Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Actually it is true. The bill the President vetoed is the same. Many of us voted against that. What we passed out of the Senate restored the $1.3 billion for low-income energy assistance. Now we have gone back to over $300 million of cuts. That is a very serious issue for people in my State. I just received a copy of this. Let us take some time and evaluate what is in this rescissions bill.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I know we are waiting until the hour of 10:30, but just for the public record, I now have a copy of this bill. This is the first time I have seen this bill. I voted for the $16 billion in cuts when it was on the Senate side, but I want to make it crystal clear that there have now been additional cuts, for example, in low-income energy assistance. I am from a cold weather State. I want to talk about that program. I represent people in my State. Just because people are low income does not mean they do not have representation. Just now I received a copy of this bill. There was a program that we had that was an important program--the majority leader actually helped me on this before--which provided counseling to elderly people so they do not get ripped off on some of the supplemental health care coverage to Medicare. That came out in the conference committee. So, Mr. President, there is also a range of important programs here for dislocated people, workers with summer youth employment. I just received this bill--just received it. I have not even had a chance to look at it. I certainly would oppose any kind of a unanimous-consent agreement that said we would have a vote at a time certain. I want to have an opportunity to offer amendments. I want to have an opportunity to talk about this. We are talking about people's lives, and there are some serious cuts in here that affect some of the most vulnerable citizens. I would start, coming from a cold weather State, talking about the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, many of whom are elderly, many of whom are disabled--we are a cold weather State --many of whom depend upon this grant. This was eliminated on the House side. We restored the funding on the Senate side, and now there have been additional cuts of over $300 million in this program--$330 million in cuts in energy assistance for some of the most vulnerable citizens. So I think we need to have an opportunity to offer amendments, an opportunity to debate and certainly an opportunity to even go through this bill. I was not elected from Minnesota to come here and just have things rammed through. This is the first time I have had a copy of this bill--the first time. Significant changes have been made. I am a legislator. We should have an opportunity to evaluate this, and we should have a debate on what is in this.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I say to my colleagues, I know the Senator from Oregon also wishes to speak. I will be speaking from the floor with some difficulty because of an asthma condition, or allergy condition, and I apologize for the coughing. Mr. President, I find myself in a position of being out on the floor with several Senators whom I deeply admire but with whom, at least for this moment, I am in profound disagreement. I am extremely sympathetic to my colleagues, who are as good Senators as you could ever find, as accomplished legislators as you could ever find. But in all due respect, I did not vote for this budget resolution. I understand the pressures all too well. That is why I did not vote for the budget resolution. And I certainly am not someone who is in favor of putting walls back up between the domestic and the Pentagon spending. There are two issues I want to raise at the beginning of this discussion. First of all, I did not object to the motion to proceed. I just simply said that, as a Senator, I now know, as I look at the report that has come back, that there have been some changes. I voted initially for this rescissions package. I am all for--and I understand the position of the President vis-a-vis assistance to California and Oklahoma--I am all for it. But I am a legislator and this report came less than 1 hour ago. I cannot quite read--is it almost 11 now? This report came here at 9:55. This is the first time I had a chance to look at this rescissions package, at 9:55. I do not know about other Senators, but I do not even know what is in here. I know some of what is in here. I have not had a chance to examine this. This package, H.R. 1944, is some 120 pages long and we are just going to rush this through? Initially there was a proposal--some Senators were talking about voice voting it. I said, from the time I came here, that on all appropriations matters, all expenditures of money, we should never have voice votes. We should be accountable. I feel the same way also about these cuts, about this rescissions package. This has a very real impact on the lives of people we represent. I want to talk about that impact. But above and beyond that, I say to my colleagues, 9:55 is when this came here. I have not even had a chance to examine this piece of legislation, this rescissions package. I know enough to know what has been changed for the worse and I want to talk about that. But I just refuse to have this thing just sail through here, essentially jammed through the Senate. I do not think that is a responsible way to legislate. I feel strongly about that. What is the hurry? We ought to examine what is in H.R. 1944. For example, I have here--this is one of the reasons that I have such fondness for the Senator from Oregon. I would say the same thing about the Senator from West Virginia. This was a letter dated May 8. Dear Paul: Thank you for your most recent letter regarding the House of Representatives rescission of $1.319 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Which I voted for. Which you know I voted for. As you know, the Senate bill did not include this rescission. Please be assured that the Commmittee intends to maintain this position during the on-going House-Senate conference. I thank my colleague from Oregon for his assistance----

