{"database": "openregs", "table": "congressional_record", "rows": [["CREC-2000-12-15-pt1-PgS11841", "2000-12-15", 106, 2, null, null, "RETIREMENT OF SENATOR DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN", "SENATE", "SENATE", "RETIREMENT", "S11841", "S11843", "[{\"name\": \"Carl Levin\", \"role\": \"speaking\"}, {\"name\": \"John Warner\", \"role\": \"speaking\"}, {\"name\": \"Kent Conrad\", \"role\": \"speaking\"}]", null, "146 Cong. Rec. S11841", "Congressional Record, Volume 146 Issue 155 (Friday, December 15, 2000)\n\n[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 155 (Friday, December 15, 2000)]\n[Senate]\n[Pages S11841-S11843]\nFrom the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]\n\n             RETIREMENT OF SENATOR DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN\n\n  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, it saddens me to note that the Senate will\nsoon lose one of its most visionary and accomplished members, a great\nAmerican, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.\n  It boggles the mind just to think of all of the important positions\nthat Pat Moynihan has held, including cabinet or subcabinet posts under\nfour presidents: John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and\nGerald Ford. He served as Ambassador to India in the 1970's and then as\nU.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. He came to the United States\nSenate in 1977 already a scholar, author and public official of great\ndistinction and renown. In the 24 years he has spend here, he has only\ngreatly expanded his enormous reputation and body of work. Pat Moynihan\nis a Senator's Senator. Over the years, he has earned the respect of\nevery member of the Senate.\n  Pat Moynihan is a person who has shown tremendous vision throughout\nhis life. He has shown foresight about the importance of a strong\nfamily and about the importance of strong communities in America. He\nraised the critical important of these basic values and concerns about\nthe deterioration of these family values, long before others. He has\nshown great foresight about our Constitution. One of the highlights for\nme in my service in the Senate was joining Senator Moynihan and Senator\nRobert Byrd in fighting against the line item veto as a violation of\nour Constitution. And, he has shown great foresight about the world and\nthe role of the United States in international affairs. His work at the\nUnited Nations and in the Senate, as a former Chairman of the Senate\nSelect Committee on Intelligence, and as Chairman of the Finance\nCommittee have been marked by his perceptive, analytical, and worldly\nview on trade, foreign policy, and intelligence matters. Long before\nothers, Senator Moynihan was speaking of the economic and ultimately\nmilitary weaknesses of the Soviet Union and predicting its collapse.\n  It is virtually impossible to list all of Pat Moynihan's\naccomplishments in the U.S. Senate. Among the most lasting, however,\nwill be his efforts on behalf of architectural excellence in the\nnation's capital. He was a crucial force behind the return to greatness\nof the Pennsylvania Avenue corridor between the U.S. Capital and the\nWhite House, the restoration of Washington's beautiful, elegant, and\nhistoric Union Station, and the construction of the Thurgood Marshall\nJudiciary Building here on Capitol Hill.\n  The author or editor of eighteen books, Senator Moynihan has been at\nthe forefront of the national debate on issues ranging from welfare\nreform, to tax policy to international relations. His most recent book,\nwritten in 1998, ``Secrecy: The American Experience'' expands on the\nreport of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy\nof which he was the Chairman. This is a fascinating and provocative\nreview of the history of the development of secrecy in the government\nsince World War I and argument for an ``era of openness''.\n  At home in New York, in a state which is known for its rough and\ntumble politics, he has shown leadership again and again, demonstrating\nthe power of intellect and the ability to rise above the fray. That has\nbeen a wonderful contribution not just to New York but to all of\nAmerica.\n  As they leave the Senate family, which will never forget their huge\ncontribution, we salute Pat and Elizabeth Moynihan.\n  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, in the 211-year history of the United\nStates Senate, the State of New York has one of the richest and most\nstoried legacies.\n  Since 1789, New York has sent to the Senate 63 Senators. I have had\nthe distinct privilege of serving with four of them, most memorably,\nSenator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.\n  When the people of New York elected Pat Moynihan to represent them\nnearly 25 years ago, they sent to Washington a uniquely gifted and\ntalented man. Those are the reasons, Senator Moynihan is one of only\ntwo, out of 63 Senators from New York, to have been elected to four\nconsecutive terms in the United States Senate.