[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 112 (Friday, August 12, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 12, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                   FULL BUDGET DISCLOSURE ACT OF 1994

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Montgomery). Pursuant to House 
Resolution 512 and rule XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the 
Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the 
consideration of the bill, H.R. 4907.

                              {time}  1154


                     in the committee of the whole

  Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the 
Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill 
(H.R. 4907) to reform the concept of baseline budgeting, with Mrs. 
Schroeder in the chair.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered read the 
first time.
  The gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Derrick] will be recognized 
for 15 minutes; the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Goss] will be 
recognized for 15 minutes; the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. 
Spratt] will be recognized for 15 minutes; and the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Clinger] will be recognized for 15 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Derrick].
  Mr. DERRICK. Madam Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes.
  I am delighted to day to bring to the floor H.R. 4906, the Full 
Budget Disclosure Act of 1994.
  This will improve our budget process precisely as its short title 
suggests: by requiring full budget disclosure. The official title of 
H.R. 4907 is ``a bill to reform the concept of baseline budgeting.'' I 
can assure the Members the bill will do just that.
  Madam Chairman, I suspect most Americans finds the Federal budget 
process difficult to comprehend at best. Part of the problem is our 
confusing terminology; we just don't use the same budgetary terms and 
concepts that ordinary people do.
  One of the concepts associated with Federal budgeting most difficult 
for ordinary Americans to understand is the notion of a budget 
baseline.
  Under the law, when the President submits his budget to the Congress, 
and the Congress prepares its congressional budget, they start from 
something called a ``current policy baseline.'' That baseline assumes 
for the budget year and subsequent years of continuation of the current 
spending level for programs and services, adjusted for inflation and 
certain other technical factors.
  There is absolutely nothing wrong with the current policy baseline. 
After all, every American appreciates how inflation erodes the 
purchasing power of his dollars over time. All Americans know the same 
number of dollars won't buy today what they bought 10 years ago, or 
even last year.
  This is why the law provides for cost-of-living adjustments to Social 
Security benefits. If we did not give cost-of-living adjustments, 
Social Security benefits would over time lose much of their value and 
recipients would lose much of their income as inflation eroded their 
checks' purchasing power.
  Madam Chairman, inflation erodes the purchasing power of Federal tax 
revenues too. Any given number of Federal tax dollars doesn't buy the 
same quantity of goods and services today that it bought 10 years ago, 
or even last year. As a result, it takes more dollars to repair a mile 
of Federal highway, buy fuel for the Navy ships and aircraft, and to 
maintain government buildings and other assets. Government must deal 
with the same inflation that households do, and the current policy 
baseline helps policymakers to understand inflation's effect on 
programs.
  But use of the current policy baseline has one drawback: it makes 
more difficult comparisons of how spending changes from year to year in 
actual terms. It is this problem H.R. 4907 is designed to solve.
  Under the bill, the President and the Congress would have to include 
an additional baseline, a current funding baseline, in their budget 
documents. The current funding baseline would start from last year's 
spending level and would not be adjusted for inflation.
  This additional baseline would allow people to see and understand how 
various budget proposals would change spending from year to year in 
constant dollars, without taking inflation into account.
  By comparing the two baselines to proposed spending, for example, 
policymakers and the public could both understand that a budget 
proposal for a given program might very well represent an increase over 
last year in actual dollars, but not enough to keep pace with 
inflation--or effectively a cut in the program.
  Or people could see how a proposal that represented an increase in 
actual dollars exceeded the amount needed to keep pace with inflation, 
and was effectively an expansion of the program in question.
  H.R. 4907 will also require the Congressional Budget Office to 
include in its annual report to the budget committees a comparison to 
current spending levels, and an analysis of the causes of increased 
spending in mandatory programs from cost-of-living adjustments, changes 
in beneficiaries, higher health-care costs, and other factors. This 
provision will help us better understand the reasons for growth in 
those so-called entitlement programs.
  I am convinced H.R. 4907 will improve the budget process, that it 
will result in full budget disclosure, and that it will help both 
policymaker and ordinary Americans to understand the budget process 
better. My colleague from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt] has done 
excellent work on this legislation. I urge all Members to support the 
Spratt bill.
  Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1100

  Mr. GOSS. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  (Mr. GOSS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. GOSS. Madam Chairman, as I said during the debate on the rule, 
baseline budgeting is one of our most confusing, irresponsible, inside-
the-beltway creations. Under current law, Congress and the President 
are able to increase the dollars spent on a particular account, while 
publicly claiming to have cut the budget. The reason for this is that 
when committee's sit down to decide funding for next year's programs, 
instead of starting with the actual dollar amount spent the previous 
year, they use a figure that has been automatically inflated. Both 
discretionary and entitlement spending are subject to this twisted 
accounting. As a Member of the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement 
Reform, I am hopeful that we will be able to address the dangerous 
trends in mandatory spending in the near future. But as the ranking 
member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Kasich, pointed out to us in rules 
earlier this week, it's far too early to declare victory on the 
discretionary side of the budget. Comprising an estimated $400 billion 
in taxpayer funds each year, any excess growth in the discretionary 
area is a serious concern.
  While I am pleased that we have the chance to address the baseline 
problem today, I am concerned that the Spratt bill, H.R. 4907, will 
only add to the current confusion. Instead of replacing the single, 
flawed, baseline we currently use, the Spratt bill will keep that one 
and add a second baseline consisting of the current year's actual 
spending. This two-headed monster has two major problems: It is 
confusing, and it will not be effective in controlling future spending.

  The confusion will stem from having two baselines instead of one. 
While it is difficult to determine when a cut is really a cut now, just 
wait until the Washington spin doctors are able to have a choice of 
baselines.
  The second problem is the bill's lack of effectiveness. During the 
markup of the Spratt bill in Rules Committee, I confirmed with the 
chairman and the bill's sponsor that this bill will not change the 
current law baseline. Let me repeat; under this bill, the legal 
baseline will remain unchanged.
  An alternative to the confusion and ineffectiveness of H.R. 4907 is 
the Kasich-Penny-Stenholm substitute. This simple and responsible 
alternative calls for a single baseline consisting of the current 
year's actual spending level. In addition, it requires that committee 
reports include a comparison between current year spending and revenue 
levels with the proposed increase or decrease in percentage terms. 
Finally, the substitute provides for a comprehensive review of 
entitlement spending trends on a yearly basis from the Congressional 
Budget Office.
  Madam Chairman, I agree that it is high time that we reform the 
inflationary budget baseline. The choice before us should be clear: 
Support the common-cents amendment, and reject the convoluted approach 
of the Spratt bill.
  Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Madam Chairman, the bill before us, H.R. 4907, is very basic. It 
requires two baselines to be set up in the format of the budget. One is 
a current funding baseline. This represents actual funding in a given 
year, the current year, for a functional program in the budget. CBO 
calls this a freeze.
  We had an agreement on the floor yesterday that with respect to the 
current funding baseline, as defined in our bill, H.R. 4907, and in the 
substitute, there is no difference, no distinction. They are the same. 
This bill provides for a current funding baseline, just as Penny-
Kasich-Stenholm would.
  We also, however, provide for another baseline, which is a baseline 
used all the time in this institution, and used of necessity. It is 
called a current policy baseline, commonly sometimes called a current 
services level of funding--what it takes to carry forward existing 
programs that are embedded in permanent law, paying the same level of 
benefits after inflation, serving the same beneficiary population 
according to the terms of eligibility that are on the statute books, a 
current policy baseline.
  Madam Chairman, our opposition says what they want is one giant 
scorecard. I would invite everybody who has an opportunity to read the 
``Minority Views'' on this bill that are printed in the committee 
report, because the ``Minority Views'' recognize that in fact there are 
several different baselines used, and they will continue to be used 
because they are practical, they are good analytical devices, and they 
are the things that have been used for years and will continue to be 
used for these reasons.
  For example, Madam Chairman, the minority acknowledges that baselines 
used by the Committee on Appropriations are always actual funding, 
unadjusted, and if you look at the Committee on Appropriations reports, 
each of the 13 reports will provide you with this year's funding and 
next year's funding, and will tell you what has been increased or 
decreased. That is a baseline that we do not provide for, because it is 
already used. We are not enshrining it in this particular bill, but it 
is another baseline.
  The opposition derides us for attempting to set up a second baseline 
and claims that this is double-speak, that we are going to confuse the 
American people.
  In truth, as they well know--as everyone well knows who has dealt 
with the budget here--the current services or current policy baseline 
exists because it is a useful device for measuring the adequacy of the 
current budget. For that reason, we have it. For that reason, it will 
continue, regardless of the outcome of this legislation.
  In fact, Madam Chairman, one of the best defenses of the current 
policy or current services baseline is made in the minority report. 
This particular report says that when you are dealing with 
reconciliation, and I am reading from the report now:

       Where baselines really make a difference is mandatory 
     spending and revenues, since these are used when it comes to 
     reconciliation instructions. These instructions tell 
     committees to find so much in ``savings'' or revenues by 
     changing existing direct spending or tax laws. The amount of 
     ``savings'' or revenues are derived by using the baseline of 
     projected costs or revenues for the budget year and the 
     outyears that would occur with no change in current law.

  They go on to give an example of how a mandatory program at $100 
million would increase to $150 million, but in reconciliation, 
instructions would be stated to require a $25 million reduction. They 
acknowledge that this is useful, this is useful. It is necessary, 
because permanent laws would provide for these programs to increase, 
unless we take action and do something about them. So we have to know. 
We have to have some measure of how they are going to increase in order 
to take action and to decrease them.

  Madam Chairman, this is what the minority says:

       No one should deny Congress credit for taking action to 
     restrain the growth in spending for programs, since these are 
     often difficult choices to make.

  Not cuts, but restraints in growth:

       On the other hand, it is difficult to convince the public 
     that we are reducing spending and deficits when they see both 
     continue so climb.

  So what they want to get at is public perception, but you acknowledge 
that for purposes of operating this place, we need a current services 
baseline. They make the case for it right here.
  That is all we are saying. Give the public the same baseline that the 
gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Penny], the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. 
Kasich], and the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm] would require. We 
are willing to do that, the same definition, but at the same time let 
us use internally what they make the case for in their own minority 
views, the current services baseline.

                             {time}   1110

  In fact, the gentleman makes the case here. When we do that, the 
current services baseline is going to continue to exist, as I have 
argued continually, because it is such a useful device; it is a 
necessary device in making reconciliation devices.
  You admit in here the Committee on Appropriations is still going to 
use a very simple and basic technique of taking this year's funding and 
you will also have an adjusted current funding baseline. There are 
going to be three baselines, regardless of what this bill does. So in 
formating the budget, let us have two useful baselines, the current 
funding baseline and the current policy baseline, and let us not try to 
have some artificial construct that would overcome what is inevitably 
going to be the operating procedure in this institution.
  Mr. GOSS. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SPRATT. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. GOSS. I asked the gentleman to yield as a courtesy because he did 
read from the minority report. We agree we have to have someplace to 
start from. All we are asking is it be the real starting place with the 
real numbers and there just be one starting place, not two. I think 
that is going to be crystal clear to people, that this is what we spent 
and this is what we are going to spend this year. That is all we are 
asking.
  Mr. MURTHA. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SPRATT. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. MURTHA. Let me address what the gentleman is talking about, 
because we have the biggest discretionary budget in defense. One of the 
problems we have when they send a budget over to us: Say in the 1980's 
they would exaggerate inflation and we would have a different figure 
right away. But if we do not put the inflation figures in, if we do not 
come up with figures that are realistic, it makes it impossible for us 
to make the adjustments necessary to come up with a realistic bill.
  For instance, the bill has decreased by 35 percent in budget 
authority and 23 percent in outlays since 1984, about a 10-year period. 
This year they did not put cost of living in. Last year they did not 
put cost-of-living in for personnel. Personnel costs are $70 billion 
for defense. I said, last year, we were going to pay the troops more. 
Even though nobody else is going to get a cost-of-living increase, the 
troops are going to get more. That did not sound like a lot of money. 
It was $11 billion if we count the tail. So if we do not consider 
inflation in the overall presentation, we have got a real problem. In 
other words, the first thing we would have to do is exactly what they 
have done when they have sent their presentation over to us. That is 
the problem.
  Mr. SABO. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SPRATT. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.
  Mr. SABO. One of the purposes of baseline is to have some 
understanding of historically what is happening with programs in the 
relative level of funding. If I understand the gentleman accurately, 
when one looks at defense in budget authority from its peak in 1985, in 
inflation adjusted dollars, budget authority has gone down 35 percent. 
As I understand it, our friends who want to amend this bill would say 
it had only gone down about 10 percent, because that is what the change 
in dollars without any inflation adjustments would be, which most 
accurately historically reflects what has changed in defense spending 
over the last 9 or 10 years.
  Mr. MURTHA. When we are talking about the bill, we are sitting in 
subcommittee, and it takes the staff weeks to get the budget proposals 
together that are sent over to us. The gentleman from Minnesota is on 
the committee and he knows what I am talking about. We try to at first 
figure out what the accurate figures are. I know that what the 
gentleman is trying to do is come up with accurate figures in the 
baseline, but if you do not have inflation built in, it is impossible 
for us to get the amount of money we need out of the budget. We do not 
have any leeway at all is what it amounts to. We always evaluate their 
inflation figures. Sometimes we reduce what they consider the 
inflationary costs and sometimes we do not. But we believe that in real 
dollars when we look at it, it has only declined 10 percent, but if we 
include inflation, it has declined by 35 percent. So we can see that we 
are not getting a realistic picture. It would be impossible for us to 
operate. The first thing we would have to do is put in the inflation 
figures. I do not see how we could operate under the premise that the 
gentleman from Texas is recommending. At least I do not see how it 
happens in a bill that we try to handle. So I have to agree with the 
Spratt idea.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SPRATT. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. STENHOLM. The argument we make, nothing in our amendment 
precludes this discussion and these numbers and these concerns that the 
gentleman is expressing. All we are saying is we should start from one 
baseline and if we need to have increases for the valid reasons the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania is talking about, we justify those reasons, 
but we compare it back to one baseline. There is not a big difference 
between that. There is a big difference between the confusing aspects, 
though, if we are suggesting the second baseline is a valid baseline of 
which we have the money to pay for it. That is the problem. We are 
running $200 billion deficits, we have a cap on discretionary spending 
that we have to move to. So any increases have to be justified. We 
think it makes more sense for us to justify them on one baseline, and 
if we have an increase, call it what it is so people will understand we 
are getting an increase for the purpose of what we are increasing it.
  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, if I could reclaim my time, we would 
agree with that to an extent. We will give the public and the Congress 
that information, but we will also retain the essential common sense of 
having a current services baseline because as the minority report 
correctly observes, it is absolutely necessary when we are determining 
whether or not what entitlement programs in particular are going to 
cost and to what extent spending growth must be restrained in these 
programs. Without that baseline, we have got no reliable estimate of 
what 70 percent of the budget direct spending is going to be in the 
outyears.
  Mr. SABO. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SPRATT. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.
  Mr. SABO. If I might direct another question to my friend, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania who chairs the Subcommittee on Defense. 
When you put out a committee report for your bill this year, if I 
remember accurately, it shows what was appropriated for last year's 
bill and it shows what is appropriated for next year's bill. Is that 
not accurate?
  Mr. MURTHA. And also we usually have a 5-year projection in our bill 
if we ever are able to get it from the Defense Department. I understand 
what the gentleman is trying to do and I understand the problem. But if 
we do not build inflation in, the first thing we would do is to put the 
inflationary figures in the bill. Otherwise I am not sure how you 
operate.
  Mr. SPRATT. I thank the gentleman for his statement.
  Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CLINGER. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Madam Chairman, I would rise in reluctant opposition to H.R. 4907 and 
in support of the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm substitute. Before I do so, I 
would like to express again my concern and disappointment that the 
Committee on Government Operations which has jurisdiction over this 
matter waived our jurisdiction and did not consider this measure or 
this issue. I think the discussion that has just gone on about what 
some would view as an arcane, esoteric subject indicates that it is a 
complex area that really should be fully considered through the 
committee process. I would, therefore, register again my dismay that 
the Democratic leadership chose to have the Committee on Government 
Operations waive its jurisdiction.
  I would like to commend the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. 
Spratt] for his work in crafting the budget bills that we have 
considered over the past several weeks, even though we did not consider 
them in committee, and to recognize the great service he has provided 
this body in bringing these bills to the floor. The task he has been 
given in drafting meaningful budget reform legislation, which at the 
same time satisfies the desires of spending advocates is not a job that 
I would covet. Frankly it is not a job that I am sure I would accept. 
Nevertheless, I believe that the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. 
Spratt] has very honestly tried to resolve the conflicting and 
sometimes very confusing signals that he has received on baseline 
budgeting, which has become, as I say again, readily apparent this 
morning.
  Unfortunately confusing signals can occasionally lead to confusing 
legislation and that I suspect is the essence of H.R. 4907.
  H.R. 4907 would establish, as we have heard, two separate statutorily 
equal baselines for discretionary spending, one which includes 
inflation adjustments, and one without.
  Because the bill creates both a current policy baseline which adjusts 
for inflation and a current funding baseline which reflects current 
year's spending without an inflation adjustment, future budget and 
spending debates would likely be even less clear under the Spratt bill 
than is now the case.

