[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 16 (Wednesday, February 23, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 23, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                         THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET

  Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator. I want to commend the Senator from 
Oklahoma on his evaluation of the numbers as this budget goes forward, 
with the increased spending which is in this budget, and for his very 
fine assessment of those numbers. And I would like to join in 
expressing the concern that I think is generally held on our side of 
the aisle that this budget has some very significant shortcomings in 
it, not only in the projection of what it is going to spend and the 
deficits which it creates, but in what it does not talk about and what 
it does not include.
  If you look at this budget, it is really like a large piece of swiss 
cheese, relative to the number of major spending items which are not 
accounted for yet, which we know are coming. Thus, when this budget 
talks in terms of its bottom line, it is a bottom line, basically, 
without a hard number to it. Even the proposals which we have heard 
here and the discussions we have heard here about the rather gigantic 
amount of money which is going to be added to the Federal debt over the 
next 5 years is a significant understatement, if you look at the items 
which are clearly not included within this budget, which we know are 
going to have to be paid for. Let us talk about a few of those. These 
are the President's ideas.
  The items left out are items being put forth by the President, which 
he already said he is going to pursue, but which have not been 
specifically included in the budget. You can begin with a fairly 
technical item, but it is going to be a big-cost item to us as a 
country, and that is the implementation of GATT. We have signed the 
agreement. We know it is going to go forward and cost us $11 billion. 
There is no accounting for that in this budget.
  We can go to the President's proposals on welfare reform. His own 
estimates from his own people in the HHS are that the welfare reform 
package he will bring forth will cost us somewhere in the vicinity of 
$7 billion; again, it is not reflected in this budget. Go to his 
Defense Department numbers. His former Secretary of Defense, Mr. Aspin, 
through the Bottom-Up Review process, has said that the budget in the 
Defense Department is $20 billion short. It is not accounted for 
anywhere in this budget.
  You can go to his proposals in Superfund: $2.5 billion to $3 billion 
is going to have to be added in order to address the Superfund 
accounts. It is not accounted for anywhere in this budget. And then, 
one of the more significant items--although the last few that I have 
outlined are fairly significant when you add them all up--is the issue 
of the cost of his health care proposal.
  The CBO, which the President said was going to be the independent 
score for the purposes of developing a budget in the congressional 
process, and to which he was going to look as the fair arbiter of 
numbers, has said that his health care package will not save the $53 or 
$56 billion that is presently estimated and accounted for in the 
budget, but will actually cost an additional $78 billion. That is a 
shift of $131 billion, or $130 billion, approximately, which is again 
not accounted for in the President's budget.
  If you take all those numbers together, you are up to $200 billion, 
which the President's people are saying they are going to spend, which 
is going to occur as a result of action that the President is 
proposing, yet which the budget the President sent up here does not 
account for. It is not a very accurate document, therefore, and one 
which is suspect not only for that reason but for a number of other 
reasons.
  Probably the most significant reason beyond the $200 billion which I 
have just outlined is, again, the issue of health care. The CBO has 
stated that--and, again, they have been chosen as the fair arbiter here 
by the President--in order to accurately reflect what the health care 
package has in it, the budget and its impact on the budget must reflect 
the mandated premium which is in the President's health care package.
  Now that mandated premium is a huge number, and on the CBO's 
assessment it should be accounted for as a receipt of the Federal 
Government on the budget. The cost of paying for the premiums through 
the health care alliances should be accounted for on the President's 
budget as an expenditure of the Federal Government. And yet they are 
not there.
  That number may be as high as $500 billion and yet it is not 
accounted for in the budget. Just a great big non-number as if it does 
not exist. And yet we have this budget sent up by the President and 
praised by the national media as a responsible document that has 
effectively addressed funding mechanisms and the accounting for the 
Federal Government. It does not.
  There are $200 billion in specific lapses in Federal programs which 
have been proposed by the President. It has hundreds of billions of 
dollars of lapses in failing to mention the issue of the mandated 
premium.
  In addition, there are, as was alluded to by the Senator from 
Oklahoma, six major new entitlements proposed by this administration--
six. That makes them the entitlement king of all times. That puts them 
in a class which even Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson could not 
have obtained, sort of the Babe Ruth of entitlement creation--six major 
new entitlements proposed by this administration.
  There is the long-term care entitlement, there is the drug 
entitlement, there is the early retirement entitlement, there is the 
small business entitlement, there is the uninsured entitlement, and 
there is now something called the job training entitlement.
  If you take all six of these entitlements and try to get a handle on 
how much they cost, you end up with some astronomical numbers in the 
outyears. Of course, the President's budget only runs for 5 years. That 
is reasonable. That is the way we have done it around here. But when 
you start talking about when these new entitlements which this 
administration is proposing kick in and start to fully aggravate the 
deficit----
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. GREGG. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I ask for another 30 seconds.
  Mr. LOTT. I yield the Senator another 1 minute.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator is recognized for an 
additional minute.
  Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator from Mississippi.
  If you look at what the practical effects of these six major new 
entitlements are in the Federal budget in the outyears, they are 
catastrophic, so catastrophic, that the President's own budget, when he 
sent it up this year, tells us--and this is the President's budget--
that children born in 1994 will pay 82 percent of their earnings over 
their life to the Government--82 percent. And that is the President's 
estimate on what the cost is of Government as a result of the outyear 
effect of what we are doing today in the area of spending and creating 
new entitlements.
  So, Mr. President, we have serious problems here, and the President's 
budget does not address them. And the problem is that we are not 
controlling spending, but that in fact under the President's budget we 
are adding a lot of new spending and we are not accounting for it.
  I yield back my time.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, under the time under the special order 
reserved for Senator Wallop, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from 
Idaho.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Idaho [Mr. Craig] 
is recognized for 3 minutes.

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