[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 51 (Tuesday, May 3, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: May 3, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
A TO Z BUDGET
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
February 11, 1994, the gentleman from New Hampshire [Mr. Zeliff] is
recognized for 1 hour as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. ZELIFF. Mr. Speaker, I rise this day to express my enthusiastic
support for one of the most bold and exciting initiatives which
Congress will consider this year. H.R. 3266 and its companion
resolution, House Resolution 407, cosponsored by a bipartisan group of
230 house Members, can form the basis for a fundamental reform of the
budgetary process in this House, reform which we know in our hearts is
desperately needed and long overdue.
Here is the problem: Congress promises to cut Government spending
year after year. But when the tax bill comes in, it is always higher.
Here is the solution: Seize control of big Government spending by
tackling the budget piece by piece from top to bottom, from A to Z.
That is the program which I urge you to support, the A to Z plan, Mr.
Speaker. This bill proposes what was once unthinkable, that we act
specifically and responsibly on individual spending programs. This bill
promises and proposes that we lift the veil of secrecy and give each
Member of Congress an honest, open, equal vote on individual programs
which make up the monster we now know as the Federal deficit and the
budget.
The budgetary process we have does not fool anybody anymore. The way
you get that pork-barrel project for your district is to tie it to a
flood relief bill or aid to fight child abuse. Who is going to vote
against child abuse? That is the way the budget is put together, too;
billions of dollars of spending which would never survive on their own
somehow slither through the U.S. Congress hidden in the pages of the
Federal budget. All we have is 1 vote on the whole package, take it or
leave it, up or down. The principle of the A to Z plan is simple: Break
the budget down, allow 56 hours of honest debate on Federal spending
and cuts. During that debate, any Member may introduce a specific idea
to cut Federal spending. Each spending cut proposal will be debated
openly and individually on this floor. After the debate, each proposal
would be voted up or down by the full House.
The A to Z plan gives us the opportunity to set aside power politics,
set aside partisan rhetoric, set aside the self-serving ``spend
anything as long as I get mine'' attitude, for which this Congress is
justly criticized by the American people.
A to Z is our way to shed light on the budget process; to start to
clean up the mess by cleaning up the process.
The A to Z plan gets us behind this shell game, gets us beyond that
shell game of spending now and promising savings later. With the power
of A to Z we have a chance to give a body blow to big Government
spending instead of the customary slap on the wrist and to do it right
now.
Just as this proposal seeks to free each Member of Congress to
express their views and vote their conscience on how we spend tax money
taken from hardworking Americans, so does each Member have the
responsibility to stand up and be counted on the A to Z plan.
Those who would reject real accountability for the billions of tax
dollars we spend must expect revenge from the voters who pay those
taxes and then shake their heads as they watch the subterfuge and
waste.
{time} 1800
Let us be clear on just what the A to Z plan is and what it is not. A
to Z is the way to break down the budget into manageable pieces so we
may control spending. A to Z is the way to let the voice and the vote
of every Member of Congress count and be heard. A to Z is a clean break
from the abuses of power and the process of the past, an embrace of the
kind of democracy which the American people once believed that we stood
for in the U.S. Congress. A to Z is not a circus. It is not a
distraction, as our opponents suggest. That is a smoke screen. A to Z
is not a way to circumvent House leadership. It is a means to enable us
each, to enable all of us, to take a stand for real leadership. To the
American people the A to Z plan is just plain common sense.
Mr. Speaker, those of us who have been homeowners and wage earners
know that this is how real people work their own budgets, in their
kitchens, in their rooms. I say to my colleagues, ``When you need to
cut spending and make ends meet, you look at each of your expenses one
by one, and you find ways that you can cut them and live within your
means.'' This is the way we should cut spending and save money in
Congress, too.
This is not rocket science. It is just good government. That is why
the A to Z plan is endorsed by so many outside organizations, and I
will just name them: American Conservative Union, American Legislative
Exchange Council, Americans for a Balanced Budget, American Small
Business Association, Americans for Tax Relief, Association of
Concerned Taxpayers, Christian Coalition, Citizens Against Government
Waste, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Free the Eagle, National American
Wholesale Grocers Association, National Federation of Independent
Businesses, National Taxpayers Union, Pennsylvania Leadership Council,
Small Business Survival Committee, United Seniors Association, United
States Chamber of Commerce.
Mr. Speaker, this is the way we should cut spending and save money in
Congress, too. It makes so much sense.
Some may ask, ``Who would oppose such a plan?''
We know who. Behind closed doors some members of the speaker's team
scrambling to find ways to derail this freight train are whispering,
``How can we accomplish this?''
The real question, which voters all across America have for us now,
is:
How can we not do this?
The underlying principle of this debate is nothing less than what is
the legitimate function of Congress. Those who believe that Congress
exists to serve a select few who control and subvert the intent of
representative democracy should have the guts to admit it. Those of us
who believe that every Member must have the right to act in the best
interests of their voters that they represent who sent them here have
an obligation to oppose such a power grab. The A to Z plan can be the
foundation of the reform that we need.
