Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 13

September 15, 2000 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—SENATE 18195 

AMERICAN COMPETITIVENESS IN 

THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY ACT 

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise this 

afternoon to implore my colleagues to 

work with me in moving the American 

Competitiveness in the Twenty-first 

Century Act, S. 2045, toward enactment. 

One of our greatest priorities is—and 

ought to be—keeping our economy vibrant, and expanding educational opportunities for America’s children and 

its workers. 

That is my priority for this country 

and that is my priority for my home 

State of Utah. 

I am proud of the growth and development in my own home State—growth 

that has made Utah one of the leaders 

of the world in our high tech economy. 

Utah’s information technology vendor industry is among Utah’s largest 

industries, and among the top 10 regions of IT—or information technology—activity in the U.S. 

Notably, Utah was listed among the 

top ten IT centers in the world by 

Newsweek magazine in November 1998. 

The growth of information technology is nowhere more evident and 

dramatic than in my own home State 

of Utah. 

According to the Utah Information 

Technologies Association, our IT vendor industry grew nearly 9 percent between 1997 and 1998, and consists of 

2,427 business enterprises. 

While I am on the subject, let me just 

also note that just a couple of weeks 

ago, a major high-tech company in 

Utah announced the layoff of several 

hundred Utahns. We have several indications that alternative jobs are available. 

I continue to watch this closely. I 

certainly want these skilled and talented people to remain in our State 

rather than being hired by other companies in other States. 

In Utah and elsewhere, our continued 

economic growth, and our competitive 

edge in the world economy require an 

adequate supply of highly skilled high 

tech workers. This remains one of our 

great challenges in the 21st century, 

requiring both short- and long-term solutions. 

The American Competitiveness in the 

Twenty-first Century Act, S. 2045, contains both. 

In the short-term, a tight labor market, increasing globalization, and a 

burgeoning economy have combined to 

increase demand for skilled workers 

well beyond what was forecast when 

Congress last addressed the issue of 

temporary visas for highly skilled 

workers in 1998. Therefore, my bill, 

once again, increases the annual cap 

for the next three years. 

That, Mr. President, is nothing more 

than a short term solution to the workforce needs in my State and across the 

country. 

The longer term solution lies with 

our own children and our own workers; 

and in ensuring that our education and 

training of our current and future 

workforce matches the demands in our 

high tech 21st century global economy. 

Thus, working with my colleagues, I 

have included in this bill strong, effective, and forward-looking provisions directing the more than $100 million in 

fees generated by the visas toward the 

education and retraining of our children and our workforce. 

Those provisions are included in the 

substitute which I am prepared to offer 

today. 

We are here, today, however, as this 

session of Congress comes to a close, 

with the fate of this critical legislation 

extremely uncertain. 

Frankly, when this bill was reported 

by the Committee, I thought we were 

on track to move this rapidly through 

the Senate. 

I offered to sit down with other Members—including my colleague from 

Massachusetts, Senator KENNEDY, my 

colleague from California, Mrs. FEINSTEIN, and my colleague from Connecticut, Senator LIEBERMAN—to work 

with them on provisions regarding education and training. We have done 

that. 

And, I as I have noted, I am pleased 

to report that the substitute which I 

intend to offer to this bill, reflects the 

majority of their ideas and proposals. 

Quite unexpectedly, however, the 

White House weighed in with what 

sounded to me like an ultimatum tying 

passage of this to other unrelated, 

costly and far reaching immigration 

amendments. 

Mr. President, I hope we can get this 

done. 

I know the majority leader filed cloture earlier today on a motion to proceed. 

I look forward to working with my 

colleagues in the coming days to try 

and avoid a confrontational process. 

Again, I hope we can get this done for 

American workers and children and for 

our continued economic expansion. 

I am grateful to be able to say these 

words today because I want to move 

this bill forward. It is in the best interest of our country. It is in the best interest of of our high-tech community. 

We are talking about nanotechnology 

technology, quantum computers, all 

kinds of educational projects in which, 

literally, this Nation needs to be the 

leader. The only way we are going to be 

the leader is if we continue to accentuate the positive by having the best 

high-tech minds working with us. 

