Craig Thomas

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. First, let me congratulate the Senator from Texas on his very strong endorsement of the balanced budget amendment, the thing that has really been, what will be, the capstone of what we have done all year here, that will really make fundamental changes in the direction the Government takes. I admire his strength standing for it. Mr. President, I send a bill to the desk and ask it be referred appropriately.

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

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, we are in the process of talking about the Safe Drinking Water Act now, I understand?

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill that creates a biennial budgeting cycle. It seems to me it is particularly appropriate to do that now. We have spent almost this entire year dealing with the budget. Surely it has been an unusual budget year in that we are attempting to make some changes, fundamental changes, in direction. But it is not otherwise unusual. As a matter of fact, since 1977, there have been 55 continuing resolutions, which would indicate we need to change the budgeting process. I am joined in this effort by a number of Senators originally and hope to have more: Senator Dole, Senator Domenici, Senator Simpson, Senator Kassebaum, Senator Faircloth, Senator Thompson and Senator Cochran. There are a lot of things we ought to be doing. We ought to be dealing with health care. We have not finished that problem. We ought to be dealing with regulatory reform. Most everyone agrees with that. Telecommunications, where we can deregulate and move forward with the things that will create jobs and move us forward. Personally, I believe we ought to be doing something with rangeland reform. Some of us live in States where 50 to 80 percent of the surface belongs to the Federal Government and is managed by the Federal Government. We need to change some of those things. Foreign policy--we need to be involved more in foreign policy. I think we find ourselves drifting into situations where we need to make policy in certain places and the administration says, gosh, we do not want to do that until we get an agreement, and then, after we have an agreement, it is too late to talk about it. So, essentially, the Congress is outside of foreign policy. That is wrong. We ought to be talking about endangered species, and a number of things that need to be done. [[Page S 17777]] Instead, Mr. President, as you know, we spend almost all our time deciding on how we are going to fund the Government. Most States--the Presiding Officer, I think, in his State of Missouri, served as Governor--have biennial budgets. There are a couple of advantages to that, certainly. One of them is that it gives a little longer time for agencies to plan. Rather than every year, they have more tenure in their budgeting. They can plan longer. More important, I think, it allows the Congress, then, to have some time to do the other things, one of which is oversight of the budget. I suspect that the budget debate will not be over in this session of Congress until next year. I suspect in less than 2 months we will be moving into another budget debate which consumes all of our time. I already mentioned that since 1977 we have had 55 continuing resolutions. We have had too many repetitive votes. We are back on the same thing over and over and over again without any new issue. So there has not been, and continues not to be, enough time for vigorous oversight. I suspect one of the principal functions of the legislative body ought to be oversight of the budgets that they have approved to ensure that they are, indeed, being spent as they were designed to be spent and to discover how they can be spent more efficiently and more effectively. That is one of the things we have had very little time to do. The provisions of this bill are rather simple. By the way, this is not a new idea. This has been introduced a number of times, been considered and supported by many Members of this body. It creates a 2- year authorization of appropriation and budget resolutions so that you set it out in a block and say here we are. It is not much more difficult to do it for 2 years than 1. You simply have a block of 2 years in which to do a budget. It is not difficult at all. All budgetary activities would take place during the first session of Congress. So in the second session you would have a chance to go back and provide some oversight to what is being done with the money that has been appropriated. Oversight in nonbudgetary matters would be taken up in the second session of Congress. There would be an opportunity to do the kinds of policy things that the Congress is designed to do in addition to spending all of our time funding the Government. Benefits, of course, would promote timely action on the budget, and would eliminate some of the redundancy. We need to do that. It would provide more time for effective oversight in the off years, and it would help so that we can reduce the size of Government. It would also reduce the number of times where there is potential for the kinds of congressional-Presidential conflicts that arise so often as in the process now that arises. If would allow the budget to be adopted in the first year of the President's term, and in the first year of the sessions of Congress so that new Congresses can implement their budget, and then have a year for oversight. It would encourage longer-term planning in the agencies. I think that is one of the keys to reducing the cost of Government. There have been very many programs, of course, that need to be analyzed, and that have to have applied to them priorities. Things need to be done much better--things that could be transferred to local governments, and closer to the people. Those things all are often a result of oversight. There is a good deal of support for this proposition, as there has been in the past--Citizens Against Government Waste, the Hudson Institute, Concord Coalition, Cato Institute, Committee for Responsible Federal Budgeting--a 20-year history of legislative bipartisan support in this Congress supported by Presidents Bush and Reagan over the years. Mr. President, this is obviously not a cure-all. Budgets are difficult. The allocation of money to activities is not easy, and it is terribly important. But I submit to you that it can be done as well in 2-year blocks, and the results will be much better. The results will be much better for the operations of Congress. The results will be much better for the operations of Government.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in morning business.