\n  Senator Moynihan began his service to this nation more than 50 years\nago when he served in the United States Navy from 1944-1947--and he\nnever stopped being ``Mr. Public Servant.'' He served one governor, New\nYork's Averell Harriman, and four United States Presidents: two\nDemocrats, Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and two Republicans,\nPresidents Nixon and Ford.\n  What a record. Pat Moynihan has given more than three quarters of his\nlife to his nation and his state. This country, the United States\nSenate, and New York are joyously thankful.\n  He has been a leader in so many areas that it challenges one to list\nthem all. But his impact on public architecture, monuments for future\ngenerations, are the hallmarks which this quiet gentleman reveres.\n  For over fifteen years now, I have had the privilege of serving with\nPat on the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee. I have been\nfortunate to work closely with him and observe his tireless effort and\ncommitment to maintaining the architectural integrity of our great\npublic institutions.\n  Some 40 years ago, the Kennedy Administration made the decision to\nrevive Pennsylvania Avenue and restore the Federal Triangle. It was an\nextraordinary stroke of fortune that Pat Moynihan, a deputy to Labor\nSecretary Goldberg who played a primary role in the effort, had the\nresponsibility to draft a report that contained core ideas for\nredevelopment. The Federal Triangle, including the Ronald Reagan\nBuilding, and the Judiciary Building--to mention just a few--are\ndramatic evidence of his contributions that will live for years to come\nin the foundation of these magnificent buildings.\n  I cannot resist the temptation to recall that Senator Moynihan was\nfond of noting that it was Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon who\ninitially championed the idea of reviving the Federal Triangle and\nestablishing it as an international trade and cultural center. It took\na man of Pat Moynihan's talent, character and foresight to pick up and\nfinish that vision, started in the early 1930s, in such a grand manner.\n  I would be remiss were I not to take a minute to thank Senator\nMoynihan for his leadership and the personal courtesies he extended to\nme, as he took the initiative to name the departmental auditorium at\nthe Commerce Department building, the Andrew Mellon Auditorium. It\ntruly is a remarkable structure and aptly named.\n  Over 200 years ago, Pierre L'Enfant, as he laid plans for the new\nUnited States capital, could only hope that a man like Senator Moynihan\nwould one day work with such compassion and perseverance to keep alive\nthe true spirit and design envisioned in the original blueprints of\nGeorge Washington's federal city.\n  One of the most rewarding assignments in my own career in public\nservice, has been the opportunity to serve with Senator Moynihan as a\nmember of the Smithsonian's Board of Regents. The talented men and\nwomen who have served on the Board are unquestionably committed to the\narts and preserving this nation's cultural heritage. And I am certain,\nthat all of them who have served with him would agree that Pat\nMoynihan's leadership and guiding wisdom have been indispensable.\n  Beyond the physical monuments to his achievements, I will always\nremember Pat Moynihan for his humor, his intellect, his grace, his\neloquence, and his humility.\n  All of us here, before we cast the first vote, before we discharge\nthe first responsibility, take the oath of office. We solemnly commit\n``to support and defend the constitution. . . .'' ``Against all\nenemies. . . .'' we commit ``to bear true faith and allegiance'' and we\nundertake ``to faithfully discharge'' our duty. Senator Moynihan was a\nman of his word and here in the Senate he has always been true to his\nprinciples and true to his oath.\n  Pat Moynihan has been a giant in the Senate for some time. I only\nhope that the years ahead give him the time he has always wanted to do\nthose things he has never quite had the time to do.\n\n[[Page S11842]]\n\n  The Senate and the nation know Senator Moynihan as a true patriot, a\ngentlemen, and a statesman. His legacy is a remarkable gift we will\nbenefit from for years to come.\n  In closing, I would like to submit for the Record two articles that\nappeared in the Washington Post--one, written by George Will and the\nother by Benjamin Forgery. I ask to have printed in the Record these\narticles, so all citizens can read of the enormous contributions\nSenator Moynihan has made to this institution, his home State of New\nYork, and, indeed, this country.\n  The Nation's Capital--in the words that Navy men and women\nunderstand--bids you a final ``Well done, Sir. We salute you as the\nL'Enfant of this century.''\n  There being no objection, the material ordered to be printed in the\nRecord, as follows:\n\n               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 17, 2000]\n\n                         Farewell, Mr. Moynihan\n\n                          (By George F. Will)\n\n       When this Congress ends, so will one of the broadest and\n     deepest public careers in American history. Daniel Patrick\n     Moynihan--participant in John Kennedy's New Frontier, member\n     of Lyndon Johnson's White House staff, Richard Nixon's\n     domestic policy adviser, Gerald Ford's ambassador to India\n     and the United Nations, four-term senator--will walk from the\n     Senate and political life, leaving both better for his having\n     been in them, and leaving all who observe them berefit of the\n     rare example of a public intellectual's life lived well--\n     adventurously, bravely and leavened by wit.