree that the Government that rules best is the one closest to the people. Obviously, there are roles for the national organization, there are roles for the Federal Government. But there are also limits that ought to be there, if we don't want the Federal Government to be the end-all of governmental activity. What do we see there? How do we want to do that? Most people would believe there are some constitutional limits to the role of the Federal Government. We seem to have dismissed those to a large extent and find Government involved in nearly every aspect of our life. That becomes kind of a political thing that we talk about. We talked about that last week--what can we do this week for somebody? We ended up with the other side of the aisle, in that week we spent trying to catch up with the appropriations, having proposals of $500 billion worth of spending that would grow Government over 10 years, at the same time complaining about a deficit. So we didn't have a good concept of where we wanted to go and measure against balancing spending and balancing the budget. Of course, we want to deviate from that from time to time, and the circumstances now require that we do something unusual, I am sure, about defense and terrorism and about the economy. So we are obviously going to spend more money now than we would normally spend because it is not a normal situation. We hear all the time ``back in 1998 we didn't have a lot of the problems that we have now.'' We have to deal with them. Overall, what do we want? We want a balanced budget. I think we want to be able to hold down spending, not increase it, which is what we hear about, frankly, all the time. We need to take a look at terminating activities that are out of date. It seems when we get something going in the Federal Government, it is there forever. In the private sector, when you have a company or an operation of your own and you find something is not contributing to that, you have to change it. Not so in the Government. But that ought to be one of the directions we want to take. Certainly, we ought to be able to do health care. What do we want over time with health care? We have already indicated pretty clearly over the past number of years, when it was tried in the last administration to have a Government-run program, we didn't accept that and most of us do not now. Obviously, some work needs to be done to help people who need help. But where do we want to be? Do we want this health care to be primarily in the private sector? I think so. Most people do. So these are things we need to talk about and think about and have a good deal of attention paid to. What is the role of the Federal Government on these issues? I noticed the other day a quotation from President Clinton that Government's responsibility is to create more opportunities, and the people's responsibility is to make the most of it. I agree with that. I don't think his policies were in line with that, but I agree with that statement. So what we are talking about here primarily tonight--and I am sure for several months--is about strengthening America's economy. The President's economic agenda has two main goals: To encourage consumer spending that will boost economic recovery, and promote investment by individuals and businesses that will lead to the economic growth and job creation. Those are two different points of view, and I respect that. Their point of view is to distribute money to everybody. Over here, it is to create incentive to create jobs so you have a long- term, positive impact. We need to do that. So we will have great discussions, of course, on all of these issues. That is the way it ought to be and, indeed, that is the way it is. I see my friend from New Mexico here. I hope we can address ourselves on these issues and do it in a way that we can disagree without making a total political issue of each of them--talk about them on their merits, on what they will do for the country, and not the impact they will have in 2004. Frankly, we have had an awful lot of that. We need to move beyond that. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, we are in morning business, I believe.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President I remind my colleagues that the amendment this body just agreed to contains word for word the amendment of the Senator from Maryland. However, it goes on to explain that as we go through the 76 process; it is not the quotas that matter. That is what gives some guidance to management. What you have to do is study the issue and make sure that is the appropriate place. It seems to me we ought to be looking a little bit ahead instead of being defensive about big Government and everyone working in the big Government. We all like Government. We like the employees. They do a good job. The point is, do you want an efficient Government or one that continues to grow and pays no attention to efficiency and has no competition? What we are talking about is a bill that was passed in 1998 which said we are going to list those functions within the Federal Government that are not specifically governmental, that could be done outside the Government, and compete. I cannot imagine what is wrong with the idea of having competition, what is wrong with the idea of being more efficient. They are still jobs. We are not taking away jobs. They may be moving to the private sector where they can compete and do that particular function of Government more efficiently. The idea that we just sit here and defend civil service because they are working--it disturbs me when we talk about secretaries. This does not have anything to do with secretaries. This has to do with those functions in Government that can be done by contracting with the private sector. There are a lot of those functions, and there are a lot of those functions that are already in place. We need to go ahead with what we have done. I suppose it is somewhat philosophical: If you do not like the private sector, if you do not like competition or like to create opportunities for people to compete, then I suppose that is the way you feel. There are a number of reasons to oppose the amendment. The administration worked at this compromise. The administration and OMB said they are going to suggest to the President that if this provision passes, that the bill be vetoed. Senior advisers are recommending the President veto any legislation that challenges a management agenda to be more efficient. By the way, before this appropriations bill was passed, this amendment was taken out. It was in there, and it was defeated last year. This is not the first time we have dealt with this issue, and each time it has been defeated because most of us think competition is a good idea. Most of us think efficiency is a good idea. Most of us think we ought to keep Government as small as we can and get the job done that way. Therefore, I urge we defeat this amendment that is before us and continue to move ahead with the opportunity for the Federal Government to carry out a plan of more efficiency and a plan that passed in the Congress to do that. I yield back my time.