Mr. THOMAS

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

Mr. THOMAS. I ask unanimous consent that I may speak for a few minutes in morning business.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, the Senator from North Dakota spoke just a few minutes ago about balancing the budget. And I was interested and pleased with his remarks. Certainly I agree with him that probably one of the most important issues that we have before us, and have had for this entire year, is the notion of becoming financially and fiscally responsible in this body and in this country, and doing so by balancing the budget. It seems to me that there is a great deal involved with balancing the budget. It is more than a function of arithmetic; it is a function of determining the direction we take in this Government. It is a function of dealing with spending. There are a number of ways to balance the budget. One of them, which President Clinton choose last year, was to raise taxes and continue to spend, and I suppose you could do that. You could balance the budget by continuing to spend and increasing taxes. I think that is not what the American people said in 1994. They said we have too much Government, the Government is too large, it costs too much, and we need to balance the budget, but we need to balance the budget by reducing the growth in spending. Therein lies one of the differences. The Senator said we ought to balance the budget. I agree with that. We have not done it in 30 years. It is fairly easy to say we ought to balance the budget. The evidence is that it is very easy to say that and more difficult to do it. [[Page S 17550]] He said we ought to balance the budget in the right way. I agree. I have the right way; he does not have the right way. That is the problem. The right way hardly gets to it. But I do agree we need to get together. There are differences--there are significant differences--in how we do it, and I think it is our responsibility, as trustees for this Government, to find a way to get the kind of agreement that is necessary to balance the budget. We should do that, and we should do it soon. I think we made great advances the week before last by getting an agreement with the White House, getting an agreement in this Congress that we will balance the budget in 7 years, using real figures, CBO figures. There are some other words there: We are going to protect the environment, protect Medicare, protect education. I do not know quite what that means. We may have a different view of what ``protect'' means. None of us wants to do away with those things. It seems to me one of the real challenges we have, as we move forward with this idea of balancing the budget, which we must do, is we need to start dealing with some facts. It is too easy to roll over into scare tactics in the political response by saying, ``Yes, I'm going to protect Medicare.'' The fact is, you have to make some changes in Medicare if you want it to continue. If you want to have a health program for the elderly over time, you cannot continue to do what we have been doing. So you have to change it. But it is too easy to go to the country and say, ``Those Republicans want to do away with Medicare.'' It is not true. It is just not true. ``We are going to do away with education.'' Do you know how much the Federal Government contributes to elementary and secondary education? About 5 percent of the total spending. The Senator from New Mexico, who is more knowledgeable than anyone else about the budget, indicated that this budget would have reduced in his State Federal aid by six-tenths of 1 percent, and yet here we are going to gut education. I was pleased to hear that the Senator wants to balance the budget. The unfortunate part is we hear that all the time and then we go on for another 30 minutes indicating why we cannot do it. The time has come. We have come to the snubbing post. It is time to make the decisions, and I think we will. I wish we would have passed a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. The principal sponsor and advocate is right here on the floor, the Senator from Illinois. I wish we had done that for the discipline that is involved in doing it. It would have said, ``Yes, you can argue about how it is done, but you are going to balance the budget because that is the Constitution.'' It is in the Constitution in my State of Wyoming, and we do it. We do it. We do not talk about it, we do it. So, Mr. President, I look forward to that. I hope we get with the program in the next 3 weeks. We need to do that. We need to pass the appropriations bills. We need to get this balanced budget bill out. We do not need another delay of Government on the 15th of December. We need to get at the task, and I hope that we do it very soon. I yield the floor. Mr. SIMON addressed the Chair.