Mr. Speaker, I ask every Member here to join supporters of this
important movement, to stand up for what is right, and I urge every
voter in America who hears these words to let their Congressman know
how important it is to support the A to Z cutting spending plan.
Tomorrow we will start the discharge process, and we hope that we
will be successful in getting 218 folks to this 230 that cosponsored
this bill, and tonight I am very pleased and honored to recognize my
colleague and friend, the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Inhofe], who
basically started this process rolling, tore down the walls of secrecy.
This is the type of reform that would not have been possible 1 year ago
had Jim not put his hard work and efforts in all of our behalf to get
the process fully started.
I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Hampshire
[Mr. Zeliff].
Mr. Speaker, it is just a shock to me and to people at our town hall
meetings that we have to resort to something like this. Most of America
really believes that we have an opportunity to vote things down, to get
on record, and they do not understand what type of institutional
corruption there is here in this body that keeps people from being
heard, and, as my colleague knows, all I can say is, ``They just don't
get it. The leadership of this body just doesn't understand. They are
holding on with white knuckles to that old way of doing business that
they have done for 60 or 70 years, and they don't understand that times
have changed and people are going to be making some demands for a
change.''
Mr. Speaker, the gentleman's issue is important, of course, and that
is to be able to cut spending in a way that, I think, effectively we
can do it. But the issue is not the main thing at stake here. The issue
really is accountability.
There are a lot of people that are elected to this body that their
constituency maybe does not want them to come up here and cut out a lot
of these programs. I suspect they are few and far between, but this is
an opportunity to cut government spending, and to think that we have to
tomorrow--I guess at 2 o'clock--resort to a discharge petition to bring
this out. Let me just real briefly explain why this is necessary.
Mr. Speaker, it is necessary because we went through a period of
history in this body for 60 years, up until last September, where the
elite leadership was able to have absolute, not partial, but absolute,
control of the entire agenda of the House of Representatives. As my
colleagues know, the gentleman from New Hampshire [Mr. Zeliff] would
introduce a bill that 90 percent of the people in America want, and
they design it, they would look at it and say, ``Well, this is
something that, yeah, these dumb people out in America might want, 90
percent, but not to us, the elite leadership of this body. So, we'll
stick it in the Rules Committee with a deal that it will never have a
hearing, never see the light of day, never have a vote.'' So, that has
been going on for some 60 years.
And the issue, yes, it is important. We tried the balanced budget
amendment to the Constitution. It should not have been necessary to
have a discharge petition to bring that out for a vote, but it was
necessary, and so it came out, and we lost it by 12 votes, and I would
suggest to the gentleman from New Hampshire that there will be a lot of
heads that will roll at election time because they are among those 12
that stopped us from having a balanced budget amendment to the
Constitution of this country, a recognition that this body has
demonstrated for 40 years it is incapable of fiscal frugality or
of changing the deficit situation that we have. Well, that lost by 12
votes.
Now, Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we have a chance to do it where we are
putting people on record as to whether or not they want to vote on
specific spending cuts, and this is an opportunity that we will have
tomorrow to do that. I think it is significant that people understand
the process that we have in this country and that it should not be
necessary, but it is necessary, to do that.
So, tomorrow at, I guess, 2 o'clock there will be several of us that
will be going around on the floor and be going to individuals who have
cosponsored the A to Z bill. It has gotten a lot of national publicity
because it is inconceivable that anyone could be opposed to the A to Z
bill.
Mr. Speaker, the gentleman has explained it quite accurately, but in
a nutshell all it is is an opportunity to go on record to vote against
these programs that no longer--that the vast majority of them in
America do not want, and that is all we want to do, is to give people
that opportunity.
It is kind of interesting, and I cannot remember who did the study,
but I do have it documented. But a child that is born now--I happen to
have two grandchildren that just celebrated their first birthday. Those
children coming into the world today, unless we do something to change
this system of deficits piling up over and over again, a child born
today will have to spend 75 percent of his lifetime income just to
service the debt.
Now, Mr. Speaker, it was not long ago. It was the 5th of August 1993
that we passed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. In this
bill that a lot of people mistakenly called a deficit reduction bill
because it increased the deficit, it did not decrease the deficit--it
was the largest tax and spend increase in the history of this country,
and those are not the words of conservative Republican Jim Inhofe.
Those are the words of Patrick Moynihan, chairman of the Senate Finance
Committee. It increased taxes by $255 billion, and I ask, ``Did you
know that there wasn't one program eliminated in that bill? We talked
about the mohair program, we talked about the honey bee program.
Nothing was eliminated. Just keep the programs going because they are
in someone's district, someone who has seniority in this operation here
that wants to keep these programs going in spite of the fact that 90
percent of the people in New Hampshire, 90 percent of the people in
Oklahoma and across America want us to bite the bullet and do away with
some of these useless programs.''
Mr. ZELIFF. Let me just ask a quick question.
Going back to the vote in August, am I correct in saying that that
deficit reduction bill added a trillion dollars to our debt, making the
total--we are right at $4.5 trillion, and we are going to be close to
$6 trillion.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that question
because it needs clarification. I say to the gentleman, ``You're being
generous when you say that because there are assumptions, and I can't
be partisan when I say this because quite frankly back in 1990, when
you had the Budget Reconciliation Act, and President Bush was
President, the same thing happened then. We had assumptions that were
revenue assumptions.''