Many of these people for whom we 

want to allow visas are people who 

have been educated in our country, 

given our education and given our information. Frankly, it is much to our 

advantage to have some of them have 

the privilege of working here before 

they go back to their own countries. 

This bill will help to resolve that. To 

have it enmeshed in politics, as the 

White House has tried to do, is a tremendous, incredible mistake. 

I hope the President and those who 

are advising him will back off. Let us 

pass this bill and keep the United 

States at the forefront of the high-tech 

revolution. 

That is my goal. As everyone knows, 

I have worked very hard in this area. I 

daresay there is probably no more important bill in this Congress, as far as 

the information technology industry 

and the high-tech community are concerned, than this particular bill. There 

are others that rise to its equal, but 

nothing rises beyond it. 

Mr. President, I suggest the absence 

of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. 

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent that the order for 

the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent that I be allowed to 

proceed in morning business and to 

consume such time as I may need. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

f 

COMPLETING THE BUSINESS OF 

GOVERNMENT 

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I know we 

are at or near the close of business of 

today’s session of the Senate. I thought 

it important that we end up the week 

with a bit of an analysis of where we 

are and where we have to get in the 

next several weeks to complete the 

business of Government, to fund the 

necessary agencies, and to be responsible to the American people as it relates to the expenditure of their tax 

dollars. 

As most all Americans understand, 

we are now, fortunately, living with a 

balanced budget at our Federal Government level; that is, current operating 

budgets. Many of us in Congress for 

decades fought to get this budget balanced. It became balanced during a period of unprecedented economic growth 

in our country. I believe that a balanced budget contributed dramatically 

to that growth. 

At the same time as we worked to 

continue to balance that budget, many 

of us had wanted to now take some of 

the unprecedented surpluses of tax dollars that are coming into us and return 

them to the American taxpayer. We 

tried to do that this year in two forms: 

In the reduction or the elimination of 

the marriage tax penalty, about $1,400 

per married couple; and in the near 

elimination of the death tax; in other 

words, the taxing of citizens of their 

wealth or their estates upon the incident of death. Those are two items extremely popular with the American 

people. 

18196 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—SENATE September 15, 2000 

Yet in trying to do that, we were told 

by this administration and by many of 

my colleagues on the other side that it 

would wipe out this surplus tax dollar 

amount—many statements such as 

that that couldn’t be any further from 

the truth. The reality is that for those 

two tax packages that were passed by 

Congress and now vetoed by the President, we are talking of about a dime, 

one dime out of every surplus dollar, 

your surplus tax dollar, to be projected 

to come in to our Government over the 

next decade. 

Be that as it may, that is a problem 

we face. So here we are now working to 

finalize the work of the Government in 

the next 3 weeks, and we have an inordinate amount of work to get done. 

One of my frustrations as a leader on 

this side in trying to move the process 

along is that, for the last 6 months, we 

have heard the rumor, and we have 

watched the actions of the minority 

leader and the folks on the other side, 

which would indicate there was a stalling tactic going on, that somehow they 

didn’t want to get the work done in a 

timely fashion, that they constantly 

objected to unanimous consents, and 

they asked for votes time after time on 

issues we had already voted on and had 

been thoroughly debated on the floor of 

the Senate, from which the political 

answers had come flowing forth on the 

debate. 

Let me give a couple of examples. I 

am one of those who always comes to 

the floor when there is a gun debate. 

Somehow, the other side is saying we 

have to have more votes on gun issues. 

Well, I will say this: We have already 

had 13 votes this session on the gun 

issue. I am not quite sure how many 

more we need, or will need, to express 

to the American people the intent of 

Republicans versus Democrats versus 

individual Senators as it comes to this 

issue. 

We have had rollcall votes on amendments 403 times; Democrats have proposed 231 and Republicans have proposed 172. Many of these amendments 

never would make it into policy and 

had been refused by the authorizing 

committees but were here either for 

time taken or for political expressions 

being made—not for substantive policy 

reform because we knew it would not 

happen. 

