May 4, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD— SENATE S6163 

doubt that Medicare costs over the last 

10 years have not grown as quickly as 

they have in the private sector. But 

that, in part, is because we are continuing to do what I just said we do not 

want to do any more. We do not want 

to pass Medicare costs on to the private sector. We do not want to say, in 

the name of reform, all we are going to 

do is let the private sector take on 

greater responsibility for health costs. 

We have to solve the problem of skyrocketing costs in the private sector, 

as well as those costs in Government. 

And that is exactly what I said this 

morning and what I hope we can continue to focus on as we consider the 

Medicare debate. 

f 

DAVID PRYOR: A TRUE PUBLIC 

SERVANT 

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I could 

not help but listen to the distinguished 

Senator from Arkansas just a moment 

ago. All of us will greatly regret his absence beginning in the next Congress. 

As we all know, last week, the distinguished Senator from Arkansas, Senator PRYOR, announced his plans to retire. 

As the Senate Democratic leader, I 

feel like pleading with him not to go; 

to change his mind. 

What we heard just this afternoon 

was another illustration of the value 

that he is to all of us, the unique individual that he truly is. 

While he has been known around 

town as one of the President’s closest 

friends on Capitol Hill, he is one of my 

most indispensable allies in the Senate 

and one of the closest friends that most 

of us have here in the Senate. 

I have constantly drawn on his experience and wisdom for advice and guidance. And I have constantly found his 

calming influence amidst many a Senate tempest to be essential for my own 

personal well being as well as that of 

the U.S. Senate. 

But while I recognize that he is a 

kind, southern gentleman of the first 

order, I also warn, do not let that calm 

demeanor fool you. In the Senate, 

there is not a more tenacious or aggressive fighter for the causes in which 

he believes than DAVID PRYOR. 

Shortly after his election to the 

House of Representatives, Congressman 

PRYOR went undercover as an orderly 

to investigate conditions in nursing 

homes. When the House refused to conduct hearings on the plight of America’s elderly, he rounded up volunteers 

from local colleges, rented a trailer, 

and conducted his own hearings in an 

abandoned gas station a few blocks 

away from the House Office Building. 

When the Speaker of the House refused 

to establish a Committee on Aging, 

then-Congressman PRYOR turned his 

trailer into the ad hoc House Trailer 

Committee on the Aging and continued 

its investigation. 

The House finally established—to no 

surprise of anyone who watched all of 

this—a Select Committee on Aging. 

When OPM claimed to have cleaned 

up its act and made Government jobs 

accessible to all applicants, Senator 

PRYOR sent his office interns down to 

that agency to apply for jobs. 

He then called them to testify before 

his Subcommittee on Federal Services, 

where they informed the Senate about 

the continuing abuses in that most important Federal job recruiting agency. 

The list does not end. 

He has taken on the IRS and authored and steered to passage the taxpayers’ bill of rights to make our tax 

system fair and equitable to every citizen and every business. 

He has taken on the Beltway Bandits, 

as he has conducted hearings and demanded more than 40 GAO reports on 

Government use of what he calls America’s shadow government—private consultants. 

He has taken on the pharmaceutical 

companies for the high prices they 

charge for prescription drugs. 

He has stopped production of unsafe 

and unworkable chemical weapons, 

even though it meant jobs in his State 

of Arkansas. 

He has conducted a longstanding crusade against what he considers timeconsuming and time-wasting Senate 

procedures like filibusters, dilatory 

floor tactics, quorum calls, and extended rollcall votes. 

But throughout his fights, Senator 

PRYOR hss remained the gentleman 

that he is. His fights have always been 

constructive, not destructive, to the 

national interest, We need more, not 

less, positive-minded, cooperative, 

dedicated Senators like DAVID PRYOR. 

While I am tempted to ask him to 

stay, as his friend, I fully understand 

and support his reason for leaving. 

He has given a lifetime of public 

service. As a teenager, he worked in 

Washington, first as a page for Representative Oren Harris, and then in 

the post office in the House of Representatives. 

He had successful careers as an editor-publisher and as an attorney, but 

he always came back to public service. 

In 1960, he was elected to the first of 

three terms in the Arkansas State Legislature. 

In 1966, he was elected to the first of 

four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. He served two terms as 

Governor of Arkansas. 

Since 1979, he has served in the U.S. 

Senate. His work in this Chamber has 

consumed so much of his time and attention. In addition to his most important work as chairman of the Special 

Committee on Aging, he has been active on the Finance Committee, the 

Committee on Agriculture, the Joint 

Committee on the Organization of Congress, the Governmental Affairs Committee. And, yes, event the Ethics 

Committee. 