For example, we have revenue that comes from gasoline tax.
{time} 1810
So they had to project how much revenue will come in. Then they have
a growth assumption. For each 1 percent growth in our economy, that
translates into $24 billion of new money. So the President is putting
on growth assumptions here that are not realistic.
I think probably we will find it is going to be even much greater
than that.
Mr. ZELIFF. If the gentleman will yield back, an example you used in
1990 when we added $164 billion to our debt then, or new taxes, the
actual number ended up at $197 billion. So our ability to project is
somewhat limited.
Mr. INHOFE. Our ability to project in this body has always been to be
in error in our favor. I think that there are some of us in this body
that are more concerned about future generations than we are the
current generation. You have to keep in mind that all this stuff we are
doing today, all the fun we are having, all the programs we are
funding, are all being funded with borrowed money, being borrowed from
my two grandchildren and future generations. You have to somehow drive
that into the minds of the people making the decisions.
Your bill is going to do a better job of that than anything else I
have seen. A balanced budget amendment is a good thing. We did our
best. We lost it by 12 votes, and a lot of heads will roll at election
time as a result of it. You are not saying we wanted you to defend the
mohair program. You are not saying we wanted you to defund the honey
bee program.
You are saying we wanted you to be accountable. We wanted your people
at home to know how you stand on these various programs. Because the
current system we have, just like the Reconciliation Act of 1993, it
had all of these things in one bill, where you could not amend it, so
you could not pick and choose.
Now we are going to have that opportunity. If we are successful, if
the people at home put enough pressure on this body, we are going to be
able to hold each and every Member of this body accountable for each of
these spending decreases that will be proposed as a result of your
bill. As you have already mentioned, unfortunately, it is going to be
necessary to have a discharge petition to bring that out.
So I guess what I really wanted to get across and say to the
gentleman from New Hampshire is this should not be a bill that is
Democrat versus Republican. It should not be conservative versus
liberal. This is just accountability.
Mr. ZELIFF. There are 59 Democrats on this bill. We have 230
cosponsors. There are 171 Republicans. It is bipartisan. Frankly, I
think that is the best part that we can say. This is a joint effort,
from both sides of the aisle.
Back in August, prior to the vote for the President's economic plan,
we had 234 Members sign a letter to the Speaker asking for a special
session of Congress to do nothing but cut spending, a 10 day session,
if you will. We never heard back on that. That is why we went and moved
forward and dropped the bill itself, and now we are doing the
discharge.
Mr. INHOFE. I would have to try to speculate as to why there is so
much resistance. I do not think it is all just because of these
programs that they do not want cut. They do not want to change around
here. They do not want to change the way of doing business.
They were very upset when the change came with the discharge petition
reform. That took away the ability to hide from people at home what we
are doing in this body. This is probably the second real test of that.
I stood at this very podium when we passed that reform and said that it
will not be necessary to have very many discharge petitions, because
now the leadership of these committees know that they have to be
responsible, they have to hold hearings, and they have to give us an
opportunity to have a public vote.
This happens to be a case that they should have done it without this,
but they are not doing it. I applaud you for your efforts and for
thinking this up. This is a ingenuous way to try to do something.
Mr. ZELIFF. It is pretty simple. You could probably think of
something similar in Oklahoma, but it is like either a small business
or a small town meeting where, in New Hampshire what we do is take care
of all the items on the warrant one by one in about 2 or 2\1/2\ hours.
We decide how to handle all the town's business in one day.
Obviously, it is a little bit more difficult and complicated here,
but the process is the same. Why not address these, take a look at your
spending, get rid of waste and inefficiency, everything on the table, A
to Z.
I would like to now recognize my colleague from Michigan, Peter
Hoekstra.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Thank you. It is good to be here tonight and talk about
what we are actually going to try to accomplish tomorrow. I think
tomorrow is going to provide many of us in the House a fantastic
opportunity by signing the discharge petition, which will bring your
bill to the floor, A to Z.
I think it is important to reiterate again what we are trying to do.
We are trying to get 56 hours of debate. We are trying to get and
provide for every Member of this Chamber the opportunity to bring an
amendment to the floor to cut spending, so that we can go back to our
constituents later this year and show that we as a Congress really have
taken more seriously the need to fix the deficit.
I have got some documents in front of me that show that it can be
done. Specifically the Concord Coalition. But I think it is important
to recognize what the Concord Coalition and our own GAO says and all
that, that in the year 2000, we will still be in debt. And between now
and the year 2000, we are going to continue deficit spending, we are
going to continue to accumulate dollars of debt. And, as our colleague
from Oklahoma stated, we are stealing from the next generation. We are
taking an phenomenal amount of money from the next generation and
spending it on ourselves.
The Concord Coalition goes through and talks about a way that by the
year 2000 we can fix the deficit, we can get it down to zero. We as a
Congress have had an opportunity recently in the different budget
proposals to vote on a plan that would balance the budget, which was
the Solomon plan.
