A resolution honoring President Ronald Wilson Reagan.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I would feel really bad if I didn't take a few moments to speak about my friend, Ron Reagan. I, as much as anybody in this body, revered him, respected him, and loved him.

When I was running back in 1976, I filed literally on the last day, May 10. I had zero name recognition except among the legal community and among my initial church community. But it was zero in the public polls. I ran through the preconvention, the convention, and came out second in the convention, which enabled me to force a primary, and through the primary on $35,000, $18,000 of which was my own, which was a lot of money then back in 1976. I was about 9 points ahead and pulling away at that time against the favored in the race--the Republican Party favorite and the favorite of most of the delegates of the State convention. But he had spent about $150,000, and he was starting to slip. I was starting to pull ahead by about 9 points, according to the polls.

Since I was the first to come out for Ronald Reagan in that race at that particular time in Utah as a candidate, we decided to ask Ronald Reagan if he would pre-primary endorse me in my race for the U.S. Senate.

I have to say when I called it didn't take them long, recognizing my friendship and my support for the first time in his political career, as far as I know--at least that is what I was told by those who were running his campaign, that he was going to pre-primary endorse me, and he did. By that time I was probably known by about 60 to 65 percent of the people in Utah.

After the endorsement, I won the primary. I probably would have won the primary between 10 or 15 percentage points. But after his endorsement, I won the primary 2 to 1, and I was known by, I believe, well over 95 percent of my fellow constituents in Utah.

I went to 36 States for Ronald Reagan as one of his major surrogates. I went to New Hampshire, and I was Nancy Reagan's date that night as I spoke for Ronald Reagan in the cattle call. That is what it was called in New Hampshire.

In 1980, I gave the keynote address at Plains High School, Jimmy Carter's own high school in Plains, GA, before 2,000 people.

I did everything in my power to elect Ronald Reagan. We had a friendship that transcended the usual friendships that are lovely and wonderful around here but nevertheless usually don't rise to the level that his friendship for me and mine for him really rose to.

I truly love Ronald Reagan. I know what a great President he was. I know he did bring down the Iron Curtain, that he was the primary mover and articulator of the themes that actually ended the cold war.

Most scholars will now say there are four reasons why Reagan was able to win the cold war: No. 1, his military buildup; he put too much pressure on the Soviets; No. 2, the placing of the Pershing II missiles in Europe, which was a very gutsy thing to do at the time, and highly criticized; No. 3 was the threat to build SDI, the Space Defense Initiative, and the Soviets knew we could do it; and, No. 4 was a placing of the Stinger missiles Afghanistan. I was here through all of those times.

I honor this great President, and I honor his dear wife who has been a wonderful wife and supporter, who I know deeply, who has been an advocate for so many things that are right, and especially in later times. Embryonic stem cell research--she is right on that

issue, and I support her. I honor both of them this day.

I join my colleagues, millions of Americans, and indeed countless more around the world in mourning the loss of the greatest American President of the 20th century, President Ronald Wilson Reagan.

After suffering nearly a decade, our beloved President died this weekend. I join those in this body here today in sending our condolences to Mrs. Reagan and their entire family.

It is hard to imagine any American alive who has not been touched by the legacy of Ronald Reagan. Even those born after he left office in 1989 have benefited from his selfless service, as they grew up in an era of unprecedented global freedom, a result of the end of the cold war brought on by President Reagan's bold vision of this country and our faithful mission in the world.

Certainly, I was touched by the life of President Reagan.

Perhaps I might not be here today were it not for the invigorating support of this great leader, whose endorsement of my candidacy in my first Senate run was certainly instrumental in my service to the people of Utah.

I was pleased and honored to return the favor at every opportunity-- and, in 1980 and 1984, I campaigned for Ronald Reagan in almost every State of the Union.

Let no one believe that this repaid my debt, political or personal, to this great man--because I believe I will remain in his debt as long as I live, and so will our country.

President Reagan was both political mentor and inspiration to me as a young Senator.

We both started as Democrats.

We were inspired by our country's bold international leadership and sacrifice during World War II, under a Democratic president.

Yet we both saw the political landscape shift early in our adult lives.

We both grew dismayed at our country's direction, as citizens lost faith, lost optimism and lost the dynamism that once made this land great.

At the same time, we both grew to appreciate the principles of the Republican Party, where individual initiative and personal freedom are enshrined, and where the fight against international communism took a backseat to no other foreign policy.

When I came to the Senate in 1977, our country was still fresh from the defeat symbolized by communist tanks crashing into Saigon in 1975.

By the time Ronald Reagan became President, the defeat in 1975 had been interpreted by our global nemesis, the Soviet Union, as a weakness in American resolve; it inspired the Soviets to proxy adventures in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

As the liberal elites of the 1970s denounced and disparaged our international sacrifices of the past decade, as it became commonplace to equate the use of American force with the encroachments of communist tyranny, America became uncertain of itself and turned inward.

It was not our finest moment.

Our late colleague, Senator Moynihan, once remarked, ``the central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.''

In the 1970s, liberal culture had brought this country to a period of social decline and international withdrawal.

As communist tyranny gained around the world, drug use here reached an all-time high.

The economy of the most productive nation in the world was unraveling with high taxes and higher inflation.

Our sense of mission was gone; our belief in our natural strengths and goodness receded.

One of the things I loved the most about Ronald Reagan was that he recognized his duty to lead a conservative movement back into the political majority; by so doing he declared that we would never concede to cultural decline.

Reagan's victory in 1980 put an end to this malaise and changed our country forever.

Originally from the Midwest, Reagan moved to California and found his talent in the industry of American dreams, showing our country that an American everyman could be a star.

Many scorned Reagan the actor for seeking political office.

But, once again, he showed them wrong. He won our hearts as a President--as he had as an actor--showing us all that a man well- practiced in the arts of both heart and mind could be a perfect leader for a nation which had lost its sense of imagination.

Only in America could a man from the middle class, from the middle of the country, rise to become the greatest American leader of the 20th century.

