[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 61 (Tuesday, May 17, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  AFTERMATH OF THE BUDGET BATTLE: THE CHICKEN LITTLES WERE WRONG AGAIN

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, now that the smoke has begun to clear 
from a recent adoption of the budget resolution in the Congress, I can 
say as always, when you look back on the Record, it allows us to 
compare what was the rhetoric during that debate and the predictions of 
that debate against what really happened.
  I am thinking in terms of the arguments that were used during the 
Exon-Grassley debate that, No. 1, the cuts were not specific enough, 
and that they should be more specific and across the board; and second, 
if Exon-Grassley were to be adopted, all the cuts would come out of 
defense.
  Mr. President, we are beginning to see that some of the wild comments 
made by opponents of Exon-Grassley were baseless and unfounded.
  I would like to speak to what has happened now since the budget 
resolution was adopted to prove what I had said during that debate did 
materialize.
  I want to remind my colleagues that the ``Chicken Littles'' in this 
town claimed that defense would be slashed and burned under Exon-
Grassley. They claimed that 75 to 80 percent of the cuts would come out 
of defense.
  Now, we have had in the meantime the House Appropriations Committee 
determining its 602(b) allocations. Defense outlays have been reduced 
by only $500 million. And that is out of a total of more than $3 
billion in savings.
  Thus, the defense cuts were only 16.5 percent of the total savings, 
not the 75 to 80 percent that the people in this body said that defense 
would be cut. It also happens that the House will be much tougher on 
defense than either the Senate or the conference. That is kind of the 
historical perspective I get. So the final contribution from defense 
will likely be much less than the 16 percent already designated by the 
House in the 602(b) allocations.
  The moral of this story, Mr. President, is the same moral that we 
learned when we read the book ``Chicken Little'' in grade school: 
``When Chicken Little squawks, nobody listens.''
  So, Mr. President, I want to congratulate my colleagues in this body 
for eventually not heeding the cries of fear and extortion from the big 
spending machine in this town.
  I point this discrepancy out, because it is a discrepancy between 
rhetoric and reality, for the permanent Record, in the hopes that 
future Congresses similarly will not heed baseless, ill-founded claims.
  A second favorite argument of the big spenders is that we must be 
specific with our cuts during the budget process. How many times did we 
hear that said on the floor of this body, that Exon-Grassley cuts are 
across board; they are not specific enough? There were lots of specific 
cuts that were put in the budget by both the House and the Senate. But 
they did not show up in the conference report.
  For example, the Senate voted 97 to 1 in support of the Gorton 
amendment to cut funding for the furniture for bureaucrats. How much 
more specific can you get than that? That money would then be used to 
fund the Edward Byrne Antidrug Program. In the conference report, the 
program is funded, but the specific cuts disappeared.
  The Senate also voted 93 to 5 to support funding for certain 
children's health programs, and it was paid for by cutting travel funds 
for bureaucrats. Again, how much more specific can you get? But again, 
those specific cuts disappeared in the conference process.
  The House included also many specific programs that were to be cut. 
These included the National Science Foundation, various energy 
programs, the Coast Guard, and others.
  I have scoured this conference report on the budget resolution and I 
cannot find these specific cuts listed, either.
  So the moral of that story is an answer to a riddle: When is a cut 
not a cut during the budget process? The answer: When it is specific.
  The bottom line, it seems to me, Mr. President, is that those 
arguments, by the people who fought Exon-Grassley, saying that we were 
not specific enough and that it would all come out of defense, are 
nothing more than a red herring.
  The budget process is set up to be general first and specific later. 
In the budget process, you determine the size of the pie--that is what 
Exon-Grassley did. In the appropriations process and the next step, you 
determine how that pie will be sliced. So do not ever buy the argument 
that you have to specify where cuts are going to come from during the 
budget process. There is an old Polynesian saying, and it goes like 
this:

       The block of wood should never dictate to the carver.

  Well, the Budget Committee supplies the block of wood; the 
appropriators do the carving. If we do not shrink the pie first, we 
will never get our arms around the spending problem. The success of 
Exon-Grassley this year, modest though it was, is an illustration that 
this formula can work. Without it, you play right into the hands of the 
big spenders here in this town.

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