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Uh huh. And yeah, mhm. Mhm, Yeah, yeah. Mm, Hi. I'm locking Charles, and this is the Lawton Child's update. Some people look at the Miami River and see one of Florida's key commercial waterways. Others look at it and see a source of recreation. But a while back, No matter how you looked at it, you saw a floating junk yard.

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Its shores were lying with derelict vessels confiscated during the nation's anti drug campaign. Later in this program, we'll find out what it took to get these eyesores off the river were also examined. The status of the Big Cypress National Preserve. Our natural lands in Florida are one of our most precious gifts, and we'll find out what's being done to protect the big Cyprus lands from future generations.

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But before we do that, we're going to look at a subject that sometimes makes people just scratch their heads. The federal budget. Many people are puzzled by something that sounds so big and complicated, and now that the budget is topped the trillion dollar mark, it sounds almost impossible to deal with.

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But that's the best reason to find out as much as you can when you've got an investment in something. It's a good idea to find out where your money goes. Everyone knows what a budget is. Chances are you've got one yourself. You write down your income in one column and you list your expenses in another.

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Then you try to make sure that the total expenses are not more than your total income. That's pretty basic, but if you've got something left over, you can save it. You can make an investment, or maybe add a little something to the way you live. But if you come up short, you either do without or you borrow to pay your bills or you try to find another way to add to your income.

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Maybe a second job. That's about it. The principles are always the same, whether it's running your household or operating a private business or managing the federal government. This year, I became chairman of the Senate Budget Committee today and it updates to follow. We're gonna look at the federal budget a step at a time to see what goes into shaping our national financial plan.

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Today we'll focus on how it all begins. In January, the president sent us a budget proposal that he developed to cover the operation of government for the coming year. Budget summary was delivered to the Congress on January 5th. It was followed later by several volumes of additional material, which detailed each and every transaction that the government's involved in.

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The president uses these documents to spell out what he believes we should be doing as a nation. What program should be terminated, what program should be increased? These documents also tell us how much revenue the president wants to collect and in what ways he plans to collect it.

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In other words, the president's budget has income on one hand and the bills on the other. Together, they give us an idea of our national financial picture. That's the way things were for more than 50 years. The president would announce his plans and he leaves the rest of Congress.

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Congress would pass all the spending bills and at the end of the year would add up how much was spent. And that was it. That was our budget. There was no systematic approach to budgeting. It was about the same as if you'd start writing checks on New Year's Day without adding up to see how much you've spent until the following Chris.

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But back in 1974 Congress created a budget process of its own for the first time. The new process gave Congress a chance to thoroughly review the president's plans before any money was spent to organize that review, Congress created budget committees in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

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Our first job each year is to invite the president's Cabinet to come and explain in detail what the president had in mind when he drafted the budget. Caspar Weinberger, the secretary of defense, made this year's $312 billion requests for military spending. Visits like this by the president's people are called hearings, and that's exactly what happens.

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We want to hear more about the president's ideas. Why is a particular thing supposed to be done? Could it be done more efficiently? Could it be done at a lower cost or should it be done at all? These meetings also give the president a chance to hear what's on our minds.

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Senate Budget Committee has 24 members. These senators from every region of the country have a wide variety of ideas that reflect the thinking of people from their part of the country. They asked the secretary of agriculture about conditions on our farms and our groves and our ranches.

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We have projections that will lose half of our farmers in the next five years. In North Dakota. That's a crisis. And I've just returned from my state Bennett meetings where literally thousands of farmers were gathered and the level of anxiety is as high as I've ever seen it in my state.

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Extraordinarily high level of anxiety. They hear that government programs are being cut. They hear target price being cut. They here a budget plan of the administration to cut the commitment to agriculture in half over the next five years. And the question that I yet repeatedly put to me that I'll put to you is, what is the plan?

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What is the plan to improve price? Because, after all, that's what farmers really want. They'd prefer to get the price from the marketplace. And what's the timetable for that plan? Those are the questions they're asking. These are people fighting for survival. They want to know two things.

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What is the plan that's going to increase price and number two. What's the timetable for that plan? Could you give me an answer that I could give to them? Senator Conrad, I think I'd have to tell you that we would be a very foolish Department of Agriculture.

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It seems to me if we could if we made an attempt to plan head for agriculture with some certainty of pricing coming out here, the the the, uh As much as we might be criticised for not having the kind of plan that you and others have called for, it is absolutely impossible to foresee all of the things that make up the price of agricultural commodities or the cost of producing them or the competition from other countries or the weather.

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Uh, and every effort that has been made for the past 50 years by the Department of Agriculture uh, and other all administrations have, uh, have been just woefully weak Now. Politically, it may sound good to say that the Department of Agriculture should have a plan that will assure profits out here.