They talk about a number of things that we can do, and I expect that
as we get the discharge petition, we will have an opportunity to vote
on many of the things that the Concord Coalition has talked about,
things that were included in the Solomon budget, things that are
included in the Solomon budget, things that are included in other
proposals, because there are many people that have taken a close look
at reducing the deficit.
Where does the Concord Coalition suggest that we can perhaps cut
spending? There may be opportunities in the defense area. There may be
opportunities in domestic spending. There may be some opportunities in
entitlements. As we go through and attack each of these issues, we will
also accumulate a benefit of not spending as much on interest payments.
My staff has taken a look specifically at what would happen if we cut
franking. Just in the House of Representatives, if we said we were
going to spend approximately about the same dollars per household that
the Senate spent, we would save $35 million per year.
Some would say in Washington that that is not a lot of money. But
only in Washington would we say that $35 million is not a lot of money.
The company I worked for in the private sector, if we had an increase
of sales of $35 million from one year to the next, that would have been
a very, very successful year.
It is just one of what I hope will be 435 creative, bipartisan
efforts to cut spending, so that we can say we have honestly, like you
talked about what happens in the town meetings in New Hampshire, that
we have had the opportunity to go through the budget, line item by line
item, and find those areas that we at least believe should be brought
to a vote of the House, and that we can then go back and say, you know,
we found another $50 billion, we found another $100 billion. We have
more work to do, but there are a lot of opportunities here.
I think we would have a great week or 10 days of debate going through
each and every one of these, and I think the American people would be
excited by watching the process.
Mr. ZELIFF. I think in the gentleman's earlier remarks he talked
about the fact that in the year 2000 we weren't anywhere close to
balancing our budget. I think our problem here is that it doesn't have
to be this way. We can take advantage of a narrow window of opportunity
to put the train back on track. We can start living within our means.
We may have to start living on 95 percent of what we previously spent,
but we can accomplish a goal of providing a balanced budget, living
within our means, being competitive in as early as the year 2000.
This is not heavy lifting. This is responsible government. This is
leadership. This is something we need to address.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. If the gentleman will yield further, it wasn't that
long ago that we had the Penny-Kasich proposal, a bipartisan effort to
cut spending.
Mr. ZELIFF. That was a penny on the dollar.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Over what, the next 5 years. And we could not pass that
as a package. So what this bill will allow us to do is come back and
take bits and pieces of that bill, find those elements where we have
enough votes to pass the spending cuts. We will then implement those.
Plus, it will provide for a wide range of opportunities for additional
cuts.
Just think, our constituents will be able to go through and see 435
programs. They will be able to see how much we proposed in cutting, and
then they will be able to see how we voted on each one of those items.
{time} 1820
The other thing that we will be able to see is, I think they might
get a better appreciation, because getting down to a balanced budget
will not be easy. But they will have seen the decisions that we have
made to reduce the deficit. Then perhaps we can go back to them and
say, we have gotten half the way there now. You saw some of the
programs that we decided to keep. Perhaps you can give us some
recommendations on it. We voted to keep this program because we thought
it provided a benefit. Is it really providing a benefit to you? Maybe
that is a program that you think we, do you think we should cut that
program?
So it is going to be a process that will open up this Chamber, and I
think can open up the process for the country as a whole for us all to
focus on reducing the deficit and getting to our objective of a
balanced budget. We also had the opportunity to vote for a balanced
budget amendment. I thought that would have been the opportunity where
we really could have displayed to the American people.
Mr. ZELIFF. Is it not interesting how that balanced budget amendment
elusively, we thought we had the votes, and all of a sudden we just
missed by a few votes. I voted on it twice now and the same thing has
happened both times.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Only having been here 16 months, all the critical
votes, we always lose by about 10 to 13 votes, the votes that would
change the way that we do business. The only thing that I think really
changed was the work that my colleague from Oklahoma did, was getting
the discharge petition.
That is opening up the process and without that, I am sure you would
have been saying, I have 231 cosponsors. We are moving toward the
discharge petition, but that discharge petition would have never
passed, would have never gotten the 218 signatures because we would
have never been able to tell the American people who signed and who did
not sign. We will now be able to keep a record of who thought this
legislation was good enough to cosponsor so that they could go back to
their districts and say, see, we are for deficit reduction. I am
sponsoring the A to Z plan.
It is going to be real interesting to see those 12 or 13 who
cosponsored the legislation or if there even will be 12 or 13. I hope
there are 231 people lined up there tomorrow.
Mr. ZELIFF. There should be.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Two hundred thirty-one people lined up to sign this and
get it passed.
Mr. INHOFE. You know, you mentioned the discharge petition. You
mentioned this, they have something in common, that is both of them
deal with accountability. That is why I hope that people do not frame
this as a conservative or a liberal movement.
I can remember when we were on a talk radio show in Massachusetts and
a guy called in and he said: Inhofe, I do not really like anything that
you stand for except for this. I happen to be a very liberal Democrat.
I am an elected official in the Democratic Party in the State of
Massachusetts. This, I agree with you, this is only one thing. That is
accountability.
I think that message should ring through to this, because that is all
this is, is accountability.