Mr. THOMAS. I am yielding back.

Mr. THOMAS. I yield back my time. I am sorry.

Mr. THOMAS. I would like to turn to the Senator from Virginia.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I yield now to the Senator from Ohio.

Mr. THOMAS. I understood we had 15 minutes to present our point of view and that the others would present their point of view.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, the amendment is at the desk.

Mr. THOMAS. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, this is a second-degree amendment to the underlying amendment. We discussed this amendment this morning and delayed a vote in hopes of coming to a compromise over some of the concerns that were raised. For nearly 2 hours the administration officials, my staff, Senator Collins' staff, Senator Brownback, and Senator Mikulski worked to find a way to address these concerns. Unfortunately, the Senator from Maryland did not agree with that. So I am offering this amendment. The compromise was reached that the administration believes allows the Government, the President, to continue setting important management goals for the public-private competition. What this is, of course, is allowing for the FAIR Act, which was passed in 1998, to continue to be effective, where we can go through and list those items that are not inherently governmental and have some competition for those items in the private sector so we can have certainly a more efficient Government. This is the way we think we ought to do it. This amendment would allow for the restrictions on the quotas. But when there has been study, when there has been a real approach to what can be done and the kinds of activities that fit, then we can move forward. The complaint here on the amendment has simply been because of setting quotas. Quotas does not mean that people will be replaced by private enterprise, but, rather, areas that are not inherently governmental will be used. I turn now to the Senator from Maine for her comments.

Mr. THOMAS. That was my understanding.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Our time has expired, Mr. President. I thank the Chair for the opportunity to express these views. I urge that Members vote against this amendment when it comes before the Senate. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, we would like to take the remainder of the time that has been assigned to this side of the aisle to talk about an amendment that would be before us this morning, the Mikulski amendment, which has been proposed as an amendment to the bill. It has to do with the implementation of the Federal Activities Inventory Reform Act, the FAIR Act, which was passed in 1998. It basically requires all Federal agencies to itemize jobs that are classified as noninherently governmental in nature, so there will be an opportunity for competition for those kinds of activities that the private sector, in the cases where it is appropriate, can be a competitor and can, indeed, do generally more efficiently than having it continue, as it has, with no competition. In 2001 the FAIR Act inventory noted over 840,000 Federal jobs that are noninherently governmental. Those are jobs that could be done by contract, that could well be done by contract. There should be opportunity for that competition to exist. The goal, of course, of the FAIR Act is to spend taxpayers' money as efficiently as possible, to ensure the Federal Government is not without competition with the private sector. I think most of us would like to have as much done in the private sector as we reasonably can do. This, obviously, is not all the things Government does. There are inherently governmental programs, and they will continue to be that. The goal of the FAIR Act is to spend the taxpayers' money as efficiently as possible to ensure the Federal Government does not compete with the private sector. Wherever that can be, whether it is in contracting, whether it is the kinds of things that could be better done in the private sector, that is what we are seeking to do. President Bush's Competitive Sourcing Initiative asked the Federal agencies to conduct private sector competitions in up to 15 percent of the jobs listed in the FAIR Act inventory. Of course, that is exactly what needs to be done, to identify these roles and then to have an opportunity to put them into the private sector and let the Government compete with the private sector and do it that way. It is a pretty basic sort of philosophy and something which I think most people would agree to do. The amendment that has been put forth was to not allow the administration to move forward with their plans. I will later offer a copy of a letter that the President has sent through his administration, saying that they are opposed to this idea, that they want to move forward. The fact is, during the Clinton administration, after the 1998 passage of the FAIR Act, there was very little done to implement it. Now we have an administration that believes they ought to implement the law as it exists, and we want to move forward in doing that. That is what this is all about. We will be voting on that amendment later today. It has been before the Senate several times. It has failed before. Hopefully, it will fail again. In fact, it was put on the appropriations bill for the Treasury Department last year and then taken off before it became part of this bill. So there has been a strong feeling about that, and that is what we want to pursue. I yield the Senator from Virginia 5 minutes to comment.

Mr. THOMAS. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Virginia who certainly touched on the issues involved. I yield to my friend and colleague, the Senator from Wyoming.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to my friend from Kansas.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I think probably there is no disagreement but at this time there needs to be some more agreement from our leader, so I object for the moment.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, that is fine.