Bob Kerrey

I come today to discuss briefly the health care debate. The Republican Members of this body are having a retreat. I think those of us on the other side of the aisle need to listen very carefully when they come back from their retreat as to…

I share, as I suspect everybody in the Midwest does, his concern for rising crime, particularly rising adolescent crime. I also point out that much of the dilemma that we are going to face in law enforcement... is with reference to the…

I assure my friends from California that I have no desire to slow down this supplemental bill. I have no opposition at all to the supplemental. What the Senator from Nevada said, I think, is quite accurate. This dire emergency supplemental…

The fact of the matter is, we are not going to collect enough money to pay the bills and, thus, what we have to do is sell Treasury bonds. We borrow from the already too small pool of savings, restricting the growth of the economy…

I do not believe that we should look for offsets. I am not an advocate of offsetting in order to pay for this disaster. What we have is I think a situation where we are responding generously, and we ought, in my judgment, to pay for it…

I say to my friend from Hawaii out of respect for that particular consideration, this is merely a sense-of-the-Senate resolution.

All I am trying to do in making this proposal is make a suggestion to this task force that in the process of considering the recommendation, one of the things we consider is, rather than getting in this debate, should we have an offset…

It was prepared not just by my office but by a number of Senators who participated in the bipartisan effort.

I must say, as I said earlier, I am not standing over here full of optimism that this amendment is going to be agreed to. It is highly unlikely it is going to be agreed to. There are all kinds of procedural problems and so forth going to…

I appreciate very much the Senator's steadfast support of the effort to say we have to reduce spending because we believe it will be good for the economy. We believe it will give Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve some room to move. We…

I will be offering an amendment to title III of H.R 3759--the rescission title--on behalf of myself and Senators Bumpers, Leahy, Bradley, Lautenberg, Wofford, and Feingold. Our amendment, on which we have worked over a number of months…

This is an issue that, only as a consequence of the perseverance of the Senator from Michigan, is now beginning to surface and become visible to all of us. It is the sort of thing that illustrates why we need to be alert for abuse to a…

I appreciate very much the Senator's steadfast support of the effort to say we have to reduce spending because we believe it will be good for the economy. We believe it will give Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve some room to move. We…

Our amendment, on which we have worked over a number of months, makes 1994 rescissions and also reduces and eliminates a number of wasteful Federal programs for a 5-year deficit reduction of $43 billion. I first must say that I was very…

I say again that voting against this motion to table is the right vote. Those who want to cut defense can vote for the amendment of the Senator from Oregon. And there are some in this body who might think that that is an appropriate thing…

I call my colleagues' attention to the fact that this is a good faith effort that began last year during the budget reconciliation debate. Those of us who voted for it can now call attention to the significant deficit reduction that has…

But does the Senator believe that 11 to 18 Members who have worked since last August to prepare this amendment, hundreds of hours in meetings in good faith, trying to come to an agreement, not with any effort to hide from anyone what we…

I say to the Senator, indeed the double accounting problem is one we footnoted. The Senator from Colorado dealt with that earlier. We included it only because it has not been enacted into law. We were not trying to hide anything from…

Proposal 26: Recapture Federal construction project funds from projects which have not commenced within 24 months of appropriations. Any funds appropriated for a Federal construction project that have not been obligated through a binding…

For the record, those other accounts decreased from last year. Those who are looking for sort of an easy way out of the entitlement program need to be alerted to that fact. There is unlikely to be an easy solution to this problem. That…

Counsel has assured me that it will be here within 15 or 20 minutes now. They told me 15 or 20 minutes ago that it would be within a half an hour. I emphasize that our initial understanding was that the rescission bill would come up later…

all the concerns that I had for a heavy-handed approach from the Federal Government have been resolved, I must say. I appreciate very much the Labor Committee's hard work on this, and the administration's hard work on this. I remain…

I do intend, after a considerable amount of deliberation on the subject, to vote for the Goals 2000 proposal of the President. I have some significant reservations but I spoke to a number of the cosponsors of the legislation and I spoke…

As the health care debate heats up during the next several months, we need to be honest with the American people. I have heard several arguments lately that I believe are misleading and do not contribute to an honest debate on health care…