On the issue of ‘‘Kennedy Care,’’ or 

health care, we have already had eight 

votes; and we still are being asked to 

take more votes on the prescription 

drug issue, a Government-run proposal 

on the part of some. We have had seven 

votes on that. How many votes does it 

take to express to the American people 

the intent of this Congress or this Senate when it comes to a given issue? A 

once-a-week vote? A once-a-day vote? 

How about one thorough debate and 

one vote up or down? That clearly expresses the will and the intent of individual Senators. 

This last week we have had a very 

significant debate on the normalization 

of trade relations with China, known as 

PNTR, permanent normal trade relations. It is a very important debate and 

it was handled very well. Most of the 

amendments have been constructive. 

But while we have been trying to do 

this, recognizing our work schedule we 

have been trying to do a couple of 

other things. For example, we have 

been trying to offer up additional 

amendments, or appropriations bills, or 

conference reports that will finalize 

the work of Congress. This is what has 

happened. It confirms what many expected was true and that was an attempt to slow-roll us or stall us so we 

could not get our work done. 

Here is a quote from the USA Today 

of Friday, September 8. It says: 

Senator Minority Leader Tom Daschle has 

a simple strategy for winning the final negotiations over spending bills. Of course, those 

are the key items that we must finish to finish the work of the Congress so we can adjourn. What is it? 

He said: 

Stall until the Republicans have to cave in 

because they can’t wait any longer to recess 

and get out on the campaign trail. 

Of course, the logic is simple if you 

are an insider and you know the workings of the Senate and you know how 

many are up for reelection. 

That is because 18 of the 29 Senators seeking reelection are Republicans and 11 are 

Democrats. There are a lot of vulnerable Republican Senators. I know they want to go 

home badly. 

So what is the tactic? Stall, object. 

One Senator can come to the floor and 

all he or she has to do is say: Mr. President, I object. That simple action in 

itself can either take hours or days of 

debate and break down the process. It 

can be called a filibuster, or gaining 

cloture on a vote; but ultimately, and 

without question, it is a stalling tactic—especially now in light of what the 

minority leader says. 

Finally, TOM DASCHLE has come 

clean. He has openly and publicly said 

their tactic is to stall. What does stalling really get us? To some who believe 

in big government, it could probably 

get them tens of billions dollars more 

in money to spend on Government programs and, in some instances, more 

Government control, more Government 

mandates and, frankly, more Government in your back pocket. 

People of my thinking would suggest 

that is bad policy. But the dollars we 

are talking about, the surplus dollars 

that we tried to get back to the American people in the form of tax relief, 

which was vetoed this year by the 

President, is the kind of money they 

now want to spend. Oh, these Republicans, if we just stall on them, they 

are so anxious to go home that they 

will buy their way out of it in the final 

hours of the 106th Congress. 

Senator DASCHLE, Democrats, listen 

to me, please. We are not going to buy 

our way out of it. I don’t want to buy 

our way out of it. The American taxpayers don’t want us to buy our way 

out of it. They want good, sound policy, recognizing important programs. 

But they also know we are increasing 

Government spending at a near record 

rate now and, at the same time, we 

truly do have a surplus that ought to 

go home to the American taxpayer 

from whence it came. It is not our 

money; it is the taxpayers’ money. 

That is why Senator LOTT, the majority leader of the Senate, and Congressman DENNIS HASTERT, the Speaker of the House, in a meeting with 

President, said: Mr. President, let’s 

take 90 percent of the surplus, if you 

are not going to let us give it back in 

taxes, and let’s use it to pay down the 

debt; 90 percent of the surplus could go 

against the debt. That leaves 10 percent of the surplus to spend on programs. 

Well, they can’t even agree with that 

on the other side, when the American 

people are clearly saying: Give us tax 

relief. But if you can’t do that, pay 

down the debt. 

For gosh sakes, don’t spend that 

money. Get Americans debt free. Buy 

down that nearly $6 trillion debt in a 

way that is manageable, responsible to 

the economy—but, most importantly, 

in a way that is responsible to our 

young people and to their futures. It is 

a debt they will, obviously, have to assume. 