Ronald Wilson Reagan achieved this by appealing to the essential American values in all of us--the values of individualism and enterprise, initiative and optimism, charity and sacrifice. And he restored those values in our country's policies.

Many misjudged Reagan. Many underestimated him. Many confused a man of simple beliefs with a simple man.

Those of us who knew him well recognized Reagan as a man of deep convictions. Deft of wit, he always deflected a tough moment with humor. But, under it all, a gravity of purpose shone through.

What I came to admire in Ronald Reagan was his core belief that government could lead society, but not build society. He recognized that government's most important economic role was to foster American innovation and industry. And his policies followed that principle.

In foreign policy, he knew that communism was an abominable scourge on the face of the planet. He eagerly tackled that challenge as he had most obstacles in his life, and in so doing left a legacy unparalleled by any American leader.

Who can forget his momentous call, ``Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that Wall?''

And who can forget watching as the wall fell just 2 years later?

In the most fundamental way, President Ronald Reagan inspired us all to believe in our great nation, and what it could do to help its people lead better lives.

As a junior Senator, I watched President Reagan take office, facing his first challenge: an economy misfiring on all cylinders, mired in the mud of inflation, high taxes and bureaucracy.

With a strong voice of optimism, President Reagan unfurled an ambitious plan to rejuvenate the economy and lead the nation to economic recovery.

I remember how excited we were to see his bold plan, the change in direction that our new President charted.

He led us to pass the landmark Economic Recovery and Tax Act, including the Kemp-Roth personal income tax cuts of 25 percent over three years.

This major initiative stimulated the economy by providing for accelerated depreciation deductions and an investment credit.

It also enhanced the retirement of millions of Americans by introducing Individual Retirement Accounts.

And perhaps most significantly, it indexed income tax brackets to inflation, limiting this punishing form of spending growth.

The result? The economic boom in the 1980s.

Inflation dropped from 13.5 percent in 1980 to 3.2 percent in 1983.

By 1986, the fourth year of the tax cuts, economic growth had increased a cumulative 18 percent.

And, when Ronald Reagan left office in January 1989, more than 18 million jobs had been created.

Some have criticized the Reagan era as years of profligate spending and an irresponsible increase in the federal deficit.

However, only in 1 year, 1983, did either personal income tax collections or total receipts go down from the previous year. It is true that the budget deficit did increase during the Reagan presidency, but this was clearly due to large increases in spending, not because of the Reagan tax cuts, without which we would not likely have had the increase in prosperity most Americans enjoyed.

President Reagan also led the way for Congress to approve the landmark 1986 Tax Reform Act.

Despite the naysaying of critics, President Reagan did it again. The 1986 Act lowered the top marginal income tax rate from 50 percent to just 28 percent. Also, it reduced the number of tax brackets from 14 to just 2.

While I did not support some of the provision in the final product of the 1986 Act, particularly some of the drastic changes in depreciation, which I believed would help contribute to a crisis in real estate and the savings and loan industry, the Act itself with its simplification and lower tax rates was a major accomplishment.

The fact that subsequent presidents and Congresses have reversed the gains made in terms of simplicity does not take away from the monumental victory that President Reagan scored by his leadership of the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

Throughout the Reagan era, I had the privilege of serving on the Labor and Human Resources Committee, much of it as chairman. I worked closely with the President and his staff on issues related to public health and welfare issues showcasing the President' compassion and dedication to improving the quality of life of all Americans.

The country was still in a major recession, and we worked to pass the Job Training Partnership Act. This legislation changed the emphasis of job assistance from providing government jobs to unemployed workers to providing them job training which would help unemployed find jobs in the private sector.

The President's initiatives often focused on releasing decision- making initiatives from an old federal bureaucracy, as with the innovative health block grants that returned decision-making to the states, providing them with the resources and flexibility to deliver preventive services, maternal and child health care, and mental health services in a totally new model.

As chairman of the committee, I was criticized for putting this legislation through. But we are vindicated when the General Accounting Office reviewed these initiatives several years after their creation, it included that they were successful, and provided a more efficient way to address the health needs of America's diverse population.

I also remember how strongly the Reagan administration supported biomedical research, a love for and appreciation of the power of scientific inquiry Mrs. Reagan carries forward to this day.

Other key accomplishments under President Reagan's tenure were significant Food and Drug Administration legislation, such as the Orphan Drug Act, the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Resolution Act, the National Organ Transplantation Act, pediatric emergency medical services, vaccine compensation, tobacco warning labels, and the national practitioner data bank.

How well I remember the battle President Reagan waged to seat C. Everett Koop as the Surgeon General.

Again recognizing that the country needed inspired leadership more than bureaucracy, President Reagan informed us that he wanted to nominate C. Everette Koop to be the Surgeon General.

Many balked, citing Dr. Koop's age--65--as a barrier. The Public Health Service Act limited the age of PHS Commission Corps officers to 64\1/2\.

But our President, himself past that age, recognized the superior leadership skills of Dr. Koop.

It was a long battle, but one which one which had to be fought. Dr. Koop defined the modern-day role of Surgeon General, and today is revered by all, Democrats and Republicans alike, for his independent minded advocacy of public health, from AIDS awareness and prevention to anti-tobacco initiatives.

I would be remiss if I didn't highlight President Reagan's other significant healthcare accomplishment.

As we know, the use of illegal drugs had hit a historic high in the late 1970s.

Again, President Reagan recognized that government needed to find new ways to address this social blight. He proposed and we legislated the creation of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which has taken the leadership role in anti-drug policy ever since.

Once again, however, the President recognized that leadership was as much in the message as in the bureaucracy.

His beloved First Lady introduced the ``Just Say No'' campaign, a flat rebuttal to an ingrown acceptance of drug use in our society.

Derided by some elites, this program of declaring unequivocally the unacceptable use of illegal drugs has become a foundation of all subsequent drug use.

No one suggests--then or now--that the problem of drug use is simple, and that prevention and treatment policies can be cauterized from interdiction policies.