Mr. WELLSTONE. What has happened----

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Senator.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, the vetoed bill is the bill I voted against. I voted for a bill that we reported out of the Senate because we had restored the $1.3 billion funding. But now we have cuts of about $330 million in funding for the Low-Income Housing Energy Assistance Program. That is now what is in this bill which just came to us at 9:55. We have $20 million of cuts. That is different from what I voted for out of the Senate. I did not vote for the bill that the President vetoed. Mr. President, just to be clear about what is at issue here, I think it is a matter of priorities. I look at their rescissions package and I see a disproportionate number of cuts, in all due respect, that affect low- and moderate-income citizens in this Nation. I do not think it was my colleagues' choosing. But I just want to talk about some of these priorities. I am talking about restoring $330 million of assistance for low-income people. I say to the Chair, we come from the third coldest State. One B-2 bomber costs over $1 billion. This is not even a third of a B-2 bomber. Mr. President, we have one of the finest fighting fleets of F-15's. Everybody will tell you that. We now have a proposal to replace the F- 15 with the F-27 to the tune of $162 million, and an overall costs of $70 billion additional dollars. In the post-cold-war period, the Soviet Union Empire no longer existing, and the Pentagon saying we do not need some of these weapons. There are no rescissions there at all. Later on today, Mr. President, I am going to talk about all the subsidies that go to the oil companies since we are talking about low- income energy assistance. But President, I met at the home of Olita Larson in Richfield. She is a disabled senior citizen and a LIHEAP recipient. In addition to her, I met with several veterans, and several mothers with children. And what I learned from them is that, at least in my State of Minnesota, the Low-Income Housing Energy Assistance Program is not an income supplement. It is a survival supplement: 111,000 households receive LIHEAP assistance; 313,000 individuals; 28,000 seniors; 53 percent of those that receive this assistance which is about $300 a month or so. This is just to enable people to get by so that it is not ``heat or eat.'' Fifty-three percent were working at low-wage jobs; 32 percent were senior citizens; 41 percent were households with small children; about 50 percent earn less than $6,500 a year. Excuse me, Mr. President, for not understanding some kind of definition of reality here in the Nation's Capital. But for the life of me, I do not understand how in the world we can be cutting low-income energy assistance to people, people who really need the assistance, people who are the most vulnerable citizens in our country, but we go forward spending $1 billion on B-2 bombers that the Pentagon tells us we do not need. We have billions of dollars of subsidies to oil companies. We do not choose to close those loopholes. Mr. President, these are distorted priorities. Just because Olita Larson does not make big contributions, just because she is not well- connected, just because she is not a player does not mean she should not be represented. Mr. President, I met at the home. I am not going to cave in right now. You meet with people. You talk with people. You make a commitment that you are going to do everything you can to support people. And that is where I thought we were. That is why I originally voted for this rescissions package. Now what we get H.R. 1944 from the House, which comes at 9:55, I find out that we have over $300 million of cuts.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Certainly.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I still have the floor. Let me just say that, first of all, one more time, I did not vote for the budget resolution. I did not vote--later on today when we get into the discussion--I did not vote for the tax cut. The Byrd rule I think protected us over the first year. I am not at all sure ultimately, as I stretch this out and project where this heads. This is the first time we have actually seen the rubber meet the road and some real decisions made that ultimately this money in the outyears is not eventually being used to finance tax cuts for fat cats in this country, frankly. But let me say to the Senator from Oregon, and I would like to proceed here, that in terms of the choices, about 60 percent of the administrative travel funds are in the Pentagon. We can make some further cuts there. We can also do the same thing with FEMA. We can make some cuts there. So I do not think it is quite true that there are no choices. In addition, Mr. President, I just simply want to go back to what I have been saying. I thought, though it was a close call for me, that my colleagues did an admirable job, a very admirable job given the constraints they were working under, so we passed this rescissions package. I had some questions about it, but I voted for it. Then the House goes to work and the President vetoes the conference report, and I support the President's veto. Then we get H.R. 1944 that comes here at 9:55. I have not even had a chance to examine this. I just refuse to be put in the position that somehow what I am doing right now is going to hurt low-income people. If I could just finish this, I will be pleased to yield. I have over and over again been talking about this. Now, I do not know where other Democrats are. I know that 150 Members of the House voted against this package yesterday, last night. I could just simply tell you that I think these are distorted priorities. I think there are other areas that could be cut that are not being cut. I think we are asking some of the most vulnerable citizens in this country to pay a price by tightening their belt when they cannot tighten their belt.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I will be pleased to yield.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, if I could just----