Mr. Daschle’s answer is to stall. How 

do you stall? This is how you do it. 

When the leader comes to the floor and 

asks unanimous consent that H.R. 3615, 

the Rural Local Broadcast Signal Act— 

simple but important, and it is called 

the rural satellite bill—is ready to go, 

somebody from the other side stands 

up and says, ‘‘I object.’’ Senator LEAHY

did that for Senator DASCHLE. 

Stalling tactic? You bet. I call that 

stall No. 1. Here is stall No. 2: H.R. 

1776, the national manufactured housing construction bill. It has 32 cosponsors, including Democrats such as Senators BRYAN, CLELAND, and HOLLINGS. 

The Leader requested, on September 8, 

to go to a conference to solve our problems. This is for safety requirements 

for manufactured housing. Senator 

LEAHY, for Senator DASCHLE, said, ‘‘I 

object.’’ Stall No. 2. 

Stall No. 3, H.R. 1259, Social Security 

and Medicare Safety Deposit Act, the 

lockbox: Democrats and the President 

are trying to take credit for that right 

now. They fought us for a year on it. 

Senator ASHCROFT of Missouri was the 

one who came up with the idea. News 

stories are replete about Republicans 

talking about that idea for the last 

year and a half. And now, of course, because some folks on the other side of 

the aisle want credit when we proposed 

bringing that up to debate it, to have 

it, and to truly protect Social Security 

revenues, oops, stall No. 3. 

September 15, 2000 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—SENATE 18197 

This time Senator DASCHLE himself 

came out and objected to reaffirm what 

he said to USA Today on September 8. 

They won’t even let that go. 

Here is stall tactic No. 4, four district 

judges: We have been criticized all year 

because we won’t confirm the judges 

the President has sent up. Majority 

Leader TRENT LOTT brings the judge 

bill to the floor, judges the Democrats 

want, judges the Republicans want, 

but, most importantly, judges that this 

President sent up. He brought the 

judges to the floor. Let’s see. He 

brought a judge for Senator DURBIN; he 

brought a judge for Arizona, and everybody agreed on these judges; DASCHLE

himself objected, stall tactic No. 4. 

These are just functionary, important kinds of necessarily ‘‘get done if 

you can’’ kinds of things. We have time 

to do it. It doesn’t require lots of debate. But it clearly appears to me that 

no action goes forth. And if we can stop 

that action, surely those Republicans 

in time will cave. 

Here is stall tactic No. 5, intelligence 

authorization: A request to go to the 

conference with Democrat amendments 

submitted to DASCHLE through a staff 

channel on September 7—no response 

from DASCHLE or others—with an indication that Democrats are preparing 

additional amendments, stall tactic 

No. 5. 

My goodness, aren’t we going to get 

these authorizations done? They are 

very important. 

Here are four nominations to the 

U.S. Institute for Peace. I am not going 

to stand here and suggest the Democrats aren’t for peace. We are all for 

peace. But at least they objected to 

moving nominations on the Institute 

for Peace; stall No. 6. 

A document that made stall No. 7 

happen on the 13th of this month was a 

major report coming out of our Federal 

Government saying that violence in 

the media, violence in video games, violence on television, and violence in 

the movies is truly producing a culture 

of violence that could and appears to 

be translating into violent youth of 

America with young people witnessing 

over 100,000 acts of violence, actually 

watching on television, although acted 

and cast—8,000 murders during their 

young lifetime. Somehow that is important. We have been talking about it 

for years as being darned important. 

Senator JOE LIEBERMAN, now VicePresidential candidate, proposed what 

is known as the ‘‘Media Violence Labeling and Advertising Act of 2000.’’ 

Senator JOHN MCCAIN supported him. 

It is bipartisan with Democrats and 

Republicans, and now a national issue 

made true by studies and analyses of 

our Federal Government as to the impact on young people. We brought it to 

the floor. That is S. 2497, bipartisan 

legislation, and there was objection to 

the unanimous consent to move it forward. 

For the week, that is stall tactic No. 

7. 