But no one suggests, after years of confirming studies, that a drug policy can be effective absent a strong component of social rhetoric.

I loved President Reagan, and I loved his personal style of leadership.

But I loved even more his undying love and affection for one of the classiest first ladies this country has come to know.

Nancy Reagan's quiet support of her husband, so evident in all his successes, is often overlooked, as is her courage in leading the ``Just Say No'' campaign.

I remember as if it were today when President Reagan signed the 1986 drug law, the one that created the Office of the drug Czar and gave added resources to prevention and treatment.

I was standing behind the President when he signed the bill. He said with that special twinkle in his eye, ``I am going to give this pen to the women who has crusaded to end drug use in this country.''

With that, he walked past expectant advocates and lawmakers straight to his wife Nancy, and presented her with the pen.

Some focus on President Reagan's talents as an actor and image-maker. Yet I have never known a more authentic man.

And when he concluded that AIDS was a challenge to the public health that was reaching emergency proportions, he declared this as national policy.

At the time, some criticized his administration. They wanted him to act sooner. They wanted more money. They wanted more research.

But what I remember was a compassionate man, who recognized that we needed to build the research infrastructure to make effective use of new funding.

While the HIV virus was not identified until 1983, the Reagan administration invested close to $6 billion in fighting the disease by the end of his term in 1989. Once the President recognized the challenge, he radically increased the response of the government, and the breakthroughs with retroviral medicines in the 1990s would simply have not occurred were it not for those investments.

We all know that one of a President's greatest legacies is his nominations to the third branch of government.

In appointing more judges than any president in American history, President Reagan's judicial legacy can be seen on two levels.

First, he described, in both principled and practical terms, the kind of judge America needs.

We had seen decades of judicial activism, through which judges took more and more control over the policies governing the country and the culture in which Americans lived.

President Reagan came into office not just saying judges were going too far, but explaining why. He refocused Americans on the principles America's founders laid down at the dawn of the Republic: the people, through their elected representatives, decide how they wish to be governed and make the law to do so. Judges can only interpret and apply that law, they cannot make or change it.

Implementing those basic principles, President Reagan shaped the judiciary by the individuals he nominated and appointed. He appointed some of the legal academy's best minds to the U.S. Court of Appeals-- such as Ralph Winter to the Second Circuit, Frank Easterbrook and Richard Posner to the Seventh Circuit, and of course Robert Bork to the District of Columbia Circuit.

I served on the Judiciary Committee during those years, seeing first hand the depth and breadth and quality of President Reagan's nominees.

America's founders insisted that this separation of powers, this restriction on judicial power, was absolutely critical for the freedom that self-government under a written constitution makes possible.

For some whose agenda the people do not favor, however, a judiciary that won't make law means their preferred law just won't get made. And they

fought President Reagan's nominees with increasingly intensity.

The first cloture vote ever taken on an appeals court nominee, for example, occurred during President Reagan's first term, and the confirmation process changed entirely in his second.

The seeds sown then have borne fruit today in the filibusters being used against President Bush's nominees. But the issue remains the same, whether unelected federal judges may take over from the people the business of making law and defining the culture.

President Reagan's record of judicial appointments is certainly a profound legacy. He truly blazed a trail on this issue and, through his leadership, Americans now know more about how appointing the right kind of judge is so important to protect their freedom.

Many believe that President Reagan's lasting legacy will be his successful leadership during the last stage of the cold war.

Ronald Reagan's tenure began at what was our lowest point in the cold war. The loss in Vietnam and the Watergate debacle led to a withdrawal from our global policy of containment. The Soviets filled the gap, and their proxies gained around the globe.

Emboldened, the Soviet Union engaged in its most extensive military expansion in that dictatorships history; during the 1970s, the Soviets expanded their nuclear missile arsenals as well as their conventional arsenals in virtually every armament category. At the end of the 1970s, the previous president as left shame-faced, following the invasion of Afghanistan, declaring his ``surprise'' at Soviet behavior.

President Reagan came to office dedicated to redressing the military balance and engaging the Cold War.

His administration saw the largest peace-time growth of military spending in modern American history. That escalation combined American resolve with American ingenuity, and this was no more evident than in President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative.

The President rejected conventional deterrence doctrine when he stated, ``We must seek other means of deterring war. It is both militarily and morally necessary . . . I propose to channel our technological prowess toward building a more secure and stable world . . . Our only purpose is to search for ways to reduce the danger of nuclear war.''

What President Reagan imagined, when he stated this back in 1984, is slowly coming to be, 20 years later. We have moved too slowly, but not because we lacked in vision.

President Reagan was willing to challenge the Soviets diplomatically, militarily and by proxy. He was unabashed in declaring that regime an ``evil empire''. Who today denies the inherent evil of the gulag?

He was bold in responding to the emplacement of Soviet SS-20s in occupied Europe with Pershing's in Germany. Who today denies that this didn't signal to the Soviets our new-found resolution to combat them geopolitically?

Ronald Reagan rejected the so-called ``Vietnam syndrome'' long before our victory in the first Gulf War allowed Americans to believe in the justice of our use of force. He knew that the U.S. had a role in the world, that the use of American force was not immoral and that the U.S. could do good for the world.

This military escalation challenged the Soviet leadership and ultimately bankrupted its coffers. The decision to roll-back directly challenged and refuted the fundamental ideological tenet of communism, that it would prevail as an inexorable law of history.

This perverted notion was based, of course, on the acceptance that the highest stage of history would be rest on imprisoning nations and extinguishing history.

Reagan knew in his heart that this was the greatest falsehood perpetrated on modern history and he built his foreign policy--the Reagan Doctrine--on the idea of rolling back this ideology, this tyrannical power, and tearing down the walls that kept its citizens imprisoned.

Ronald Reagan did not accept the status quo.

He did not accept a static geopolitical division of the world between the free nations and the captive nations of the evil empire.