\n       The intellectual polarities of his life have been belief in\n     government's ameliorative powers--and in William Butler\n     Yeats's deflation of expectations for politics:\n       Parnell came down the road, he said to a cheering man:\n       Ireland shall get her freedom and you will still break\n     stone.\n       Having served four presidents, Moynihan wrote that he did\n     not remember ever having heard at a Cabinet meeting ``a\n     serious discussion of political ideas--one concerned with how\n     men, rather than markets, behave.'' Regarding the\n     complexities of behavior, Moynihan has stressed the\n     importance of ethnicity--the Balkans, the Bronx, come to\n     that. Moynihan knew how wrong Marx was in asserting the lost\n     saliency of pre-industrial factors, such as ethnicity and\n     religion, in the modern age.\n       His gift for decorous disruptions was apparent early, when,\n     during a 1965 audience with Pope Paul VI, at a time when the\n     Church was reconsidering its doctrine of the collective guilt\n     of Jews for Christ's crucifixion, Moynihan, a Catholic,\n     shattered protocol by addressing the pope: ``Holy Father, we\n     hope you will not forget our friends the Jews.'' Later, an\n     unsettled member of the audience, the bishop of Chicago,\n     said, ``We need a drink.'' Moynihan said, ``If they're going\n     to behave like a Medieval court, they must expect us to take\n     an opportunity to petition him.''\n       During his U.N. service he decided that U.S. foreign policy\n     elites were ``decent people, utterly unprepared for their\n     work'' because ``they had only one idea, and that was\n     wrong.'' It was that the bad behavior of other nations was\n     usually a reaction to America's worse behavior. He has been a\n     liberal traditionalist, keeper of Woodrow Wilson's crusade\n     for lawful rather than normless dealings among nations.\n       ``Everyone,'' says Moynihan the social scientist, ``is\n     entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts.'' When in\n     1993 the Clinton administration's Goals 2000 asserted that by\n     2000 America's high school graduation rate would be 90\n     percent and American students would lead the world in\n     mathematics and science achievements, Moynihan acidly\n     compared these goals to the old Soviet grain production\n     quotas. Of the projected 2000 outcome, Moynihan said: ``That\n     will not happen.'' It didn't.\n       Moynihan has written much while occupying the dark and\n     bloody ground where social science and policymaking\n     intersect. Knowing that the two institutions that most shape\n     individuals are the family and the state, he knows that when\n     the former weakens, the latter strengthens. And family\n     structure is ``the principal conduit of class structure.''\n     Hence Moynihan's interest in government measures to\n     strengthen families.\n       Moynihan understands that incantations praising minimalist\n     government are America's ``civic religion, avowed but not\n     constraining.'' Government grows because of the ineluctable\n     bargaining process among interest groups that favor\n     government outlays that benefit them. And government grows\n     because knowledge does, and knowledge often grows because of\n     government.\n       Knowledge, says Moynihan, is a form of capital, much of it\n     formed by government investment in education. And knowledge\n     begets government. He says: Behold California's Imperial\n     Valley, unchanged since ``the receding of the Ice Age.'' Only\n     God can make an artichoke, but government--specifically, the\n     Bureau of Reclamation--made the valley a cornucopia. Time\n     was, hospitals' biggest expense was clean linen. Then came\n     technologies--diagnostic, therapeutic, pharmacological--that\n     improved health, increased costs and expanded government.\n       ``Not long ago,'' Moynihan has written, ``it could be\n     agreed that politics was the business of who gets what, when,\n     where, how. It is now more than that. It has become a process\n     that also deliberately seeks to effect such outcomes as who\n     thinks what, who acts when, who lives where, who feels how,''\n     Moynihan appreciates the pertinence of political philosopher\n     Michael Oakshott's cautionary words: ``To try to do something\n     which is inherently impossible is always a corrupting\n     enterprise.''\n       The 14-year-old Moynihan was shining shoes on Central Park\n     West when he heard about Pearl Harbor. In the subsequent six\n     decades he has been more conversant with, and more involved\n     in, more of the nation's transforming controversies than\n     anyone else. Who will do what he has done for the\n     intellectual nutritiousness of public life? The nation is not\n     apt to see his like again, never having seen it before him.