                              {time}  1120

  While one group of Members might well be discussing an inflation-
adjusted baseline, a second could readily be referring to the equally 
sanctioned unadjusted spending baseline, and the result, I think would 
be Members talking at cross-purposes, ships passing in the night, and a 
public unable to understand how program spending is rising or falling.
  The Spratt bill would defeat the very purpose of baseline reform, 
that is, to provide a clear, ambiguous picture of spending growth.
  While the very same information would be available under the Penny-
Kasich-Stenholm approach, their amendment would establish one single 
baseline to reflect current spending, and any adjustments to the 
program funding would be revealed through a single, unadjusted baseline 
to provide a clear comparison of current and future spending. In 
addition, the Kasich approach would provide comparisons on entitlement 
spending which is not required, if I understand it, under H.R. 4907.
  So, Madam Chairman, because the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm amendment 
provides the only real opportunity for clear, honest, and 
understandable budget debates while at the same time assuring access to 
information on programs, trends, and inflation needs, I would urge the 
adoption of the amendment.
  Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DERRICK. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Stenholm].
  Mr. STENHOLM. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me 
this time.
  Madam Chairman, I again want to try to make this basic point from our 
perspective: We would like to see one baseline, and that when we 
consider appropriation bills that we are comparing what we are being 
asked to spend in the future with what we spent last year. All of the 
relevance of baseline or current services or inflation-adjusted figures 
can still be made, just as the gentleman from Pennsylvania made a 
moment ago very relevant opinions that in some cases, if you do not 
keep up with inflation, there are certain cuts that are going to have 
to occur. But those should not be conceived from the standpoint if 
inflation goes up 103 and we grant 102 that we have cut somebody 1 
percent. It should be that we ought to be debating that we are 
increasing.
  I do not understand when this country and so many of the people 
particularly in this body came to the conclusion that cost-of-living 
adjustments, inflation-guaranteed increases, are an inherited right of 
anybody. No business can grant increases based on inflation unless they 
are making a profit.
  We are losing $200 billion-plus a year right now in the United States 
of America, Inc. How anyone believes that they have a right to an 
inflation-adjusted figure for any purpose beats me.
  But we think that it will, in fact, be more relevant, and we will get 
more honest debate and get more honest conclusions if we start right 
here in this body saying to everyone, ``Here is what you got last year, 
here is what we are giving this year.'' If it is an increase, ``This is 
why we are increasing it,'' and if it is a cut, ``This Is why we are 
cutting it.'' If you want to make the argument that we have to make 
inflation-increased adjustments, make that argument, but make certain 
that in fact you explain why that increase goes up. That is all this 
argument is about.
  That is why I encourage you to vote for the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm 
amendment. Vote against the Spratt amendment, because that is the only 
way we are truly going to get this explained in a way in which the 
average American can understand it.
  Madam Chairman, there are some who will say that the debate on 
baseline budgeting is a meaningless exercise. I disagree. The way that 
we talk about the choices we face in the Federal budget has a 
significant impact on the outcome of policy. This debate is about 
bringing some honesty into the way that we talk about budgets.
  The current budget process is enormously confusing and strongly 
biased in favor of deficit spending. Baseline budgeting distorts the 
process by making it appear that programs are incurring a spending cut 
when in fact they simply are receiving a smaller increase that 
expected.
  The base bill before us today improves the current process by 
ensuring that Members will be able to compare proposed spending levels 
with the previous year's spending levels. The base bill has taken many 
of the provisions of the Common Cents Budget Reform Act that I 
introduced along with Tim Penny and John Kasich. Unfortunately, the 
base bill will create additional confusion in the budget process by 
adding a second official baseline. The base bill will make it even more 
difficult for the public to understand the budget process around here. 
More importantly, the base bill will continue the current bias toward 
higher spending created by the current services budgeting.
  The Penny-Kasich-Stenholm amendment will eliminate the bias toward 
higher spending that is included in the base bill by replacing the 
current services baseline with a freeze baseline. Our amendment would 
put some west Texas tractor seat common sense in the budget process by 
requiring that budget proposals compare their budgets to the amount 
actually spent the prior year rather than against estimates of future 
spending. We should recognize increases in spending for what they are 
and not talk about cutting spending for what they are and not talk 
about cutting spending when we really are voting to increase spending.
  The folks at the Stamford Dairy Queen understand that if you received 
$100 last year and receive $99 this year, that is a spending cut. If 
you receive $101 this year, that is an increase, even if you thought 
you were going to get $102 this year. The small business men and women 
of this country understand that if you are operating in the red, you 
can't afford to give cost-of-living adjustments to everyone.
  The Penny-Kasich-Stenholm amendment will improve the decisionmaking 
process by changing the way we talk about budget decisions. If you want 
to put some truth in budgeting, vote for the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm 
substitute and against the Spratt substitute.
  Mr. GOSS. Madam Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Delaware [Mr. Castle].
  Mr. CASTLE. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me 
this time.
  The gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm], I think, spoke as eloquently 
to the issues that I would like to speak to as anybody possibly could.
  I watched this debate, and I have listened to it, and certainly 
everybody who has spoken, particularly those who have defended the 
baseline budgeting as it exists, are great contributors to this 
Congress and are leaders in this Congress, and I respect that. I 
respect all that they have done. I do not mean to disagree with this 
particular bill as it is drafted, although I think the amendment, which 
is the Penny-Stenholm-Kasich amendment, is a far greater improvement to 
it.
  But the bottom line is I do not think the public really comprehends 
what we are doing in the Congress of the United States with the budget, 
and as I sit here longer and longer, month by month, I begin to realize 
more and more why we have the budget deficit we do. Thank God this year 
we have started to at least deal with, if not pass, the issues of the 
line-item veto, with the enhanced rescissions which later passed, the 
balanced-budget amendment, and now we are dealing with baseline 
budgeting. Maybe later today we are dealing with emergency spending 
reforms which I think are needed. But the bottom line is, I think, one 
of the great problems we have is with baseline budgeting.
  When you have a budget which actually begins each year with inflation 
built in, with demographic changes built in, with program costs built 
in, you have admitted defeat. You are never going to be able to balance 
your budget.
  Mr. SABO. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CASTLE. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.
  Mr. SABO. Where is this budget that starts from this mythical 
baseline as you call it, every year?
  Mr. CASTLE. Where is the budget?
  Mr. SABO. Yes. I am curious. I have been budget chair 2 years. I put 
a chairman's mark in front of the committee for 2 years. I have never 
started with my mark to the committee being a baseline. A baseline is a 
measurement. It is not a budget.
  Mr. CASTLE. Reclaiming my time, but it is used constantly by Members 
of Congress, not you necessarily, but by Members of Congress, by the 
White House of both parties, to say they are going to have savings on 
the budget.
  Mr. SABO. Sure. It is a measurement.
  Mr. CASTLE. It is an increased baseline.
  Mr. SABO. It is a measurement of what is happening, just as last 
year's is a measurement.
  Mr. CASTLE. It is a failure, it is a failure. I reclaim my time. It 
is a failure to recognize the fact of having a dollar amount in the 
year before, and you are actually spending more because you are 
starting with a new baseline which is artificial.
  Mr. SABO. I would ask the gentleman to go to this year's budget 
resolution and find any number that refers to baseline in the budget 
document.
  Mr. CASTLE. Whether it is referred to baseline in the document or not 
is irrelevant, because it is constantly referred to as baseline by 
everybody here with the understanding that all of this is put in.
  Mr. SABO. This is a historic measurement of what we are doing, and 
that is accurate.
  Mr. CASTLE. What I am simply asking for is the fact we start in all 
of our reporting with the figures from the year before, and that if we 
want to add in these figures, we show how they are being added. Maybe 
you do it in your budget process, but it does not come out that way in 
the public process.
  Mr. SABO. We show last year's number, and we show this year's number. 
That is in the budget now, sir.
  Mr. CASTLE. I have enjoyed this discussion with the chairman, but the 
bottom line is, in Washington, DC, we are still presenting the budget 
where the inflation is automatically built in.
  I agree with the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm], why should we 
have an inflation-adjusted budget presented to us as if it is a given 
right. I think the time has come we start looking at the flat amount 
that was spent the year before. Should we reduce it or increase it for 
whatever the reasons may be? Come to those conclusions and budget in 
that manner. If we do that, I believe that you are going to see budgets 
in this Congress which are going to more approximate what they should 
be in terms of the expenditures of the United States of America getting 
closer to a balanced budget and ultimately dealing with the deficit 
problems of the United States of America.
  I was just handed a document which shows baseline budgeting in the 
budget document which the chairman just spoke to, so perhaps he does 
not understand his own document.
  Mr. DERRICK. Madam Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the 
gentlewoman from Connecticut [Mrs. Kennelly].
  (Mrs. KENNELLY asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
her remarks.)
  Mrs. KENNELLY. Madam Chairman, I believe the baseline proposal of the 
gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt] is clearly the best and 
fairest alternative before us, and I urge all Members to support it.
  The argument here is over baselines, and, specifically, about what 
baseline gives us the best information for making spending decisions. A 
baseline is one of those Washington terms, but there is nothing arcane 
about the concept. A baseline is a method of comparison. Our current 
baseline tells us how much we will need to spend to purchase the same 
amount of goods and services as last year. It is a dynamic measure--not 
a static one, because it increases or decreases with inflation and 
deflation, with population growth or population loss.
  I happen to believe the current baseline is the most useful one, 
because if the Federal Government is going to provide fewer services to 
my constituents, I want to know about it. I do not want to tell my 
constituents not to worry because we are spending the same amount as 
last year--when because of inflation, we are actually cutting services 
by 3- or 5-percent.
  The authors of the alternative amendment are more interested, I 
believe, in knowing how much spending increases in nominal dollars. I 
completely agree that that is a useful thing to know, and if that is 
what they want to talk to their constituents about, I will not quarrel.
  But why not do both? Why not look at spending from both perspectives, 
as Mr. Spratt suggests? I do not think that understanding both sides of 
the equation will lead to more confusion; I believe it will enlighten 
us as to what is really going on in the budget. And I believe that 
would be worthwhile.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against the Penny/Stenholm proposal, and 
for the Spratt proposal.