Mr. WELLSTONE. I will be pleased to yield, if I can have 1 minute, and then I will yield for a question.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I ask my colleague from Oregon to yield for a question?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, just to kind of sort this out for a moment, I am in complete agreement with not only what my colleague from Illinois had to say but with the eloquence with which she said it. Absolutely, we did not know what was going to be in this bill, I say to my colleagues, until late last night--10 o'clock. We just received this at 9:55 this morning. Second of all, I do not view this as a protest. My distinguished colleague from Oregon talks about it is a protest. I am prepared to debate. I will have amendments, and I am prepared to debate those amendments, and I am prepared to have a vote on those amendments. This is not something like all of a sudden I have become interested in. My colleagues all know of my strong commitment to LIHEAP. They all know that I think it is unconscionable that we are making these cuts. I feel very strongly about the Summer Jobs Training Program. Mr. President, when we first finished up on the Senate rescissions bill late at night, with some assistance from the majority leader, we restored funding for a counseling program for senior citizens to make sure that they do not get ripped off in some of the supplemental coverage that they get to their Medicare. Now we are going to have all these cuts in Medicare and Medicaid--and this is great, I suppose, for some of the insurance companies for there not to be this consumer protection--but we are now going to go back to cutting, I think it was, $5 million--only $5 million. What is the purpose of cutting a counseling program for senior citizens to provide them with basic consumer protection? That is in, as it turns out, H.R. 1944, passed late at night, just sent over here today. So, Mr. President, I want to be crystal clear, this is not like something we just started saying. I read the other day in the paper about a general having a plane sent across the country to pick him and his cat up, at a cost of over $100,000 a year. Is that the kind of travel we are funding? I say to you, we have it within this budget, we have it within our power, within this bill to actually take more out of that administrative and travel budget from the Pentagon. We can do that. I have talked about FEMA. There are plenty of alternatives. But, Mr. President, first, let us just get back to the process. It is pretty hard for us to sort of lay out all the alternatives until we, first of all, know what is in this bill; and second, do not tell me that upon some time for deliberation and some time for discussion and some time for debate on amendments, we cannot come up with alternatives. Of course, we can come up with alternatives. This is not in concrete. Who said this is the day, that this is it, there cannot be any changes, we cannot make any changes at all, especially if we feel very strongly that there are some real distorted priorities? I can only speak for myself, but I really do not understand the priorities which say we go headlong with increases in the Pentagon budget, we have massive tax cuts, $245 billion, most of them going to wealthy people, and we are going to cut low-income energy assistance in the State of Minnesota. I say to my colleague, I may lose on this amendment, but I will not be silent about this, and if I lose, I will go down fighting, not on the basis of just some principle or some protest, but because I am a legislator and I know there are alternatives and I know as we have a discussion of this, we will get to those alternatives. But I just, again, have to say--I so appreciate what my colleague from Illinois said--here we are talking about children. We all love children. We all want to have photo opportunities with children, and we cut job training programs for young people, and we cut low-income-- LIHEAP is not coming anywhere close to meeting the needs of those people that are eligible. And now we are going to have additional cuts in the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program? I come from a cold weather State. Sometimes it is 20 below zero, sometimes it is 40 below zero, sometimes, as the Presiding Officer knows, it can be 70 below zero wind chill. But for many of the most vulnerable citizens in Minnesota, this can be terrifying--this can be terrifying. Mr. President, I think that I went over these figures today, and I can give some figures for other States as well, but in Minnesota, 37 percent of the households are working poor; 15 percent have a disabled household member; 26 percent of the households have an elderly household member; 33 percent of the households have a child of 5 or younger, and I can go on and on. When I met with Olita Larson in Richfield, and others, I made a commitment to them to fight hard for this program. I have been doing that all along. I do not come to this just now. So what we have here is a rescissions package that just came over. Some of the initial good work that we did in the Senate has been undone with cuts where there were not supposed to be cuts. Mr. President, I have to raise questions about the whole priority of this. I would be pleased, eventually, to get to amendments and to have discussion. I have the average fiscal net allotment and average heating and cooling benefits for households assisted by State and region for fiscal 1993. I am prepared to go through these figures and talk about what this means in human terms.