He and his allies--and I will be proud to my dying day to have considered myself one of his allies--believed that we could roll back communism, on the ground, and in the minds of people.

Ronald Reagan went to England in 1983, before the leftist Oxford Union, and announced the creation of what would become the National Endowment for Democracy, which would support programs around the world fostering democratic principles and practices.

Last year, on the 20th anniversary of this bold initiative, President Bush announced a major push by the NED into the Arab world.

Democracy remains relevant after it has triumphed over communist tyranny.

But for democracy to succeed, people striving to break the yoke of tyranny had to have a friend in the United States. Ronald Reagan did not limit his friendship to diplomacy and military posturing.

A key aspect of the Reagan legacy was the Reagan Doctrine's policy of support for anti-communist movements around the world. We supported Solidarity in Poland, using the International Labor Organization.

We supported the resistance in Nicaragua--and the wars over that policy were sometimes almost as intense here on Capitol Hill.

And we supported the Afghan resistance.

We've had democracy in Poland for over a decade, and Poland is the shining example of the New Europe, a country whose government and soldiers have bravely and proudly served besides ours in Iraq.

Nicaragua has also had democratic elections over the past decade.

And while the Iran-Contra episode was a policy debacle, I remain proud of my service in this Senate during that investigation, as I remain unflinching in my belief that it was right to help Nicaraguans resist the tyranny and thuggery of the Sandinistas.

And our support for the Afghan resistance led to the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, dealing the Soviet Union a military, financial and psychological blow from which it would never recuperate. This blow created a major fissure in the notion of communist inevitability that, many of us believe, would lead to the crumbling of the Soviet empire.

Many are quick to disparage that policy, because of what arose from the tumult of the Afghan resistance and the rise of the Taliban. We made mistakes in implementing the policy, we now see, primarily having to do with recruiting Saudi participation and relying on Pakistani management of arms flows.

But our biggest mistake was abandoning Afghanistan after the collapse of the Soviet puppet regime, leaving that poor country an orphan child of the cold war. But we made no mistake in contributing to a devastating Soviet defeat, a defeat that brought about the end of the cold war.

When Ronald Reagan left office, this country had been transformed.

Malaise was not associated with the American economy, nor the American spirit.

Optimism, that personal trait of Ronald Reagan, was what characterized our standing in the world, our economy, and our belief in ourselves.

Reagan, a child of the Midwest who understood mythically the role of the western frontier in the American psyche, left us looking to the horizon, to the future.

Ronald Reagan was a humble man, who left office gladly, having served his term, but who never stopped loving the American people.

It was such love that led to one of the most moving letters to the American public ever written in our history, the letter he wrote on November 5, 1994, announcing that he was slowly succumbing to Alzheimer's Disease.

This is a horrible disease, as so many American families know.

My colleagues in the Senate know that, after much soul-searching and study, I have become a strong proponent of embryonic stem cell research, because of the promise it offers for treatment of some of the most wrenching illnesses Americans face today, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinsons and juvenile diabetes.

President Reagan's widow, my dear friend Nancy, knows that I will remain dedicated to supporting this research through all my days in the Senate.

Even though retired and enjoying the privacy that was always important for

him and his family, President Reagan wrote on November 5, 1994 one of the bravest and most moving letters in American history.

He said:

Upon learning this news, Nancy and I had to decide whether

as private citizens we would keep this a private matter or

whether we would make this news known in a public way. So

now, we feel it is important to share it with you. In opening

our hearts, we hope this might promote greater awareness of

this condition. Perhaps it will encourage a clearer

understanding of the individuals and families who are

affected by it.

After speaking of the burdens he knew his long illness had in store-- not for him, but for his beloved Nancy, he thanked his fellow Americans. He said:

Let me thank you, the American people, for giving me the

great honor of allowing me to serve as your President. When

the Lord calls me home, whenever that may be, I will leave

with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal

optimism for its future.

I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset

of my life. I know that for America there will always be a

bright dawn ahead.

These are the virtuous and loving words of a patriot, of a brave and humble man, of a man who lived every day in the belief that our best days lie ahead. It is America that pauses this week, and I thank God for the gift of the greatest American president of the twentieth century, Ronald Reagan.

We have lost a great American.

I think it is fitting to quote another great American, Daniel Webster who spoke so eloquently about the passing of two other Presidents, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Webster's words were never more true than today:

A superior and commanding human intellect, a truly great

man, when Heaven vouchsafes so rare a gift, is not a

temporary flame, burning brightly for a while, and then

giving place to returning darkness. It is rather a spark of

fervent heat, as well as radiant light, with power to

enkindle the common mass of human kind; so that when it

glimmers in its own decay, and finally goes out in death, no

night follows, but it leaves the world all light, all on fire

from the potent contact of its own spirit.

I pray that America will always be alight with the spirit of Ronald Reagan.

Mr. President, on behalf of the leader, I ask unanimous consent that following the scheduled vote, the Senate proceed to a second resolution, which is at the desk, and further that the resolution and preamble be agreed to, with the motion to reconsider laid upon the table.

Mr. President, it is an honor for me to join the Senate in honoring the memory and celebrating the life of Ronald Reagan. I want to say, first of all, how much I have appreciated the eloquence and the personal memories that have been offered on the Senate floor and in public by those who knew and remembered President Reagan. I, of course, remember him. I didn't know him personally.

I also want to say how much especially I have appreciated the grace and the charity shown to the former President by those here who were, when he was in office, his political opponents. I think it is a great testimony to their charity of spirit that they have done so and also a comment on how our system operates in times such as this. We can remember and appreciate a person for his good qualities without necessarily having to retreat from any disagreements we may have had with that person over political issues.

