Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, 2,000 pages, and people do not know what is in here. We did not have experts come to committee. People in Iowa, Minnesota, and across the country----

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I say on behalf of my good friend, Senator Harkin, and myself, the Senator from Utah says the more people learn about the plan--we just got there. There has not been one hearing. How many pages are there?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, while we are waiting I would like to be added as an additional cosponsor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Will the Senator yield for a second? How much out-of- pocket do they pay on health care expenses right now?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Then I think we would have had an opportunity for everybody to speak. I yield the floor. I thank my colleagues. Mr. ROCKEFELLER addressed the Chair

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I would say to the Senator from California, no. And I think this becomes an issue of Minnesota fairness and people just do not find it credible--$270 billion in cuts in Medicare but only $89 billion needed for the trust fund, and at the same time $245 billion in tax cuts, disproportionately going to people on the top. No, that violates the Minnesota standard of fairness. My second point, which came to me, is that this whole business about some sort of a study of what the consequences of all this will be, Senators, we have this that just came to us--2,000 pages. And my colleague from Utah, whom I deeply respect, said the more people in the country get to know about our plan the better they like it. People do not know what is in this plan. I say to my colleague from California, I have said for the last month this is a rush to recklessness, and it is because when you talk to the people who live in the communities that are affected by this and deliver the care to Medicare beneficiaries, they are saying this will not work. There is a disconnect. Anyone can add numbers and subtract numbers, but, for gosh sakes, colleagues, look at the connection between your numbers and people's lives. We never had one hearing on your final set of proposals, not one hearing, not one expert flown in from anywhere in the country, much less the opportunity to take this back to our homes and ask the people who are affected by this whether or not it will be beneficial to them. If we had an up-or-down vote on this amendment----

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 3 more minutes so I can come up with my second point.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I would be pleased to yield for a question and then by then I will get my second point.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, let me respond and then just simply yield the floor to some of my other colleagues who would like to speak. First of all, let me just say to the Senator from Massachusetts and my colleague from Iowa--if I could get their attention just for a moment--it is very interesting; you asked the question, if this is so good for senior citizens and represents such good reform, with all the promises that have been made, how come all of the organizations and all the people who are going to be affected by this are opposed to it? The answer is there is a huge disconnect between these proposals and the lives of people back in the States. These proposals are very reckless with the lives of senior citizens. And it is the intelligence of senior citizens in Minnesota not because anybody is leading them around by their noses; it is their own intelligence and their own insight which tells them that these proposals are not in their best interests. I have to say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that your refusal to vote on your own proposal does nothing to reassure them. We have been hearing your speeches forever. We have been seeing your ads on television. You have been telling the senior citizens this is going to be so great, and now you have a chance to vote what you say you believe in, and all of a sudden, I say to my colleague from Iowa, we see them just running away, running away. That is my first point. My second point is that--I do not even remember my second point.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I will be pleased to yield.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. My understanding is 2 minutes will be extended to the Senator from Indiana and I will have 2 minutes on top of what I already have.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Reserving the right to object, I wonder whether morning business can be extended, in which case it will not be a problem. If we extend 2 minutes on both sides, that will be fine.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I understand that the House Budget Reconciliation bill incorporates the provisions of the ``Veterans Health Care Eligibility Reform Act of 1995,'' a draft bill which addresses some of the critical problems faced both by veterans seeking health care and by the VA in providing health care services. I applaud the sponsors of the bill for their efforts to help the VA fulfill its lofty purpose: to take care of those who have served their country with pride and honor. The House bill would enable the VA to provide its services more efficiently and in the most appropriate setting, assuring our Nation's veterans that they could receive the care they need. Specifically, it would ensure that VA health care providers are granted the freedom to treat veterans on an outpatient basis when appropriate and would broaden the VA's authority to contract for outpatient services. In other words, the VA at long last could pursue methods of treatment based on medical and economic common sense, benefiting veterans and providers alike. Let me highlight some of the key provisions of this innovative legislation which is of