                              {time}  1130

  Mr. CLINGER. Madam Chairman, I would like to now yield 3 minutes to a 
valued member of the Committee on Government Operations, the gentleman 
from Florida [Mr. Mica].
  Mr. MICA. Madam Chairman and my colleagues, as a new Member of this 
body coming recently from the private business sector, I have become 
accustomed to viewing the legislative process with a certain amount of 
healthy cynicism. I expect the Congress to do little yet claim a lot; 
to achieve modestly and trumpet loudly; to spend extravagantly and to 
save occasionally. I even expect us to do it with winks and nods and 
vague debates designed to obscure the reality of our true actions.
  Even with this perspective, I am a little surprised by H.R. 4907. 
This bill, which comes to us as part of the leadership's A-to-Z sellout 
deal has no other purpose really other than to confuse future budget 
and spending debates, in my opinion.
  While billed as an effort to provide more-informed budget discussions 
through baseline reform, H.R. 4907 would in fact simply cloud those 
debates through the introduction of two statutorily equal yet contrary 
budget baselines. H.R. 4907 would create both a current policy baseline 
and a current funding baseline, the first, which adjusts for inflation, 
and the second, which does not.
  If passed, H.R. 4907 would encourage spending debates where groups of 
Members, in discussing the same $300 million program cut, could by 
using different baselines lines be hailing a major spending reduction 
on the one hand while decrying a budget-busting on the other.
  If confusing to Members, just imagine the reaction of our 
constituents, the public, to this hocus-pocus and the resulting erosion 
in public trust.
  By way of contrast to H.R. 4907, the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm substitute 
would create one single budget baseline to show this year's spending 
level pure and simple, no inflation adjustments, no gadgets, no 
gimmicks. If spending went up, we would call it an increase; if 
spending went down, we would know it is a cut. To me that makes sense.
  Because the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm substitute provides the House its 
only real true opportunity to vote for real baseline budgeting reform 
in this Congress, I support the amendment's adoption and urge defeat of 
the Spratt alternatives.
  Finally, Madam Chairman and my colleagues, you can fool some of the 
Members some of the time, but we do not need a two-baseline budget 
approach to fool more of the Members and the public all of the time.
  Mr. DERRICK. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Minnesota [Mr. Sabo].
  (Mr. SABO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. SABO. I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me.
  I would suggest to the last gentleman who spoke, he should read an 
Appropriations Committee report one year. He would find the numbers 
there.
  Last year, the President's request, committee recommendations, minus 
and plus from last year, from the President's request.
  But I rise in support of the Spratt bill. There are three, and 
probably more, ways to accurately measure what we are doing as we deal 
with fiscal questions. One is last year's comparison to this year, that 
is accurate. We should know that.
  We also need to know what historically what is happening with 
programs. As it relates to discretionary programs, we need to know its 
impact, the impact of what we are doing in relationship to inflation. 
The reality is from 1985 inflation-adjusted dollars, defense has been 
cut 35 percent rather than simply 10 percent from the actual BA 
authority of 1985. That accurately reflects history and should be part 
of our documents.
  Another measurement which we often use is for larger programs their 
relationship to gross domestic product. We show those regularly as a 
percentage of the gross domestic product. Again an accurate reflection 
of history.
  What Mr. Spratt's bill does is say that we can use all of those 
judgments and that they are accurate.
  I must say to my friends who are proposing an alternative today, they 
would in fact skew any look at discretionary programs from the point of 
view of a program adjusted by inflation versus entitlements where 
inflation is built into the program, where inflation remains a part of 
the baseline.
  If anything, the proposal skews our discussion more and more away 
from discretionary and more and more to entitlement programs.
  Mr. GOSS. Madam Chairman, at this time I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the 
distinguished chief budgeteer on our side, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. 
Kasich].
  Mr. KASICH. I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me.
  Madam Chairman, a picture truly is worth a thousand words. This chart 
here--and we will bring this back during the debate on the amendment--
represents the National Science Foundation's spending. What essentially 
happened is that we increased the National Science Foundation by $221 
million over 5 years. Yet the increase of $221 million over 5 years--
you can see how it goes up each year. This is the National Science 
Foundation over 5 years. You can see clearly it is growing.
  Any American family would feel good if their wages were growing like 
this. But in Washington terms, when you are living in Peoria or 
Columbus or in Waseca, Minnesota, you do not get told that the National 
Science Foundation is increasing like this. You read in the newspaper 
that the National Science Foundation was subject to a $476 million cut.
  Now, come on, folks; that is not the way we want to budget in this 
town.
  This increase, under no set of circumstances, under any set of 
explanations whatsoever, this cannot be called a cut. One place, one 
place, Disney World would be the only place that this could be labeled 
a cut or maybe some scam game out in Las Vegas.
  This is an increase.
  What we are suggesting in the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm amendment is that 
we call this an increase. Is it true that from one year to the next 
year that costs go up? Well, of course they do. But some costs go down. 
And in addition to that, you have to begin to prioritize.
  We are not prejudging, we are not prejudging whether spending ought 
to go up or whether it ought to go down. What we are suggesting is that 
the American people be told that this is a spending increase. We are 
suggesting that the American people no longer be told that this is a 
spending cut.
  Now, how can we afford to talk in terms that we can all understand in 
this country when we are going to have to deal with the immense problem 
of the budget deficit; not the budget deficit itself but the size and 
the scope of the Government and implications of the size and the scope 
of the Government beginning to suck resources out of the private 
sector, damaging the ability of this country to be prosperous in the 
outyears.

                              {time}  1140

  If I have to talk to anybody in this gallery today, and I have to 
tell them we need to reduce spending, I certainly want to be talking to 
them in language they understand. This is an increase in anybody's 
definition, not a cut.
  Mr. DERRICK. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Wisconsin [Mr. Obey].
  Mr. OBEY. Madam Chairman, as my colleagues know, I get awfully tired 
of cynics in this House, and I also get awfully tired of the things 
people know that ain't so.
  I say to my colleagues, What you really have going here is a 
competition between biases. You got one set of folks who would like to 
see the budget always biased in favor of additional spending, you got 
another set of folks who would like to see it biased against spending, 
and in my view it should not be biased at all. That is the difference 
between the Stenholm and Spratt amendments. Stenholm simply says, 
regardless of what happens in real life, the measure you start from 
when we take a look at a budget is what last year's dollar numbers were 
period. Spratt says, because we might like to know what the impact is 
on Social Security recipients, because we might like to know what the 
impact is on our national defense and other key endeavors, he simply 
says to look at both ways, one from an unadjusted base, another from an 
adjusted base.
  Now in light of the misstatements that have been made on the floor, 
Madam Chairman, I have here copies of 6 of the 13 Committee on 
Appropriations reports. We issue a report for every appropriation bill 
each year. My colleagues will not find in a one of them, not a one of 
them, numbers that are based on an inflated budget baseline. We start 
in all instances with the amount appropriated in the previous year. 
Then we list what is being appropriated in the coming year, and we 
compare it, either up or down, on the basis of a nonadjusted baseline.
  So, do not give me this baloney that we spend more money because we 
start with the wrong baseline. We do not. We use the unadjusted base 
line.
  All the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt] is suggesting is 
that, when we are looking at defense, it would be kind of nice to know 
if whether over 5 years or not the purchasing power of our programs 
have reduced by 30 percent or not because, if we get in a shooting war, 
it would be kind of nice if we had a whole submarine rather than two-
thirds of a submarine. It would be kind of nice to know that we had the 
same effective combat power, even after inflation has eaten into it, 
that we had 10 years ago.
  Now that is not used for budgeting purposes. I say, You do not build 
that money into the budget, but you have it available so people 
understand what the real-world effect is.
  AARP has written us a letter in support of the Spratt amendment and 
in opposition to the Stenholm-Penny-Kasich amendment because they do 
not want to see the system biased in a way which will push the pressure 
to lower Social Security payments, and we should not want to bias it in 
that way. I say, If you pass the Spratt-Stenholm amendment, you are 
creating pressure to drive down Social Security payments. I do not 
think very many people want to do that.
  When I bring the foreign aid bill to the floor----
  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.
  Mr. SPRATT. It is the Stenholm-Penny-Kasich amendment which I hope 
the gentleman is speaking against. He said the Spratt----
  Mr. OBEY. Madam Chairman, I apologize. I meant Stenholm-Kasich.
  Mr. CLINGER. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. McDade] to engage in a colloquy.
  Mr. McDADE. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
[Mr. Clinger].
  I would like to, if I may, get the attention of my able friend, the 
gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey], the chairman of the Committee on 
Appropriations.
  I wanted to just try to clarify one thing, because, for Members, it 
is quite a busy day here, as we all know.
  As I understand what he said was that there are many standards by 
which budgeteering occurs, but fundamentally, when the Committee on 
Appropriations begins to do a bill and take testimony, the baseline 
that we use is last year's level of expenditures.
  Is that what the gentleman's point was?
  Mr. OBEY. Madam Chairman, if the gentleman would yield, that is the 
baseline which we show in our reports, but we have available to us 
other devices and, the public should have available those same devices 
so that they understand what the impact is on program as well as 
understanding how it relates to specific amount of dollars that we 
appropriated last year.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. 
McDade] has expired.
  Mr. CLINGER. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 additional minute to the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. McDade].
  Mr. McDADE. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman for having yielded 
an additional minute to me. I have been privileged to be a member of 
the Committee on Appropriations for 30 years. Let us focus, for 
example, on the defense budget. Let us assume that we have last year's 
level and for the first time in this year's budget we are going to buy 
an aircraft carrier if the Congress says yes. We fully fund the 
aircraft carrier in the current fiscal year budget; do we not?
  Mr. OBEY. That is my understanding.
  Mr. McDADE. That is my understanding as well, and we do it in 
relation to last year's level of expenditures, and we fully fund it so 
everybody in the Congress will know the out-year costs of that system, 
whether it be an aircraft carrier, or submarine, or whatever, and we 
have been doing that as a matter of course, as regular practice, in the 
Committee on Appropriations during my 30 years, but is that his 
understanding?
  Mr. OBEY. That is exactly right.
  Mr. McDADE. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. OBEY. And we intend to continue to do that, but we want people to 
have available as an analytical tool both baselines. We do not spend 
from the inflation-adjusted baseline, but people ought to know what the 
real-life impact is.
  Mr. CLINGER. Madam Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
New Hampshire [Mr. Zeliff], a member of the Committee on Government 
Operations.
  Mr. KASICH. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ZELIFF. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. KASICH. Madam Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman from New 
Hampshire [Mr. Zeliff] yielding.
  Let me say that I have in my hand the budget document, and the simple 
fact of the matter is, if we look at the 5-year spending bill, it 
actually increases in the budget document, and then the committee 
changed from the baseline, from the inflated growth level, shows cuts.
  This is how we budget.
  The simple fact of the matter is we take the baseline increases, 
exactly what we are trying to prevent in this bill, and we show 
anything below that level as a cut. So, in this country a cut is an 
increase. An increase is a cut in these budget documents.
  Mr. ZELIFF. OK.
  I rise in opposition to H.R. 4907 with all great due respect to my 
friend, the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt] and in support 
of the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm substitute, and I associate my remarks 
with the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm]. The two-baseline system 
in this legislation will give us continued confusion, not reform. We 
need to have a clear bottom line to tell us whether real spending cuts 
have been made or whether we have simply slowed the growth in spending. 
The Penny-Kasich-Stenholm approach gives us this much needed 
businesslike reform.
  The Penny-Kasich-Stenholm amendment provides for a true baseline with 
real numbers, not Mickey Mouse numbers that are so confusing no one 
knows what they mean.
  As a small businessman by trade, let me illustrate this point. An 
employee goes to his boss and asks for a $1 per hour raise. The 
employer in turn offers a rise of 50 cents an hour. Under current 
budget rules, rules that would continue under this legislation, the 
baseline budget would show this this raise as a 50 cents an hour cut in 
spending for accounting purposes. Under the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm 
amendment, the raise would cost 50 cents an hour additional over the 
previous year's spending. My friends can be the judge. Which process 
makes the most sense in terms of fiscal accountability?
  I am pleased that we are beginning to at least talk about reforming 
the flawed budget process, but we should not delude ourselves into 
thinking that we are doing anything more than tinkering at the margins.
  Budget process reform is important, but let us not kid ourselves; we 
would not be here today if it were not for the leadership's determined 
effort to derail the A to Z spending cut effort.
  And what has the leadership offered us in reform? Fundamental reform 
and real cuts in spending, or more tinkering at the margins?
  A bipartisan group of 230 Members who cosponsored our bill and 204 
Members who signed the discharge petition are supporting the A to Z 
plan to bring about real cuts in Federal spending and the elimination 
of wasteful Government programs.