\n                                  ____\n\n                [From the Washington Post, Oct. 7, 2000]\n\n                 Moynihan's Legacy Is Written in Stone\n\n                          (By Benjamin Forgey\n\n       Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, on the edge of retirement as\n     the 106th Congress argues its way to a finish, tells the\n     story whenever he feels the audience is right. And why not?\n     It is a true-life Washington legend.\n       Time: Summer 1961. Place: The White House. Scene: A Cabinet\n     meeting with President John F. Kennedy. The nation's chief\n     policymakers are busily deliberating foreign affairs but\n     pause, Moynihan says, ``when the next-most-important issue in\n     government comes up--which, of course, is office space.''\n       That line always gets a laugh. Moynihan knows Washington\n     and knows what people think about Washington--one-liners at\n     the expense of the bureaucracy never miss. But what comes\n     afterward is the true beginning of the legend.\n       The president appoints Labor Secretary Arthur J. Goldberg\n     to co-chair ``something with the unpromising title of Ad Hoc\n     Committee on Federal Office Space.'' To Moynihan, then\n     Goldberg's 34-year-old deputy, falls the duty of finding out\n     exactly how much space is needed, and writing the report.\n       It is far-fetched to imagine a 15-page committee report\n     about government office space having much significance for\n     even 38 minutes after being written. This one, completed in\n     the spring of 1962, has had a far-reaching impact across 38\n     years, for it contained, improbably, the genesis of a plan to\n     redevelop Pennsylvania Avenue.\n       The opportunistic idea was Goldberg's--he had decided to\n     try to do something about the avenue when surveying its\n     fragmented, decaying north side from a slow-moving limousine\n     during Kennedy's inaugural parade. But the brilliant words\n     were Moynihan's.\n       He vividly sketched the ``scene of desolation'' on the\n     northern side, opposite the impressive classic revival\n     buildings of the 1930s Federal Triangle. He sensitively\n     summarized the avenue's history, showing a rare understanding\n     of the crucial role assigned to it in Pierre Charles\n     L'Enfant's 1791 plan--``symbolizing,'' Moynihan wrote, ``at\n     once the separation of powers and the fundamental unity in\n     the American Government.''\n       Above all, Moynihan showed that he understood cities. The\n     avenue's poor state meant that private capital soon would\n     begin the process of tearing down and building anew. The\n     opportunity had arisen, he wrote, ``to design and\n     construct what would, in effect, be a new avenue,'' and\n     the federal government had a historic duty ``to maintain\n     standards of buildings and architecture in the nation's\n     capital.''\n       Moynihan's vision was humane and, for its time,\n     exceptionally urbane. ``Care should be taken,'' he\n     admonished, ``not to line the north side with a solid phalanx\n     of public and private office buildings which close down\n     completely at night and on weekends. . . . Pennsylvania\n     Avenue should be lively, friendly, and inviting, as well as\n     dignified and impressive.''\n       More than any other American politician of the second half\n     of the 20th century, Moynihan has engaged the issue of\n     architecture, urban design and infrastructure. He has used\n     his intellectual prowess, political skills and sheer power to\n     establish meaningful rules, to save historic buildings, to\n     improve federal architecture, to get buildings built.\n     Washington has been the great beneficiary of these\n     involvements--most dramatically on the section of the great\n     boulevard linking the Capitol and the White House.\n       There is a sense in which the rebuilding of Pennsylvania\n     Avenue became Moynihan's destiny. Partly by chance, partly by\n     design, he has been around to persuade, push and prod a\n     vision into reality. And, for the last 10 years, he has been\n     able to watch it happen with his wife, Elizabeth, from their\n     apartment above the Navy Memorial and Market Square, on the\n     avenue between Ninth and Seventh Streets NW.\n       Soon after the report was published, Goldberg was appointed\n     to the Supreme Court. Moynihan thus inherited responsibility\n     for shepherding the avenue dream in the Kennedy\n     administration. He became great pals with Nathaniel Owings,\n     the celebrated architect Kennedy chose to come up with a\n     plan. The pair would walk the avenue in the evenings and talk\n     excitedly of its past and future while sitting, recalls\n     Moynihan, on ``those nice, strong benches next to the\n     National Archives.''\n       Then, after Kennedy was assassinated, Moynihan helped keep\n     the project alive during the Lyndon Johnson presidency--\n     nothing\n\n[[Page S11843]]\n\n     had been built. He had the enthusiastic collaboration of\n     White House counsel Harry McPherson Jr., and an invaluable\n     plug from Jacqueline Kennedy, who ``saved the undertaking in\n     a farewell call on President Johnson,'' Moynihan recalls.