major importance to America's veterans. It would: Enable VA, within appropriations, to provide all needed hospital care and medical services to eligible veterans, including preventive and home health care; Call for VA to manage the provision of care and services through enrollment or registration, based on a system of priorities; Assign priority for enrollment in the following order: First, veterans 30 percent or more service-connected disabled, second, former POW's and veterans with service-connected disabilities rated 10 or 20 percent, third, veterans receiving aid and attendance or housebound benefits and otherwise eligible veterans who suffer from a catastrophic disability, fourth, veterans unable to defray the cost of medical services, and fifth, all others; Give VA discretion to determine how an enrollment system would operate and authority to set additional priorities within the above priority groups; and Protect specialized VA programs, such as those for veterans with spinal cord injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder. Mr. President, I want to stress that this legislation not only enjoys broad bipartisan support in the House, but that it is very much in the spirit of the Senate Appropriations Committee report issued last month on the VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies Appropriations bill under the aegis of my distinguished colleagues Senators Bond and Mikulski. This report noted the committee had included a provision ``enabling VA to treat veterans eligible for hospital care or medical service in the most efficient manner,'' adding that the Committee supported the VA's efforts ``to shift as much of its inpatient workload to ambulatory care settings as possible, to make better use of its resources.'' This is precisely what the House bill seeks to accomplish. I also want to underscore that this legislation has won widespread support from numerous veterans service organizations [VSO's], experts on veterans health care, and the VA. There have, however, been widely differing estimates from the VA and CBO on how the bill will affect demand for VA services and what impact if any it will have on the VA budget, even though the bill specifies that it is to be implemented within appropriations. While the VA contends the House proposal is budget neutral and that it would make available as much as $268 million within 2 years to expand VA outpatient services, CBO estimates that any savings will be offset by over $3 billion in costs incurred as a result of increased demand for VA outpatient care. A number of VSO's have joined the VA in taking sharp issue with the CBO cost analysis. Mr. President, it seems that proposals which satisfy so many needs of both patients and their health care providers deserve our deepest commitment and support, but at the same time we need to fully explore the consequences of such reforms. We need to change the way veterans receive their health care. That much is clear from how eager both sides of the equation--patients and providers--are to make the same changes. But we also need to ask ourselves: ``What are the costs if any?''; Could these reforms cause other unintended problems in the future?; Will the proposed reforms alleviate problems plaguing the VA health care system?; and Will cuts in Medicare and Medicaid lead to increased demand for VA services so that the need for eligibility reform becomes even more pressing? We need answers to each of these pivotal questions before we can proceed. I strongly believe that the provisions in the House bill or some variant of these provisions could at the very least provide a vital first step to achieve long-overdue eligibility reform, and to do so in a responsible manner. However, we first need to sit down and get all the facts out on the table so we can come up with clear answers to complex questions. In anticipation of the possibility that the provisions of the House veterans bill will not be included in the final Senate/House version of the budget reconciliation package, I propose that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs conduct hearings to solicit the views of those who would be affected by such reforms and those who have thoroughly investigated their future effects on veterans' health care and their budgetary impact. I would welcome the chance for the committee to hear from representatives from the VA, VSO's, the Congressional Budget Office, and anyone else who could bring crucial insights to the forum. We need to include all viewpoints, to look critically at all data, and to listen to all voices before we can move forward responsibly. We need to institute eligibility reform but we need to carefully craft reform to ensure that it improves the quality of VA health care, makes it more user friendly, and increases its cost effectiveness. I have requested that my distinguished colleague Chairman Simpson hold hearings on this topic when feasible and, if he concurs, look forward to working closely with him on preparations for the hearings.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I want to talk about an amendment we are going to have coming up on Medicare. Just for the record, let me briefly respond to the Senator from Indiana. In all due respect, I do not see this compassion. I see $35 billion of cuts in nutrition programs. I had an amendment on the floor of the Senate that asked my colleagues to go on record saying that if, as a result of this reconciliation bill with its cuts disproportionately targeted on vulnerable children in America, there was more hunger and there was a situation where more children went without medical coverage, that we would revisit this question next year and take corrective action, and I could not get that sense-of-the-Senate amendment adopted. I do not see too much compassion in that vote, Mr. President. Mr. President, I hope we start this debate soon on the Medicare. I want to start out by responding to my friend