                              {time}  1150

  This effort is desperately needed. We are in debt to the tune of $4.7 
trillion, a level that is expected to rise to $6 trillion in the next 5 
years. We are paying out $212 billion this year on the interest on the 
debt. By the year 2002 the interest on the debt will be $272 billion. A 
recent report by the bipartisan entitlement report commission indicates 
that by the year 2002 spending for entitlements and interest on the 
debt will consume all expected Federal revenue, leaving nothing for 
other programs.
  So what has the leadership offered us to deal with the situation? 
Expedited rescissions authority that does very little, a budget-control 
bill that does nothing to control entitlement growth, and budget-
disclosure legislation that establishes a confusing process of two 
separate budget guidelines.
  Has the leadership followed through on a commitment to give us one 
day to consider entitlement cuts? No. Is there any serious effort at 
spending cuts so far? No; we are simply tinkering around the margins.
  Madam Chairman, some of the process reforms sound real good, but A to 
Z remains the best way to curb runaway wasteful spending. If we want 
real reform, if we want to make a real difference, and if we want to 
cut wasteful Federal spending and protect future generations from being 
saddled with our huge debt, then I encourage all the Members to join 
204 of our colleagues and sign the A to Z discharge petition No. 16 
today. Let us stop playing games. Let us give the American people real 
reform. It is time for all of us to stop talking the talk and start 
walking the walk.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Chair would like to announce that the gentleman 
from South Carolina [Mr. Derrick] has 1 minute remaining, the gentleman 
from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt] has 2 minutes remaining, the gentleman 
from Florida [Mr. Goss] has 3 minutes remaining, and the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Clinger] has 2\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. DERRICK. Madam Chairman, I reserve the right to close.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina 
[Mr. Spratt].
  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
North Carolina [Mr. Price].
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Madam Chairman, anyone concerned about 
responsible budgeting, deficit reduction, and intelligent budget 
process improvements can confidently support the Spratt baseline budget 
proposal, and they ought to oppose the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm 
substitute. That is because the Spratt measure is a balanced measure 
that would provide more information rather than less and would present 
that information in an easily understandable form.
  We would be able to look at budget proposals both from the standpoint 
of current funding and from the standpoint of what it would take to 
maintain current policy. Both of these kinds of information are 
essential to responsible budgeting. By contrast, the Stenholm-Penny-
Kasich proposal would narrow the amount of information used in drafting 
the budget because it would require Congress only to consider the 
previous year's nominal spending level. As the gentleman from Wisconsin 
[Mr. Obey] and the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. McDade] have 
already made clear, we already use that point of comparison in 
presenting all of our appropriation bills. But in evaluating spending 
levels we do need information about what it would take to maintain 
current levels of coverage of benefits or program activity.
  It is silly not to consider inflation or caseload increases. Everyone 
knows that the value of a dollar changes year to year.
  We have heard a lot of analogies drawn in this debate to family 
budgeting. If you are drawing up your family budget and you are 
deciding what you need for food, you are going to want to know not just 
what you spent last year for food but you are also going to want to 
know what the inflation rate has been and how much it is going to take 
to feed your family at this year's prices. That is the way a family 
budget works, and that is the kind of information we need for the 
Federal budget as well.
  There has been a lot of talk about budget numbers being confusing. 
That is actually rather patronizing, as though we were not able to 
understand this information or the American people could not handle it.
  Talk about confusion: what we have in the Penny proposal is an 
artificial separation between entitlements and discretionary spending. 
The gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm] is properly concerned about the 
entitlement mentality in this country, but then why on earth would he 
leave entitlements out of this proposal? That invites far more 
confusion that does our present process.
  Madam Chairman, the Spratt proposal would improve and expand the 
information available to us as we draw up the budget. The Penny-Kasich-
Stenholm proposal would limit information and could distort the budget 
process. Support objective, informed budgeting. Support the Spratt 
substitute.
  Mr. CLINGER. Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOSS. Madam Chairman, I understand that I have 3 minutes 
remaining, and I yield all that time to the distinguished gentleman 
from Minnesota [Mr. Penny].
  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding this 
time to me.
  Madam Chairman, an earlier speaker remarked that what we are really 
debating here is a question of spending bias, the bias in the debate. 
Some want to bias the debate in favor of spending, some want to bias 
the debate against additional spending. That does get to the heart of 
the issue.
  The reason there is such resistance, unfortunately most of it on my 
side of the aisle, to the proposition that we ought to have a hard 
freeze as a baseline is because many Members of Congress prefer to have 
a spending bias in the way we develop our budgets.
  The previous speaker just remarked that a family facing higher food 
costs has to anticipate those higher food costs and Congress ought to 
anticipate the higher costs that are attributable to all the programs 
we run as well. The difference is that if a family faces the same 
paycheck, they have to eat those higher food costs within the existing 
budget. Congress does not have to do that. We do not even admit that we 
have increased the budget unless the increase goes beyond the rate of 
inflation. Families do not have that luxury.
  Our budget process does not make sense to most families in America 
because it is a nonsensical budget process. We start out with inflated 
baselines, and anything less than that is a cut, and that is absolute 
nonsense.
  Several speakers have suggested that somehow this is going to put 
tremendous pressure on popular programs, and that the AARP opposes the 
Penny-Stenholm-Kasich substitute. The fact is that we treat 
entitlements in exactly the same manner that the Spratt proposal treats 
entitlements. There is no difference between the two. That is a real 
herring.
  Some would say that a process change is not going to cure our 
spending problem here on Capitol Hill, but if process did not matter, 
then why are people who are happy with the status quo so resistant to 
this change in our budget process? We need to change the terms of 
debate in Washington, DC. We still face deficits as far as the eye can 
see in the $200 billion range per year. We need to change the spending 
bias.
  The Penny-Stenholm-Kasich substitute establishes a hard-freeze 
baseline that will take away the spending bias. It will not deny the 
Budget Committee or the appropriators or others from using other 
comparisons in an inflation-adjusted budget, last year's budget, 
whatever, they want, but the official baseline against which all 
measures will be scored in the future would be a hard freeze. It will 
make our budget decisions more honest.
  This debate does come down to that simple question of a bias. Do we 
want to continue a bias in favor of spending, or do we want to once and 
for all eliminate that bias? To vote for the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm 
substitute is to vote for honesty in budgeting.
  Mr. CLINGER. Madam Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time 
remains?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Clinger] has 2\1/
2\ minutes remaining, and the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. 
Derrick] has 1 minute remaining.
  Mr. CLINGER. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Florida [Mr. Goss].
  Mr. GOSS. Madam Chairman, I thank the distinguished gentleman from 
Pennsylvania for yielding this 1 minute to me.
  I simply wanted to make a closing remark from our point of view. We 
have heard from the appropriators and we have heard various views from 
both sides of the aisle on the budget process. I do not think anybody 
is trying to suggest that the appropriators are trying to deceive the 
Members of Congress in the process we go through in the appropriation 
of discretionary funding.
  We do get lots of comparisons. There is no question about that. As 
Members of Congress, we need to get those, and we need to know what we 
are talking about. There is no beef on that at all, as far as I can 
see. The problem here is what the public wants to know and what claims 
are made. We are simply trying to suggest that there ought to be one 
clear, simple, understandable way of presenting it, that this is what 
we spent last year and this is what we are going to spend this year.

                              {time}  1200

  Nobody is saying that we should ignore inflation or all of the other 
factors, the cost of doing business. Nobody is suggesting we should do 
that. What we are really saying is when we make claims, that they 
should be accurate and based on the fact that we spent this last year, 
we are going to spend this this year, and this is why. I do urge 
support of the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm amendment.
  Mr. CLINGER. Madam Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from California [Mr. Cox], a member of the committee.
  Mr. COX. let me give just three examples of how baseline budgeting 
misleads everyone here in Congress and the American people. Republicans 
and Democrats this year offered amendments to reform the U.S. Marshal's 
Service. The amendments increased spending on the program by $9 
million. You and I would call this a spending increase, but opponents 
of this commonsense effort at reform called it a $5 million spending 
cut. This is inside-the-beltway nonsense.
  A second proposal would have allowed funding for the Bureau of 
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to grow by $15 million. The 
congressional budget process could not resist calling this a $2 million 
cut. More nonsense.
  The State Department is a frequent target for reform. Republicans 
this year proposed restructuring the Department, but allowing its 
budget to increase by $25 million. Stop, said the big spenders. You are 
slashing the Department's spending by $77 million. Once again, this is 
the budget-baseline-beltway-nonsense factor at work.
  We are on the right track here. We are on the way to commonsense 
reform, and I support the Stenholm-Penny-Kasich substitute.
  Madam Chairman, Thomas Jefferson once noted, he who permits himself 
to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third 
time, until at length it becomes habitual. He tells lies without 
attending to it and the truth without the world believing him.
  Jefferson was right. Baseline budgeting is a lie, one that eats away 
at our credibility. We should abandon this process forthwith.
  Mr. DERRICK. Madam Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Madam Chairman, it is clear people out in the countryside don't 
understand and appreciate the current policy baseline that we use in 
the Federal budget. What they understand is comparing proposed changes 
in funding for Federal programs to last year's level.
  The Spratt bill will require budgets to include another baseline 
comparing spending not only to the current policy baseline, but also to 
the previous year's level. Both comparisons are relevant and 
instructive, and in fact necessary to a complete understanding of the 
budget. I believe the bill will improve the process both for 
policymakers and the American people.
  Doing away with the current policy baseline and substituting the 
current funding baseline, as the Stenholm-Penny-Kasich amendment would 
do, will not result in full budget disclosure. It will merely 
substitute different information for what we use now. All the 
information is necessary to have full budget disclosure, and I commend 
the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt] for his hard work on 
this legislation.
  I urge all Members to support the Spratt bill and reject the Penny-
Kasich-Stenholm substitute.
  Mr. FRANKS of Connecticut. Madam Chairman, I would have to say that 
very few of my constituents know that there are automatic spending 
increases every year in budget bills. They do not realize that a 
program spending cut passed by Congress--rare though this is--may not 
necessarily mean that less money will be spent on this program than the 
previous year. Yes, there are two definitions of a spending cut in 
Washington. I define a spending cut as actually reducing spending from 
the previous year. The majority party in Congress defines it as a 
legislative reduction from an automatic increase determined by the 
Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Management and Budget 
using assumptions of current law, inflation, and economic, and 
demographic changes.
  Supposedly, the Budget Control Act will eliminate this deception. But 
while this bill has a powerful-sounding name, it does not really do 
anything to reform the budget process. The Budget Control Act will 
allow both definitions--my definition and the majority definition--to 
be used in budgeting. While this is an improvement over the current way 
spending cuts are portrayed, Congress can do better. I will vote for 
the Stenholm-Penny-Kasich substitute, which requires that all spending 
proposals be compared to the prior year's actual enacted levels. Under 
this substitute, the deceptive way spending cuts are portrayed would be 
completely eliminated. This can only benefit voters when they evaluate 
their representative's positions on cutting spending.
  The CHAIRMAN. All time for general debate has expired. Pursuant to 
the rule, the committee amendment in the nature of a substitute printed 
in the bill shall be considered as an original bill for the purpose of 
amendment and is considered as read.
  The text of the committee amendment in the nature of a substitute is 
as follows:

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Full Budget Disclosure Act 
     of 1994''.

     SEC. 2. PURPOSE.

       The purpose of this Act is to require that budget documents 
     provide the Congress with comprehensive data on budget 
     trends.

     SEC. 3. THE BASELINE.

       (a) Definition.--Section 250(c)(5) of the Balanced Budget 
     and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 is amended to read 
     as follows:
       ``(5)(A) The term `current policy baseline' means the 
     projection (described in section 257) of current-year levels 
     of new budget authority, outlays, receipts, and the surplus 
     or deficit into the budget year and the outyears.
       ``(B) The term `current funding baseline' refers to the 
     baseline as set forth in section 257 without any adjustment 
     described in section 257(c)(1) for inflation other than the 
     adjustment set forth in section 257(c)(2) for expiring 
     housing contracts.''.
       (b) Conforming Amendments.--Sections 251, 252, 253, and 254 
     of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 
     1985 are amended by inserting ``current policy'' before 
     ``baseline'' each place it appears.

     SEC. 4. THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET.

       (a) Paragraph (5) of section 1105(a) of title 31, United 
     States Code, is amended to read as follows:
       ``(5) except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, 
     estimated expenditures and appropriations for the current 
     fiscal year and estimated expenditures and proposed 
     appropriations the President decides are necessary to support 
     the Government in the fiscal year for which the budget is 
     submitted and the 4 fiscal years following that year;''.
       (b) Section 1105(a)(6) of title 31, United States Code, is 
     amended by inserting ``current fiscal year and the'' before 
     ``fiscal year''.
       (c) Section 1105(a)(12) of title 31, United States Code, is 
     amended by striking ``and'' at the end of subparagraph (A), 
     by striking the period and inserting ``; and'' at the end of 
     subparagraph (B), and by adding at the end the following new 
     subparagraph:
       ``(C) the estimated amount of expenditure and appropriation 
     for the same activity, if any, in the current fiscal year.''.
       (d) Section 1105(a) of title 31, United States Code, is 
     amended by adding at the end the following new paragraphs:
       ``(30) a comparison of estimated new budget authority and 
     outlays for each function and subfunction for the current 
     fiscal year with proposed new budget authority and outlays 
     for the fiscal year for which the budget is submitted, along 
     with the proposed increase or decrease of spending in 
     percentage terms for each function and subfunction.
       ``(31) a comparison for each function and subfunction of 
     the current policy baseline level of new budget authority and 
     outlays for the year for which the budget is submitted with 
     the proposed new budget authority and outlays for the year 
     for which the budget is submitted, including changes in 
     percentage terms for each function and subfunction.''.

     SEC. 5. CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET.

       Section 301(e) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is 
     amended by--
       (1) inserting after the second sentence the following: ``As 
     soon as practicable after the President's budget submission 
     under section 1105(a) of title 31, United States Code, the 
     Committee on the Budget of each House shall provide to its 
     members the estimated level of outlays for the current year 
     in each function and subfunction.''; and
       (2) striking ``and'' at the end of paragraph (9), by 
     striking the period and inserting a semicolon at the end of 
     paragraph (10), and by adding at the end the following new 
     paragraphs:
       ``(11) a comparison (for each function) of estimated 
     outlays and revenues for the current fiscal year with 
     proposed spending and revenue levels for the budget year and 
     each outyear, including the increase or decrease (in 
     percentage terms) of spending; and
       ``(12) a comparison (for each function) of proposed outlays 
     and revenues for the budget year with the current policy 
     baseline projection for that year, including changes (in 
     percentage terms).''.

     SEC. 6. CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE REPORT TO COMMITTEES.

       (a) The first sentence of section 202(f)(1) of the 
     Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is amended to read as 
     follows: ``On or before February 15 of each year, the 
     Director shall submit to the Committees on the Budget of the 
     House of Representatives and the Senate a report for the 
     fiscal year commencing on October 1 of that year with respect 
     to fiscal policy, including (A) alternative levels of total 
     revenues, total new budget authority, and total outlays 
     (including related surpluses and deficits) compared to 
     comparable levels for the current year and (B) the levels of 
     tax expenditures under existing law, taking into account 
     projected economic factors and any changes in such levels 
     based on proposals in the budget submitted by the President 
     for such fiscal year.''.
       (b) Section 202(f)(1) of the Congressional Budget Act of 
     1974 is amended by inserting after the first sentence the 
     following new sentence: ``That report shall also include a 
     table on sources of growth in the estimated total current 
     policy baseline spending for mandatory programs for the 
     budget year and the ensuing 4 fiscal years, which shall 
     include changes in outlays attributable to the following: 
     cost-of-living adjustments; changes in the number of program 
     recipients; increases in medical care prices, utilization and 
     intensity of medical care; and residual factors.''.
       (c) Section 202(f)(3) of the Congressional Budget Act of 
     1974 is amended by striking ``and'' before ``(B)'', and by 
     inserting before the period at the end the following: ``, and 
     (C) all direct spending programs''.
       (d) Section 308(a)(1)(C) of the Congressional Budget Act of 
     1974 is amended by inserting ``and shall include a comparison 
     of those levels to comparable levels for the current fiscal 
     year'' before ``if timely submitted''.

  The CHAIRMAN. No other amendment shall be in order, except the 
amendments printed in House Report 103-689. Each amendment may be 
offered only in the order printed in the report, may be offered only by 
a Member designated in the report, shall be considered as read, and 
shall not be subject to amendment.
  Debate time on each amendment will be equally divided and controlled 
by the proponent and an opponent of the amendment.
  If more than one of the amendments printed in the report is adopted, 
only the last one to be adopted shall be considered as finally adopted 
and reported to the House.
  It is now in order to consider amendment No. 1 printed in House 
Report 103-689.


      amendment in the nature of a substitute offered by mr. penny

  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment in the nature of a 
substitute.
  Mr. CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment in the nature of 
a substitute.
  The text of the amendment in the nature of a substitute is as 
follows:

       Amendment in the nature of a substitute offered by Mr. 
     Penny:
       Strike all after the enacting clause and insert the 
     following:

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Baseline Reform Act of 
     1994''.