I would dare to say that the four of us will not agree on very many
of these cuts, when they come up. We are going to be voting. We might
feel differently about the space station and some of the other
programs. But at least we will then have to be accountable for each and
every one.
Since both the gentlemen are freshmen, I hope you address in your
remarks that would you have ever believed when you came to Congress
that you would have to be going through all of this just to be heard
and to be able to vote on a reduction in spending? Did this ever occur
to you? And if the answer is what I think it is, how do you explain
this to the people at townhall meetings? That is the frustration that I
have.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. I studied political science. I graduated back in 1974.
I studied the Rules Committee. I think if textbooks were written today,
the definition in and the power of the Rules Committee would be
described much differently today than it was back in the 1970's,
because back in the 1970's, the closed rule was an exception. And now I
think in this Congress, what, 85, 90 percent of the rules have been
closed rules and just to explain what a closed rule is. It means, when
the bill comes to the floor it clearly outlines exactly what amendments
will be in order, what amendments may be voted on, what so many people
forget is all of the amendments that were proposed to the Rules
Committee that never see the light of day, that never make it to the
floor of the House for a vote.
So I think having studied political science, having watched the House
and now being here and working in it, that has probably been the
biggest disappointment, the lack of a deliberative, open process here
on the floor of the House to tackle many of the issues.
Mr. ZELIFF. Representative democracy is what it is all about, and
accountability.
I would like to introduce another colleague of ours from Michigan,
Joe Knollenberg.
Mr. KNOLLENBERG. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I just wanted to
make sure that you get the applause, Bill, that you deserve for making
this effort, an extraordinary effort as it is to get people to deal
with reality. I think it is just plain openness.
I know that the Congressman from Oklahoma, Jim Inhofe, has been the
spark plug to this whole process. That has already been covered, I am
sure, in your conversations.
I would just like to point out that, and I kind of want to respond to
Congressman Inhofe's question which was directed to my colleague from
Michigan, what was my interpretation, what was my opinion, what was my
view about how things are done here. Frankly, until you get here you do
not really know that. I have to tell you, it is very difficult for me
to go back to a townhall meeting in my district and tell people, this
is what happens. When you mention the process, it is almost like a
blank stare appears on their face. It is a blur. It is not an open
process.
I know that in many ways we have a system here that has worked for so
many years and it has worked well enough that it seems things get done.
But frankly, the thing that struck me is the fact that it is not open.
It is closed. Not just the rules process, and that was an area that I
knew very, very little about. It is an area, too, it is a committee
that has frankly, it brings blank stares also when you start to tell
people how things have to be processed through the Rules Committee,
whether it is an open rule or a closed rule.
One of the phrases that I hear a great deal from colleagues of mine
is that they say that I am for cutting spending, but I am opposed to
cutting this particular program. Many times we get a bill that we like
parts of it, we may like two-thirds or three-fourths, there are a
couple of areas that just kill it. And so we wind up, even though the
bill might have been perfected by amendment, we wind up voting against
it.
Is it not interesting, here is a process that Congressman Zeliff has
introduced and certainly the spark came from over here, from
Congressman Inhofe, here is something very simple. Now we can take
these things apart, one by one. We can strip away this figleaf and talk
about one issue at a time and we can vote for it up or we can vote for
it down. We have the right to make a decision on the basis of something
very simple, very clean. I think that is what I like about the process,
is its simplicity, its openness, and it is simple.
Mr. ZELIFF. Frankly, the reason it is so simple has made an impact
across America. I did an hour this morning from 8 to 9 with C-SPAN, a
call-in show. And we had calls in every minute of that hour. It is
incredible.
Mr. INHOFE. If you had calls in over a period of an hour, can you
tell me one logical reason to oppose this? What kind of questions came
in that seemed to make sense to you?
Mr. ZELIFF. Basically, I was on with a fellow from the Brookings
Institution that basically was going the other way. He represented that
opposition to the A to Z, that it was not within the committee process
and he went through his whole process. I went according to why I
thought it was a good idea.
I would say that all of the calls, bar none, were in support of the A
to Z process, simple straightforward representative democracy.
Mr. INHOFE. It sounds like the opposition you experienced was the
same opposition that I did when they say this violates this great
committee process. My response was, if it is a process that is corrupt
and it is broken, then it has to be fixed.
Mr. ZELIFF. The committee process could easily have taken place. We
introduced a letter to the Speaker with 234 names on it in August. That
was 9 months ago. Then we dropped a bill with 230 names on it.
Something could have happened over that 9-month period. Nothing
happened. All we asked for is an hour or a designated time of debate on
cutting spending and waste and inefficiency.
Mr. INHOFE. There were 30 legislative days they could have acted.
That means not 30 days, that is closer to 70 days. And so that is a
pretty good indication that they were not going to have a hearing. They
were not going to allow a vote. And this is the only way it could
happen. I always argue, this system of a discharge petition does not
circumvent the committee system. I am sure that you have said that to
the gentleman you were debating with this morning.
{time} 1830
Mr. INHOFE. I think it is awfully difficult to come up with a
credible objection to merely forcing every Member of Congress to be on
record on these spending cuts.