I am reminded of what Winston Churchill said on a similar occasion when he was offering remembrances of a colleague who had died, with whom he had had many differences. He said:

The fierce and bitter controversies which hung around him

in recent times were hushed by the news of his illness and

are silenced by his death. In paying a tribute of respect and

of regard to an eminent man who has been taken from us, no

one is obliged to alter the opinions which he has formed or

expressed upon issues which have become a part of history;

but at the Lychgate, we may all pass our own conduct and our

own judgments under a searching review. It's not given to

human beings, happily for them for otherwise life would be

intolerable, to foresee or to predict to any large extent the

unfolding course of events. In one phase men seem to have

been right, in another they seem to have been wrong. Then

again, a few years later, when the perspective of time has

lengthened, all stands in a different setting. There is a new

proportion. There is another scale of values. History with

its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past,

trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and

kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days. What is

the worth of all

this? The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only

shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his

actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without

this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of

our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with

this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in

the ranks of honour.

I stand here for a few minutes to remember a man who always marched in the ranks of honor and whose shield was the sincerity and rectitude of his actions at all times. He was not a mentor, because I did not know him personally, but he was a hero of mine.

Much has been said in the last few days about his humor and amiability. I agree that was a very important part of Ronald Reagan, of who he was and of his success. When I think of him, when I visualize him, I visualize him smiling, telling a joke, or offering some witticism or some piece of humor. I think that was a big part of his success.

It is important not to take yourself too seriously. That is a quality that often is lacking in this town. I think I can say that without being deemed uncharitable. But it was not a quality that was lacking in Ronald Reagan. He thought deeply about issues. He thought deeply about the country. I think people underestimated, to some extent, how deeply he thought and understood what was going on. He never pretended to know everything. I think that helped him a lot in his Presidency.

We should also remember President Reagan, however, not just for his qualities and his personality, but also for what he believed. He thought ideas were important, and he was right. I remember George Will said a few years ago--and I am paraphrasing him; he probably said it more eloquently than this--but the gist of his remarks was, the collapse of the Soviet Union proves that ideas not only have consequences, but that maybe only ideas have consequences.

President Reagan's friends and opponents have sometimes characterized his political philosophy as being an anti-Government philosophy or a simplistic belief in making Government smaller whatever the circumstances the country was confronting. I do not think that is correct. I think at best it is oversimplistic.

President Reagan understood that the issue of our time during his Presidency and the issue of our time now, I suggest, is not whether Government is going to be big or small, certainly in an absolute sense and often in a relative sense as well, but whether the Government, in doing whatever functions we believe it ought to do, will consistently respect the values and institutions of private life.

It is not a question of whether Government is important, because it is; it is a question of whether the Government believes it is more important than the private society and culture and people it is governing. That is where President Reagan drew the consistent line of his philosophy in his public life. His faith was in what the American people had built and have built and are continuing to build on their own, and in the associations and networks of private life that give life meaning, that give people a chance for happiness and opportunity. He believed in what people build in their families, in their small businesses, in their local schools, in their voluntary associations and organizations, in their churches, synagogues, and temples. He believed in the great traditions of American culture. He knew those traditions and the institutions that represent them grow and evolve organically over time and that they represent the wisdom of many generations of people about how we ought to live in our society so that we can have the maximum amount of justice and freedom and opportunity for all of our people.

What he wanted was for the Government to be vigorous in the areas it was supposed to operate but to respect those institutions rather than trying to overthrow them.

He said once in 1970:

It is not my intention to do away with government. It is

rather to make it work--work with us, not over us; stand by

our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must

provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not

stifle it.

I remember a few years ago when we were debating welfare reform in the Congress--and I was in the House at the time--a key point in that debate was when the Congress decided collectively that we were not talking about whether we were going to try in some sense to get rid of the welfare system. We were not going to retreat from the impulse of the 1960s to help people who were in poverty get out of poverty.

What we wanted, however, was a system that tried to do that in a way that respected and upheld the values that generations and generations of Americans have relied on to move up the economic ladder. We wanted a system that instead of punishing work, encouraged and required it. We wanted a system that instead of providing incentives against marriage, encouraged marriage and talked about its importance. We wanted a system that did not uproot neighborhoods and neighborhood institutions, that did not sweep them aside in the name of an all powerful and prescriptive government, but rather a system that helped build up again the vital parts of neighborhoods.

The reason that bill has been so successful, the reason it was supported by a vast majority in both Houses, and why it has been successful all over the country is not because it represented, I submit, a retreat by the Government from its commitment to helping people achieve the American dream, but rather because it represented a conscious commitment by the Government to work with the values of Americans, to respect those values and not to uproot them.

There is no question where President Reagan would have been in that fight, where he was in that fight, because the seeds of welfare reform were planted during his administration.

I am not going to go on. There are others who wish to speak. I thank the Senator from Florida for allowing me to go out of order because we try to go back and forth on both sides of the aisle.

Let me close with one of my favorite quotes from President Reagan. We are all doing that. It is from his second Inaugural Address in January 1985, and many have commented on President Reagan's optimism about America, how he was optimistic about America because he not only believed in those values and the institutions that represented them, but he had a tremendous faith in their power. I think he knew we were going to triumph over the Soviet Union in the cold war because he knew what we believed in was right, was powerful, and was good, and he was not afraid to state it in those terms.

Here is an example of his optimism from his second Inaugural Address:

Now we hear again the echoes of our past: a general falls

to his knees in the hard snow of Valley Forge; a lonely

president paces the darkened halls, and ponders his struggle

to preserve the Union; the men of the Alamo call out

encouragement to each other; a settler pushes west and sings

a song, and the song echoes out forever and fills the

unknowing air.

It is the American sound. It is hopeful, big-hearted,

idealistic, daring, decent, and fair. That's our heritage;

that is our song. We sing it still. For all our problems, our

differences, we are together as of old, as we raise our

voices to the God who is the Author of this most tender

music. And may he continue to hold us close as we fill the

world with our sound--sound in unity, affection, and love--

one people, under God, dedicated to the dream of freedom that

he has placed in the human heart, called upon now to pass

that dream on to a waiting and hopeful world.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, on the passing of former President Reagan, my mind, like everyone else's, goes back to a personal experience--not one that I had with Ronald Reagan himself because I did not know him that well, but in 1976, I was being interviewed for a job in the Reagan campaign for President. The individual, the former President's campaign manager at the time, who was conducting the interview, went through all of the specifics of the job he wanted me to take. The interview went very well. I seemed to have the credentials they wanted, and it was clear that a job offer was sitting there on the table. But I was a little troubled, even though things were going well, because I wanted to make something very clear.