     SEC. 2. THE BASELINE.

       (a) The second sentence of section 257(c) of the Balanced 
     Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 is amended--
       (1) by inserting ``but only for the purpose of adjusting 
     the discretionary spending limits set forth in section 
     601(a)(2) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974'' after 
     ``for inflation as specified in paragraph (5); and
       (2) by inserting ``but only for the purpose of adjusting 
     the discretionary spending limits set forth in section 
     601(a)(2) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974'' after 
     ``to offset pay absorption and for pay annualization as 
     specified in paragraph (4)''.
       (b) Section 1109(a) of title 31, United States Code, is 
     amended by adding after the first sentence the following new 
     sentence: ``These estimates shall not include an adjustment 
     for inflation for programs and activities subject to 
     discretionary appropriations.''.

     SEC. 3. THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET.

       (a) Paragraph (5) of section 1105(a) of title 31, United 
     States Code, is amended to read as follows:
       ``(5) except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, 
     estimated expenditures and appropriations for the current 
     year and estimated expenditures and proposed appropriations 
     the President decides are necessary to support the Government 
     in the fiscal year for which the budget is submitted and the 
     4 fiscal years following that year;''.
       (b) Section 1105(a)(6) of title 31, United States Code, is 
     amended by inserting ``current fiscal year and the'' before 
     ``fiscal year''.
       (c) Section 1105(a)(12) of title 31, United States Code, is 
     amended by striking ``and'' at the end of subparagraph (A), 
     by striking the period and inserting ``; and'' at the end of 
     subparagraph (B), and by adding at the end the following new 
     subparagraph:
       ``(C) the estimated amount for the same activity (if any) 
     in the current fiscal year.''.
       (d) Section 1105(a)(18) of title 31, United States Code, is 
     amended by inserting ``new budget authority and'' before 
     ``budget outlays''.
       (e) Section 1105(a) of title 31, United States Code, is 
     amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph:
       ``(30) a comparison of levels of estimated expenditures and 
     proposed appropriations for each function and subfunction in 
     the current fiscal year and the fiscal year for which the 
     budget is submitted, along with the proposed increase or 
     decrease of spending in percentage terms for each function 
     and subfunction.''.

     SEC. 4. THE CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET.

       Section 301(e) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is 
     amended by--
       (1) inserting after the second sentence the following: 
     ``The starting point for any deliberations in the Committee 
     on the Budget of each House on the concurrent resolution on 
     the budget for the next fiscal year shall be the estimated 
     level of outlays for the current year in each function and 
     subfunction. Any increases or decreases in the Congressional 
     budget for the next fiscal year shall be from such estimated 
     levels.''; and
       (2) striking paragraph (8) and redesignating paragraphs (9) 
     and (10) as paragraphs (10) and (11), respectively, and by 
     inserting after paragraph (7) the following new paragraphs:
       ``(8) a comparison of levels for the current fiscal year 
     with proposed spending and revenue levels for the subsequent 
     fiscal years along with the proposed increase or decrease of 
     spending in percentage terms for each function and 
     subfunction; and
       ``(9) information, data, and comparisons indicating the 
     manner in which and the basis on which, the committee 
     determined each of the matters set forth in the concurrent 
     resolution;''.

     SEC. 5. CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE REPORTS TO COMMITTEES.

       (a) The first sentence of section 202(f)(1) of the 
     Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is amended to read as 
     follows: ``On or before February 15 of each year, the 
     Director shall submit to the Committees on the Budget of the 
     House of Representatives and the Senate a report for the 
     fiscal year commencing on October 1 of that year with respect 
     to fiscal policy, including (A) alternative levels of total 
     revenues, total new budget authority, and total outlays 
     (including related surpluses and deficits) compared to 
     comparable levels for the current year and (B) the levels of 
     tax expenditures under existing law, taking into account 
     projected economic factors and any changes in such levels 
     based on proposals in the budget submitted by the President 
     for such fiscal year.''.
       (b) Section 202(f)(1) of the Congressional Budget Act of 
     1974 is amended by inserting after the first sentence the 
     following new sentence: ``That report shall also include a 
     table on sources of spending growth in total mandatory 
     spending for the budget year and the ensuing 4 fiscal years, 
     which shall include changes in outlays attributable to the 
     following: cost-of-living adjustments; changes in the number 
     of program recipients; increases in medical care prices, 
     utilization and intensity of medical care; and residual 
     factors.''.
       (c) Section 308(a)(1) of the Congressional Budget Act of 
     1974 is amended--
       (1) in subparagraph (C), by inserting ``, and shall include 
     a comparison of those levels to comparable levels for the 
     current fiscal year'' before ``if timely submitted''; and
       (2) by striking ``and'' at the end of subparagraph (C), by 
     striking the period and inserting ``; and'' at the end of 
     subparagraph (D), and by adding at the end the following new 
     subparagraph:
       ``(E) comparing the levels in existing programs in such 
     measure to the estimated levels for the current fiscal 
     year.''
       (d) Title IV of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is 
     amended by adding at the end the following new section:


                   ``gao reports to budget committees

       (a) ``Sec. 408. On or before January 15 of each year, the 
     Comptroller General, after consultation with appropriate 
     committees of the House of Representatives and Senate, shall 
     submit to the Congress a report listing all programs, 
     projects, and activities that fall within the definition of 
     direct spending under section 250(c)(8) of the Balanced 
     Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.''.
       (b) Conforming Amendment.--The table of contents set forth 
     in section 1(b) of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment 
     Control Act of 1974 is amended by inserting after the item 
     relating to section 407 the following new item:

``Sec. 408. GAO reports to budget committees.''.

  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. 
Penny] will be recognized for 15 minutes and a Member opposed will be 
recognized for 15 minutes. Is the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. 
Spratt] opposed?
  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt] will 
control the 15 minutes in opposition.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Penny].
  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Madam Chairman, with our colleagues, Charlie Stenholm and John 
Kasich, I am today offering an amendment to H.R. 4907, the Full Budget 
Disclosure Act of 1994, that will provide a very simple, but powerful 
and fundamental change in the budget process.
  Here's the problem we face: even though President Clinton's budget 
cut spending by approximately $250 billion over 5 years, Federal 
spending is slated to increase over that same time frame from $1.4 to 
$1.9 billion in 1999.
  How can this be, since spending is being cut? The answer is the 
dirty-little secret of Federal budgeting: the budget is rigged to favor 
higher spending. Spending increases are built into the budget even 
before Congress considers spending cuts. As a result, the best Congress 
can ever do is reduce the growth of spending. Real spending cuts--where 
spending is reduced below actual spending levels is virtually unheard 
of and almost never done in Washington.
  Current law requires budget proposals to be measured against a 
baseline which includes an automatic adjustment for inflation-plus all 
legislated changes scheduled to take effect rather than against actual 
spending levels. Against this baseline, any effort to simply slow down 
spending growth is shown as a cut, even if spending for the program 
would actually be higher than in the previous year.
  The budget baseline's bias toward higher spending is very real. As 
Professor Allen Schick, one of the Nation's foremost experts on the 
budget process, wrote in his book ``The Capacity To Budget,''

       The current services budget. . .complicates doing that 
     which is difficult to do even under the most favorable 
     circumstances--cutting into the base. This is a significant 
     bias because the difference between ``current expenditures'' 
     and ``current services'' often is the most effective margin 
     of choice for congressional decisionmakers. That is, when 
     they cut programs, they frequently do so by holding the 
     dollars increase below the rate of inflation.

  To change this bias toward increased spending, our amendment requires 
that proposed spending for discretionary programs be compared to actual 
current-year spending levels, rather than solely to inflated 
projections of those levels for the forthcoming fiscal years.
  Our amendment accomplishes this through four specific provisions:
  First, it amends the legal definition of the baseline so that it no 
longer assumes automatic growth in discretionary spending due to 
inflation.
  Second, it requires both the President and Congress to compare their 
budgets to the amount actually spent the prior year, rather than solely 
against the inflated baseline.
  Third, it stipulates that Congressional Budget Office [CBO] cost 
estimates of pending legislation must include a comparison to the 
change in spending from the prior year's level.
  Finally, our amendment instructs CBO to enumerate all the programs 
funded on an automatic, open-ended basis rather than subject to annual 
congressional review (entitlement programs) and identify the reasons 
behind their projected growth.
  The Spratt bill, H.R. 4907, simply adds a second official baseline 
that is called current funding while leaving the current-law baseline 
requiring inflated spending in place. This approach simply does nothing 
to control spending or give a more accurate picture of actual spending.
  Earlier this year, Charlie Stenholm and John Kasich and myself 
introduced the Common Sense Budget Reform Act, H.R. 4434. The House has 
debated and passed one of the four reforms proposed by H.R. 4434, 
expedited and enhanced rescission authority. Two of the remaining three 
proposals contained in H.R. 4434 are before the House today: the 
measure we are currently debating and another on emergency 
appropriations requests. In passing the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm baseline 
reform amendment and defeating the Spratt amendment, we will continue 
on the road of real budget process reform. I urge your support for real 
baseline reform. I urge your vote for the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm 
amendment.
  Mr. SABO. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PENNY. I yield briefly to the gentleman from Minnesota.
  Mr. SABO. Madam Chairman, would the gentleman tell me how his bill 
changes the baseline for entitlements, where all the growth 
fundamentally is?
  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, reclaiming my time, we change the 
measurement of the spending for the entitlement programs in the same 
manner as the Spratt substitute, which is to say the baseline, if it is 
spelled out in law, would be a higher spending level.
  Mr. SABO. In fact it does not change the baseline for entitlements. 
In fact, the gentleman's problem is not with the budget; it is with 
existing law.
  Mr. PENNY. I would simply respond to my good friend and colleague 
from Minnesota, if I were here trying to change the baseline on 
entitlement programs to make it a hard freeze, he would be opposing 
that proposition as well. So I think it is a disingenuous question.
  Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1210

  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished 
chairman of the Committee on Government Operations, the gentleman from 
Michigan [Mr. Conyers].
  (Mr. CONYERS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Chairman, I would like to point out that the 
amendment now offered denies the Congress the benefit of valuable and 
useful budget information. From my point of view, this would prohibit 
an inflation adjustment from the spending baseline.
  While motivated by a desire to deny opportunities for increasing 
spending, the proposal would probably prohibit useful budget 
information, namely, the cost of last year's program if continued 
today, from being considered by the Congress.
  Also there is a reality factor here. The concern about a built-in, 
automatic spending increase ignores the fact that tight discretionary 
caps, not the way budget data is presented, sets levels of spending.
  Third, I would point out that the baseline preserves the role of 
Congress in setting spending priorities. The reason the budget 
incorporates baseline adjustments for inflation and other changes in 
the program is because the budget has to compare funding for different 
programs in different years. If Congress just passes last year's 
funding level and the programs actually cost more this year, then the 
cuts which the agency has to swallow are set by bureaucrats, not by 
those elected by the voters to represent them.
  Finally, I support the bill offered by my distinguished colleague and 
subcommittee chairman in the Committee on Government Operations, who 
has put more information before the Congress. In creating two 
baselines, we will not cause anymore confusion. We will have better 
than this alternative because it recognizes that the current baseline 
presents useful information to Congress.
  By requiring all information to be available, H.R. 4907 is not 
harmful to the budget and appropriations process.
  I urge that the Stenholm-Penny-Kasich amendment be rejected.
  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes and 30 seconds to the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich].
  Mr. KASICH. Madam Chairman, let me try to put this in even more ways 
than we already have. We wonder why the American people are for term 
limits and think this place is so screwed up.
  We sit in the Committee on the Budget and we try to figure out what 
our spending levels are. I want to tell my colleagues, I try to say, 
how much did we spend last year or is this an increase, is this a cut, 
what is this? You have to do it from all these baselines.
  In last year's budget debate, we actually tried to compare spending 
using, I am not kidding, folks, the capped baseline, the uncapped 
baseline, the capped baseline with health care reform, the budget 
baseline, the revised Bush baseline, the capped baseline with the Bush 
defense, the House Budget Committee baseline, and the current services 
baseline.
  Any time I tried to ask somebody, what were we doing last year, or is 
this an increase or a decrease, they would say, which baseline do you 
want us to use? I am saying ow we ought to forget about the Bush 
baseline, because we are like 2 years away from when he was President, 
but we will be using the Bush baseline next year under the current 
situation.
  Now, when we have all these different baselines that we are trying to 
figure out what our spending level is from, can Members imagine a 
family in America trying to figure out how much they are going to spend 
last year based on 10 different ways of comparing it?
  As a result of doing that, of course, we get to the picture that has 
1,000 words. Only using those baselines, is it possible for the 
National Science Foundation to get a $221 million increase. The 
National Science Foundation got a $221 million increase, but in 
Washington, DC, and all across America, spread across the pages of our 
newspapers, it was called a $476 million cut. This level of increase, 
an increase like this that any family would be happy to have in their 
daily income, this increase, my colleagues, under the current situation 
is called a cut.
  I would like to enter into the record the functions from general 
government for the concurrent budget resolution that flat out says that 
we will increase spending from the year before and if we do not 
increase spending from the year before, it is called a cut. So that 
everyone across this country, when they are sitting there watching and 
hearing this debate and they do not know who is right and who is wrong, 
it will be in the record. Call my office and ask for the record and see 
the misuses that indicate cuts when in essence, you will see in here, 
it really is an increase.
  And back to this National Science Foundation, this is the Mona Lisa 
of the debate.
  We are going to win this fight with the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm 
amendment. What is going to happen is there is going to be a procedural 
effort to say that if we pass current law, we will be okay. After we 
pass the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm amendment, there will be an amendment 
that if it gets 218 votes. it will become law. In this situation, we 
could actually get the whole House to vote for our proposal to bring 
sanity to the budget process, yet still lose because Members come and 
vote to retain the status quo.
  Members should vote no on the Spratt amendment. We will be back to 
talk about that later. But Members clearly must come to the floor and 
put their voting card in the machine, because the American people want 
honesty in budgeting. They want us here to do what they do at home. 
Pass Penny-Kasich-Stenholm. Bring sanity to the budget process.
  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the chairman of the 
Committee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey].
  Mr. OBEY. Madam Chairman, I regret to say that the sponsors of the 
amendment do not understand their own amendment.
  They claim that they are making no change in mandatory baselines. 
That is true if we read section 2 of their proposal. But if Members 
then read sections 3 and section 4, they will see that they require the 
very changes in entitlement measurings that they deny that they 
require. That is why the AARP opposes their amendment. Because while 
they deny that they have an effect on entitlements, they in fact do 
require that we compare for Social Security, for instance, that we 
require spending levels this year with last year without regard to 
growth in population, without regard to inflation.
  If their claim is correct, then the only effect of the proposal would 
be on the Committee on Appropriations. The only problem is, the 
Committee on Appropriations already does what they ask. These are the 
13 reports which describe the spending baselines for last year versus 
this year in the 13 bills we report to the House each year.
  I invite any Member to come up here right now and show me where we 
use an inflation-adjusted baseline.
  The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich], I invite him to do that now. 
Show me where the Committee on Appropriations uses an adjusted 
inflation baseline. He cannot do it because we do not do it.
  Mr. KASICH. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. OBEY. The gentleman can use his own time.
  I do not care what he does on the budget resolution. Show me on your 
time.
  Mr. KASICH. Madam Chairman, I already did.