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I rise, Mr. President, to talk about Bosnia, to talk about the thing that, I guess, is before all of us as American citizens--decisions, some of which, unfortunately, have apparently already been made, but the major decisions are still to be made. I have thought a lot about this tragedy, as most of us have. Certainly, it has been before us almost nightly on TV, a great deal of discussion about it: some 43 months of war, over 200,000 people killed, a real human tragedy, of course. All of us feel badly about that. I have also had the opportunity to travel there recently. About a month ago, seven of us from the Senate had a chance to go there. I must tell you, I came back no more convinced that we have a role there with ground troops than I did before I left. I think the idea of inserting 20,000 ground troops is a mistake. There are a number of questions that, I think, the answers to which lead to that conclusion. The basic one, of course, is: What is the national interest? I think that question needs to be asked in each of the kinds of commitments we make--major commitments, particularly of Armed Forces. What is our role throughout the world? There are many places in which there is unrest and tragedy, and there are a number of places in which there is civil war. Is it in our national interest to intercede in each of those, to send 10,000 troops, 20,000 troops? I do not know the answer. But I think not. I do not think it is in our national interest to be the policeman of the world in civil uprisings such as this. I guess we have to ask ourselves, are we to police regional peace throughout the world wherever it is threatened? Do we have an obligation to secure regional peace throughout the world by sending our troops into these kinds of situations? What is the national interest? What kind of national interest does deserve military attention? I think this is the basic issue. All of the other things we talk about are pretty secondary to that. The President, of course, has not been able to lay out convincingly that interdiction and involvement of 20,000 or 25,000 U.S. troops is indeed in our national interest. Let us examine some of the administration's concerns and arguments. They have been here in our Committee of Foreign Relations. We had a hearing with the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State, as well as the Joint Chiefs of Staff. One of the arguments is that killing is morally wrong. Of course, we all agree with that. But then should we send troops wherever that occurs? Should we be involved each time killing occurs? I think we would be overwhelmed by the number of times that we would saddle up and go to Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda, and endless other places, if killing is in fact the issue of national interest that promotes the sending of 25,000 troops. We hear that the conflict will expand. Frankly, I have to tell you that I do not believe that is nearly as imperative as it was 43 months ago. My impression, frankly, from being there--and I was only there 4 days, so I am not an expert by any means --as you would imagine, these people are very tired of fighting. They are looking for solutions themselves, as you would imagine they would be. The notion that this is going to expand now if we do not move 25,000 troops in I do not believe is a basis in fact. We were there going down the street of Sarajevo, and they point out, almost with pride, that there is the bridge where the Grand Duke was shot before the start of World War I. Really, that adds very little to today's expansion of another war. But if you want to look at historic things, in that country, the guerrillas, during World War II, were never chased down. They never surrendered. In that country, in the mountains, these kinds of troops will go on forever, if they choose to. Another is that if we do not intercede at this level, we will then be isolationists in the world and we would be withdrawing from our role of leadership. I cannot imagine that argument, as involved as we are around the world, both in troops, commerce, and trade, and we are involved in all of the organizations that have to do with security, trade, and with the development of international relations. We are isolationists? Give me a break. That is hardly what our activities can be called. It seems to me that the principal reason the President is pushing as hard as he is, is that 2 years ago, he indicated we would send 25,000 troops. Now it is 20,000. Why not 10,000? Why not 15,000? We spent 4 days there. The first day was with the Unified European Command. I must tell you, I was very proud, as always, of the American troops, who are training to be part of this undertaking. But at that time, they were talking about 25,000 American troops, talking about a total of 90,000 NATO troops, with another 15,000 already there--over 110,000 troops in this area. The Senator from South Carolina just spoke about the agreement. I guess I have to say that if the agreement is one that is agreed to by the warring parties--genuinely agreed to--then you could say, why do you need 90,000 troops to enforce it? If it is not agreed to, then the Secretary of Defense, and others, said we should not be there. You have to fight your way in. If you have to fight to make peace, then that is not our mission. That has been made clear that we will not be there. So there has to be an agreement that has genuine accord. We will see. I hope there is. I think the United States and the State Department have done a great job in bringing together these people to some kind of a peace agreement. Why is it so important that we have to define the national interest? You hear a lot about being concerned, as we [[Page S 17525]] should be, with putting troops in harm's way. Frankly, often troops are in harm's way. That is what troops are for. The issue is not harm's way; the issue is why they are there. If the troops are there with a bona fide national interest, then we try to avoid harm's way. But that is not the criteria. The cost. When you talk about $1 billion, $2 billion, I think we spent that much in Haiti. Can you imagine that this will cost less than Haiti? I do not believe so. Is