Mr. ZELIFF. I think that is what people want back home. I think that
is what they are demanding. I think our process--and I have done an
awful lot of town meetings, when we talk about responsibility to our
constituents, coming back home, being available, talking to them, doing
town meetings, being available in our offices for office hours, seeing
our constituents, having an open door policy--I think where people are
in trouble is when they do not provide this opportunity.
That is why we will get better respect for Members of Congress and
this institution, I think, as we lift the veil of secrecy and we open
up, come out of the closet, and let us debate the item or the proposal
based on the merits. I think that is what this thing is all about. Let
us talk about it on the merits. Let us give everybody a shot at it. Let
us then vote it up or down and move on to the next item. I think that
is what it is all about.
Mr. KNOLLENBERG. Will the gentleman yield, just to comment on that,
and also on the views of the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Inhofe] a
moment ago, because the committee structure seems to have broken down
and seems to be in need of repair, and it does.
Frankly, I think this is maybe one way of cleansing this process. I
think maybe the openness provided by the avenue that the gentleman has
brought to the floor, the A to Z process, is one that might overall
help the entire structure.
I am not against the committee structure. I am not against the
process that goes on there. I am sure nobody here is. However,
sometimes I think we might need just a little kick, maybe a little oil
in the system, and this is one of those things I think that brings on
another light and helps the process. Maybe in the end it will help the
committee process be more efficient, be more attendant to the things
that really concern America, concern this country, and not sit in a
corner ready to be forgotten about and in fact collect dust.
I would just suggest that this is a way, this process is a way, to
maybe make the whole system work better.
Mr. ZELIFF. Let me toss out an idea or two, and let us just give
folks an opportunity to see what kinds of things we are thinking about
in terms of entitlements. Entitlements are something I think we need to
address, and are certainly driving our deficit.
Certainly one thing I have talked about back home in New Hampshire in
terms of our Health Care Task Force, we believe--Medicare was
introduced in 1965 and then it was projected to cost $9 billion in
1990. It actually cost $106 billion. You say what is $100 billion. That
is the kind of accountability we are talking about.
One of the things I would like to introduce is, why not means testing
on Medicare? Why not people who are making $75,000 or more a year pay a
little higher on their part B premium than maybe those that can hardly
put food on their table? Would that be a reasonable proposal? Most of
my seniors in my town meetings support that idea.
Copayments are another idea that would make sense, and certainly
getting rid of the helium reserve is something that for 40 or 45 years
we have been talking about doing. The Medicare process would save $1.5
billion, the one I described. The helium reserve would be almost $1
billion.
Maybe you gentlemen would like to add any thoughts of other areas
that you think might be worth while.
Mr. INHOFE. Let me just make one comment in response to that. If we
really wanted to do a responsible thing, it would be to look at one of
these studies such as the Heritage Foundation and others have given to
us, that you could actually eliminate the deficit by the year 2000
without any tax increases or without any spending cuts just by applying
a cap.
There is one study that says if you put a 2 percent cap on, by the
year 2003, without any changes otherwise, you will have the budget back
into balance, the deficit eliminated. If you were to make that 1.5
percent and are able to stimulate the economy so we have a 3-percent
growth, which would add about $75 billion a year in new revenue, then
we would be able to do it in about 3 more years.
There are a lot of good ideas out there. I mentioned in our news
conference this morning, there are other ways of doing it. Certainly,
the way that you are projecting is an offering that we will be looking
at tomorrow and trying to bring out so we can get people on record.
This is a very responsible way because, again, we may not all agree
on even the things that you just now mentioned, but at least we can get
on record and everybody back home can look at us at election time and
say ``They were for cutting spending,'' or ``They were not for cutting
spending.''
Mr. ZELIFF. Absolutely; just 1 quick second. I have been involved
here where we have voted and lost the vote on the balanced budget
amendment. I think as Republicans we would certainly give a Democratic
administration the line-item veto, but that is not going to go
anywhere. Penny-Kasich I thought was a tremendous opportunity, again, a
penny on the dollar, $95 billion, that did not go anywhere. It just
missed by a handful of votes. There was a package group of cuts of
various programs.
There are people who say that the only way we are going to really get
significant control of spending is to do something similar to a Base
Closure Commission, and it seems to me we should be able to not have a
third party do what we are elected to do.
Leon Panetta, the morning of the balanced budget amendment vote, came
out on TV and said, ``Look, we do not need a constitutional amendment
to force us to do what we are sent here to do.'' The problem is that
what we have been sent down here to do does not seem to be working, so
the A to Z is a new attempt, a new process, a new idea which is a
potentially revolutionary idea but very simple, and hopefully this will
be a process that will work.
Mr. HOEKSTERA. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. ZELIFF. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. I would like to just build on the statement that my
colleague, the gentleman from Oklahoma, said. If we cap Federal
spending at a rate of 1.5 or 2 percent, we could achieve a balanced
budget.
I think that is an important thing for the American people to
recognize. When they here about us cutting spending, again, when we cut
spending in the private sector, you know, we would spend $1 million,
and when we said we were going to cut spending, it meant the next year
we would spend less than $1 million. Only in Washington can we come and
find out that we are spending $1.4 trillion and we are cutting
spending, which means next year we are going to spend $1.45 trillion.
