Character Counts; 4; Senator Pete Domenici

Okay, you're going to ask the questions, yep. I'm going to ask the questions, yes, stand by. I saw some, a combination of some very rare, strike that. I'm going to ask the questions. Senator Domenici, why did you decide to lend your support to character counts?

Well, I read what it was going to try to do, and I noticed the kind of people that were supporting it, and they were from all ideological spectrums, conservatives and moderates, liberals, Democrats, Republicans, the two-chair people were marvelous examples. We had Barbara Jordan, who was one of the co-chairs for the national effort. At Tom Seleck, the movie actor is co-chair, and when you looked at that, you thought it really might have a chance to do some good for the United States, and in particular for our young people. What involvement have you had at the state and federal level with character counts? Well, once I found out about it, I decided that I ought to get involved. My first attempt to, an involvement was to introduce a resolution to an Indian United States Senate that would declare character counts week once a year, each year,

wherein these six pillars of character could be promoted across the land. But that didn't seem to be enough, because so many people asked, as I spoke about it, asked why we couldn't do something about it in New Mexico. So from that came a series of involvement with local communities through their mayors and leadership, so that New Mexico leads the nation today in terms of promoting the six pillars of character in schools and in communities across our state. You feel there's an need for organizations to become involved in character counts? I think character counts has a potential to help through various instrumentalities. Organizations can join and make the six pillars of character part of their living activities. And as we've done in New Mexico, it can become part of the educational system,

not in a mandatory way necessarily, but in a voluntary way, where these six pillars of character are brought right into the schools and become part of the curriculum. It has now become almost accepted in our state that we're a grade school or junior high, accept this, accept this, there will be one month when responsibility will become part of what you do during that month. And then the next month may be caring, the next month may be trustworthiness, and then civic participation or patriotism, and so it goes. And that's become very, very successful. How my community and business organizations benefit from becoming involved in character counts? Well, look, it's pretty obvious that everybody benefits, that gets touched in a real way by character counts. Because if young people begin to understand that trustworthiness is important and then if the adults begin to understand that, that means you start such things as telling the truth is good.

Telling lies is not good. Being loyal and trustworthy, and when you give your word, then go over to responsibility. And it becomes a sense of pride that one can be responsible for oneself. And if that permeates, be it a school and young people or a community and its businesses or a community at large, everybody gains because the country so desperately needs some positive things for our young people to participate in. And we need to build back into our lifestyle that there are essentially some good things and some bad things, some things that are right and some things that are wrong. And these six pillars seem to be acceptable to everyone. They are not acceptable only to one religious group or to a group that doesn't believe in God. Everybody thinks that you ought to have these six pillars in society, permeating society. Has character counts made a difference in your life?

Well, character counts made a difference in my life in two ways. One, it is a true joy and a source of tremendous satisfaction to be a party to these growing activities that center around the six pillars of character. It's just great to go to a community like Hobbes and bring everybody from Lee County together that are leaders and that work in our schools, that do this and that, and then watch them develop the implementation of these six pillars in their schools and community. We started it in Albuquerque. It's now spread to many communities. Roswell is doing a fantastic job. And what's happening is the communities that are successful are helping the communities that are starting up by helping train their teachers, helping train their leaders. And it's just a rather fantastic thing. From my own self and my own growth, I'm watching ever more carefully, my own conduct, as it pertains to these pillars, responsibility, caring, trustworthiness.

Obviously, if you don't want to live it, you don't want to walk it. You better not talk it as the young people are telling me. What can individuals do to help make a tangible difference in their workplace and neighborhoods? Well, I think the first thing is, if you're in an area where it is being suggested that character counts ought to become a part of your life and that you ought to be active in it, and I think you ought to give of yourself and start doing it, join. If it is not being promoted and you think it should, then scout around and see who's doing it. Where can you get involved? What community has started it? And maybe you can be the source of getting it into some organization that you're part of. I mean, there's a lot of room for individuality in this program. It's not from on high. It's down at the grassroots, people doing it in their schools, in the marketplace, in their workplaces. Thank you. Do they have a deal? Okay.

Do you see this? Okay. Is there any of them? Don't do them. Don't get asked. Just let me know. There you go. And you'll be looking at Chris. Chris, I'll give you a chance. You sit there. Okay. Okay. We run by the private sector and we both do some of that. And finally, for those programs that we all agree threaten the long term fiscal future, we both assume an entitlement program changes that would lower their exploding growth rates.

And we both assume that we will have to spend about $6.5 trillion over the next seven years on entitlements or mandatory expenditures. In general, we have similar assumptions about the need to reform Medicare and Medicaid. We do them a little differently, but we both assume changes to preserve, protect, and improve these programs. We both believe the welfare system is broken and must be repaired. And to the extent that a resolution can do it, we dictate changes through committees that will change that system from one of perpetual dependence to one of temporary assistance. So as we move through this, I ask that both the House and the Senate understand that we are independent bodies, that we both have voted and voted our will, and that if we are not willing to concede something to the other body and vice versa, we will get nowhere. And the hope for a balanced budget will disappear.

I wish it on occasions that our founding fathers had not made it so difficult, but they did. You have a House and a Senate, and they are permitted to vote differently, and then they come to conference and have to agree, and then go back and have to vote again. They were not all that simple. They knew passing and changing laws required a little bit of time and thought. And so we've had a lot of votes. You all should know that in the United States Senate, we had 76 floor votes on this budget resolution. Nonetheless, we come to this meeting, willing to make some arrangements with you and to negotiate with one main purpose in mind, and that is to create a fiscal policy that's better for our children than it is for us. Now I would yield if you would like to Mr. Sabo. Thank you for your interaction.