it in the national interest to spend $3 billion, $4 billion? That is a question. Maybe more important than anything was the lack of specific goals. In the hearing that I mentioned with the Joint Chiefs, the general said we will get the job done. I believe that. I believe our Armed Forces will get the job done. I ask, how will you know? What is the job that is to be done? Frankly, I do not think anyone knows precisely. Pull out in 1 year? I have a hunch that is a little bit political, that the notion is that we know you cannot leave troops there very long. What if you are not through in a year? How do you know you are through? What is it that signifies having the job done? We were very concerned when we talked to the command. What do you do in this zone? Do you have check points with half a dozen soldiers--I do not know-- that are subject to raids by small bands? Do you put them in large groups and patrol? The notion was, if you are fired on, you get to fire back. That is right, the way it ought to be. It was also, if there is an attack, we should withdraw because we are not there to fight but to keep peace. If there is no peace we would not be there. Sort of a conundrum. So, Mr. President, it seems to me that it is an almost unsolvable situation. I think we can be involved. I think people want us to be involved. I think we indeed have been involved. The question of 20,000 troops is quite a different matter. I have to say, in the time I was in Wyoming, I really did not find anyone who supported that idea. So we have a situation of 43 months of war in the former Yugoslavia, more than 250,000 people killed, an ethnic war, a continuation of something that has gone on a very long time. The question is, do we place ourselves in the middle of this, between the Serbs? One of the things that has happened, I believe, partly as a result of this body's taking action on lifting the arms embargo, is that we did tend to equalize the forces. Croatians and Moslems got together in the federation which sort of leveled the playing field of the Serbs, and then NATO's airstrikes completed that job. You noticed a great change in what was happening. So we are faced with an ancient ethnic and religious conflict. Frankly, it is hard to know who is on what side. Another obstacle is to overcome how you handle the United States and Russia being there at the same time. Russians will not be under the control of the NATO but still want to be in a segment. The winter is certainly a worry. I know we can handle it, but nevertheless it is tough. Mr. President, I do not believe there has been demonstrated--and quite frankly I do not believe there will be demonstrated--an indication that placement of these troops in the former Yugoslavia is in the international interests. I think that ought to be the criterion. That ought to be the measurement. In the next few weeks we will need to make that measurement. All of us need to be involved whether we are in the Senate, whether we are citizens, whether we vote. This is a U.S. decision, and it will have to be made by all. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I have been listening all day, as most of us have. I suppose one could say that most everything has been said. Perhaps it has not been said by everyone, so it will go on. And it should. We are talking, of course, about a difficult decision. I think the Senator who is presiding now said we are trustees here for the American people. That is really what we are--trustees. We are faced with one of the most difficult decisions that has ever been made here, and that is taking a fundamentally different course with the Federal Government than we have had for the past 30 years. We talk a lot about the cuts. Our friends talk a lot about the cuts. Let me share a couple of things with you. Social Security spending will increase each and every year from $336 billion in 1995 to $482 billion in 7 years, a 44-percent increase. Mandatory Medicare spending will increase in each and every year from $178 to $289 billion, a 62-percent increase in 7 years. Medicaid spending will increase each and every year from $89 to $122 billion, a 37-percent increase. Mr. President, what we are seeking to do is to preserve these kinds of programs that we all believe in--health care programs for the elderly, health care programs for the poor. In order to preserve them, you have to have some kind of control on expenditures. Medicare expenditures have gone up three times as fast as inflation, twice as fast as health care in general. So we can do some things about that and I am pleased, frankly, to hear our friends on the other side say that they are interested in cooperating in seeking a balanced budget. Frankly, there was not much evidence of that interest in balancing the budget prior to today. Most of the folks we listen to who decry the balanced budget and now embrace it have been here for 20 years. We have not balanced a budget one time in 30 years. Hopefully there now is some commitment to it. I understand and I think as we listen to these things we should all understand that there are different philosophical political points of view about how you approach it. There are people who genuinely believe that more Government is better, more spending is better, that you should, indeed, extract more money into the public pot so it can be spent that way. I happen not to agree with that. I think that is not the majority view. But it is a view and I understand that. It is also interesting to me, my friend from North Dakota and the