In addition to all that, he has also 

served as Democratic Conference secretary. 

Senator PRYOR now wants to enjoy 

life after politics—and there is much to 

say for that kind of life. Senator 

Mitchell told me so just the other day. 

Senator PRYOR’s love for the Senate 

is exceeded only by his love for his 

family and his love for the beautiful 

State of Arkansas—both of which he 

will now be able to enjoy even more. I 

wish Senator PRYOR, Barbara, and his 

family the best in the years ahead and 

can only say that their gain is our loss. 

I yield the floor. 

Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized. 

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, what is the 

pending business? 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

pending business is H.R. 956, and the 

Gorton amendment is the pending 

amendment. 

f 

MORNING BUSINESS 

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period for morning business until 5:30 

p.m., with Senators allowed to speak 

for not to exceed 5 minutes each. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, last 

month, the Medicare Board of Trustees 

issued its annual report. Four members 

of this committee are appointees of 

President Clinton—three of them currently serve in his Cabinet. 

The trustees concluded that Medicare 

will begin to go broke next year, and 

will be completely bankrupt by the 

year 2002. 

If this were to occur, no payments, 

by law, can be made by Medicare to 

pay for hospital care or for any other 

services paid for by the trust fund. 

Thirty-three million seniors and four 

million disabled individuals depend on 

the Medicare Program every year. 

It is for them, and for those who will 

follow, that we must commit to preserving, improving, and protecting the 

Medicare Program. 

Tuesday, the Speaker of the House 

and I extended a verbal invitation to 

President Clinton to sit down with us 

and to begin working on a bipartisan 

plan to preserve, improve, and protect 

Medicare. 

Judging from the President’s actions 

in the past weeks, and from remarks he 

delivered earlier yesterday at the 

White House Conference on Aging, it 

appears that the President has once 

again chosen partisanship over leadership. 

Instead of heeding the advice from 

his trustees, the President heeded the 

advice of his political pollsters, using 

yesterday’s speech as an opportunity 

to engage in scare tactics and to mislead America’s seniors. 

Nevertheless, Speaker GINGRICH and I 

are willing to give the President the 

benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he did not 

watch the news Tuesday evening or 

read the paper yesterday morning. Perhaps no one at the White House told 

him of our invitation. 

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S6164 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD— SENATE May 4, 1995 

So, yesterday afternoon, a letter 

from the Speaker and myself was delivered to the White House, and I ask 

unanimous consent that the text of 

that letter be placed in the RECORD following my remarks. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

(See exhibit 1.) 

Mr. DOLE. In this letter, we once 

again extend our invitation to the 

President, asking him to join us in a 

bipartisan effort to preserve, improve, 

and protect Medicare. It was precisely 

this type of bipartisan effort which 

saved Social Security in 1983, and it is 

what is needed today. 

And I know a little about the 1983 Social Security effort, because I was a 

member of that Commission, along 

with Democrats and members from the 

private sector, appointed by the then 

majority leader Howard Baker in the 

Senate, appointed by then Speaker 

O’Neill in the House, and President 

Reagan. And it worked. A lot of people 

felt at that time Social Security was in 

deep trouble, and it was in deep trouble. It was about to go broke. The 

trustees had warned us it was about to 

go broke. It warned us years ahead it 

was about to go broke. As often happens around this place, nobody really 

thought it was going to happen. 

When it finally became critical, we 

moved and we acted, and thanks to the 

efforts of our colleagues on both sides 

of the aisle, both sides of the Capitol 

and President Reagan’s effort, we were 

able to put together a compromise 

which, since 1983, has secured the solvency of the Social Security trust 

funds. In fact, Social Security is going 

to be in good shape for a fairly long 

time. Some day we will have to address 

it, but right now the 1983 Social Security fix has worked. 

It also appears to me that Treasury 

Secretary Rubin, Labor Secretary 

Reich, and Health and Human Services 

Secretary Shalala, all trustees, all of 

whom signed the report calling for action now have a great deal riding on 

the President’s response. 

The President’s inaction to this date 

suggests one of two things: Either he 

believes his trustees are incompetent 

and have reached an erroneous conclusion, or he accepts their conclusion and 

just does not believe it is the duty of 

his administration to solve the problem, in which case his trustees are irrelevant. Relevancy has been a matter 

of some debate around this town. 

If, however, he treats the recommendation of his trustees seriously, 

then he has only one choice: To stop 

searching for campaign issues and to 

join Congress in searching for solutions. 

I hope that the President, in the 

same spirit we have been working with 

the President on welfare reform, on 

antiterrorism legislation, on NAFTA, 

GATT, and other examples I can point 

out where Republicans provided the 

majority of the votes, working with a 

Democratic President, I hope the President of the United States will take a 

look at the trustees’ report. 