                              {time}  1220

  I will buy you the biggest martini in town if you can show me where 
the Committee on Appropriations provides for an adjusted appropriation 
baseline. We do not do it.
  So what it means, very simply, is this. If their bill does what they 
say it does, then it only has an effect on the Committee on 
Appropriations, and we already do what they say we ought to do. That 
means this bill is a nothing.
  If their claim is incorrect, and they do in fact do what section 3 
and 4 says, which is to require the kind of comparison that we put a 
squeeze on Social Security recipients' real income, then they do 
something very pernicious, and this amendment ought to be defeated.
  However you interpret that depends on how you read this language, but 
the fact is that this language does not do what its sponsors say it 
does.
  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Waxman].
  (Mr. WAXMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to the 
Stenholm substitute.
  What Mr. Stenholm is asking us to do is to change how we talk about 
the Federal budget in a way that makes no sense--even inside the 
beltway.
  I want to make sure that we are all clear about the differences 
between the Stenholm substitute and the underlying bill. Mr. Spratt's 
bill is a fair and balanced measure that provides for full range of 
information about changes in the budget from year to year--including 
information about the effect of inflation and changing economic 
conditions on programs.
  In contrast, the Stenholm substitute would not give a fair and 
balanced picture of the Federal budget. Instead, it is designed to 
advance a political, agenda to confuse the American public about the 
Federal budget. Under the Stenholm substitute any increase in spending 
from the previous year would be made to appear as if the President or 
Congress had increased spending even when the increase was only the 
result of inflation or growth in the population.
  For those who might question whether there is a political agenda 
here, I would only point out that the Stenholm substitute would apply 
different rules to subsidies provided through the tax code. For tax 
expenditures, Mr. Stenholm would require that ``projected economic 
factors'' be taken into account. For social programs like Medicare, 
these factors would not be considered.
  Why is this? Why is Medicare not affected by economic factors, but 
intangible drilling, exploration and development costs for oil and gas 
producers are? The question answers itself.
  Mr. Stenholm wants us to tell the American people that if spending on 
Federal programs increases just to take account of inflation or 
increases in the number of beneficiaries, the increase is, in effect, 
an expansion of the program--even through nothing has changed.
  Let's take a simple example. Let's look at what this will mean for a 
Medicare beneficiary--let's call her Mrs. Smith--and her doctor in a 
small rural community.
  Under current law, Medicare pays physicians on the basis of a fee 
schedule. It increases the fee schedules each year to reflect the 
increased overhead that physicians face due to higher labor costs, 
office rent, supplies, and malpractice premiums.
  Right now, Medicare will pay 80 percent of the fee schedule amount 
for an office visit. Let us say in Mrs. Smith's area, the Medicare fee 
schedule is $50. So Medicare pays $40, and she pays $10.
  Next year, Medicare increases its fee schedule in the area to, say, 
$55. Medicare still covers 80 percent, so it will pay $44, and she will 
pay $11.
  Now, under Mr. Stemholm's amendment, the budget would only show that 
Medicare spending had increased by $4. It wouldn't show that Medicare 
spending had to increase by $4 just to keep Mrs. Smith even.
  We didn't entitle Mrs. Smith to any new services. We didn't make more 
people eligible for the program. And we keep the limits on physician 
spending--limits which are enforced through updates to the fee 
schedule--in place.
  In fact, all we did was to keep or promise to Mrs. Smith to pay 80 
percent of her doctor bills. Yet under Mr. Stenholm's approach, keeping 
our promise is displayed as a program expansion.
  Now if we asked Mrs. Smith whether we had expanded Medicare, she 
would look at us as if we had lost our minds. Her out-of-pocket costs 
have gone up $1--and would have gone up $5 if Medicare had not paid its 
share.
  Under the Stenholm substitute, the only way we could say that the 
Medicare program did to expand would be no freeze the fee schedule at 
$50. Meanwhile, back in the real world, Mrs. Smith's doctor has this 
problem. His labor costs, office rent, and supplies are still going up, 
so he'll have to raise his fees if he wants to keep his practice going.
  Let's say he raises his fee to $55. Mrs. Smith will have to pay the 
full $5 increase, as well as the $10 coinsurance.
  What do you think Mrs. Smith would say if we were to ask her whether 
Medicare had just been cut? She'd look at us as if we had lost our 
minds. Of course it has been cut, she would say; it is only common 
sense.
  I think most Americans know a program cut when they see one. That's 
what the Stenholm substitute is, and no amount of semantic juggling can 
disguise it.
  I urge a vote for common sense and against the substitute.
  Madam Chairman, I have a letter here from the American Association of 
Retired Persons, and they are against the Stenholm-Penny amendment. 
They say it would create a budget make-believe scenario in which people 
did not age. I also have a letter from the White House in opposition.
  Madam Chairman, I include these letters for the Record:

                                              The White House,

                                  Washington, DC, August 12, 1994.
     Hon. Thomas S. Foley,
     House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Speaker: On behalf of the President and his 
     economic team, we are writing again to urge members of the 
     House of Representatives to oppose the Stenholm-Penny-Kasich 
     substitute and to express our preference for the Spratt Full 
     Budget Disclosure proposal. We want to clarify that this 
     substitute would prohibit the use of economically-important 
     information such as inflation in determining baselines for 
     the discretionary budget. This would be a set-back for 
     rational and reasonable budget-policy making.
       A far more balanced and fair approach is the one included 
     in the Spratt Baseline Budget proposal, which would allow for 
     comparisons to both current funding levels and what it would 
     take to maintain current policy.
       The Stenholm-Penny-Kasich alternative would eliminate real 
     comparisons of how year-to-year spending would actually 
     impact on the services provided to real people's lives. No 
     credible form of budgeting in today's economy completely 
     disallows taking into account changes in inflation. Consider 
     a five-year period during which inflation or the cost of 
     living increases by 3% each year. The compounded total 
     inflation is 16%. If a program, like Head Start, WIC or 
     veterans' hospitals were to be cut 10% in real terms, the 
     Stenholm-Penny-Kasich substitute would require that this cut 
     to millions of Americans be presented only as a spending 
     increase. Such a budget requirement would make the budget 
     process less forthright and less informative as to how year-
     to-year changes were affecting real people's lives.
       The Spratt proposal, on the other hand, would provide a 
     fair, balanced and full-information alternative. It would 
     allow two methods of budget reporting--both the present 
     system of comparing budget proposals to the ``current 
     services baseline'' and comparisons of changes in actual 
     dollar amounts from year to year.
       We urge you to oppose the Stenholm-Penny-Kasich substitute 
     and to support the Spratt Baseline Budget proposal.
           Sincerely,
     Alice M. Rivlin,
       Acting Director, Office of Management and Budget.
     Robert E. Rubin,
       Assistant to the President for Economic Policy.
                                  ____


                           Vote for H.R. 4907


             Vote against stenholm/penny/kasich substitute

       H.R. 4907 requires two baselines in the budget format:
       (1) A ``current funding baseline,'' representing actual 
     funding for a function or program in the current year--what 
     CBO calls a ``freeze.''
       (2) A ``current policy baseline,'' representing what is 
     commonly called the ``current services'' level of funding.
       The ``current funding baseline'' shows how much spending 
     will increase or decrease.
       The ``current policy baseline'' shows next year's cost of 
     keeping a program running at the same level as this year 
     without any change in policy.
       Both baselines are useful, and H.R. 4907 provides for both.
       Stenholm/Penny/Kasich provides for only one baseline and 
     bans use of the ``current policy'' or ``current services 
     baseline.''
       AARP supports Spratt (H.R. 4907) and says the substitute 
     will ``lead to enormous pressure to cut programs such as 
     Social Security and Medicare.''
       OMB supports Spratt (H.R. 4907) and calls Stenholm/Penny/
     Kasich ``a set-back for rational budget policy-making.''
                                  ____



                                                         AARP,

                                                  August 12, 1994.
     Hon. John M. Spratt, Jr.,
     House of Representatives,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Representative Spratt: The American Association of 
     Retired Persons (AARP) supports your legislation H.R. 4907, 
     the Full Budget Disclosure Act. The legislation would allow 
     year to year changes in the budget baseline for discretionary 
     and mandatory spending levels to be described in two ways: a 
     current funding baseline and a current policy baseline. This 
     dual track approach allows for a reasonable and informative 
     presentation of budget data that can promote meaningful 
     debate about how to allocate budget resources.
       The Association opposes a substitute that will be offered 
     by Representatives Penny, Kasich and Stenholm. Current 
     budgeting procedure for entitlements recognizes that spending 
     levels need to be adjusted for increases in the beneficiary 
     population and changes in inflation and in the economy. The 
     substitute would require budgets to be presented without 
     these adjustments. This is patently unreasonable. In effect, 
     it would create a budget make believe scenario in which 
     people don't age.
       Portraying year to year changes in Social Security and 
     Medicare without adjustments for such basic factors is 
     misleading and is certain to intensify efforts to cut 
     benefits for reasons that are unrelated to the needs of these 
     programs. For example, under the substitute, cost of living 
     adjustments (COLAs) would be viewed as a spending increase 
     despite the fact they are the only means to help 
     beneficiaries keep up with rising costs for goods an 
     services. This flies in the face of Congress' original intent 
     providing for annual COLAs.
       AARP believes that Congressional debate about the budget 
     must be based on an accurate portrayal of our spending needs 
     and commitments. Your legislation helps achieve this goal.
           Sincerely,

                                                  John Rother,

                                                         Director,
                                    Legislation and Public Policy.

  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Ohio [Mr. Fingerhut].
  (Mr. FINGERHUT asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. FINGERHUT. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding 
time to me.
  Madam Chairman, this is an important debate, and I am glad we are 
having it on the floor. I rise in support of the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm 
amendment and in opposition to the amendment offered by the gentleman 
from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt].
  The argument here seems to be that good government, consistent 
government, requires reporting these different kinds of baselines. I 
served in the Ohio State Senate, as did the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. 
Kasich], and I served on the Finance Committee. We had a large budget, 
nowhere near what the budget of the Federal Government is, but we had a 
large budget.
  Every year we sat down with how much we spent last year and what the 
recommendations of the Governor were for spending for the next year, 
and we debated the alternatives offered by the majority and the 
minority party about how much programs needed to be increased or what 
other programs could survive at the current levels, or even could take 
cuts. It did not seem to us that we misunderstood the concept that some 
programs' expenses grew and other programs' expenses did not grow. We 
understood it, we debated it, we explained it, and we made decisions.
  The second serious argument that is made on the floor here today is 
with regard to entitlements. Entitlement programs, particularly those 
that impact senior citizens, do expand in cost every year. They expand 
in cost for two reasons. One is that the number of seniors who are 
eligible for those programs, particularly Social Security and Medicare, 
grow; and the second is that we have adopted some laws, this body has 
adopted laws, which increase payments automatically. They are commonly 
called COLA's.
  It seems to me again, Madam Chairman, that these are not concepts 
that we cannot explain to the public. Indeed, we would do much better 
if we did explain to them that the reason why we are spending more 
money on Medicare next year, and we are spending more money next year 
on Medicare, and we will the year after that, and we will the year 
after that, is because there are more seniors, and because their costs 
have gone up. It is an honest way of explaining it. They might just 
support the increase.
  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Minnesota [Mr. Sabo], the distinguished chairman of the Committee on 
the Budget.
  Mr. SABO. Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. 
There is lots of rhetoric today, and a lot of it I think goes by what 
actually happens.
  The reality is, we need different measurements as we look at this 
year's budget, as we look at budgets over a period of time. The Spratt 
bill, his substitute basically says we look at a variety of ways of 
measuring the budget. That is what we should do.
  My friends who offer this amendment say, if I understand their 
amendment correctly, that we consider inflation, we consider changes in 
beneficiaries, for all the entitlement programs, but if we look at any 
historic pattern of what happens with discretionary spending, we ignore 
the impact of inflation. That makes no sense to me.
  I have listened and read the rhetoric from the advocates of this 
amendment. They fundamentally disagree with existing law, which 
provides for inflation adjustment for a whole series of programs. They 
object to having, automatically, additional participants come into the 
program. They really would like that to be wiped off the books. That is 
not a budgetary problem, that is a problem of law.
  Madam Chairman, if they want to fundamentally change that, they 
should introduce a bill to repeal indexing, repeal automatic growth in 
beneficiaries for programs. Then that would reflect in what we do in 
budgets. That is really what they want to do.