Senator from Massachusetts get up at least several times daily and talk about how bad things are, therefore, we need to help, but are not willing to change the programs that have made things as bad as they are. It seems to me there is a principle there. If you do not like the results of what has been happening, you ought not to continue to do the same thing. [[Page S 17456]] You ought not to continue to do the same thing and expect that the results will be different, because likely they will not. I think, too, it is interesting that we ought to examine for a moment what it is we are seeking to do in this country. We are trying to provide an economy in a private enterprise system, in a free market economy, in a democracy, so that you and I can have jobs and earn a living for our families. That is the basis of this country. I get a little weary, frankly, of constant talk about greedy business men and women because I do not understand where those folks think jobs come from. Jobs come from people willing to put capital--either theirs or someone else's--and risk that capital and create businesses, generally small businesses, to create jobs. That is what makes this country work. It is sort of interesting, we are spending a great deal of energy, properly, in helping countries throughout the world change their form of government to a democracy, change their form of economy to a free- market economy, a private-sector economy and we constantly make it more and more difficult for us to succeed doing the very same thing. It is always popular to talk about the rich and how the rich are getting the breaks. I frankly do not know as much about the rich, I suspect, as the Senator from Massachusetts does or others, but I do know a little bit about small business. I do know that it takes some incentive for you to put your money in there at risk. I do know that it is awful easy to be regulated to the extent that you say, why should I fool with it at all? Why should I create jobs, because I am overregulated. You have to have some incentives to cause people to do that. We ought to take just a little time and review, I suppose, what are our own values, what we think has made this country great, keeping in mind it is indeed the greatest country in the world. I had a chance, with Senator Glenn, to go to Bosnia a while back and see other countries, a chance to go to the Balkans, a chance to go to Nicaragua several years ago, and I can tell you, as you know, this is the greatest country in the world. We have more freedom. We have more things than anyone else. We ought to examine what it is that has caused us to be able to have those. It has to do with freedom, with less Government rather than more. It has to do with personal responsibility that each of us must take in a democracy. It has to do with compassion for the helpless and the needy, but to help them get back to help themselves. It has to do with incentives to invest so that we can create jobs. So this ought to be our goal, to preserve those personal freedoms, to help strengthen the economy so that we can have jobs, to maintain those programs that do help the needy. You cannot keep them going if you do not control the costs, with the possibility we are going to go broke in Medicare--we all know that. So we can cheat. So I hope, Mr. President, each of us will challenge ourselves to perform during these next few months, indeed years, and take the tough role of leadership. It is fairly easy to poll. It is fairly easy to have little groups that you talk to, little focus groups, and sort of decide what is best for your political future. It is much tougher to decide what you think we need to do to be a leader. And it is uncomfortable, from time to time. And this is the time when we have the opportunity to stand up and express at least our heartfelt beliefs as to where to go. Mr. President, I am just excited by the opportunity to do that. I think yesterday's vote was a fundamental change and the most important vote that any of us will make for a very long time. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to proceed in morning business for 6 minutes.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I am happy to. I am not sure we have any time.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I am particularly pleased that the Senate today is considering the conference report on Senate 440, a bill that will designate the highway system. The States have been waiting for a good long time now, waiting since October 1, for this bill to pass, so that the $6.5 million in highway funds--which, of course, belongs to the States--can be distributed and used for the purpose for which the drivers and purchasers have paid. I particularly want to recognize Senators Warner, Chafee, Baucus, and others who have worked very hard to bring this bill to the floor. I appreciate their leadership and appreciate the opportunity to have served on that committee. I support this bill for a number of reasons. Not only is the bill important, of course, to all of us in our highway systems, but particularly important from the economic and job creation perspective. It also, it seems to me, sets a direction for the transportation needs of our country and does so well into the next century. In addition, I am pleased with some of the philosophical changes that are found in this bill. This proposal increases State flexibility in a number of areas. Let me just say, philosophically I agreed with that and I find it difficult to hear people constantly talk about