from Iowa. I just quote my friend from Illinois, Senator Simon. He has said it once, twice, 10 times, that to say we are serious about deficit reduction and then to have $245 billion of tax giveaways is like saying to somebody we are going to put you on a strict diet but first we are going to give you dessert. It is a huge contradiction. I do not find people in cafes in Minnesota saying to me: Senator Wellstone, we are serious about deficit reduction, but would you first give us more tax breaks? That is not what I hear from people. They know it is a huge contradiction and that you being cannot dance at two weddings at the same time. It makes no sense. Second point. Mr President, $89 billion is the figure for the trust fund. Instead, we have $270 billion. People in Minnesota know how to add and subtract. What we have going on here on the floor of the U.S. Senate today is no less than an effort to make Medicare the piggy bank for tax cuts, or tax giveaways. That is bad enough. What makes it worse is it is tax giveaways in inverse relationship to those people who least need the tax breaks. Mr. President, that is simply unconscionable. The third point. This is a rush to recklessness. I was surprised to hear my colleague from Iowa talking about the benefits of this for rural Iowa or rural Minnesota. I say to my colleague from Iowa, understand that in your proposal you have reimbursement to hospitals, rural hospitals, 2.5 percent less than rate of medical inflation. I tell you right now that our hospitals and clinics in rural America, in greater Minnesota, do not have the large profit margin; that is point one. Point two, they have a disproportionate amount of their patient mix--60 percent, 70 percent. What I am saying to people watching this debate is that, in rural America, many of the people that come to our hospitals and clinics are elderly. Medicare is hugely important for them. That makes up a large share of the payments that go to these hospitals. They do not have the profit margin. They have a large percentage of the population that are elderly, who depend upon adequate Medicare reimbursement, and you have in your formula 25.5 percent less than the rate of inflation. In rural Minnesota and in North Dakota and in Kentucky and in rural Iowa, the rural heartland all across this country, the issue, Mr. President, is not just whether we can afford a doctor, it is whether we can find a doctor. This is a rush to recklessness. This is a fast track to foolishness. Ask your providers, ask your nurses, ask your physician assistants, ask your doctors, ask your elderly, ask their children, ask their grandchildren. What you are about to do is very reckless with the lives of people. Mr. President, I will tell you something. I just get more than a little bit angry when I see this stereotype and hear this stereotype about the elderly. You would think that the elderly are a bunch of ``greedy geezers'' that are traveling all over the country playing golf at the swankest golf courses there are. Mr. President, in my State of Minnesota, 70,000 seniors live below the Federal poverty line. In my State, of the 635,000 Medicare recipients, half of them have annual incomes under $20,000 a year. Mr. President, in my State of Minnesota, of the 635,000 Medicare beneficiaries, they are paying, on the average, over $2,000 out-of-pocket. Right now, for many seniors, catastrophic health care costs are a nightmare. They are terrified of prescription drug costs. Mr. President, what we have here is an effort to make Medicare the piggy bank for tax cuts--rather tax giveaways, which flow in the main to the highest income citizens of the United States of America. There is no standard of fairness behind this proposal. People will see through it. The second thing that is so unfortunate, so unconscionable, so unthinking about this proposal, will be its impact on the people of this country. Mr. President, $89 billion is not $270 billion. Please do not tell senior citizens their premiums will not go up, their copays will not go up, and in no way, shape, or form do you have to worry, and your hospitals, clinics, and providers will all get adequate reimbursement, and eligibility will not change, and we will just take $270 billion out of this health care sector. Mr. President, senior citizens do not believe it, they should not believe it, they will not believe it. That is why this amendment that will be laid down by my colleague, the Senator from West Virginia, deserves the full support of every Senator in this Chamber. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, their concern is that what will happen is they will no longer have the medical assistance program--it is called TEFRON--in our State to enable them to keep their children at home, and they do not want their children to be institutionalized. Are we going to turn the clock backward? That is why I have this amendment. This is not a game. These are people's lives. I want my colleagues to go on record that if these proposed reductions mean that there will be more children in America that will go hungry or more children in America that will go without health care insurance, then we will, in fact, in 1996 revisit the provisions and take the corrective action to make sure that we do not continue to see this suffering. That is what I am asking my colleagues to vote on. The medical assistance program is a vitally important program for children in America, yet we have these huge reductions slated and nobody has bothered to ask these children or their mothers or their fathers--many of them come from working poor families--``How is this going to affect you and what will you do?'' Nobody has bothered to go out there and over and over and over again meet with people in the developmental disabilities communities and find out from them, ``How is this going to affect you? What are you going to do?'' I had an amendment on the floor of the Senate to the budget resolution