Mr. INHOFE. If the gentleman will yield right on that point, there is
an article that every Member of Congress and others around the country
should read, and it is called ``Budget Baloney.'' It was in Readers
Digest 2 or 3 months ago.
In there they kind of put it in terms that even I understand. They
say if a guy has $5,000 and he wants a $10,000 car, all he does is say,
``I really want a $15,000 car, but I will take a $10,000 car, so I have
reduced the deficit by $5,000.'' People laugh at that, but that is
exactly what we do in this body. They ought to read that article.
Mr. ZELIFF. It really puts it in perspective.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. What we do is cut off projected spending, so I
anticipate one of these years we are going to blow projected spending
up, really make it look high, and then we are going to come back and
say we just had the biggest budget cut in history, and we cut $1
trillion over 5 years, and that is only because we projected the
numbers much higher than where they actually ought to be. There is
another thing----
Mr. ZELIFF. Are you saying, then, back in August under this deficit
reduction plan, that that was based on projected spending, not actual
cuts?
Mr. HOEKSTRA. It was cuts off of projected spending, not cuts off
of--what historically I have always said is, you are spending this much
this year, and a cut means next year you will be spending a little bit
less.
Mr. ZELIFF. Absolutely, that is all build in, the cost of inflation
and all the rest.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. A built-in escalator.
Mr. INHOFE. If the gentleman will yield, to answer your question, we
had a built-in increase in the deficit every year for the budget we
passed in 1993.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. If the gentleman will yield, I would like to talk just
a little bit about something else, again reinforcing why it is so
important that we start working on cutting spending today. This is just
a quote out of this booklet here.
If there is a single line item in the Federal budget that is 100
percent waste, fraud, and abuse, it is interest on the national debt.
Our Government's interest payments on its debt, like personal interest
payments on credit card debt, do not buy a single useful item.
Just think of all the dollars that are coming into Washington that
are just paying off the debt, or not paying off the debt but paying
interest on the debt. I wish we were paying off the debt.
In 1995 we will spend about $218 billion on interest payments. In the
future--and this is assuming there is no change in interest rates, and
we all know that interest rates are now going up slightly. Just think
what happens to these numbers if interest rates go up at all. But in
the year 2000, interest on the debt is projected to total $278 billion
per year, and by the year 2003, we will start seeing the graph
accelerate. $328 billion, think about that, $328 billion in interest
payments that do not buy us anything. They do not buy us another mile
of highway, they do not buy any small child a breakfast program or a
hot lunch program, they do not help send anybody to college. It does
not put one more police officer on the street. It does not do any of
those things.
{time} 1840
Mr. ZELIFF. If the gentleman will yield, I do not think we have any
bankers here. None of us are bankers or have been in the past. If any
of us were bankers, under the scenario you just described, when you
came in for a loan do you think you would get it?
Mr. HOEKSTRA. I hope I am never in that position to find out. But I
know I would never get the loan.
Mr. ZELIFF. I happen to be a small businessman from New Hampshire. We
have three small businesses which my son now runs. If I went to the
bank with that proposition, they would be telling me that I am heading
down the trough of bankruptcy, and if I do not change and reverse that,
that I am going to be insolvent.
I think our narrow window of opportunity is we can do something about
it, and I think that is what the gentleman is trying to say.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. I think we have a fantastic opportunity.
Here is another book that was prepared by the Congressional Budget
Office, something that we should read every night, ``Reducing the
Deficit.'' It talks about spending and revenue options. I think this
Congress has done enough for revenue options. I do not think we need
any more revenue options. We have done too much on that already.
Mr. ZELIFF. The problem is spending, is it now?
Mr. HOEKSTRA. The problem is the first part. The first part of the
book talks about spending cuts, and that is exactly what we are going
to have an opportunity to do after we get 218 signatures on the A to Z
plan.
Mr. KNOLLENBERG. If the gentleman will yield, as I was listening to
all of my colleagues make their statements, it occurred to me that if
Congress has been doing its job for 25 years we would not be here
tonight. If we were really interested in balancing the budget, I am
reminded, and I campaigned I know on the idea of reducing spending,
reducing government spending, reducing taxes and reducing regulations,
when I look back for 25 years we have failed to balance the budget
since 1969. That was the last time we balanced a budget. And that is
the reason we are here. We are here because something is not working.
Mr. ZELIFF. Did you say 1969 was the last year?
Mr. KNOLLENBERG. The last year we balanced a budget in this Congress
was 1969.
Mr. ZELIFF. How many years ago was that?
Mr. KNOLLENBERG. By my count it was 25 years. That is the story I
think we have to look at, because that is the failure.
Mr. INHOFE. If the gentleman will yield, one of my big problems that
we have is the electorate, if they knew what you just said, they would
not be turning Members back into office. And I always remind people do
not listen to a Member of Congress and what he says at home on the
stump or what he says in town hall meetings. Look and see how he is
rated. If you want to know how the two gentlemen from Michigan are
voting, you look at the National Taxpayers Union rating or the Citizens
Against Government Waste rating. They all have ratings, and I wish more
people would do that. And I am seeing that more people are doing that.
