Byron Dorgan: “let me turn to one other quick item. I am going to speak about this at greater length later. But I want to touch on it…”

“let me turn to one other quick item. I am going to speak about this at greater length later. But I want to touch on it today, because I have watched with amazement in recent days reformers, people who say let us tip everything upside down and shake it, let us change it, let us reform it. Among that call for reform, joined by many Governors in our country, is a plea by those folks that what we ought to do is decide the Federal Government cannot do anything right, and State governments do everything right, and we ought to have a massive transfer of money, a substantial transfer of resources between the States and the Federal Government, moving, of course, from the Federal Government to the States. I am willing to concede that the Federal Government has too much waste; it is too bureaucratic, too big. The Clinton administration has taken action to downsize it. One hundred thousand people who used to work for the Federal Government are not working for the Federal Government anymore. At the end of 2 more years, it will be 250,000 people; 250,000 jobs will have been eliminated. That is downsizing in a real way. I reject the notion somehow that is being thrown around by the reformers, especially by Governors, who come out with press conferences and television lights and put on a big brassy show and say, ``Here are 250 programs you ought to abolish.”