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At a certain point, I, for one, do not believe that we have the ability to do when William Bennett, the secretary of education, came to the Budget Committee, senators pressed him on the White House plan to reduce education funding by 30%. Mr. You gave us the impression that O.

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M. B made you do it and that you could have come in with a different budget. I'm just sorry that the secretary, in saying that he's got to cut all of these things, doesn't shed a little tear. Uh, instead of saying that this is probably the best thing because it seems to me that you and I, long associated with the research triangle in North Carolina, ought to know very well that investment in education does.

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Indeed, payoff does indeed pay off for the community. And, as you know, North Carolina ranks almost at the top and the amount of money invested in higher education. And I think we can see that in our favorable unemployment rate and are booming regions. And I, uh, you've been quoted as saying, and I maybe you will reiterate it, but I hope I don't hear it from your own lips.

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There's as much access as there ever was. But you're the beneficiary, and you're going to have to pay for it. Well, don't you think society is a beneficiary of higher education? Sure, and society should pay part of it and you should be a part of it.

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Societies have meant general beneficiary, but there is a more specific beneficiary to and that's the individuals. Well, I think people, people when they decided to go to college, I don't think most people frankly, I don't think this is an unkind thing to say about human nature.

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I don't think most people say I'm going to go on to college because it will be a great benefit to society. If I do, I think most people say I'm going to go on to college because you get a better job Great. Many people don't go because, uh, they simply think the door is closed to them.

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And I think we've seen very clearly that young people do aspire to go to college because this great federal program, now for a number of years, has literally opened the door. Access is there in the sense that the college is there but not access for the individual, unless the aspiration is there and people tell me, uh, and I've seen it firsthand that even ninth graders 8th and 9th graders began to work a little harder with an ambition to go to college when the background there from would not otherwise encourage them to go.

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I think this has been one of the great programs in America, and I just don't want to see us, uh, get the wrong twist on it. The 19 forties, uh, we had about 6% of our people that that went to college. Uh, fortunately, we had something called the G I Bill that started after that.

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And, uh, and with that and the Pell and other college grant programs that have come after that we're now looking at roughly 25% of our people. Absolutely. And I just want to make that point just to have it made. Let me ask you a another thing.

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I suggest another thing. Of course, spending is going up. But I wouldn't want to sit here and admit that it's going up enough. I think almost every governor in America now has taken a great interest in education. 20 years ago, probably a half a dozen thought this was the number one priority, and we're seeing this, but it seems to me that we ought not to say that it's adequately funded.

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And you are. I imagine that if you had a a wand that you could wave and improve education. I've got a wand to suggest Ah, as secretary, as the chief spokesman, as the person, uh, that has the forum. I'd like to see the secretary of education of the United States waving a wand that says We don't pay or treat teachers as professionals.

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I don't think we're ever going to improve until this line goes way up and we start attracting young people and professionals. And and I would hope that would be the magic wand that you could wave because that's my opinion of the true path to quality education in America from Secretary of State George Shultz.

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We wanted more information on the problem we've been having with the new American Embassy building in Moscow. What is the status of our new embassy building in the Soviet Union? I note that the Soviets appeared to have completed There's out on Wisconsin Avenue. I don't see any construction going on out there now, and it appears to be available for occupancy.

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When can we expect hours to be completed. Cool chance. So right, Good. Well, as far as our work in Moscow is concerned, as I understand it, basically, the aspects of the construction program other than the chancery itself are basically done and their people have moved into them.

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They're basically living quarters and things of that kind. And the chancery is how much? 1% complete. I would yeah, 80. It's well along. In completion. It isn't so much the completion in a kind of technical sense, as you would normally think of it in a construction job.

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It's more the problem of how you build something in the Soviet Union and minimize the amount of eavesdropping built into it, and that that is hard and it causes delays and runs up expenses and so forth. Now, as far as their complex is concerned, they will not be able to use their chancery until we are able to use our chancery.

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And they understand that very clearly our hearings the third. It's our responsibility to do more than just look at how the numbers add up. It's our job to hold down costs wherever we can. You do pretty much the same thing in your own budget. You don't just routinely play larger and larger bills.

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You ask yourself, What do I really need and how much money can I spend? Do I have to cut more for one area to make room for new and more important expenses somewhere else? What we do in the hearing stages, collect information and over at the House of Representatives, they're doing the same thing.

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Congress is looking at the budget as carefully as we can, and we're really doing it twice. This is the nation's budget. So before we make any preliminary decisions, we dig pretty deep. Once we've got the information, we'll move on to the next step in the budget process.

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That's where our committee puts together a budget to be considered by the full Senate. Chances are that budget will be a combination of things some proposed by the president and changes suggested by the Congress. And our next update will take an in depth look at the multibillion dollar budget of health and human services and see how it impacts on each of us.