  I say to the gentleman, then do it, put a bill in. Have hearings on 
it. I would not agree with it, but that would be the honest way to deal 
with it. What they are talking about is not a problem of the budget, it 
is a problem of law that they do not agree with. The budget reflects 
current law, which it should do.
  Madam Chairman, if anything, their proposal skews the whole budget 
process in understanding it more toward entitlements and away from the 
options of discretionary spending, where the Congress makes judgments 
each year.
  As I said earlier, Madam Chairman, to measure the budget between this 
year and last year is accurate. To measure it in other fashions is also 
accurate. To measure it in other fashions is also accurate, and needs 
to be part of what we look at when we understand the Federal budget.
  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to my colleague, 
the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm].
  (Mr. STENHOLM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. STENHOLM. Madam Chairman, I want to commend and acknowledge to 
the Committee on Appropriations that the reports that they put out do 
accurately reflect last year's spending and this year's spending, and 
the baseline argument is irrelevant to the appropriations process, as 
it, in fact, pertains to appropriation bills. I am curious as to why 
they are fussing so much about this, however, from that standpoint. 
That I do not understand.
  Madam Chairman, it is also interesting, when we start looking at the 
mandatory, for the most part, both of our bills are exactly alike in 
what we call for regarding mandatory proposals. The only difference is 
they require that both baselines be presented to the public.
  We provide that only one baseline be presented to the public. That is 
the only reason why we are here occupying the House's time today, is 
because we believe the American public needs to understand the one 
baseline.
  The Penny amendment does not prevent anyone, though, from putting pen 
to paper and figuring out how much a program need to be increased in 
order to keep up with inflation. As the gentleman from South Carolina, 
John Spratt, said yesterday, the Committee on the Budget will continue 
to provide various options for spending levels on different programs.
  That is fine. That provides very good, necessary information for the 
policymakers to make those decisions. However, the heart of the 
argument today is very simple. To the American people, we need to 
present one baseline, comparing to last year's spending. If it is in 
mandatory spending, we do it exactly the same way the Spratt amendment 
is. We say ``Let us show the American people why the increases are, in 
fact, there, whether they are by law or whether they are by any other 
estimation, or whether they are by any other action of this Congress.''
  What I am really opposed to is in our budget, in which, in Function 
800, for example, 1993 spending was $12.3 billion, 1998 spending under 
a freeze is $13.9 billion.

                              {time}  1230

  To me that is an increase of 1.6. But according to what we put out to 
the American people, it is a cut of 0.6. That is the relevancy of this 
whole argument today. That is the only thing that is relevant. That is 
why I say support the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm amendment, oppose the 
Spratt amendment, and let us present to the American people one honest 
presentation of the budget.
  Madam Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm 
amendment which would bring greater honesty to the budget process by 
eliminating the current services baseline and replacing it with a 
baseline that would be based on the previous year's spending levels.
  The current budget process is enormously confusing and strongly 
biased in favor of deficit spending. Baseline budgeting distorts the 
budget process by making it appear that programs are incurring a 
spending cut when, in fact, they simply are receiving a smaller 
increase than expected.
  The base bill before us today improves the current process by 
ensuring that Members will be able to compare proposed spending levels 
with the previous year's spending levels. I am concerned, however, that 
creating two official baselines will create additional confusion in the 
budget process. More importantly, the base bill will continue the 
current bias toward higher spending created by the current services 
budget.
  Our amendment would eliminate the bias toward higher spending and put 
some west Texas tractor seat common sense in the budget process by 
requiring that budget proposals compare their budgets to the amount 
actually spent the prior year ranter than against estimates of future 
spending. We should recognize increases in spending for what they are 
and not talk about cutting spending when we really are increasing 
spending.
  The folks at the Stamford Dairy Queen understand that if you received 
$100 last year and receive $99 this year, that is a spending cut. If 
you receive $101 this year, that is an increase, even if you expected 
to receive $102 this year. The small business men and women of this 
country understand that if your operating in the red, you cannot afford 
to give cost-of-living increases to everyone.
  The argument that our amendment will narrow the amount of information 
available to Members when making budget decisions is wrong. Our 
amendment does not prevent anyone from taking a calculator and figuring 
out how much a program needed to be increased in order to keep up with 
inflation or other factors. As we all know, there are countless 
benchmarks that are used to compare proposed spending levels. For 
example, Members can easily find out how much it would cost to fully 
fund Head Start, meet the national security objective or any other 
number of projected spending levels that are not officially part of the 
baseline. The Budget Committee will continue to provide Members with 
various options for spending levels on different programs, including 
the amount that a program needed to increase to keep pace with 
inflation. To argue that eliminating the official status of current 
services budgeting will somehow prevent anyone from providing this 
information is extremely misleading. What our amendment would do is 
take away the official status given to these inflated estimates that is 
used to create a presumption that programs should be increased at the 
rate of inflation.
  I completely concur that there are programs that need and deserve 
increases in spending form last year's level for any number of good and 
valid reasons. Our amendment does not prevent us from increasing 
spending on programs. What it does is force us to debate these 
increases for what they are and require that supporters of programs 
justify why they should be increased instead of relying on current 
services budgeting to automatically justify an increase. We cannot 
afford to assume that spending on every program will increase by 3 or 4 
percent a year.
  There have been some suggestions that if this substitute passes, we 
will have to explain to Social Security recipients or military retirees 
why they will not be harmed if Congress provides identical funding 
levels from 1 year to the next. Anyone who has read our amendment knows 
that this argument is a red herring. Our amendment allows the baseline 
to reflect increases in spending that are required by law such as 
COLA's for military and civilian retirees and Social Security as well 
as other entitlement programs. Our amendment will bring greater 
accountability to these programs, however, by requiring the 
Congressional Budget Office to report on the specific reasons for 
growth in these blank check items. By bringing greater attention to all 
of the sources of growth in entitlement spending, we hope to further 
the educational process about these programs.
  By changing the way we talk about budgetary decisions, our amendment 
will improve the decisionmaking process and the outcome of these 
decisions. Vote for the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm amendment to bring common 
sense into the budget process.
  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield myself 3\1/2\ minutes.
  Madam Chairman, the opposition to our base bill, supporters of this 
substitute, come down to making the argument that what we are talking 
about is public perception, we want the public to be able to understand 
the budget better, and I fully appreciate that argument. But I think we 
have obscured in our zeal to make this argument the fact that the 
baselines now provided to the public and to the Congress and to anyone 
else who cares to look amply lay out existing spending. We had 
Congressional Research Service go through the different budget 
documents and tell us how baseline spending was presented. Here, for 
example, is a page from the President's budget:
  Current Services Estimates, the first column in it is 1993 Actual. We 
have got an actual spending line.
  Here is a CBO projection of outlays by category in the budget outlook 
published twice a year. The first column, in Outlays by Category is 
Actual 1993 Spending.
  Here is a page taken from the report accompanying the budget 
resolution issued by the Committee on the Budget, Committee 
Recommendation, Function 570, Medicare. The first two columns: Budget 
Authority in the current year for discretionary spending and mandatory 
spending; and Outlays, actual spending. The actual baseline is 
presented there.
  Here is a page from an appropriation bill. The same thing. Here is a 
comparative statement of new budget authority. All of these provide it.
  The Budget Act, Section 1105, subsection 7 provides that the 
President must submit appropriation expenditures and receipts to the 
Government in the prior fiscal year as a beginning point of the budget 
so we can compare it.
  All we are doing is taking that requirement and making it explicit as 
we extend it to the Committee on the Budget and to the CBO.
  It is important that the public understand it but let us not lose 
sight of the fact that we have a stake in the budget, too, here in the 
Congress, a big stake. It is important that we understand the budget. 
It is important that we have it laid out and formatted and arrayed and 
displayed so that we can make use of it and use it as a working 
document because we have to make rational decisions based upon it.
  In that connection, we have created something called the current 
services baseline and we did not create it to obfuscate, to obscure, we 
created it because it is useful, it is useful to know what it is going 
to take in order to keep existing programs going.
  This current services budget is designed to show what receipts, what 
outlays, what budget authority will have to be if no changes are made 
to existing law. It does not say we cannot make the changes but it 
tells us, it tells the public, this is what we are going to have to do 
if we are not going to change permanent underlying entitlement and 
mandatory spending law. It warns us of future problems, it provides a 
starting point. All of these things are useful to have and that is why 
they exist. Not because we want to obscure or obfuscate.
  What we have had on the other side in the support of this substitute 
is a strawman. The opponents of this base bill have created a strawman, 
a construct to the budget that does not correspond to reality. As the 
chairman of the Committee on the Budget in talking about his 
resolutions has pointed out, as the chairman of the Committee on 
Appropriations has pointed out, actual spending baselines are there, we 
are going to keep them, enshrine them and require they be presented. 
But we are also going to keep something we have found useful, something 
that is going to exist regardless of the outcome of this vote, the 
current services baseline. We need both and that is why we need to vote 
down this substitute and vote for the base bill.
  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Georgia [Mr. Deal].
  Mr. DEAL. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the 
time.
  Madam Chairman, I rise in support of the Penny-Stenholm-Kasich 
substitute.
  Madam Chairman, we live in an age when it is difficult to know what 
is real and what is illusion. We are entertained by movies that distort 
reality through the skill of film splicers and the mixing of real 
people with cartoons.
  In this body, however, we should make every effort to deal with facts 
and figures that are real. First of all, our deliberations are in the 
public view and we have a responsibility to simplify rather than 
confuse the public.
  When Congress wisely decided to freeze discretionary spending at 1993 
levels for 5 years, we placed ourselves in the same position as a 
working family that does not get a raise in their paycheck for 5 years. 
If you do not receive any more money this year than you did last year, 
you are certainly deceiving yourself if you drift off into the world of 
illusion. It might be nice to think about inflation and certainly you 
must consider the fact that a new baby may have been born--but if the 
dollars available this year are the same as they were last year--that 
is reality. It is this same reality that Congress must deal with.
  Mr. Chairman, I urge the adoption of this substitute.
  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the 
gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Derrick].
  Mr. DERRICK. Madam Chairman, the committee ought to reject the Penny-
Kasich-Stenholm amendment for one principal reason: It simply will not 
result in full budget disclosure. In fact, it will remove valuable, 
important information from the budget debate and will result in the 
American people having less information about the effect of Federal 
spending proposals, not more.
  Madam Chairman, the current policy baseline that the President, the 
Congressional Budget Office, the congressional budget committees, and 
other use serves an important and valuable purposes. Every American 
knows inflation over time erodes the purchasing power of tax dollars 
just a it erodes the purchasing power of individuals' incomes. When 
developing budget proposals for future years, the president and 
Congress must consider inflation's effect on the dollar and how many 
goods and services the dollar will buy.
  If a program's funding is held below the level of inflation next 
year, then effectively the program has been cut since inflated dollars 
will buy slightly less next year than they buy now. I say slightly 
because fortunately inflation is extremely low right now. It has been 
argued that use of the current policy baseline allows policymaker to 
call increases in actual dollars cuts. That is true if they are making 
comparisons to the current policy baseline. But it is also true that 
the current policy baseline allows policmakers to characterize cuts as 
increases where spending, though higher in actual dollars, does not 
keep pace with inflation.
  This is why it is important to adopt the base bill, so we can have a 
current funding baseline against which to compare budget proposals. If 
a program gets $100 million this year and inflation is 3 percent, then 
it would take $103 million next year to deliver the same level of 
services. If the President proposed $102 million for the program, then 
with the additional baseline proposed in this bill, nobody would be 
deceived. People could compare the proposal to the two baselines and 
see readily that the proposal is an increase of $2 million over this 
year, but $1 million short of the amount required to keep pace with 
inflation.
  If the amendment eliminated the current policy baseline altogether, 
then policymaker could get away with calling the $102 million figure an 
increase, and the beneficiaries of the program might not really know it 
isn't actually enough to stay even.
  That would be just like passing a law to skip next year's Social 
Security cost-of-living adjustment and telling the beneficiaries ``We 
didn't cut your benefits. You'll get the same $614 per month net year 
that you get this year.'' The statement would be technically correct, 
but it would not tell the whole story.
  Madam Chairman, the Spratt bill will enable policymakers and the 
American people to see the whole story. The pending amendment would 
facilitate the same type of double-talk that the proponents say now 
occurs, only in a different way. The result would still be less than 
full budget disclosure.
  Madam Chairman. I urge the committee to reject the amendment and 
support the Spratt bill.
  Madam Chairman, I include for the Record a letter urging support of 
the Spratt proposal, as follows:


                                              The White House,

                                      Washington, August 12, 1994.
     Hon. Thomas S. Foley,
     House of Representatives,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Speaker: On behalf of the President and his 
     economic team, we are writing again to urge members of the 
     House of Representatives to oppose the Stenholm-Penny-Kasich 
     substitute and to express our preference for the Spratt Full 
     Budget Disclosure proposal. We want to clarify that this 
     substitute would prohibit the use of economically-important 
     information such as inflation in determining baselines for 
     the discretionary budget. This would be a set-back for 
     rational and reasonable budget-policy making.
       A far more balanced and fair approach is the one included 
     in the Spratt Baseline Budget proposal, which would allow for 
     comparisons to both current funding levels and what it would 
     take to maintain current policy.
       The Stenholm-Penny-Kasich alternative would eliminate real 
     comparisons of how year-to-year spending would actually 
     impact on the services provided to real people's lives. No 
     credible form of budgeting in today's economy completely 
     disallows taking into account changes in inflation. Consider 
     a five-year period during which inflation or the cost of 
     living increases by 3% each year. The compounded total 
     inflation is 16%. If a program, like Head Start, WIC or 
     veterans' hospitals were to be cut 10% in real terms, the 
     Stenholm-Penny-Kasich substitute would require that this cut 
     to millions of Americans be presented only as a spending 
     increase. Such a budget requirement would make the budget 
     process less forthright and less informative as to how year-
     to-year changes were affecting real people's lives.
       The Spratt proposal, on the other hand, would provide a 
     fair, balanced and full-information alternative. It would 
     allow two methods of budget reporting--both the present 
     system of comparing budget proposals to the ``current 
     services baseline'' and comparisons of changes in actual 
     dollar amounts from year to year.
       We urge you to oppose the Stenholm-Penny-Kasich substitute 
     and to support the Spratt Baseline Budget proposal.
           Sincerely,
     Alice M. Rivlin,
                                                  Acting Director,
                                  Office of Management and Budget.
     Robert E. Rubin,
                                       Assistant to the President,
                                              for Economic Policy.