But I have more people tell me at my town hall meetings, and I have a
lot of them, they say we know you are not the problem. They did not
think that several years ago. But now people are much more aware, and
that is why I think the leadership, the very liberal leadership that
has been mismanaging this institution for the last 50 years is trying
to hold on with white knuckles to an old failed system that has put us
into debt, trying to blame somebody else, trying to blame the President
and other people. But it is this Congress that has done it. And I think
people are aware of it. Certainly the exercise we are going to go
through on the A to Z bill is going to reinforce in people's minds who
the good guys and the bad guys are. And I would suggest all of these
people who are arrogantly going to oppose this, they better stop and
think about it because they are going to feel that at election time.
Mr. KNOLLENBERG. I concur with the statement just made, and I concur
with what has taken place here this evening.
I want to conclude my comments by again applauding Congressman Zeliff
and Congressman Inhofe for their spark, for their enthusiasm and for
really architecting the possibilities that we have in front of us. And
tomorrow is a big day. We do not know yet what the outcome of that day
will be. We are looking forward to seeing those names go on that
petition, and we will find out exactly who if any, and I hope
everybody, as has already been mentioned, does sign up. And we do have
the beginning. If it is not 56 hours, that is fine. But we have the
beginning of some openness, to let a little air in, so to speak. And I
think that this institution could use some of that, and I wanted to
commend and applaud the efforts made.
Mr. ZELIFF. I am hearing that there are four committed Members that
will get up and sign that discharge, and you are going to be No. 1, I
hope right after me.
Mr. INHOFE. I hope so.
Let me ask the gentleman, can you imagine how anyone could be a
cosponsor of the Andrews-Zeliff A to Z bill and not sign a discharge
petition? What message, what possible message could that convey to
their voters at home other than I want you to think that I am for this,
but I do not really want to have to vote for it.
How many cosponsors do you have now on your bill?
Mr. ZELIFF. I have 230.
Mr. INHOFE. And how many to sign a discharge petition successfully?
Mr. ZELIFF. We need 218.
Mr. INHOFE. Can you imagine there will be as many as 13 Members that
would not sign the discharge petition?
Mr. ZELIFF. If the gentleman will yield, I think that the 12 Members
who are the difference between 218 and 230 do not want to get left
behind, so they should be up front, and there should be a mad scramble
tomorrow at 2 o'clock with a big line out here signing this discharge
paper. And I am hoping to give the benefit of the doubt. I think that
is what is going to take place.
If not, however, because all of the outside organizations, there are
a lot of people following this, and I think that grass roots America is
watching this very closely. They are going to be holding us
accountable. And hopefully that will help the process move along a
little bit.
Mr. INHOFE. I would make the gentleman a bet that if there are
individuals who cosponsor and do not sign the discharge petition that
talk radio shows all around America will be picking that up, and a
number of national journals, and that will be the talk for the next 2
weeks.
Mr. ZELIFF I believe it will be.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Just to close, again quoting from this booklet, it
talks about the need for grass roots involvement, and it talks about
the army of people at the grass roots level and what we need. It talks
about this army is arming itself with information about the causes, but
more importantly the effects of the growing national debt and what that
debt is doing to our future.
Again, going back to what my colleagues talked about, robbing from
the next generation if we do not start going off spending and balancing
the budget. The choice is nevertheless clear. Either eliminate the
deficit and return to the kind of United States that leaves each
generation better off than the one before, or do nothing, spend every
cent we can get our hands on, and borrow the rest, mortgage our future
and betray the American dream. That is the opportunity that is laid on
front of us tomorrow.
If we can get the 218 signatures, and then go through the process in
a constructive, in a bipartisan, responsible way, getting input from
the American people, we can attack this problem, we can make a
difference, and most importantly, we can do what the people sent us to
Washington to do, which is to straighten out our fiscal house, get us
on a solid foundation so that we not only can have a bright future in
the short term, but that for those next generations we have not stolen
the American dream from them.
So I thank the gentleman very much for the opportunity, and thank him
for all of the work he has put in on this program. I think we are going
to have a great day, and we are going to have a great week in getting
those signatures.
Mr. ZELIFF. I think it is going to be a lot of fun. It is going to be
a day of accountability. That is what we call tomorrow, it is a day for
accountability, a day to stand up and sign up for what you believe in.
Again, as we close the debate on this special order on A to Z, we are
talking about deficits in excess of $200 billion per year. We are
talking about a debt of $4.5 trillion. We are talking about having
tried things like a balanced budget amendment. We have tried the
concept of a line item veto. We have tried Penny-Kasich. We have tried
other ideas. A to Z is a revolutionary new idea. It is a mission to cut
spending. It is a simple process, everything on the table line by line,
item for item, accountability. We talk about it, we discuss it and we
vote on it. It is representative democracy at its best.
I thank my colleagues for joining me here tonight.
A to Z day is tomorrow. It is accountability day, and I thank my
colleagues for joining me at the well, and tomorrow we will be the
first to sign that discharge paper.
____________________