that said we ought to consider some of these tax loopholes and deductions and tax giveaways. A dollar spent by the Government is a dollar spent, regardless of how you do it. It can be a direct subsidy or it can be a giveaway to some large corporation. My amendment said we ought to consider some of this; it was defeated. Let me be clear about the why of this amendment on the floor of the Senate today. The U.S. Senate, when it comes to what we call corporate welfare, when it comes to some of the largest tax giveaways to some of the most affluent citizens, largest corporations in America, we do not want to take any action, do not want to ask them to tighten their belts, and do not want them to be part of the sacrifice, but we are willing to cut nutrition programs for children in America. That is not the goodness of people in this country. But it is pretty easy to explain because those children are not out there with their lobbyists. The Wall Street Journal had a piece yesterday about the mix of money and politics. It is unbelievable the amounts of money pouring in from all over the country. But those children, they are not the ones that get represented in such a politics. Today we get a chance to give our assurance to those children that we take account of them and we take account of their lives. Mr. President, we had a bill out here, appropriations bill that was the Pentagon budget. It was $7 billion more than the Pentagon wanted. It passed. Many of us were saying, could we not put that money into deficit reduction? Could we not at least do a little bit of the balancing of the budget? This is all about priorities, all about choices. Could we not ask the military contractors to tighten their belts? My colleague from Iowa has probably done the best work in the Senate in pointing out where he thinks there has been some waste here and where he thinks there could be most fiscal accountability. Mr. President, we were not successful. So we got $7 billion more than the Pentagon wants. We got the money for the military contractors. We go forward with the weapon systems. We go forward with add-on projects. We go forward with this budget. But at the same time, we are going to cut nutritional programs for children and medical assistance for children in the United States of America. Mr. President, the last piece of this, as long as my colleague brings out this whole issue of the budget, is we now look at the Treasury Department analysis, we now look at pieces that are being written in the papers, and we have $245 billion of tax giveaways. In the best of all worlds, I would love to vote for it. But it is, I have said on the floor before, it is like trying to dance at two weddings at the same time. As my colleague from Illinois, Senator Simon, would say, if deficit reductions are our No. 1 goal, we will be put on a strict diet. The next thing we do is say, but first we will give you dessert. It is preposterous. What is more preposterous is when in fact you are willing to give away $245 billion in breaks, most of it going to the most affluent citizens who do not need it, but you are going to cut the Women, Infants, and Children Program, nutrition programs for children, and medical assistance that has become the most sweeping and important safety net program in this country for children in America. Mr. President, I just ask my colleagues, where are the priorities? Mr. President, I do not intend to filibuster the Senate. I do not intend to bring the Senate to a halt. I am quite pleased to go forward. Mr. President, let me just conclude because out of respect for my colleague from Utah who is managing this bill I will not take up much more time. Mr. President, my colleague from Pennsylvania came out here on the floor and did what he felt was right. I respect him for that. He absolutely should do so. He has his set of concerns. He talks about a balanced budget. He talks about deficit reduction. I also have a set of concerns. I have a set of concerns about whose backs is the budget balancing on? I have a concern about where is the standard of fairness? I have a concern about all the reports that are coming out talking about the fact that this proportionate number of the budget cuts target low-income citizens in America--the poorest of poor people, with children unfortunately being disproportionately affected by these reductions. I have concerns about too many children who live in poverty today. I have concerns about what the impact in personal terms of some of these reductions in nutrition and health care programs will be on the nutritional status and health status of children in Minnesota and all across this land. Since I think we have had precious little discussion about all of this, it seems to me it is time for the Senate to vote. I remind my colleagues that I had a very similar kind of an amendment on the floor of the Senate. It was defeated twice. The third time it was passed by this body. This was an amendment which said ``We go on record that we will take no action, that we create more hunger or homelessness among children in America.'' So today we can through our vote provide some assurance to people throughout Minnesota and throughout the land that children do come first. Children and their mothers and fathers do come first. Families do come first. That we will not target the most vulnerable citizens. That there will be some standard of fairness. That we will make sure that our actions do not increase the number of hungry children, and do not increase the number of children who go without health care coverage. We can do that, Mr. President through this amendment. I will read the amendment and then I will make a request. The amendment reads as follows: In the event provisions of the fiscal year 1996 budget reconciliation bill are enacted which result in an increase in the number of hungry or medically uninsured children by the end of fiscal year 1996, the Congress shall revisit the provisions