[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.

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