Text of Zell Miller's remarks (Lays into Dem's, Calling Dan Rather)

Advance text of the senator's remarks Monday night to the Georgia Chamber of Commerce:

It's good to be back in Georgia and in this familiar ballroom. And it's especially good to be with this group for whom I have so much respect and affection -- with whom I have worked so closely.

I hesitate to think what this state would be had there not been a Georgia Chamber of Commerce, if there had not been the kind of visionary but practical leadership you have provided for so many years.

I am always honored to be with you, certainly to be your speaker tonight. Thank you, Bob, for that introduction, and thank you Lindsay for the great job that you and Tim and all of your staff do.

We gather together at a time unlike any other in our history. We are at war against a terrible enemy. A war that will not be finished quickly or easily.

Young Americans are in harm's way and our prayers are with them and with our Commander in Chief.

Not long after I gave up a comfortable-- and profitable -- retirement, I was sitting at my desk in the Senate chamber, a desk by the way that has the names Russell, Talmadge and Nunn carved in it.

I was sitting there, probably frowning, when Senator Joe Biden of Delaware came over.

He’s been in the Senate 27 years and he came over and sat down and said, "Ive watched a lot of you former governors come up here and invariably you go through three phases (like a person grieving over a death, I suppose).

The first phase is disbelief. You just can't believe how legislation and decisions are made. "

He was right. I arrived in the Senate in the middle of the appropriation process and I could not believe the feeding frenzy.

The next phase, he said was anger. You stay mad most of the time and you want to change the system and make it more orderly.

And then, finally, he said the third phase is acceptance. I have not reached that third phase yet. Not even close.

So if this speech sounds a little angry, it's because I'm still in that second phase of a governor trying to be a senator.

Angry that one single senator representing less than one-fifth of 1 percent of the American people can stop any president of the United States -- even during war time -- from making a crucial appointment to his own team.

Angry because of the thoughtless and needless waste of hard-earned taxpayer’s money.

Angry because soft money -- big money -- from special interests to both parties controls things in a way that is nothing short of bribery.

Angry that this money then pays for cynical consultants who sneeringly brag "we do campaigns, we don't do government."

Angry at a process where 59 votes out of 100 cannot pass a bill because 41 votes out of 100 can defeat it.

James Madison, the father of the Constitution, in fact feared some future political leaders would finagle the legislative process just this way.

And he warned in Federalist Paper No. 58 that if it happened, "The fundamental principle of free government would be reversed. It would be no longer the majority that would rule. The power would be transferred to the minority."

In recent years, the process has become so politicized and so polarized and so ingrained that we cannot even put it aside in time of war.

It is a system that Cuisinarts individual thought into a blind party goose step. A system that expects one to go along with the team even if the quarterback is calling the wrong signals.

And one of these days someone smarter and younger and more articulate than I is going to get through to the American people just how really messed up it has become. And when that happens, the American people are going to rise up like that football crowd in Cleveland and run both teams off the field.

Because as Churchill said, "Democracy is based on reason and a sense of fair play" and there is nothing reasonable or fair about this system.

I doubt I will ever be able to change the way things work in Washington, but I am doing my best to make sure that Washington doesn't change me.

On the day Governor Roy Barnes appointed me to try to fill the big shoes left behind by our friend Paul Coverdell, I pledged to serve all 8 million Georgians and no single party.

I took the first step in December 2000, when then President-Elect Bush invited me and about fifteen others, including about five Democrats, to Austin to talk about his education reform bill.

Congressman Johnny Isakson was there, a good man and a very good Chairman of the State Board of Education, I would remind you.

I had already studied the Bush proposal and decided I was for it. I had watched what Bush had done for Texas schools when he and I were both governors. We both knew that improving education touches everything else.

So, I stood up at that small luncheon in Austin and told him that I, as a Democratic senator, would support his bill enthusiastically.

I was very pleased when the education bill finally was passed on the last day of the session.

I was also pleased that Governor Barnes was the lone Democratic governor to sign a letter of support for the reform along with 22 Republican governors. Our governor is committed to quality education.

The centerpiece of the new education bill is the testing provision where every student in grades 3-through-8 will be tested every year in reading and math, and a sample of students from each state will be required to take a test to measure their progress and the schools' progress.

It also provides accountability. Parents can transfer children in failing schools to other public schools. And each state has the flexibility to devise its own test to measure a school’s performance.

It has passed. President Bush has signed it and I believe it will make a difference.

Also at that Austin meeting with the president-elect, as I was leaving and he was thanking me for my statement of support, I told him, "Mr. President, I'm with you on a lot of things. I'm with you on your tax cut proposal."