of said bill which caused such increase and shall, as soon as practicable thereafter, adopt legislation which would halt any continuation of such increase. That is very reasonable. Mr. President, I am aware that the parliamentary situation is such that I will only be able to get a vote on my amendment if I move to table my own amendment. I will soon do so and urge my colleagues to vote against my motion to table. In that way, the Senate will go on record with respect to the provisions of my amendment. Mr. President, I do not want to take up more time because we have a lot of business but I believe in my heart and soul that there could be no more important focus than children in this country, and especially vulnerable children. [[Page S 15544]] Mr. President, I am a father of three children: 30, 26, and 23. I am a grandfather, three grandchildren: Ages 4, 1, and 2 weeks. I am not so concerned about my children or my grandchildren with this amendment. I am concerned about a lot of other children. I am concerned about a lot of children who right now in the United States of America live in some brutal economic circumstances. I am concerned about a lot of children in America who right now are in a very fragile situation. I am concerned about a lot of children in America who do not believe that they truly will have an opportunity to be all that they can be. I am concerned about a lot of children in America who grow up in families where there is tremendous tension, where there are parents without jobs, where people struggle economically and where there is tremendous violence in their lives. I have all of those concerns. Mr. President, for that reason, I do not want us to take any action that could increase the number of hungry children or those that would go without adequate health care. I move to table my amendment and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, what we have here, which is why I offered this perfecting amendment, is the following equation: On the one hand, we have in the State of Minnesota somewhere between $2.5 billion and $3.5 billion of cuts in medical assistance. And what do I hear from citizens in Minnesota, I mean from those who are affected? I hear families with children telling me we do not believe that our children are any longer going to be able to receive adequate medical care. I suggest to you as a former teacher, that if a child goes to school--and I have met such children in my State of Minnesota, and, Mr. President, I say to my colleagues, there are such children in their States as well --with an abscess tooth because that child could not afford dental care or because a child goes to school and that child has not received adequate health care, that child cannot do well in school. So, to me it would be unconscionable--it would be unconscionable--to essentially dismantle one of the most important safety nets we have for children in our country. I meet with families, I say to my colleagues, who right now receive medical assistance so they can keep their children who are developmentally disabled at home. If these proposed cuts in medical assistance go through, their fear-- [[Page S 15543]] Mr. President, may I have order in the Chamber?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. Was there a sufficient second?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I did not realize that we were going to start the debate on what we call the reconciliation bill today. But if we are going to do so, then I want to have out on the floor what I think are an important set of concerns. And by the way, I think, Mr. President, they are the concerns of the vast majority of people in this country. What this perfecting amendment says in the sense of the Senate is that if, in fact, as a result of this bill with the budget cuts, we see an increase in the number of hungry or medically uninsured children in America by the end of fiscal year 1996, the Congress shall revisit the provisions of this bill which caused such an increase and shall adopt legislation which would halt the continuation of such an increase. I expect to get 100 votes for this amendment, Mr. President. I have said many times on the floor of the Senate that it is quite one thing-- I have heard my colleague from North Dakota say it better than I--it is quite one thing to talk about deficit reduction and a balanced budget. I do not believe there is a Senator that serves in the U.S. Senate, Democrat or Republican, who is proud of the decade of the 1980's-plus where we built up the debt and the interest on the debt. It is time to start paying off that interest on the debt. It is time to put our fiscal house in order. But, Mr. President, it is quite another question as to whether or not we see in this proposed deficit-reduction plan what I would call the Minnesota standard of fairness. Too many of the cuts--every day people are reading in newspapers, every day people are hearing on the radio, every day people are seeing in some of the TV reports that too many of these cuts seem to be based on the path of least political resistance. Mr. President, too many of us in office love to have our photo op, love to have our picture taken next to children. It is a great photo opportunity. All of us talk about the importance of children. All of us talk about the future and the importance of children. Well, what this amendment says--and that is why it is such an important perfecting amendment--is that if, in fact, these proposed reductions in the Food Stamp Program, the Women, Infants, and Children Program, nutrition programs for children and family child-care centers, really, whether it be center-based child care or family-based child care, or whether or not the cuts in medical assistance--in my State there are over 300,000 children, many of them in working-poor families that are covered by medical assistance--that if these reductions should result in an increase in the number of children that are hungry