\n     Thereafter, he says, Johnson ``took Mrs. Kennedy's wishes as\n     something of a command.''\n       Moynihan admits that, as much as he liked and admired Nat\n     Owings, he did not care for Owings's formidable first plan.\n     It was a ``terrible plan,'' he now says, though he did not\n     say so at the time. The young politician was perhaps a bit in\n     awe of the elder Great Architect--lots of people were. The\n     firm that Owings had started in the 1930s--Skidmore, Owings &\n     Merrill--was by then world-renowned.\n       How flawed was that first plan? Well, typical of its time,\n     it called for massive demolitions--including the National\n     Press Club building and the Willard and Washington hotels.\n     These were to be replaced by an impressively bloated National\n     Square or by massive buildings all in a row.\n       Fortunately, time was not kind to this vision. We can judge\n     how lucky we are by pondering the one building that actually\n     got built: the FBI headquarters, that odd-looking, off-\n     putting giant facing the avenue between Ninth and\n     10th streets NW.\n       It is possible that, even them, Moynihan suspected he was\n     in this for the long haul. As it happened, he left Washington\n     in 1965 but was backed by 1969--shockingly, to his liberal-\n     Democrat colleagues--as top urban affairs adviser to\n     Republican President Richard Nixon.\n       Once again, Moynihan had lots to say about Pennsylvania\n     Avenue. It is no coincidence that during Nixon's first term\n     the avenue plan was given real teeth in the 1972 legislation\n     creating the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corp. And it was\n     a very different, less destructive plan--much more in keeping\n     with Moynihan's original admonishment to be ``lively,\n     friendly and inviting.''\n       Nothing much got build during the '70s, but the PADC was\n     quietly preparing the groundwork. By the time building got\n     started in the early '80s, Moynihan was back in town, this\n     time as a senator from New York. Since then, he has been\n     there tirelessly for the avenue--out front or behind the\n     scenes, in large matters or small.\n       How large? The Ronald Reagan Building and International\n     Trade Center--the big mixed-use federal building at\n     Pennsylvania and 13th Street NW--is one of his enthusiasms.\n     Back in the Kennedy years, Moynihan's Labor Department office\n     in the Federal Triangle had looked out on parking lot of\n     ``surpassing ugliness.'' He never forgot, and that lot is\n     where the Reagan Building stands.\n       How small? Moynihan never forgot, either, that the Ariel\n     Rios Building, at 13th Street, had been left incomplete when\n     work on the Federal Triangle ceased; its brick sidewall was\n     left exposed ``just like an amputated limb,'' in the words of\n     J. Carter Brown, chairman of the federal Commission of Fine\n     Arts. Moynihan, Brown believes, was the ``eminence grise who\n     was able to shake the General Services Administration by the\n     lapels and get that thing finished.''\n       But if in one way or another Moynihan had a hand in\n     practically everything that was built--or saved--on this\n     crucial stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue, he also worked for\n     Washington in other ways. He helped mightily to preserve and\n     find new uses for three of Washington's most notable historic\n     structures--the Old Patent Office (now housing two\n     Smithsonian museums), the Old Post Office (a mixed-use\n     building because of a law Moynihan pushed through) and the\n     Old Pension Building (now the National Building Museum).\n       Just about single-handedly did Moynihan arrange for the\n     construction of the distinguished U.S. Judiciary Building\n     next to Union Station. He was a crucial negotiator in the\n     brilliant deal by which New York and Washington each get a\n     share of the National Museum of the American Indian. Moynihan\n     fought to get cars off Frederick Law Olmsted's Capitol\n     grounds. He continues to wage an enlightened campaign for\n     reasonableness about security in federal buildings. The list\n     could go on.\n       Of course, it isn't simply Washington that has benefited.\n     As might be expected, Moynihan's own state has profited\n     immensely as well.\n       The new Penn Station--a complex, ongoing project involving\n     federal, state and city bureaucracies and private\n     enterprise--is just the latest of dozens of important\n     examples. There's much talk of calling it ``Moynihan\n     Station'' because he was its ``guiding light and soul,'' says\n     chief architect David Childs.\n       Nor is it just Washington and New York. It is the nation.\n     Two examples of many: The Intermodal Surface Transportation\n     and Efficiency Act of 1991 and its successor, the\n     Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (``Ice Tea''\n     and ``Tea 21'' for short), are Moynihan bills through and\n     through and through. By encouraging mass transit and\n     loosening the highway lobby's decades-old stranglehold on the\n     nation's transportation policy, these laws do the country an\n     estimable service.