I know there is a conference on 

aging, and I know the temptation 

frightens people, scares people and 

they may pick up a few seniors’ votes 

for the President, but if we do not fix 

Medicare, as I have indicated, we are 

not going to be able to make the payments. 

The year 2002 seems like a long way 

off. Why worry about it in 1995? Let me 

just suggest, by the time you get it put 

together and by the time you start to 

implement it, the time will roll by 

more quickly than we think. 

I cannot speak for everyone on this 

side of the aisle, but I think most of 

my colleagues are ready and willing to 

make hard choices. We are not talking 

about cuts—the President says, ‘‘Oh, 

we can’t cut services, we can’t do this, 

we can’t do this.’’ We are suggesting 

every dollar saved in our efforts to protect, preserve and improve Medicare go 

back into Medicare; not to cut taxes 

for the rich—as we hear from time to 

time from our colleagues on the other 

side of the aisle—or not for budget purposes, except so far as Medicare is part 

of the unified budget. 

So I hope that the President has received our letter and that he will seriously consider it and that he will come 

to the Capitol, or we can go to the 

White House—it makes no difference—

or we can meet halfway, whatever, and 

talk about what we may do in a bipartisan way to begin working on what is 

a serious problem with Medicare. 

They are the President’s trustees. 

They are people of integrity, as far as 

I know; people of competence, as far as 

I know; people of good judgment, as far 

as I know. I assume this trustees’ report was based on the best information 

available and they said we should act 

now. Now means precisely what now 

means—now, 1995. 

So we are prepared to work with the 

President and members of this administration, we are prepared to work with 

our colleagues on both sides of the 

aisle, we are prepared to work with 

House Members, Democrats and Republicans, and my view is, if we are serious 

about this, we can do it in a very brief 

period of time. 

So I hope that we can have some response from the President. 

The other day I suggested we maybe 

have a bipartisan commission. That is 

how we made recommendations on Social Security in 1983. The President 

called that a gimmick. Well, it was not 

a gimmick. It was an idea that Speaker 

O’Neill had at the time and Majority 

Leader Baker and President Reagan 

had at the time, and it worked. It was 

not a gimmick. They made solid recommendations to Congress, and the 

Congress adopted the recommendations 

of the commission. I was proud to be a 

member of that commission, along 

with Claude Pepper, I might add, who 

was probably the seniors’ greatest representative and voice in Congress, a 

Democrat from the State of Florida. 

So, Mr. President, I certainly hope 

the President will follow up. 

f 

SENATE SCHEDULE 

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, let me say 

with reference to the schedule, right 

now there are discussions going on so 

we can have a substitute offered by 

Senators ROCKEFELLER and GORTON, 

and then it would be my intent to file 

cloture so we can bring the debate on 

product liability to a close. We have 

been on this now last week and most of 

this week. I am not quite certain when 

they will have the product complete. 

I do not believe there will be any further votes today because, frankly, we 

wanted to move to another matter but 

it was objected to by my colleagues on 

the other side. So we will just have to 

wait and see what agreement can be 

reached, and then the substitute will 

be filed and then the cloture motion 

will be filed. 

It is my intent to have the first cloture vote on Monday and if cloture is 

not obtained, to have a second cloture 

vote on Tuesday. So I say to my colleagues, we are going to have a cloture 

vote on Monday. It is very important 

we be here. We have been on this bill 

for 2 weeks. I do not want to frighten 

anybody or discourage anybody, but I 

can see the August recess going out the 

window. As much time as we take on 

every piece of legislation in the Senate, it does not leave the leader any alternative than to say, well, August 

would have been a great month to be 

off; a lot of us would like to have done 

a lot of things. 

But the first thing we must do is 

complete our work, and as slowly as we 

are proceeding, I do not see how it can 

be done. Maybe there can be some 

agreements in the next few weeks, but 

we are behind schedule now and, I must 

say, unless we can catch up, I do not 

believe the American people expect us 

to be off for 30 days when a lot of the 

work is not done. 

So we will be right here catching up 

unless we can do so in the next—we 

have time if we work together, let me 

put it that way. 

I suggest the absence of a quorum. I 

withhold that request. 

Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico. 

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, what 

is the order of the Senate, morning 

business? 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is in morning business. Senators 

have up to 5 minutes each to speak. 

f 

A SERIOUS PROBLEM AND A 

SERIOUS SOLUTION 

Mr. DOMENICI. Thank you, Mr. 

President. First, I just happened onto 

the floor while our leader was speaking. I compliment him for the subject 

matter and for what he said. It is obvious we have a very serious American 

problem, and that is Medicare, and a 

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