or the number of children who now find themselves without health insurance, then we will revisit this question, we will revisit the provisions of this bill which cause such an increase; and then, after that, we will take such practical steps as can be taken that would, in fact, halt the continuation of such an increase. Mr. President, I came out here on the floor of the Senate at the beginning of this Congress and I said to my colleagues, ``I believe that what we are going to do this session is we are going to, in the name of deficit reduction, take food out of the mouths of hungry children.'' I have said that more than once on the floor of the Senate. And I had an amendment, it was a sense-of-the-Senate amendment, that said the U.S. Senate, that Congress, shall take no action that will increase the number of hungry or homeless children. [[Page S 15542]] Mr. President, I lost. I lost on that amendment on the first two votes. And I remember one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--and I have many close friends on the other side of the aisle, including the distinguished Senators on the floor, I would say especially the distinguished Senator from Utah--but I remember that one Senator came out and said, ``The only thing the Senator from Minnesota is trying to do is embarrass us.'' And I said, ``You can just prove me wrong and vote for this.'' And then, finally, Mr. President--and I deeply regret that I did this--I introduced the amendment again, and it was accepted, and it was voice voted. But I am not interested in symbolic politics any longer. We are getting into the debate now. I probably would not have had this amendment today, but when the Senator from Pennsylvania comes out with his amendment, his concerns, then it is time for me to come out with my amendment and my concerns. Mr. President, these children, they are not the heavy hitters. These children, they are not the players. These children, they do not have a lot of lobbyists that are out there in the anteroom right now, and they have not been here throughout this process. But some of my colleagues just want to talk about the balanced budget over and over and over again, deficit reduction over and over and over again. But how interesting it is that they fail to translate some of their proposals into human terms and what its impact on people is going to be. Mr. President, we have scheduled in this reconciliation bill dramatic reductions of investment in children. We have scheduled in this reconciliation bill, in this deficit reduction bill cuts in the Women, Infants, and Children Program. Unbelievable, Mr. President. My God, if there is one thing we ought to agree on, it is that every woman expecting a child ought to have an adequate diet, and we are not going to invest the resources necessary for that? Mr. President, the Food Stamp Program certainly has its imperfections, and I am all for fixing the problems, but there is a difference between fixing problems and, no pun intended, throwing the baby out with the bath water. I can tell you that with Richard Nixon's leadership, with national standards and dramatic expansion of such a program in the early 1970's--and I saw it in the 1960's in the State of North Carolina where I lived, we had all too many children with distended bellies, too much rickets, scurvy, too many children malnourished--we moved forward with a dramatic expansion of the Food Stamp Program, and it has been--imperfections and all--one of the most important and successful programs in this country because, thank God, it reduced hunger and malnutrition among children in America, hunger and malnutrition among all of God's children. I ask the Chair, where is the voice for low-income children? Where is the voice for some of the most vulnerable citizens in this country? So if we are going to now, today, debate this budget, it is my opportunity to make my case and to make my plea to my colleagues that we should go on record, Mr. President, as Senators making it clear that if these reductions should increase the number of hungry or medically uninsured children by the end of fiscal year 1996, the Congress shall revisit the provisions of such a bill that caused such an increase, and then we shall adopt legislation which would halt such an increase. I met on Saturday with family child care providers. I say to my colleague from Iowa, these are small business people. There are some 14,000 in the State of Minnesota. What did they say to me? They talked about the adult and child care feeding program and they said to me, ``Senator, we don't know what is going to happen with the proposed reductions in this program, because for a lot of these kids coming from these families, this is the one really good meal they get a day, and we can't assume the cost ourselves because we're small business people and we don't have any big margin of profit. Senator, who cares about these children?'' But, again, we see reductions in this program. We are talking about $180 billion-plus of cuts in medical assistance, and I said several weeks ago on the floor of the U.S. Senate when I suggested that the Senate Finance Committee not meet because there had not been one hearing on the precise proposals that had finally been laid out with one expert coming in from anywhere in the country, I said, this was a rush to recklessness, and it is. It is a rush to recklessness, and what is so tragic about it is that the missing piece is the impact on the people back in our States. The State of Minnesota, again, has done a great job. You can talk to the doctors and the nurses, you can talk to the caregivers, you can talk to the people in the Government agencies, you can talk to the people in the communities, we have 300,000 children that receive medical assistance and now we are going to see draconian cuts in medical assistance. There is a reason why there has been an increase, and the reason is simple: Every year, more and more families lose