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And when we come back, we'll take a close look at what the nation's war on drugs is doing to a river in South Florida. On April 26th, unidentified aircraft approached American airspace. Captain William Whitney, on two week training with the Air National Guard, was one of the first to act, but the people he left behind had no idea you'd be responding to a possible enemy threat to their country.

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Bill. This is our hottest selling season, and you're going Where to the National Garden. For what? What about my mother's bill? We can't cancel again. Just go another weekend. Dad, it's not there. You promised we'd go look at bikes. This is the National Guard, and Reserve is a full one third of our nation's defense target heading 270 speed Mach 2.71 That's why it must be fully manned and trained at all times.

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The bear is turning away from US airspace. Return to base. Nice job, guys. Don't give a National Guard and Reserve volunteer a hard time. They're doing it for you. Protect their future while they protect yours. Miami is a world class city on a great river. It's a river of history, a commercial lifeline.

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During the last few years, the river became a floating junk yard littered with the wreckage of the nation's war on drugs. Boats seized by the government from drug dealers were blocking traffic on the river. The boats were costing us money three quarters of a million dollars every year in storage fees alone.

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I toured the Miami River after a citizens group complained to me that the waterway had turned into a floating junk yard. A guy pointed out the boats being stored by the government on the river. Sure, there are also storage vessels and dry storage. All right, real in depth.

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That's a U. S. Marshal seizure. Several 100 freighters in here. There's a tender on the left side is about 85 ft. It's also a seizure and LSD on the left side of seizure. The vessel on the right, the lady doll. It's about, um, 75 ft tub.

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None of the vessels in here been here less than a year, except for probably the humble tea. Yeah, the boats were in terrible shape, and the longer they stayed, the less likely it became that they could ever be sold for a reasonable price. We held a Senate hearing at Jose Marti Park after the tour I had earlier sent General Accounting Office investigators to Miami to look at the situation.

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Could you describe for me the record keeping system maintained by customs here in Miami to keep track on both the number and the disposition of the boat? I was chairman when we first got here. Uh, we asked for a list of those boats that were on the Miami River so that we could go and take a look at initially there was no list.

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Defers got here. They had to take this list from individual files that they had after we took, got their list of 137 votes that they had provided us with. We took a ride on the river and we tried to identify some of those that were on the river.

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As you can see today, there are some people on the customs and some dome was a little confusing us from the ones exact launch discussed. Okay, the one that interested me most was the Monica. The Monica has been around since 1982 and we asked why was it still there?

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The information that we were provided with that evidently had fallen through the cracks it could have been disposed of several years ago was seized on 10 4 81. According to customer service. He's forfeited on June 7th, as you have up on the chart 1982 before it was forfeited on that date before the Customs Service can get it out of its inventory, so to speak, it has to go to the ECE and ask for disposition.

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There they are trying to find out whether there is any other federal agency that could use that vote, that there was some indications in the foul that they had gone to the U. S. A. To get this position. But they had never got any return answer for the essay.

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There was no system that they had customs here in Miami to follow up and keep track of which both they could have gotten rid of which they couldn't. What I'm saying, the bottom line to this. Yes, sir, they could have gotten rid of that boat earlier.

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We wanted to find out why the boats were just rusting away. It didn't make sense that taxpayers should be paying more in storage money than the boats were actually worth a lot of people were upset. And looking at the dots on this map shows why every one of these dots represented a derelict boat at the time of our hearings.

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Part of the problem was at least nine different agencies were involved. Not only was the river congested, but we had a logjam over who was supposed to do what? The hearing ended with a clear message. We set a timetable six months to clear out the wrecks.

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Well, we came back after the six months Cleve Jones, the president. The Jones boatyard was one of the people who rode with me on the inspection trip. Well, you were telling me you've been on the river over 60 years. That's correct. Yeah, well, I'm sure you've seen an awful lot of the changes in the river.

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You know, I was here six months ago, and as you can see, I've got a grin on my face because I think it looks better. What do you think that you know, you've seen a lot more than I have. Well, I think it has improved in the last six months.

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And I think if we continue on like we have been a clean enough for us all swimming again, right? You think Customs has actually made an effort and gotten a lot of the boats out, that yes, they have done the derelicts that they have done a lot to get rid of the derelict that were there.

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The map we saw earlier had changed to this. And here's how the river itself looks now open for business and pleasure craft. A lot of agencies govern traffic on the Miami River, but they all got bottled up install the same way the river was clogged. These hearings showed us that sometimes it takes a little push to get things moving.

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It's not much different than the words of the sensible man who said rivers or roads that move. And now we've got things moving. We've got to keep it that way. Two months ago, we talked about the Big Cypress Preserve in South Florida. Well, I have an update on the big Cyprus.