the fact that we really ought to run it from here because we do not trust those rascals in the State. I do not understand that. I have a hard time with that. This bill permits a State to increase the transfer of funds from bridge accounts to the National Highway System and Surface Transportation Program categories, eliminates the Federal mandates that the States adopt Federal management systems, repeals some of the Federal mandates requiring the use of crumbed rubber asphalt--I happen to favor the idea--and to transfer to the State the question of mandatory helmet laws and certainly the maximum speed limit. I come from a large rural State, quite different from New Jersey, quite different from Rhode Island, in terms of our obligations to provide for transportation. I also served in the Wyoming legislature, and I have great confidence in that body's ability to determine and have as much interest in the safety of Wyoming drivers and others who drive through our State as does this body. That is really what it is all about. It is not a question of doing away with speed limits. It is a question of having the opportunity to tailor needs to different kinds of places, the opportunities to deal with the differences in the needs of New Jersey and the needs of Wyoming. So, there is a principle involved here. Obviously, our 100,000-square mile State with 450,000 people is quite different from New York, quite different from Connecticut. So we need to have the flexibility, in a union of this kind, to do that. This is a clear step away from the Washington-knows-best approach and I strongly endorse it. State leaders in Departments of Transportation do not need this constant oversight that we have had here. So, this is a good bill and one that needs to be passed in a timely fashion. It deserves strong support. It has had a great deal of input, a great deal of conversation from States, a great deal of communication with State Highway Departments and others. So I encourage all my colleagues to vote for the bill. I hope the President will sign it promptly so that the States can finally receive the money that does, indeed, belong to them. Mr. President, I urge quick passage of this bill and its quick movement through the White House and I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. The other side?

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, what is the situation on time?

Mr. THOMAS. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, it would be interesting, would not it, to look in on this recent conversation, this recent debate if you came from somewhere and you knew nothing about the background of what was going on here? I suppose you would say, ``Gosh. What is this all about? What is the issue here?'' We are talking about all kinds of things. We are talking about Medicare, slashing Medicare, when in fact it does not slash Medicare. We are talking about raising premiums on Medicare when in fact it does not raise premiums at all. They stay where they are. You would say, ``Gosh. What is happening? What is this?'' You would hear this morning the Senator from Nebraska saying this resolution is ridiculous. It deals with balancing the budget. I think you would go on to say there are some principles. What is ridiculous about a principle of balancing a budget that this body has not balanced for 30 years? It would be interesting to sort of sum up the years that the opposition on that side of the aisle has been in this place and never has balanced a budget. They talked about it. They say now we are for a balanced budget. For 30 years they have not balanced the budget. You would say, ``Gosh. What is going on here?'' Everyone who has risen has said, ``I am for balancing the budget.'' And it has not happened. I guess they would say, ``What is wrong?'' People who ran in the last election particularly said we have a priority to balance the budget. That is what we are talking about doing here. [[Page S 17147]] I guess you might also be surprised at how difficult it would be if you were a newcomer looking at it, and saying, ``Gosh. What should be so difficult about balancing the budget?'' You do it in your family, and I do it in my family. You do it in my business because you have to. Do you do it in government? Is that not financially and fiscally responsible as we move into a new century? Is it not responsible to balance the budget rather than continuing to charge it to your children and your grandchildren? Is that what it is about? If that is the issue, why are we talking about all of these other things? A balanced budget is not extraneous. Someone rose this morning and said, ``Oh, gosh. This continuing resolution has extraneous materials on it.'' Balancing the budget is, after all, the key issue. All we are asking is that the President certify that in 7 years he will join us in balancing the budget, and use the Congressional Budget Office numbers that the President said in his State of the Union Message we all needed to use so we all work in the same place. It is not a new idea. The minority leader, who a short while ago objected to the idea of CBO, stood up not 2 weeks ago and said we all will do whatever accommodation to use CBO numbers. So I think you would say, gosh, what is it? You would probably soon recognize that part of it is philosophical. There is a difference in view. There is a legitimate view among liberals that we ought to have more Government and more spending. That is a legitimate view. I do not share it. I do not think the majority of people here share it. Nevertheless, there is a populace view that is there.