Dale Bumpers: “I assume that the Ambassador invited me because they get foreign aid from the United States. Nobody mentioned it. But…”

“I assume that the Ambassador invited me because they get foreign aid from the United States. Nobody mentioned it. But that dinner would be permissible under the Wellstone-Levin proposals, and I assure you those situations can be much more heavy-handed than dinner with a lobbyist. Go to any embassy in town--and I have never been to an embassy where a really opulent dinner, the finest wines, the finest everything was not served and that is permitted under the Levin and Wellstone proposals. So, Mr. President, I could go on. The Senator from Kentucky covered the whole gamut yesterday of how this does, indeed, trivialize the Senate. If you want to abolish all gifts, I could not care less. But this does nothing for the Senate. A lot of people in America will find themselves rather contemptuous of this feeble effort. But more people in the press and probably across the country will say, ``I wonder what those guys have been into that they have to devise a bill like this.'' I hate to say this because it sounds a little self-serving, but my secretary keeps the Rules Committee and the Ethics Committee on auto dial now. And I suspect that most Senators here could make the same statement. Everybody is afraid to breathe. And I can only imagine what it would be like if either of these amendments become law.”