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Yes, I yield. Excuse me, I yield for a question or comment, but I will retain the right to the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I am happy to yield to the Senator.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, just one more time, to summarize. We received this bill at 9:55. That is not even 2 hours ago. I did not know everything in here. I am perfectly willing, as I said before, I did not object to the motion to proceed. There have been a lot of questions that have been put to me. I am more than willing to go forward with amendments and debate. I need a little time to look through this bill. But, Mr. President, when my colleagues talk to me about this being just the beginning, I am well aware of that. I did not vote for these budget cuts. I did not vote for these ceilings. I did not vote to increase money for military contracts. Again, the other day in the paper, the story in the paper about a general having a plane sent across the country to pick up him and his cat at a cost of $100,000--that is out of the travel and administrative account. I did not vote for that, Mr. President. These are distorted priorities. And my colleague from Illinois kept saying--and I understand the Senator from Oregon and the Senator from West Virginia have done their best within these boundaries that have been set by the votes that are here right now. I know that. But, in all due respect, we do not, in that budget resolution, decide we are going to take on any of the loopholes, deductions, subsidies-- for example for oil companies. But we are going to cut the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program for seniors, people with disabilities, and children. And, in addition, summer jobs training programs. And, in addition, infrastructure--some small investment in infrastructure in schools. What kind of message do we send to children about whether we have any hope for them or what kind of value do we attach to them when the ceilings--the buildings are decrepit and the plumbing does not work and all the rest. We cannot even begin to make any kind--we are going to cut expenditures in that area?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, with the understanding I have the floor, I will be pleased to have the Senator yield for a question.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. WELLSTONE. If the Senator will yield, I have several amendments in exactly the areas that I was speaking about that I intend to offer and have debate upon, absolutely, and hope to win on them. I said that from the very beginning.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I will be pleased to yield in just a moment. Mr. President, I worked hard. I had support from colleagues for a counseling program for elderly people, to make sure they do not get ripped off on supplemental coverage from Medicare. That, now, gets cut again. My colleague from Oregon talked about the good things that have been done. Fine, I agree and I am glad. But he did not talk about some of the areas that have now been cut as opposed to the original rescissions bill. I only found out about what has been cut because I have had a little bit of time, just a little bit of time to go through this. What is the hurry? What is the hurry? I am pleased to go through this and I am pleased, today, to introduce amendments. I am pleased to have debate on those amendments and up or down votes. But I will tell you, I will have an amendment to restore that funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I will.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I say to my colleague, I will be ready to go with that amendment--A, I have been responding to questions and comments from other Senators. I would like a little bit of time to look through this to get all my amendments together. But I will have amendments and we will have debate. Mr. President, I say to the majority leader in all due respect, this bill came here at 9:50. It was passed last night at 10 o'clock, in the House. I am not going to let this be jammed down my throat and I am not going to let it be jammed down the throats of a lot of very vulnerable people in my State. I will examine this. I am more than willing to have amendments--I said this to the majority leader--and we will have debate on those amendments and I am pleased to vote up or down. Absolutely.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, just----

Mr. WELLSTONE. I will be pleased to.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I shall be very brief and will be followed by the Senator from Illinois. Mr. President, let me try to give the morning and part of this afternoon some context. We had a bill, which was about 120 pages long, come over from the House at about 9 o'clock today. This was the rescissions package voted on about 10 o'clock last night in the House of Representatives. It is my really strong view as a Senator that it is important to be able to review legislation, especially when we are talking about the cuts that directly affect people's lives. Sometimes, Mr. President, we get into the statistics and numbers and we forget the faces. I had voted for the rescissions package passed out of the Senate earlier. I voted against the conference report because of changes that had been made. It is no secret to any Senator in here that I feel especially strongly, as do many other Senators feel very strongly, about several programs--but it is not programs. It is really about people. I spoke about the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, and I had an amendment and wanted to introduce an amendment that would have restored about a 20-percent cut in the LIHEAP. In my State of Minnesota there are 110,000 households and 300,000 people who are depending on this. I come from a