I did not know Ronald Reagan. I had met him, but I did not know him. I only knew the caricature of Reagan which was out there in the media, which was that he was a rigid, ideological, hard-line conservative who would never, ever budge from an ideological position. So I said, in the spirit of full disclosure in this job interview, I want to make one thing clear. I said: I am not a true believer.

The individual conducting the interview smiled a little and he said: That's all right, neither is the Governor.

That was my first glimpse into what made Ronald Reagan a truly successful politician. He was a politician of absolutely firm resolve, there is no question about that. There were things he believed and he believed with such passion that he would never, ever deviate from them. But there were also some things he realized could be compromised that did not require an absolute, hard-line ideological stance, and the great genius of the man is that he had the wisdom to be able to discern which issue fell into which category, which issue was one in which there must be no compromise, and which issue was one where he could, in the

words of former Senator Dole, take 80 percent of the deal and be happy with it. That requires a degree of wisdom and sensitivity that very few of us possess. Ronald Reagan possessed it, and that was the core of his genius.

In the words of the country music song, he knew when to hold them and when to fold them.

On the issue of the evil empire, that was a time when he would hold them. On the issue of the evil empire, he would give no quarter, and he was criticized firmly for that, even within his own administration. The story is told of a meeting where members of the administration were discussing how they would deal with the Soviet Union in a certain situation, and after one point of view was presented President Reagan turned to the individual and said: If you believe that, what are you doing in this administration? He was that firm in his determination that the Soviet Union was, indeed, an evil empire and had to be confronted as such.

But when the confrontation truly came and the Soviet Union found they were up against an immovable object in Ronald Reagan and they began to maneuver, then he could see the areas in which 80 percent was good enough. He could discern the difference between where he had to stand absolutely firm and where he had to negotiate. He skillfully exploited all of those differences in such a way that the ``evil empire'' first ceased to be evil and then ultimately ceased to be an empire.

I find one of the great ironies of history the fact that upon his passing, on the pages of the New York Times, Mikhail Gorbachev is quoted in praise of Ronald Reagan. The man whom Reagan outmaneuvered, outnegotiated, and ultimately forced from office was singing his praises at his passing. That is an indication of how good Ronald Reagan was at the job of being President of the United States.

We have all talked about how optimistic he was, how filled with hope he was, what a congenial fellow he was, what a great communicator he was. And all of that is true and all of that is right and proper in this eulogy. But we should not allow ourselves to forget in these discussions of his wonderful qualities how effective a President he was. We live in Ronald Reagan's America. Indeed, we live in Ronald Reagan's world. He is more responsible for the kind of America we have today than any other man. He is more responsible for the kind of world in which we live than any other man.

That does not mean he is solely responsible, by any means, because there are many people who have affected America and have affected the world for good and ill, and no one man can be solely responsible for what happened. But he is more responsible than any other individual for the kind of country we have and for the kind of world in which we live--and both are substantially better than that which he found when he became President.

Let us look back for a minute at what America was like when Ronald Reagan became President.

We think of the Great Depression and how devastating that was as an economic event in our lives. When Ronald Reagan came to the Presidency, we were in the midst of the great inflation. I remember it very clearly. I was delighted in that period--absolutely delighted--to be able to get a bank loan, so I could meet payroll in the business I was running, at an interest rate of 21 1/5 percent. I remember talking to my banker who said to me, Today the Treasury auction has sold 30-year Government securities at 15 percent. It was absolutely stunning. The great inflation was destroying value, destroying confidence, and created what is the most serious recession we have had since the Great Depression--the double digits of the 1980s which occurred in Reagan's Presidency but were the consequence of the great inflation that went before. This President stood absolutely firm on his economic policy that was being ridiculed, that was being castigated, that was being sneered at; and his message to the country was stay the course. We did stay the course. His party lost a lot of seats in that next election, but he stood firm. Along with Paul Volcker at the Federal Reserve, they squeezed inflation out of the economy, created an economic situation where today as the heirs of that enormously difficult but significant effort we find the time when interest rates are at their lowest in 20, 30, or 40 years.

I remind people who derided Ronald Reagan as the playboy, lifeguard, football player with no intellectual base that he was the only President of the United States who had a degree in economics--classic economics, Keynesian economics--and he viewed the world in Keynesian terms and set an economic course that produced the base of prosperity we live in today. Yes, he was an optimist. Yes, he was a politician of joy. Yes, he was a pleasant fellow. But he was an enormously successful President in his domestic policies.

During his Presidency, the American economy grew as measured in terms of gross domestic product as much as if it had acquired the entire economy of Germany. We added as much gross domestic product--that is as much output in the American economy--during the time he was President as the entire economy of Germany.

Let us not forget that contribution as we remember and properly celebrate his sterling personal qualities.

Internationally, of course, we have talked about that. Other Senators have talked about that. But let us remember once again at the time his policies were very controversial, at the time his policies were derided by the wise men, at the time they said he was a cowboy who was going to set off all kinds of danger internationally, and at the end of his Presidency, as I say, the ``evil empire'' was no longer evil and very quickly it was no longer an empire. And instead of setting off dangerous international consequences, what he did by standing firm on his resolve was transform the world by ridding it of its greatest threat. That was not bad for a B actor who presumably didn't know anything beyond what was on those 3-by-5 cards.

The best summary comes from one of his staffers who wrote a book. The staffer was named Dinesh D'Souza. He wrote a book called ``Reagan,'' and the first chapter of that book is entitled, ``The Wise Men and The Dummy.''