\n       And then there are his ``Guiding Principles of Federal\n     Architecture.'' They are straightforward and smart: There\n     should be no official style; the architecture should embody\n     the ``finest contemporary American architectural thought.''\n     Regional characteristics should be kept in mind. Sites should\n     be selected with care. Landscape architecture also is\n     important.\n       The principles take us back to that committee report of 38\n     years ago. Nobody asked for a Pennsylvania Avenue plan and no\n     one asked for architectural guidelines. Moynihan simply\n     invented them and attached them to the report, and they have\n     functioned as a beacon for high-quality federal architecture\n     ever since.\n       Moynihan's act is almost impossible to follow. In the\n     phrase of Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon), another\n     architecture fan, Moynihan possesses ``a bundle of\n     qualities'' seldom found in a single politician: a good eye,\n     a first-rate mind, a passion for the subject, lots of power,\n     long experience, a certain flamboyance, a canny sense of\n     timing.\n       Nor is there likely to be another politician alive whose\n     favorite quotation is Thomas Jefferson's statement: ``Design\n     activity and political thought are indivisible.''\n\n  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, today, I wish to pay tribute to the very\ndistinguished Senator from New York, who will be retiring at the end of\nthis Congressional session.\n  Senator Moynihan, as his recent biography makes clear, has been an\nintellectual giant in the Senate and throughout his service to our\nnation. The breadth of his interests--and his knowledge--is\nextraordinary. From questions about the architecture and urban\ndevelopment of Washington, D.C. to the problems created by single\nparent families to the workings of the International Labor\nOrganization, Senator Moynihan has thought deeply and designed policy\nanswers. I don't think there's a Senator who hasn't learned something\nfrom Senator Moynihan's vast stock of personal experience,\nunderstanding of history, and ability to draw parallels between\nseemingly unrelated topics to enlighten our understanding of both.\n  I have had the particular pleasure of serving with Senator Moynihan\non the Finance Committee for eight years. As Chairman and as ranking\nmember of the Finance Committee, Senator Moynihan has been a true\nleader. Starting in 1993, when I took Senator Bentsen's seat on the\nCommittee and Senator Moynihan claimed his chairmanship, Chairman\nMoynihan successfully guided the 1993 economic plan through the\ncommittee and the Senate. That budget, which I was proud to help shape\nand support, laid the foundation for our current record economic\nexpansion. That same year, we worked together to expose the\nshortcomings of the North American Free Trade Agreement.\n  After Republicans took control of the Senate in the 1994 election,\nSenator Moynihan was a fierce critic of their excessive budget\nproposals. We joined in opposing shortsighted proposals to have\nMedicare ``wither on the vine,'' turn Medicaid into a block grant, and\ndestroy welfare rather than reforming it. Senator Moynihan was, as\nalways, an especially passionate defender of teaching hospitals,\nwarning that the plan to slash spending for Medicare's graduate medical\neducation would threaten medical research in this country--a fear that\nhas proved well-founded as teaching hospitals have struggled to survive\nthe much smaller changes enacted as part of the compromise Balanced\nBudget Act that emerged in 1997.\n  The Finance Committee--and the Senate--will not be the same without\nhim. Who else will be able to gently tutor witnesses on the importance\nof the grain trade in upstate New York in the early nineteenth century\nto a current debate about health care policy? Who else will call for\nthe Boskin and Secrecy Commissions of the future? And who else will\neducate his colleagues on the inequitable distribution of federal\nspending and taxation among the various states?\n  Mr. President, I will miss Pat Moynihan. But I have no doubt that he\nwill continue to be part of the debate. As Senator Moynihan retires to\nhis beloved farm in upstate New York, I join my colleagues in looking\nforward to more and more insightful treaties on new and complicated\npolicy issues.\n\n                          ____________________"]], "columns": ["granule_id", "date", "congress", "session", "volume", "issue", "title", "chamber", "granule_class", "sub_granule_class", "page_start", "page_end", "speakers", "bills", "citation", "full_text"], "primary_keys": ["granule_id"], "primary_key_values": ["CREC-2000-12-15-pt1-PgS11841"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.4028670955449343, "source": "Federal Register API & Regulations.gov API", "source_url": "https://www.federalregister.gov/developers/api/v1", "license": "Public Domain (U.S. Government data)", "license_url": "https://www.regulations.gov/faq"}