A couple of weeks later when I was in Texas Senator Phil Gramm’s office talking about the Paul D. Coverdell Center at the University of Georgia -- which is going to be magnificent -- Gramm mentioned that the President had told him of my comment.

Gramm asked would I like to join him in co-sponsoring it in the Senate. I told him I would be honored.

That was in January. In May, Congress passed a $1.35 trillion dollar tax cut. It is the largest tax cut since the one Ronald Reagan pushed through in 1981. In the end, 12 Democrats voted for it.

Unfortunately, the tax cut was compromised on its way to final passage. What started out as a broad, immediate and permanent tax cut became one where some of the tax relief is delayed by several years. Then, to add insult to injury, the whole thing is set to be repealed in 2010.

So, Senator Gramm and I have introduced another bill that would make the tax cut permanent, and also cut the capital gains tax rate from 20 to 15 percent.

That is what should have been done in the first place and what in our opinion today would provide the best economic stimulus.

How can anyone make any long-range plans for a business or for a family with a here-today, maybe-gone-tomorrow tax cut, a tax policy that has a perishable date on it, like a quart of milk?

The fastest way to show taxpayers that we are serious about tax relief is to make the tax cut permanent.

We're fighting a war on two fronts: one to extinguish terrorism and the other to restore our economy. And we might as well face the fact that tax rebates, new entitlement programs and interest rate cuts -- no matter how many -- are not going cut the mustard.

We need to stimulate investment not consumption. That is why I have favored a big and bold capital gains tax cut since the day I came to Washington.

We are not in a slump just because consumer sales are down. We are in a slump because venture capital fell 74 percent the past year. Capital spending by businesses is at it lowest in decades.

In May of last year, at the invitation of Jack Kemp, I spoke to his Empower America group on the subject of “"Antidotes for an Ailing Economy." I reminded them then that every time we have cut the capital gains, tax revenues have risen, not fallen, and assets values have always shot up.

But we cannot pass a capital gains rate cut in the Senate even though there may well be a majority in favor of it. The Democratic leadership won't even consider it.

Heck, we couldn't even get a vote on the economic stimulus bill even though a bipartisan majority supported one.

The Democratic leader complained that the bill’s plan for speeding up tax cuts for those who earned $27,000 up to $112,000 would help just the wealthy. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Now, the Democratic leader is publicly blaming the tax cut for our economic slowdown. Ladies and gentlemen, this economic slowdown had begun before we passed the tax cut, and most of it hasn't even gone into effect.

Even hinting that we should somehow reverse it during an economic downturn is about the worst move we could make.

There is another area in which both parties have taken petty partisanship to new heights over the years.

Perhaps it is because of my experience as a Chief Executive, but I believe that a president -- every president -- should be able to select his own team and make out his own batting order. He is the leader and the one who ultimately should and will be held accountable.

My first test came with John Ashcroft, a man I know very well and had served with both as a governor and briefly as a U.S. Senator.

I was the first and, for a while, the only Democrat publicly supporting his confirmation. In the end, when we finally got a vote, I was joined by seven other Democrats, and Ashcroft was confirmed 58 to 42.

A short time later, I broke with my party again and was the only Democrat to vote to confirm Ted Olsen as Solicitor General. My vote made the difference, 51-49, and the President finally got his own man representing the government before the Supreme Court.

I took that opportunity to tell my colleagues that “this never-ending, back-and-forth partisan ping-pong game of revenge needs to end -- for the good of the country.” I believe that strongly.

As many of you know, I also broke with my party on the ergonomics issue. By a very few votes, we overturned the outrageously expensive workplace safety regulations put in place by the Clinton administration at the last minute on his way out. Some estimates put the cost of the rules as high as $100 billion a year.

There’s a case to be made that some changes should be made in workforce safety, but certainly nothing this extreme.

Labor Secretary Elaine Chao has said that she will pursue a comprehensive approach to ergonomics, including crafting new rules to help employers protect their employees before injuries occur. So stay tuned.

One of the biggest issues we will take up early this year is a national energy bill. Right now, this country is in big trouble with regard to where we get energy, how much we get and how much it costs.

We import 57 percent of the energy we consume every day from foreign sources that fix the price and that do not have our country's best interests at heart. This percentage will rise to 66 percent by 2010.

As Senator John Breaux (D-Louisiana) has pointed out, if we imported that much of the food we eat, people would be marching on Washington yelling that it is unacceptable because food is essential to our lives and to our national security.

Over the last two decades our economy has grown more than 125 percent, but our energy consumption has increased only 30 percent -- and yet the gap between supply and demand has grown.