cold weather State. It is a small grant, but for many people it is the difference between heating and eating. I say to the Presiding Officer, the Senator from Idaho, because I know what kind of Senator he is and I think we respect each other whether we agree or disagree, I met with people in their living rooms. I saw the fear in their eyes. I know how strongly these people depend on this assistance, especially in such a cold weather State. And I said I would fight for these people, and that is what I have done. Because what happened last night in this final package is that we did not have the original Senate version, but we cut it 20 percent, some $315 million. In addition, I fought for a counseling program for elderly people, to make sure they could not be ripped off. It was consumer protection. This was coverage that people asked for in addition to Medicare, to fill in the gap. Then I discovered there were some additional cuts in dislocated worker programs. The Senator from Illinois spoke eloquently, of course, about a program she had worked on, just a small amount of money for school infrastructure, for kids. So what I said today was I wanted the opportunity to go through this bill. I wanted an opportunity to talk about it. I wanted an opportunity to introduce amendments. The first amendment would have been offset, and I gave examples of some of the waste in the travel administrative budget in defense. That money would have been transferred so we would not have the same cut in the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. I must say, Mr. President, looking at this in a slightly larger context, I find it unconscionable. Really, what we might be talking about, as we extend this rescissions bill into the future--this is a grim precedent of where we are going, since this is where the rubber meets the road. We could be seeing the cuts in the outyears for low- income energy assistance, for children, for education, for counseling for seniors to make sure they do not get ripped off with health insurance--all used to finance tax cuts that go in the main to wealthy, high-income people. Cuts in programs for dislocated workers, job training, you name it. All in the name of tax cuts? We do not go after any of the subsidies for the oil companies but we cut low-income energy assistance? We do not go after any of the military contractors, any of the waste there, but we make cuts in low-income energy assistance, job training programs for kids, counseling programs for elderly people, for consumer protection. To me it was unacceptable. I just want to respond to one or two points that the majority leader made, and then I will conclude my remarks. This was not something just done on Friday. I just got this bill. I am not going to be bulldozed over as a Senator. I want to look and see what is in this piece of legislation. That is the responsible thing to do. And it certainly is true that those people, be they elderly people with disabilities, be they children, working poor people who are affected by low-income energy assistance may not have all the clout and make all the money and make all the contributions, deserve representation here in the U.S. Senate. The cuts, I believe, are unconscionable. So this was not something I just come to on Friday. This has been a priority issue for me as a Senator from a cold weather State where many people are affected by these cuts for a long, long time. And will continue to be so. Second, I care fiercely about the assistance for people in Oklahoma and California. We will be back to this bill. We all know it. Of course, we will be back to this bill. And, of course, there will be relief, and I have voted for that relief and will continue to do so. We all know we are going to be back on this piece of legislation--and we must. I hope there will be some discussion in the meantime and we can work out some reasonable compromise. Finally, I have the utmost respect for the manager of the bill, the Senator from Oregon, and certainly for the Senator from West Virginia. But as to what happens in the future, we cannot be bound by the priorities and the parameters of what the House of Representatives is doing in these kinds of budget resolutions. We can make changes next year. I just simply tried to say today, and I will say it over and over again--I will shout it from the mountain top, from the floor of the Senate, if that is what is necessary--that these are distorted priorities. To ask some of the most vulnerable citizens in this country to tighten their belts when they cannot, to cut low-income energy assistance for people in my State, a cold weather State, and not even look for offsets? Not to restore that kind of funding? That is unacceptable to me. So, I have no doubt that we will be back on this. My final point would have been that by amendment, I would have on the first amendment talked about other States, the number of people affected in Missouri, in Kansas, or in Minnesota by low-income housing energy assistance, or Illinois. I would have laid out some important data. I would have talked about real people who are behind these statistics, and I would have talked about offsets. But in all due respect to the majority leader to come out at the end and say: I will roll them all into one amendment and have 10 minutes and then move to table--I do not legislate that way. I do not know too many Senators who really find that acceptable when it is the issue you have been working on for the people you are trying to represent. So I hope that we will be back on this bill right away, and we will go forward with the discussion. I hope that we can work out a satisfactory agreement. In any case, I intend to keep on speaking and keep on fighting, not with malice, not with bitterness, but with dignity, and face the policy that I honestly believe in. I yield the floor. Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN addressed the Chair.