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As you remember, the House of Representatives passed a big cypress bill. Things were different in the Senate where there was a proposal to swap some lands. Uh, it got into a hassle and we just ran out of time and that killed our bill. Legislation left unpassable.

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I won. Congress has to be reintroduced before it can be acted upon. So Congressman Tom Lewis and Senator Bob Graham have joined with me and indeed, the entire Florida congressional delegation and reintroducing the Big Cypress bill. Our legislation will add 136,000 acres to the preserve. As you know, Big Cypress lies directly north of the Everglades.

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It's a crucial buffer area. Iris is a unique proposal and that it saves the taxpayer money by using already allocated highway severance funds to help purchase the land. It also accomplishes the equally important goals of environmental restoration and wildlife protection. Adding to the reserve is essential given the fragile nature of the Everglades ecology.

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Without setting aside these lands, the planned construction of I 75 through the region might spawn unbridled development. Increases in population density could contaminate the water supply and restrict the range land of the already endangered Florida panther. The new leg of Interstate 75 will have Panther passes, huge concrete culverts every so often under the payment so panthers and other wild animals can safely cross under the highway.

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We're optimistic this year about our legislation, and I'll keep you posted on its progress. And when we return, we'll talk about some of the concerns that you've written me about. Uh, wow, yeah, the streets, any city, any town temptations, dead ends danger mean streets where kids can run into trouble.

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But there's a way to beat the streets. The boys club. Where you going? Alex? No, it come here. This is Edward James Olmos. I found a way to beat the streets when I joined the Boys Club. Today, more than a million kids at over 1100 boys clubs across America are beating.

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The street's doing something positive with their lives. But then the boys club is a friend. Kids need the boys club. We need your help. Support your local boys club club. Beats the streets, needs a hand. Yours. Many of you write me. In fact, about 10,000 letters come to my office each month, and I appreciate each one.

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I'd like to share a few of those letters with you. A NASA employee from Titusville writes. Dear Senator Child. It's been a year since the space shuttle disaster, and I don't hear much about what's happening with NASA in the Congress anymore. Why not? Well, it's certainly not because we're not doing anything with NASA.

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NASA has asked for $9.5 billion for the next fiscal year, with more than a third of that $37 billion going directly for shuttle activities. That money would fix the solid rocket motors and buy new upper stages for shuttle launched science missions. Another $767 million would go for a continued development of the man's space station.

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Now plan to fly in 1990 for just seven years from now. That's a big step in America's space program. So you see Congress is moving ahead in the frontier of space, and we seem to be turning last year's disaster into a learning success. A real underlying issue is the protection of civilian space program in light of the military's need for space launches.

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While we have to meet the military's needs, we can't crowd out the legitimate needs for a civilian program from Tallahassee. This letter Dear Senator Charles, I'm retired and worry about what happens to me and my wife and Children if I run into a really big medical bill.

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I have Medicare, But what if it doesn't pay enough? Well, he's talking about catastrophic health insurance, an item the president finally talked about in his recent State of the Union address. I'm pleased the administration is now facing up to an issue many of us in the Congress have been wrestling with for many years.

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What's the government's role in ensuring our citizens won't be wiped out financially if they suffer huge medical bills? Medicare is now 22 years old. It was intended and does provide basic health insurance for virtually every elderly person in the nation today. But some of the elderly still face catastrophic health care expenses.

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For instance, if they're in the hospital for more than 60 days, there are a lot of expenses Medicare will not pay. And once more, two thirds of the elderly have additional health insurance Medigap insurance to fill in these gaps in the Medicare coverage. But even the combination of Medicare and Medigap will not pay all of the bills for about 4% of our Medicare beneficiaries.

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Another problem today is that more than 35 million younger people have no health insurance at all. Still others are caught in this no or low insurance coverage. That's a dilemma that's estimated 12 million Children who have no protection at all against the cost of accidents, serious illness or handicapping conditions.

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So we really have all these groups to think about from the youngest to the oldest. When we talk about catastrophic health care insurance, Congress is began to take some steps. Already, a bill I wrote last year was passed giving healthcare coverage to low income mothers and young Children.

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We've also taken steps to slow down the rate of growth in the out of pocket expense for Medicare beneficiaries. And certainly these steps are not enough. And we've got to give serious consideration to all possible solutions to the whole catastrophic illness. Problems. Facing us also is the dilemma of having to pay for any new program and this time of huge deficits.

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And that won't be easy. Well, that's it for today. I hope you'll join me again soon for another Lawton child's update. Mhm, Mhm. Mhm. Yeah, yeah. Do you do? Yeah. Mhm, Yeah, yeah. Mhm.