We need a solution that is broad based with a strong focus on conservation and efficiency. We also need new technology in clean coal. We need to rethink the great potential of nuclear power, and we need more investment to increase domestic energy production.

That could include resources found in a small part of northern Alaska known as the Artic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR. There has been a lot of debate about this barren stretch found, quite literally, at the end of the earth.

According to the geologists, ANWR holds upwards of 16 billion barrels of oil -- that ’s the equivalent of more than 30 years of Saudi Arabian oil imports.

With the latest technology the entire footprint of oil drilling would be less than three square miles in total. Three square miles out of the ANWR area, which itself is about the size of South Carolina.

I have personally met with the native people who live in the area -- they overwhelmingly support exploration. They believe the wildlife and environment they have depended on for tens of thousands of years can co-exist with today’s advanced technology.

ANWR is near the Prudhoe Bay oil field at the top of the Trans Alaska Pipeline. I've been there and seen it up close. For more than 30 years, that system has safely provided the U.S. with more than 20 percent of our domestically produced oil. None of the dire predictions about it have come true.

So, when the Senate takes up the energy bill -- hopefully beginning a few weeks from now -- I will vote for a bill that is comprehensive, emphasizes conservation and, after much study and thought, I will vote to include oil exploration in ANWR. I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that it is essential for the future energy needs of this country.

Last year was supposed to be the year when we finally tightened the federal bankruptcy code. I’m on the Banking Committee and there was a lot of support for it, the traps had been run and a new president was ready and willing to sign a bill.

It was obvious that the code needed to be changed to prevent rampant abuse by borrowers who can afford to repay some of their debts but instead take advantage of permissive bankruptcy rules.

Many of you know that the legislation passed in 2000 but President Clinton refused to sign it. So, reform was long overdue. And this was supposed to be the year. But it did not happen.

Unfortunately, its success looks bleak at the present time, but I'll keep pushing for it because something definitely must be done.

Along this same line, the Chapter 12 bankruptcy protection for farmers expired September 30th and that needs to be extended.

Agribusiness is a $60 billion dollar business in Georgia and accounts for one out of every six jobs in this state.

I'm also on the Agriculture Committee. There's been a Georgian on this committee ever since there ’s been a committee, established in the 1870s. Richard Russell was on it, Paul Coverdell was on it. Herman Talmadge was its chairman for years.

I'll never forget my first committee meeting. The new members sit down at the end of this big table and right above my seat looms this huge portrait of Senator Talmadge. I wrote him a note that he's still in Washington looking over my shoulder.

A lot of mistakes were made by the 107th Congress, but one of the most costly to Georgia was not passing a new Farm Bill.

The House passed a bill that would have been good for Georgia. In the Senate Committee, I worked long and hard with my colleagues, notably Leader Daschle, Chairman Harkin, Jesse Helms, Blanche Lincoln and others, to improve the House bill, make it even better for Georgia farmers.

We came up with a unique agreement among Senators from different parts of the country who haven't always agreed on farm policy.

In our bill, we made historical and necessary changes for the long-term future of the peanut program. We created an appropriate safety net for the cotton, dairy and other programs of great importance to the Southeast.

I knew we had a good product when we learned that this time there would be no attempts to eliminate the peanut program on the floor.

This was a highly unusual circumstance where we were able to please most all segments of the peanut industry and Senators from urban areas who in the past have tried do to away with it.

We brought a good Farm Bill to the floor during the final week of the session. We tried several times to bring the bill to a final vote -- a vote that would have allayed the fears of many South Georgia farmers and bankers.

But we could not even get a vote on the bill in the Senate. Another example of the will of the majority once again not prevailing.

Count me as one of the Senators who will call for immediate consideration of the farm bill when we return this month. I plan to be very vocal because we have too much at stake in rural Georgia and rural America not to act now.

You may remember last year in February, President Bush chose Fort Stewart as his first military base to visit and I traveled down there with him and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.

At that time, the Secretary was pushing hard for another round of base-closure hearings, and I'd like to commend Governor Barnes for putting a top-notch committee in place headed by Mickey Blackwell to get us ready.

Fortunately, those hearings have now been put off until 2005, so we have plenty of time to prepare.

Georgia came out very, very well in defense funding for the next year: $3.9 billion dollars for 13 F-22 fighters assembled at Lockheed Marietta. Another $1.1 billion dollars for Lockheed to modernize the fleet of C-5 Galaxy Aircraft; $593 million for seven C-130 planes that also will be assembled at Lockheed.