their employment-based health care coverage. Every 30 seconds, a child is born into poverty in this country. I keep reciting these statistics over and over again because I do not seem to be able to get my colleagues to focus on it. Every 30 seconds, a child is born into poverty in this country. Every 2 minutes a child is born to a woman who has not had prenatal care. Every 2 minutes, a child is born to a woman and that child is born severely low weight, which means that child may not even have a chance in his or her life. The statistics go on and on. We are now moving toward one quarter of all the citizens in this country being poor. So if we are going to have this debate today, I offered my perfecting amendment to the amendment of the Senator from Pennsylvania to say let us go on record and let us make it clear that surely we are not taking any action that is going to reduce more hunger or is going to increase the number of children that go without medical insurance and, therefore, without adequate medical care. Mr. President, while I am speaking and before I forget, I do want to also ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I send a perfecting amendment to the desk.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the majority leader. I might say to the majority leader that I will take just a few minutes. I actually rise to, first of all, thank the Senator from California and the Senator from Arizona and others for their fine work on this measure. I believe that this is an extremely important step we are taking as we act on this resolution to move our Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and to condition certain State Department funding on the Embassy's relocation under the specific timeline laid out in this bill. I rise in support of this legislation, and I am delighted to be a cosponsor of the compromise negotiated over the last few days. Madam President, let me first talk about this issue personally, because the status of Jerusalem is important to me personally, and will always be. As an American Jew, as a Senator from Minnesota, I believe Jerusalem is and should remain the capital of Israel, an undivided city. Never in my life have I had a more moving experience than when I was in Jerusalem a few years ago, and could experience first-hand the marvels of the city. At the same time, I have had a concern--and I think the Senator from California, Senator Feinstein, and from New Jersey, Senator Lautenberg, and others shared this concern--that certainly we did not want to do anything inadvertent which was going to impede the Mid-East peace process. And for this reason I believe that the waiver provided for in the substitute bill is extremely important. The administration has been clear about this concern all along. In fact, United States Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk observed that moving forward on the original version of the resolution could have placed tremendous strains on the peace process, and even caused its collapse. This measure now tries to address that potential problem. Our deep and abiding commitment to Israel is reflected in the bill. Our commitment to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, with the United States Embassy there, is again strongly and clearly stated. At the same time, the clear commitment to Jerusalem as a city for all peoples is there. This was the most sensitive of all issues in the peace process, agreed to be put off by the parties, in the Declaration of Principles, to final-status negotiations. I think that with this provision we now have in this bill something which I would hope all of us can support. The initial formulation in the bill, which talked about the importance of Jerusalem as the capital, which talked about our locating our Embassy there, I supported. When we began to talk about this in terms of specific timelines, the concern I had was the effect this could have on ongoing negotiations. Those concerns have now been addressed in this most recent version. Mr. President, passage of this resolution would be simply another indication of the deep and strong support for Israel in this body. That is critical, I think, because our support for Israel must remain strong and steadfast in this difficult period. Maintaining the security of the State of Israel, our good friend and strategic ally, must remain paramount. We must continue to work actively to help her achieve and maintain peace with her neighbors. This requires maintaining adequate foreign assistance to Israel designed to help her resettle refugees, make key economic reforms, and encourage peaceful economic development. Strengthening and building upon historic gains in the peace process, and making sure that the risks which have already been taken for peace were not taken in vain, must be our twin goals. I think we now have the strong language necessary to accomplish the goal of this resolution. At the same time, we have the waiver built in to give the President appropriate flexibility. I think that now this version of the bill represents the best of people here in the Senate coming together, and working out an agreement which we can all proudly support. I thank my colleagues for their work. I am proud to support this. And I did ask earlier that my name be included as an original cosponsor. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, might I ask unanimous consent to add my name as an original cosponsor?

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I might say to my colleague from Arkansas that I withdraw my request, and I think the only question is whether the courtesy might be given to the Senator from Arkansas to finish his statement. He only has a few more minutes to go.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a moment?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield? Could I ask unanimous consent that it would be 10 minutes, and that I could have 4 minutes after the Senator?