He points out that we are now ready to act as a country. He finds this unique, and it is a special time, and the time to do it is right now.

He says there are two things that reflect the fact that he thinks we are ready to act. The first is sufficient congressional support, and that has already been achieved, he says. And the second is a prerequisite of popular consensus. Looking at the United States from England, he is determined that is the case, and he is a very astute fellow. Like de Tocqueville , maybe he has a better sense of where we are historically than we have ourselves.

Congress is ready for reform, and so are the people. But history shows that neither means much without a dedicated leader.

I am quoting here:

Normally, one would expect such leadership to come from the President. In the past, the White House has shown a much greater concern for financial probity than Capitol Hill. When Congress passed Mr. Clinton's deficit reduction package during his first year in office, it did so with hardly a vote to spare in both Houses. But Mr. Clinton is not a leader, though he can sometimes be persuaded that it is in his interest to be an energetic follower. No leadership will have to come--

From the Congress. That is paraphrasing, `the Congress.' He uses another phrase.

The fact is that we as a Congress have the obligation to do this now. We have the obligation to step up and put forth and present, as we have in the past, the budget resolution to come to a balance.

I want to congratulate again Senator Domenici for having done that, and I believe fervently in doing this we will also reform fundamentally the Medicare system so that it will be solvent, and so that our senior citizens will be assured of first-class health care insurance--not for the next 7 years, but for as far as the eye can see.

I yield the floor.

[Page: S7046]

Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.

Mr. EXON. I yield such time to myself as I may need.

Mr. President, I have been listening with keen interest, of course, to this entire debate which we started last week and again this morning. The same theme keeps coming through time and time again.

Once again, I would like to correct the impression that my friends on that side of the aisle seem to be giving, or not giving, depending upon your point of view, to what is the majority opinion of those of us on this side of the aisle.

Listening to the rhetoric from the Republican side, you would tend to believe that we were against any balanced budget; that we do not want to be players in the game; that we simply do not seem to realize that the Republicans have stepped up to the plate, and they have by bringing forth a resolution that I agree took some courage. I have said that time and time again in the Budget Committee and on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

The problem that I have with the spin that the Republicans are trying to give to this entire proposition is that they and they only are the only ones that care about balancing the budget of the United States of America. I think the record clearly shows that there are many of us on this side who have been trying to do that for a long, long time and we are simply trying to make some improvements, some improvements, some fine tuning, some minor surgery, if you will, with regard to the document that has been presented to us by the majority through the might and power of the majority in the Congress of the United States.

I, therefore, emphasize once again--let me make this statement that I do not think has been made before, and I do not propose to speak for all on this side of the aisle--that I believe that the Republican steamroller, the Republican majority has rejected every one of even the minor changes that we offered in the Budget Committee, and have every indication of saying no, no, no to anything that we even suggest here. They might be surprised if they would simply realize and recognize what we are constructively trying to do on this side of the aisle despite their protestations to the contrary.