In that chapter, D'Souza said when Reagan came to the Presidency, it was widely assumed among all the liberal wise men in the country that he was a dummy. The untold secret is the conservative wise men felt the same way. The conservative wise men thought he won the Presidency because he was a great actor: He looks good on television, but we can't allow him to make any of the decisions. He is a front, and we will put together the conservative agenda. Then we will have him as our puppet to go out and sell it to the American people, and we will have the best of all possible worlds.

Well, as D'Souza records, at the end of the day, on every major issue that came before the Reagan Presidency, it turned out the wise men were wrong and the dummy was right. And the dummy, because he was President of the United States and because he understood the proper use of power and he exercised it with tremendous skill, had views that prevailed, and we are the beneficiaries of his wisdom.

At this time of his passing, I do not mourn because Ronald Reagan has been released by death from a tremendously debilitating, frustrating, and ultimately tragic situation. Ronald Reagan is now in a better place that does not require us to mourn but to rejoice. This time is a time to celebrate, a time to be grateful, and a time to thank Providence for giving America at this time in its history this particular statesman, the one who knew when to stand with absolute resolve, when to be willing to make the deal, and possess the innate wisdom to know the difference.

We live in Ronald Reagan's America. Indeed, we live in Ronald Reagan's world, and we are all better off for that fact.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, it is a great honor for me to be a Member of this body at this point in history and to be able to have the privilege of making a few comments on the life and career of Ronald Reagan.

My words are inadequate to the task. Many have spoken more eloquently than I. Many have written beautifully about his life and the meaning of his Presidency.

I will just say that I do remember being personally inspired by him. As a young high school student, I came to believe Barry Goldwater would be a good President. I believed that from the values he was articulating. I did what I could. I put a bumper sticker on my daddy's pickup truck. Although he had never been involved in politics in any way, he allowed me to do that.

Of course, things did not go well in that election. Things were going poorly. But on the eve of that election, the Nation and many of the people who shared those basic values about classical America, what we as a nation represent--limited government, individual responsibility, personal freedom, a strong national defense--were electrified by a speech by Ronald Reagan. I think they call it ``Rendezvous With Destiny.'' Some just call it ``The Speech.'' I remember it to this day.

After the Goldwater campaign ended--and it certainly was a major defeat for him--Ronald Reagan sort of inherited the flame of classical American values and made them the basis of his personal beliefs and his campaign for the Presidency.

I was also later honored to be President Reagan's U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. It was a Presidential appointment, confirmed by the Senate. I was a U.S. attorney, and I served in that job as one of his lieutenants in the war on crime for the entire two terms of his Presidency, and, indeed, for 4 more years under former President Bush. That was a great honor for me.

As we talk about what President Reagan accomplished, I do want to take a moment to talk about crime and drugs. Crime and drugs had been surging for 20 years when President Reagan took office. The elites in this country actually believed that prison was noneffective, that it did not work, that it was counterproductive, that you should not put people in prison, that we ought to ask how they committed the crime, what the root causes of criminal behavior were, and what we could do to help the criminal.

We lost sight of the victim. We lost sight of accountability. We lost sight of righting wrong. And it resulted in crime rates that doubled and tripled in the 20 years prior to President Reagan taking office.

Drug use had surged during the 1960s and 1970s. By the time President Reagan took office, one-half of high school seniors in America admitted to having used an illegal drug in their life. That is a stunning number. That is according to a University of Michigan study.

Nancy Reagan began her ``Just Say No'' program. President Reagan passed mandatory sentencing policies. He eliminated parole and passed through the Congress the Federal Sentencing Guidelines that eliminated parole, had guaranteed sentences for incarceration, with many substantial sentences for serious violations of the law. I believe the sentencing guidelines were probably the biggest change in law enforcement in the history of this country since its founding.

The result was that drug use went down. It went down every year President Reagan was President. For 12 years it declined steadfastly. We now have less than half of high school seniors who say they have used an illegal drug in their life. The crime rate began to fall. We are still seeing declines in crime. That is because we went back to the fundamental precepts of crime and punishment, and how you do it. Some people are just dangerous. They need to be incarcerated. They need to be removed from society for the protection of society.

States picked up on this. Most crimes are prosecuted in the States, but that leadership of the bully pulpit by the President led to State reforms and crackdowns and improved capacity in prisons to deal with repeat offenders. It has been a key element in the reduction of crime and why Americans are safer today than they were in 1980. It is something that I think we have not heard much about in the discussion of the accomplishments of President Reagan.

I was also honored to have been his nominee for a Federal judgeship. It turned into a very unpleasant experience for me and my nomination did not clear the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which I am now a member and on which I am honored to serve. But he stood steadfastly for me. The fact he believed in my ability to be a Federal judge was something I cherish. And I cherish the letter he wrote me when I asked that my name be withdrawn from that appointment. It is something I will always cherish. It was personal and meaningful to me.

Ronald Reagan had a deep and fully formed philosophy about America and American ideals when he came to office at age 69. This is something that did not come to him lightly. It was over a lifetime of evaluation. Even in the face of the most fierce opposition, he never wavered in those beliefs. Indeed, his very life seemed to embody the highest and best of American values. His very life, the way he carried himself, embodied American values. His courage to remain true to the highest of these ideals was his greatest strength, I believe.

His goal was to free the greatness of individual Americans, assured that their goodness and industry would lift the Nation and inspire the world to freedom and progress. He believed in the individual American citizen. He believed that government should allow their creativity and industry to flourish, and as they flourished, and as they worked hard, and as they were creative, the world and America would benefit from it.

His courage to be true to those ideals, I believe, was his secret strength. He understood that intuitively, and he remained true to it. He called us, in his very special way, to the natural optimistic spirit of America.

His record of achievement was extraordinary. He led us with courage and steadfastness to defeat the evil empire. He cut our taxes. He called on us to renew our spiritual, moral, and family values. He said criminals should be punished. He not only communicated these values with words, but his actions and policies and life were dedicated to that.

As a result of his constancy and courage to fight for these values, a serious period of pessimism abounding in our land at that time ended. The Soviet Union collapsed. The economy began its 20 years of remarkable growth. Matters of faith, morality, and family were lifted up. The crime rate fell, and drug use fell.