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I, of course as all of us, have listened with great interest this morning. Medicare is an item in which all of us have a great interest. I would like, as the Senator from West Virginia indicated, to say to the town meeting, Let's take the easy way out. I would like to say, We don't really need to make the tough decisions. We can put it off again, as we have in the past. I guess it would be easier to fix it through the next election rather than through the next generation. I do not think that is why we are here. Many of us just came here, and we came here with a dedication to make some fundamental changes. We came here with some dedication to not continue as we have over the last 30 years and just fix it so it is easy, just fix it so we can get by until the next crisis, but rather really look at making some fundamental changes. I think there is a concept we all have to consider, and that is, when you look at the way things are and you are not happy with them, then you have to make some change. You cannot expect to get different results by continuing to do the same thing, which is what has gone on here for too long. We are seeking to make some changes. We are seeking to make a philosophical difference, a fundamental difference in direction, and I understand there are changes. I happen to believe, and I think the majority party believes, we ought to have less Government, it ought to be less costly, we ought to balance the budget, we ought to have fundamental reform in welfare, we need to strengthen and maintain Medicare, Medicaid, we need to have tax reduction--we believe in that. I understand there are those who believe more Government is better, and that is a legitimate view. I do not share it. I am a little concerned, frankly, in the area of public policy where we transfer decisions to people, but they have to be based on facts. I heard yesterday on the TV how we are raising the Medicare premium. It is just not a fact. We now pay 31.5 percent. That is what we will continue to pay. It has been that way since 1990. It was raised by a Democratic Congress in the Budget Reconciliation Act. That is a fact. [[Page S 16959]] We are not raising it. It is continuing on where it was as a percentage of the cost of that premium. A balanced budget, how long has it been? Almost everyone who will get up and object to what is happening has been here for these years when we have not balanced the budget. Now, I know there are various ways to do it, but we do need to change. We talked about the taxes--not accurate. We talked about great educational cuts, less than one-tenth of 1 percent. So, Mr. President, we need to talk about facts if we are going to have a participatory Government. The President has not participated in this dialog and still does not. So, of course, we are talking about a popular program and all of us want to maintain it. That is really the issue: How do you best do it. Why is it attached? Why is this portion attached? Let me tell you why. Because in part A, which it deals with, part A is withheld from Social Security and you cannot change the computers as quickly. If you waited until after the first of the year to do this, then it would be May again before you could change the computers back to 31.5 percent. There is a logical reason for it being there. The rest of Medicare is not there. This one is there because it is a mechanical process that has to be accommodated. I, too, come from a rural State. Let me tell you some of the things in Medicare that are going to be useful to rural States. The Senator from West Virginia talked about hospitals that have been closed. We just had one close. It had a utilization of 4 percent. You cannot operate that way. Under the current law, the Federal Government cannot reimburse for hospitals that are not full hospitals. We have a proposition in here to redefine hospitals so that a community like that can have an emergency room, it can have a stabilizing facility so that you could be there and be reimbursed by the Federal Government. We have Medicare bonus payments so physicians come to these rural areas. We have telemedicine grants, rural emergency access, hospitals which I just spoke about. We do something to equalize HMO and Medicare. In Florida, they get $650 a month for Medicare. In Wyoming and South Dakota, it is $150. That is not fairness, that is not equity. These are the kind of changes, if we want to have a strong Medicare Program, that have to be made over time. We cannot take the easy way out. We cannot just patch it up and see if it can go forward. We have to make some changes, and that is what it is all about. Only that portion that has to do with this maintaining the 31.5- percent level is in this proposition that we are talking about, and it is in there for a particular reason, a mechanical reason, so that it can continue to be. So, Mr. President, I suggest to you we need to reach down, we need to take a look at the kind of results we want, we need to take a look at the fact that under the proposal that is being talked about here, there is only stability for about 6 years, when we are talking about going on to 2009 when the baby boomers come in. You need to do something before that. We do not need to go to another committee. We have been through this time and time and time again. We have spent all 2 years on this matter--everyone in this body. So we know what decisions have to be made. They are tough. Of course, they are tough. Decisions are not easy. We are here to be trustees for people to make decisions to make things work. We are not here to pass it off. We are not here to be easy. We are not here to be able to get on TV and make things sound great. We are here to deal with the facts. We are here to deal with change. We are here to deal with maintaining Medicare so that we have a program for the elderly, and if we want to do that, then we have to make a fundamental change. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS. My time has expired.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I express some concern about the continuing opposition to change that I hear here on the floor. Some concern about how in the world we are going to get a consensus in public policy when we have as much, I believe, misinformation as we have here on the floor. I think we really need to address ourselves, do our jobs here as trustees for the American people in trying to find a way to do some things, to make this fundamental change. You have to go back, it seems to me, each time we do this, to examining where we are. The Senator from Massachusetts who just left talked about having more poor people than we have had, more different than we have had. You cannot expect things to be different unless we make some change. If you want different results, you have to make some changes. We have set about in this last few months coming to a culmination, coming to the end, this week, the opportunity to make fundamental change, the opportunity to balance the budget--which I suggest my friends who have been here for 20 years, 30 years, have not done it for 30 years--some fundamental change in welfare, welfare reform, the welfare plan than that which has been in place for 25 years. We have, as the Senator suggests, more poor people than we did before. We have to make some changes. Medicare? There is no question but that we have to make a change in Medicare. The trustees say we have to make a change in Medicare. Medicare has been growing at three times the rate of inflation. You cannot continue to do that. Obviously, we have to make some change. Someone on the floor a while ago used a parallel of having a home with no insulation and holes in the walls and cold was coming in. You have two choices. You can either buy more fuel and start a fire and let most of it go out through the hole in the wall, or you can find some insulation and try to fix the wall. That is what we are seeking to do. [[Page S 16986]] There is a limit to how much money you can put into health care. But what we need to do is fundamentally reduce some of the costs, and that is what we are seeking to do here in Medicare. We are seeking to give some choices to the elderly, choices that you and I have as Government employees, so they can choose appropriately; an opportunity to go into managed care which will be less expensive and provide excellent services. The idea that there is a tax increase, I do not quite understand. In 1990, a Democrat-controlled Senate voted to increase part B premiums from 25 percent to 31\1/2\. That is where it is. But I hear from everyone, as if by rote, that ``you are raising taxes.'' We are not raising taxes at all. It is continuing at 31 percent of the premium. That is where we are. What are the words--``raising taxes so you can pay for tax breaks for the rich,'' 90 percent of which goes to families earning below $100,000. These are the kinds of things that make it difficult, it seems to me, to have some kind of a public policy debate when those are the kinds of things we talk about. They are not accurate. There is a reason why this matter of the part B premium is on this continuing resolution. The reason has to do with the ability of Social Security to put it in the computer and not go back to 25, to go back to 31 in May. That is the reason it is there. It is a legitimate, logistical reason it is there. It is not a political reason, not a political reason to talk about. So I guess I am really enthusiastic about the fact that we are going to have a chance to make some fundamental change, that we are going to have a chance to change the programs that we see have not produced the kinds of things we want to have happen, to get the results that we want. And that is what it is all about. Mr. President, I urge my associates to vote in favor of our reconciliation and to go forward with the balanced budget proposal that the Senator from New Mexico has given such great leadership in bringing to us. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS

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

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, today there will be a period for the transaction of morning business not to extend beyond the hour of 1 p.m. Following morning business, the Senate is expected to consider a resolution in honor of Israeli Prime Minister Rabin. There will be no rollcall votes today.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I will utilize the remainder of our time.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that now there be a period for the transaction of routine morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 5 minutes each.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I think in this continuing effort for the freshman and sophomore class to bring something of a unique view to this Senate, we have set aside, I believe, a half an hour.

Mr. THOMAS. I thank the Chair. I would like now to yield to the Senator from Tennessee.