We almost doubled the amount for military construction projects in Georgia. More than $185 million dollars for projects at Stewart, Benning, Gordon, Robins, Gillem, Moody and Albany.

Also, $193 million dollars for the conversion of two Trident submarines and language that buys into the conversion of two more. The work will be done in Norfolk but it's important to Georgia because Kings Bay will get two of them.

Then, there's $164 million for B-1B Bomber operations. That’s not just in Georgia but it includes Robins. And there's language in there that prevents the B-1B bombers from being retired or relocated until the Air Force submits a report to Congress on the consolidation plan. This is good news for Middle Georgia.

The entire Georgia delegation worked hard on all these. Our senior senator, Max Cleland, is a member of the Armed Services Committee and did yeoman work, as did our House members. It was one of Georgia's best years, and I was pleased to play a small part in it.

And then there was 9/11. A day we will never forget. I was nine years old when the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred. I remember the somberness as we listened to the radio. I remember the men in my community going off to war, the rationing and the saving of grease and paper and tinfoil.

I remember my mother moving me and my sister to Atlanta -- 728 Spring Street -- while she worked at the old Bell Bomber Plant as she put it "doing her part."

I will admit this old Marine had become disgusted at what I thought was the softness, the self-indulgence -- even the lack of patriotism of the American people I was seeing all around me. I thought the will was no longer there.

I had watched in great disappointment when we did nothing after the terrorists first attacked the World Trade Center in 1993, killing six and injuring more than 1,000 Americans.

Then again, when 16 U.S. servicemen were killed in the bombing of the Khobar Towers in 1996 and we still did nothing.

I watched when U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Nairobi were attacked in 1998, killing 263 persons, and the only response we made was firing a few missiles on an empty terrorist camp. It was a wimpy response so totally inadequate I was ashamed.

So, it is good to see this country united again, to see American flags flying from houses and cars, to hear the "National Anthem" and "God Bless America" sung with feeling.

We have the right man in the White House. George W. Bush has been magnificent. He is surrounded by the most experienced, tested group of advisors we could possibly have.

I received some criticism when, right after the attack, I made a speech on the floor of the Senate and said that the United States needs "to bomb the hell out of them."

The criticism did not come from any who, as I, just a few days after the attacks, had stood on Ground Zero amid that smoldering pile of rubble that had become the graveyard for thousands of innocent Americans.

And visited what they called The Wall of Compassion that held hundreds of photos and descriptions of those missing. And saw there, as I did, loved ones waiting and suffering an anguish no one should have to endure.

While there, I said a prayer that this nation would not flinch and would have the will to see this long struggle through.

And you know something else: so far 12 thousand tons-- 24 million pounds -- of bombs have been dropped on our enemies. If that's not bombing the hell out of them, I don't know what it is.

The President has said we are at war with terrorism and with states that sponsor and harbor terrorists. And, there's strong agreement on that. That means an ever-increasing, wider war.

And as far as I'm concerned, it means at some time -- maybe not next, but some time -- going after Saddam Hussein.

We don't have to prove he was involved with September 11 or with al-Qaida. We know he hates the United States. We know he has weapons of mass destruction. And we know he has used them against his own people and we know he would not hesitate to use them against us.

Many in the international community may not support us. But Turkey and Kuwait will and that would be enough.

I hate to say it, but while I’m on this subject I will. It looks to me like there were clearly some intelligence lapses and diplomatic failures.

I think the American public should have a full and complete accounting of the circumstances surrounding the attacks and the extent of the country’s preparedness for, and response to, the attacks.

That is why I will be a co-sponsor of a bill with Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman to set up a blue-ribbon panel with a top staff and far-reaching powers. We did this after Pearl Harbor and the assassination of President Kennedy. We should do it now.

It is clear that we're going to have to restructure our military as we prepare for this new kind of war and occupations abroad.

At the same time we must better protect the borders of this country. We must track down and deal with those whose visas have expired and the millions who are here illegally, as well as protect all of our vulnerable infrastructure.

So should we not consider having all people when they get to be 18 subject to be called up for a short period of service under a lottery system -- with no exemptions?

And there should be a year of college or technical school guaranteed to them for every year they serve.

Time is getting away. So let me quickly hit a few other issues that will come up this year.

The Fast Track Trade Bill that broadens the President's trade negotiating power passed the House in late December by one vote. Now it's in the Senate, and I plan to support it. I do not want to undermine the President’s standing in the global community.

Although President Bush's Social Security Commission has made its report and given us some viable alternatives, I do not expect Congress to take action on it this election year.