The success of the Reagan Presidency was stunning in its scope, and it could not have come at a better time for the country. Like President Washington, President Reagan's life was given over to the country. He loved his country and he was selfless in his commitment to it. His selflessness and the purity of his principles inspired those who worked for him.

I remember--and I will close; I know there are others who would like to speak--but I do remember how, as a U.S. attorney, we did not need to be told in detail what the President wanted. We heard his philosophy. We heard his campaign. We knew he wanted us to be more productive. We knew he wanted us to take charge of our governmental office and make it work for the people and produce as high an output as it could possibly achieve. We also knew he expected us to crack down on criminals and crime.

I think that was good leadership because all the departments of the Government understood where Reagan came from, what administration they were a part of. They did not have to be instructed in detail on how to accomplish the goals of his administration. That was one of his great strengths. The impact of it was incalculable in many ways around the world.

I will just close with this story. In 1993, several years after President Reagan left office, I had the opportunity to go with a church group to Russia. It was a Methodist group. We went and stayed in a town 5 hours from Moscow, about 40,000 people, many of whom had not seen Americans before. We had a very nice time there. I stayed for a number of days with a Russian family.

The first day we got there, the Russian host's daughter was to be baptized. Father Gannati was the Russian orthodox priest. He came and he did a nice service, and it took some time. Then we had dinner after the baptism. Father Gannati explained that just 2

years before, he was not able to wear his robes in public. The state caused him to be moved from town to town every year so that he could not build bonds and roots in a given community. He could not meet the governmental leaders. They would not meet with him because they were atheists and they would not meet with believers. So it was a very interesting time.

He described how since then he could wear his robe, the mayor had him down to meet with him the day before this event, and that he was able to stay and rebuild the church there that had been damaged ever since the Russian revolution had occurred.

At the conclusion of those remarks, our host jumped up and said: I propose a toast to Ronald Reagan, who allowed us to believe in God again. Right in the center of the evil empire, the impact Ronald Reagan had to change the nature of the world in which we lived was felt in a very real way.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, later today, the body of President Ronald Reagan will be brought into this Capitol so that all Americans can pay their final respects.

Much has been said, much has been written about our 40th President and the impact he had on our Nation and the world. In at least one respect, I believe part of his legacy has been mischaracterized, and I rise today, as has my friend and colleague from Missouri, to set the record straight.

The issue that I would like to address is Ronald Reagan's view of the size of Government. It is true that President Reagan believed the Federal Government was too large and too costly, but he did not believe that was true of all governments.

As a former Governor of California, he believed governments closer to the people, governments at the State and local level, had the primary responsibility for essential public service and, thus, they should have the resources to respond to public needs.

The people would serve as the control of whether the State and local officials had fulfilled the voters' expectation of the role of their State, their county, or their city. I know this firsthand.

My tenure as Governor of Florida overlapped with President Reagan's administration for 6 years. During that time, President Reagan and key members of his administration, even as they attempted to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education and shrink Federal spending on education, helped me pass a tax increase in Florida that led to great improvements in our State education system.

An education reform movement swept the country in 1983 and 1984 with the issuance in April of 1983 by the National Commission on Excellence in Education of a landmark report entitled ``Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform.''

At the time that report was issued, President Reagan made this statement:

Parental authority is not a right conveyed by the state;

rather, parents delegate to their elected school board

representatives and state legislators the responsibility for

their children's schooling.

During a meeting of the National Governors Association in 1983 President Reagan told the Governors they would be responsible for implementing reforms, including how to cover the costs of those reforms. He was not interested in having the Federal Government play a larger role; in fact, he was intent on cutting the Federal role in education.

I recalled those words when back in Tallahassee I began to push a major educational reform package through the legislature. I was not alone. For instance, our colleague, the then-Governor of Tennessee, Lamar Alexander, was instrumental in the development and adoption of a similar reform package in Tennessee, and we had the opportunity to work together during that process with then-Governor Alexander talking to Republican members of the Florida legislature as I reciprocated in conversations with Democratic members of the Tennessee legislature.

The Florida package had a goal. The goal was we would raise the level of education in Florida as judged by student performance on standardized tests and other measurements and also per-student funding of education to among the top 25 percent of the States in America. We increased student performance standards at all levels and had the most challenging standards for graduation from high school of any State in the Nation.

The package included basic things such as smaller class sizes, more class and curriculum opportunities for students, and a career ladder with pay increases which recognized our best teachers. But all of those reforms depended upon additional State financing. I proposed several steps to raise the necessary revenue, including a revision of our corporate profits tax. I advocated the plan with the assurance that better schools would improve our State's economic climate. We even printed up buttons which read: ``Education Means Business.''

I was therefore very disturbed that the success of the educational reform program was threatened by the lack of support by Republicans in the State Senate and the State House of Representatives. I called President Reagan's Education Secretary, Dr. Terrell Bell from Utah. I reported that I was attempting to do exactly what the President had said States should be doing, but could not get any Republican support.

After consulting with the White House and gaining the President's personal permission, Secretary Bell called me back and asked: What can I do to help?

I gave him the names of a half dozen or more Republican legislators. Secretary Bell called them on behalf of the President to ask them to support the reform package. I am pleased to say that with strong bipartisan support, the education reform program in Florida passed in 1983, and then by 1986 Florida had moved to 13th in the Nation in our per-pupil spending, and our test scores had the greatest rate of increase in 1986 of any State in the Nation.

This program showed that greater gains in student performance can be achieved through the right set of educational reform. This would not have happened without the support of President Ronald Reagan.

My point is Ronald Reagan was a more nuanced political leader in terms of his view of the role of Government than he is generally given credit for by both his critics and his fans. On behalf of all Floridians, I express my appreciation for his support of improved education in Florida, and on behalf of all Floridians I express my condolences to President Reagan's family, especially his beloved Nancy.

Thank you.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.