What will next week hold? We are 

going to conclude PNTR on a vote on 

Tuesday, I believe. We have numerous 

appropriations bills that ought to be 

dealt with. Hopefully, we can and will 

deal with them and in doing so pick up 

the pace around here and get our work 

done so that we can adjourn—so that 

we can send a very clear message to 

the American people of the intent of 

this Congress to balance the budget; to 

hold sacred the Social Security surplus; to make sure that we deal with 

health care in a responsible way for our 

citizens; hopefully that we could give 

back a few of these surplus tax dollars, 

but if we can’t do that, at least dedicate a large portion of it to debt buydown so that young people in their lifetime won’t have to finance the debt 

structure of the generation before 

them. 

Those are responsible and right 

things to do, and I hope we can do 

them. But I will be back next week to 

talk probably about stall tactic No. 8, 

No. 9, No. 10, and No. 11. At least I am 

going to until the minority leader 

comes to the floor and he recants and 

says that he didn’t say this or that this 

isn’t a strategy because if it is a strategy, it is bad politics, and it is darned 

bad government to simply say, no, we 

are not going to work until we get the 

right to spend billions and billions of 

dollars of more money. That is not bipartisan. Most importantly, that is bad 

policy. 

Mr. President, I suggest the absence 

of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent that the order for 

the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

f 

MORNING BUSINESS 

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent that there now be a 

period for the transaction of routine 

morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes 

each. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

f 

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS AND PREVENTIVE CARE: THE KEY TO 

TRUE MEDICARE REFORM 

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, yesterday I started the first of what will be 

five or more brief statements on issues 

related to the subject of the Federal 

Government providing a prescription 

medication benefit to Medicare recipients. 

Yesterday, I opened this series with a 

discussion of what I consider to be the 

most important reform required in the 

Medicare system; and that is reforming 

a 35-year-old health care system which 

was established to provide acute care; 

that is, care after an illness had matured into a major condition, or after 

an accident had caused a person to require specific medical attention largely 

in a hospital setting. 

What was not included as part of the 

1965 Medicare program was an emphasis on what seniors want today; and 

that is, they want a system that will 

not just treat them after they are seriously ill but to have treatment that 

will avoid or reduce the impact of 

those illnesses through effective preventive strategies. 

Those preventive strategies have 

many components, including regular 

screenings for those conditions that 

can be detected at an early time; and 

then the management, through a variety of sources, of those chronic conditions so that they do not mature into 

serious health concerns, in some cases 

even death. 

To me, the conversion of Medicare 

from a sickness program to a wellness 

program is the fundamental reform 

that this Congress must achieve. 

If we are going to have this new orientation on wellness, prescription 

drugs will play a critical role. Prescription drugs are a part of almost every 

methodology of managing a medical 

condition which, if not appropriately 

managed, could mature into serious 

complications. Prescription drugs are a 

key to providing true quality preventive care for our senior citizens. 

My point is illustrated by an example. 

Mrs. Jones is a Medicare beneficiary. 

She has, like an increasingly large 

number of Medicare beneficiaries, no 

drug coverage. Unfortunately, Mrs. 

Jones also has diabetes, hypertension, 

and high cholesterol. These are three 

conditions which in the past would 

have been debilitating, even fatal. 

Today, thanks to the miracle of modern medicine, Mrs. Jones can treat 

these conditions and continue to live a 

healthy life. 

Mrs. Jones is likely to be treated 

with Glucopahge, Procardia XL, and 

Lipitor. 

The annual cost of Glucophage will 

be $708. The annual cost for Procardia 

XL will be approximately $500 to $900, 

depending on whether 30 or 60 milligram tablets are prescribed. The annual cost of Lipitor is approximately 

$700. The total annual spending for 

these three drugs alone for Mrs. Jones 

will range between $1,900 and $2,300. 

These costs, for most seniors—I would 

argue, for most Americans—are likely 

to cause significant economic hardship. 

But if Mrs. Jones does not take these 

drugs, she will find her conditions raging out of control and will surely be a 

candidate for expensive hospital stays 

and surgery. 

Those last two comments underscore 

the fact that this is a medical issue in