Both the House and the Senate passed bills last year and for the first time in half a dozen years of fighting, it seemed that a bill might actually get to the President’s desk. Since September 11, however, there has been no action on this issue.

Even in these treacherous and expensive times, we must not forget our seniors and we must offer them some protection from the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs.

I have co-sponsored a bill that would help seniors get their medicine more quickly and affordably and with little red tape.

For nearly three months we argued over terrorism reinsurance. It was, and is, crucial that something be passed to bring some stability for the building owners who lease the space and the companies that insure it.

It came down to the main issue of punitive damages. Tort reform with powerful constituencies on both sides. There were also some opponents who thought it was a bailout for insurance companies.

Whatever we would have done was to last only 24 months, and I think the Senate’s failure to act does some damage to economic recovery. I hope we can do something soon after we return in January.

It didn't get much attention, but the Senate in the closing hours of last session passed a seaport security bill. I was a co-sponsor of this bill because it is needed badly.

Each day 16,000 containers arrive in the United States, and one-tenth of them, or about 1,600 daily, go through Georgia’s ports. A single container can hold up to 30 tons of cargo and yet only 2 percent of all these containers are ever inspected. The bill still has to pass the House, but I think it will.

As far as airport security, starting next month, the federal government will begin taking over screening contracts and begin to apply the new higher pay and citizenship standards for workers. Let’s hope they don’t just recycle those who are already on the job. Several airports are expected to be under full federal control by May or June.

I pledge to you that I will approach each of them the same way I have handled every issue to come along in the year-and-a-half I’ve been your senator.

I doubt this ex-governor will ever move into that next phase of becoming a senator: the acceptance phase.

I just don’t think I’ll ever be able to accept the way things work up there.

I cannot believe that one party has all the right answers and the other party doesn't have a single right answer.

So when I think it’s good for this state and this nation, I'm going to work with members of the opposite party.

That’s what I did as your Governor and that's what I'll keep doing as your senator.

So, Senator Gramm and I have introduced another bill that would make the tax cut permanent, and also cut the capital gains tax rate from 20 to 15 percent.
> Now, the Democratic leader is publicly blaming the tax cut for our economic slowdown. Ladies and gentlemen, this economic slowdown had begun before we passed the tax cut, and most of it hasn't even gone into effect.

But we cannot pass a capital gains rate cut in the Senate even though there may well be a majority in favor of it. The Democratic leadership won't even consider it.

Daschle must be changing his diaper right now. I trust these remarks will not be making it to the evening news. I's only a story when McCain abuses Republicans.

Now if we could just get this fine man to make a Jeffords-neutralization move in the Senate, we could get some of the movement he sees wanting.

I sure wish we could get someone like him in Massachusetts!!

We have the right man in the White House. George W. Bush has been magnificent. He is surrounded by the most experienced, tested group of advisors we could possibly have.

This, after dissing Clinton's do-nothing approach (without naming the name). Pretty sweet, from a Dim.

Dan

Wow, this is great. But like it has been said before, a Democrat taking on his own party doesn't get any play. It's only Republicans taking on their own party. Shouldn't the maverick label apply to Zell Miller, too? God, I hate the press.

Maybe talk like this will help convince Georgia voters to get rid of Cleland!

" . . . former governors come up here and invariably you go through three phases . . .
The first phase is disbelief. You just can't believe how legislation and decisions are made. "
The next phase, he said was anger. You stay mad most of the time and you want to change the system and make it more orderly.
And then, finally, he said the third phase is acceptance.

Does this sound like a system run for the governments of the states? Because that's exactly what the Senate was designed to do . . . and what the 17^th Amendment subverted. Now the senators represent the people of their respective states, making the senate itself basically a parallel House of Representatives with traditional rather than politically-defined district lines.

What could be clearer than that, failing repeal of the 17th, the Senate should consist entirely of former governors? Election to Governor should entail one 4-year term, followed by a 4-year term as Senator.

If you're feeling froggy, leap, Zell.

You know that one Senator crap has its roots in the fillibuster. But these lamebrains today do not have enough confidence in their own abilities to even mount a fillibuster. No longer is an actual fillibuster event required. The 60 votes is the number of Senators required to vote to end debate, so they use all the rules they set up to handle a fillibuster without ever mounting one. Pussies. Look, I'm paying for a darn fillibuster - I want to hear one! The day the fillibuster again is required is the day the Senate is again under the control of the majority.

They use all the phoney-baloney rules about fillibusters so they don't have to mount one. That way people don't actually see them for what they are - it's pathetic. I say, you want to fillibuster - then go for it. What a bunch of pansies. I hate the Senate.

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