  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Fawell].
  (Mr. FAWELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. FAWELL. Madam Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Kasich-
Penny-Stenholm amendment which sounds to me like just eminent common 
sense.
  As we all know, our current budget process includes many pro-spending 
biases. Most notable, the current services budget utilizes a baseline 
which assumes that we will budget as if all programs are left to grow 
on automatic pilot. According to the Congressional Budget Office, over 
the next 5 years, total Federal spending will increase by $360 billion 
from $1.47 to $1.83 trillion. During the same period, the Federal debt 
will increase from $4.6 to $6.3 trillion. We are not making progress on 
the national debt, and we should be honest with our constituents about 
our spending habits.
  Under the current services baseline, any reduction is labeled a 
spending cut regardless of the fact that the actual spending level is 
above the prior year's level. For example, many of us were attacked for 
allegedly voting for $31 billion in Medicare cuts contained in the 
recent Penny-Kasich package. During the 5 years affected by Penny-
Kasich, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that Medicare 
spending will rise from $143 to $239 billion, a 67-percent increase. In 
other words, even if the Penny-Kasich plan was adopted, Medicare 
spending would still rise from $143 billion to approximately $230 
billion during the same period, a 61-percent increase. Even the largest 
deficit reduction package considered by Congress, the Solomon-Fawell-
Upton budget, which would have reduced the deficit by $698 billion over 
5 years and resulted in a Federal budget surplus in 1999, would have 
permitted total Government spending to increase, albeit less than if we 
left the budget on autopilot.
  We simply cannot leave our budget on autopilot. We must face the fact 
that Government spending is out of control, and carefully consider any 
spending increases. Rather than assume that programs are entitled to 
automatic spending increases, we need to require departments and 
agencies to make their case to Congress for spending increases. The 
Stenholm-Penny-Kasich amendment recognizes this and would change our 
budgetary process to compare proposed spending levels with the current-
year funding levels. While this and other budgetary reforms are not a 
substitute to real spending cuts, the change is important. By using 
rhetorical devices biased toward spending increases, the current budget 
process promotes higher spending levels. Eliminating these biases will 
promote greater fiscal responsibility.
  I urge all Members to support the Stenholm-Penny-Kasich amendment, 
and oppose the Spratt proposal.
  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Madam Chairman, fundamentally this is a debate about how Washington 
works. Our process here naturally unfortunately confuses the American 
people and does little to edify and inform them. We have appropriations 
in the Congress who constantly blame entitlements for causing the 
deficit. Yet when we bring entitlement cuts to the floor, they 
typically vote against them. We have legislators who clamor for a 
balanced budget amendment and yet they do not vote for the taxes or the 
spending cuts required to reach a balanced budget. We have Democrats 
who voted for Clinton's budget, declaring that it essentially beats or 
licks the deficit when under the Clinton budget we have deficits 
remaining in a $200 billion range as far as the eye can see and 
entitlements remain uncontrolled. We have Republicans who blast 
Clinton's budget as unacceptable and one that does not cut enough. Yet 
they were unable to come together on a plan of their own that did as 
much in terms of deficit reduction.
  With all of the nonsense that surrounds the debate over the budget, 
we in this Congress finally owe the American people at least one bit of 
common sense: We need to give them a budget in which a freeze is 
actually a freeze, in which cuts are actually cuts. The only way to do 
that is to vote for the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm amendment. I urge a 
``yes'' vote.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Madam Chairman, I rise today to express my strong 
support for the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm substitute amendment to H.R. 
4907, the Full Budget Disclosure Act. It is time that we bring some 
integrity, honesty, and accountability to the budgeting process.
  It is time to end the kind of gimmickry that could only exist in 
Congress: where an increase in spending can be touted as a spending 
cut. This amendment would simplify the current budget process by 
requiring that all budgetary proposals be compared with actual spending 
levels of the past year instead of baseline estimates. This would bring 
some rationality to the process. It would bring our budget process in 
line with those of our constituents. A spending increase would actually 
be an increase from last year's funding levels, while a spending cut 
would represent a true decrease. The Penny-Kassich-Stenholm amendment 
provides for genuine reform to the current confusing and dishonest 
baseline budgeting process.
  Under the current system, Members of Congress can argue that they are 
supporting spending cuts which are actually increases over last year's 
levels. They do so because the funding levels are below a so-called 
baseline, which takes into consideration inflation and economic and 
demographic factors. Unamended, H.R. 4907 does little to address this 
problem, because it does not change the statutory definition of 
baselines, thereby preserving the inflated baseline.
  On the other hand, the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm amendment eliminates all 
of the budget gimmicks that are currently used to shield Members from 
having to make real spending cuts. I urge my colleagues to vote for 
real reforms to the baseline budgeting process--support the Penny-
Kasich-Stenholm amendment.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Madam Chairman, I rise today in strong support 
of the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm amendment to bring truth in budgeting to 
the Federal budget process. The Penny-Kasich-Stenholm amendment will 
require the Federal Government to use last year's funding level in 
planning for the next year's budget.
  It is the right thing to do. For years, Congress has allowed the 
baseline to automatically include inflation without discussion. Now, 
under the new baseline of last year's spending level, we will be 
allowed to compare spending from year to year honestly--without 
confusion.
  For Americans everywhere, that plan their budget based on the amount 
they are paid--not on what they assume they should spend after an 
adjustment for inflation, this bill is honest and understandable.
  Madam Chairman, the passage of the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm amendment is 
a giant step forward to have honesty in budgeting. It is the right 
thing to do.
  Mr. FRANKS of New Jersey. Madam Chairman, only in Washington, DC, can 
people describe an increase in spending as a spending cut. They can do 
this because of something called baseline budgeting, where estimates of 
inflation costs, new recipients and other economic projections become 
built in to future government spending. Only funding that goes beyond 
such estimates has to be called a spending increase.
  If Congress does limit a real funding increase to less than these 
estimates, any of us can then talk as if we actually cut a program's 
spending. This practice--where a spending increase is called a cut--
corrupts all talk about budgets here in Washington.
  Mr. Speaker, if we in Congress are truly serious about controlling 
spending, we must begin by eliminating such accounting tricks as 
baseline budgeting. We need to use real spending numbers as our basic 
budget reference, like what was spent last year on any program or 
department.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the Stenholm-Penny-
Kasich amendment. Congress should be willing to talk about money like 
America's families do, where more money being spent could never be 
called a cut. Let's begin cleaning up the way we talk about spending 
here in Congress, let's eliminate baseline budgeting today.
  Mr. GALLO. Madam Chairman, I rise today in support of the Penny-
Stenholm-Kasich substitute to the legislation under consideration. I 
believe that this substitute will lend a much-needed measure of clarity 
to the Federal budget process.
  As a former member of the Budget Committee and a current member of 
the Appropriation Committees, I understand and appreciate the effort 
the gentleman from South Carolina is making with his bill. I believe, 
however, that his effort can be improved by adoption of the substitute.
  Adoption of this substitute will not forbid us to consider what 
spending levels might be needed from one year to the next in order to 
maintain a certain program at current services. It will, however, force 
us to state clearly exactly how our spending in 1 year compares with 
that in the previous year in ways that everyone can understand.
  By using a measure that every American family uses to run its 
household--comparing this year's spending to last year's--the American 
people will finally be able to see whether Congress is truly cutting 
spending or not.
  Adoption of the substitute will, once and for all, put an end to the 
curious phenomena in Washington--where spending more money this year 
than last year can actually be considered a spending cut.

                              {time}  1240

  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment is the nature of a 
substitute offered by the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Penny].
  The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the noes 
appeared to have it.


                             recorded vote

  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 247, 
noes 171, not voting 21, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 395]

                               AYES--247

     Allard
     Andrews (NJ)
     Andrews (TX)
     Archer
     Armey
     Bacchus (FL)
     Bachus (AL)
     Baesler
     Baker (CA)
     Baker (LA)
     Ballenger
     Barca
     Barcia
     Barrett (NE)
     Barrett (WI)
     Bartlett
     Bateman
     Bereuter
     Bilirakis
     Bliley
     Blute
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Browder
     Brown (OH)
     Bunning
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Cantwell
     Castle
     Clement
     Clinger
     Coble
     Collins (GA)
     Combest
     Condit
     Cooper
     Coppersmith
     Cox
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cunningham
     Darden
     Deal
     DeFazio
     DeLay
     Deutsch
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Dornan
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Edwards (TX)
     Ehlers
     Emerson
     English
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fawell
     Fields (TX)
     Fingerhut
     Fish
     Fowler
     Franks (CT)
     Franks (NJ)
     Frost
     Furse
     Gallegly
     Gallo
     Gekas
     Geren
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Gingrich
     Glickman
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Gordon
     Goss
     Grams
     Grandy
     Greenwood
     Gunderson
     Hall (TX)
     Hancock
     Hansen
     Harman
     Hastert
     Hayes
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Hoke
     Horn
     Houghton
     Huffington
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hutto
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Inhofe
     Inslee
     Istook
     Jacobs
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson, Sam
     Kasich
     Kim
     King
     Kingston
     Kleczka
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kreidler
     Kyl
     Lambert
     Lancaster
     LaRocco
     Laughlin
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lehman
     Levy
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Lightfoot
     Linder
     Livingston
     Long
     Lucas
     Machtley
     Mann
     Manzullo
     Margolies-Mezvinsky
     Mazzoli
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McCurdy
     McDade
     McHale
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McKeon
     McMillan
     Meehan
     Menendez
     Meyers
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Minge
     Molinari
     Moorhead
     Morella
     Murphy
     Myers
     Neal (NC)
     Nussle
     Orton
     Oxley
     Packard
     Pallone
     Parker
     Paxon
     Payne (VA)
     Penny
     Peterson (MN)
     Petri
     Pickett
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Porter
     Portman
     Poshard
     Pryce (OH)
     Quillen
     Quinn
     Ramstad
     Ravenel
     Regula
     Ridge
     Roberts
     Roemer
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roth
     Roukema
     Rowland
     Royce
     Sangmeister
     Santorum
     Sarpalius
     Saxton
     Schaefer
     Schenk
     Schiff
     Sensenbrenner
     Shaw
     Shays
     Shepherd
     Shuster
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (OR)
     Smith (TX)
     Snowe
     Solomon
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stump
     Swett
     Talent
     Tanner
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas (CA)
     Thomas (WY)
     Thurman
     Torkildsen
     Upton
     Valentine
     Vucanovich
     Walker
     Weldon
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Zeliff
     Zimmer

                               NOES--171

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Andrews (ME)
     Barlow
     Becerra
     Beilenson
     Berman
     Bevill
     Bilbray
     Bishop
     Blackwell
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boucher
     Brooks
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Bryant
     Byrne
     Cardin
     Carr
     Chapman
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clyburn
     Coleman
     Collins (IL)
     Collins (MI)
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Danner
     de la Garza
     de Lugo (VI)
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Derrick
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Durbin
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Evans
     Farr
     Fazio
     Filner
     Flake
     Foglietta
     Ford (MI)
     Ford (TN)
     Frank (MA)
     Gephardt
     Gibbons
     Gonzalez
     Green
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hamburg
     Hamilton
     Hastings
     Hefner
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hoagland
     Hochbrueckner
     Holden
     Hoyer
     Hughes
     Jefferson
     Johnson, E. B.
     Johnston
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Klein
     Klink
     Kopetski
     LaFalce
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lowey
     Maloney
     Manton
     Markey
     Martinez
     Matsui
     McCloskey
     McDermott
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meek
     Mfume
     Miller (CA)
     Mineta
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Montgomery
     Moran
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Neal (MA)
     Norton (DC)
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pastor
     Payne (NJ)
     Pelosi
     Peterson (FL)
     Pickle
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reed
     Richardson
     Romero-Barcelo (PR)
     Rose
     Rostenkowski
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanders
     Sawyer
     Schroeder
     Schumer
     Scott
     Serrano
     Sharp
     Skaggs
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (IA)
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stokes
     Strickland
     Studds
     Stupak
     Swift
     Synar
     Tejeda
     Thompson
     Thornton
     Torres
     Torricelli
     Towns
     Traficant
     Tucker
     Unsoeld
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Volkmer
     Waters
     Watt
     Waxman
     Wheat
     Whitten
     Wilson
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wyden
     Wynn
     Yates

                             NOT VOTING--21

     Applegate
     Barton
     Bentley
     Brewster
     Edwards (CA)
     Faleomavaega (AS)
     Fields (LA)
     Gejdenson
     Lantos
     Lewis (FL)
     Lloyd
     McCandless
     Michel
     Reynolds
     Slattery
     Sundquist
     Underwood (GU)
     Vento
     Walsh
     Washington
     Williams

                              {time}  1300

  The Clerk announced the following pair: On this vote:

       Mr. Lewis of Florida for, with Mr. Vento against.

  Messrs. BEVILL, MOAKLEY, YATES, and GENE GREEN of Texas changed their 
vote for ``aye'' to ``no.''
  Mr. POMEROY and Mr. MENENDEZ changed their vote from ``no'' to 
``aye.''
  So the amendment in the nature of a substitute was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  The CHAIRMAN. It is now in order for the committee to consider 
amendment No. 2, printed in the House Report 103-689.


     amendment in the nature of a substitute offered by mr. spratt

  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I offer the amendment in the nature of a 
substitute.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment in the nature of 
a substitute.
  The text of the amendment in the nature of a substitute is as 
follows:

       Amendment in the nature of a substitute offered by Mr. 
     SPRATT: Strike all after the enacting clause and insert the 
     following:

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Full Budget Disclosure Act 
     of 1994''.

     SEC. 2. PURPOSE.

       The purpose of this Act is to require that budget documents 
     provide the Congress with comprehensive data on budget 
     trends.

     SEC. 3. THE BASELINE.

       (a) Definition.--Section 250(c)(5) of the Balanced Budget 
     and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 is amended to read 
     as follows:
       ``(5)(A) The term `current policy baseline' means the 
     projection (described in section 257) of current-year levels 
     of new budget authority, outlays, receipts, and the surplus 
     or deficit into the budget year and the outyears.
       ``(B) The term `current funding baseline' refers to the 
     baseline as set forth in section 257 without any adjustment 
     described in section 257(c)(1) for inflation other than the 
     adjustment set forth in section 257(c)(2) for expiring 
     housing contracts.''.
       (b) Conforming Amendments.--Sections 251, 252, 253, and 254 
     of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 
     1985 are amended by inserting ``current policy'' before 
     ``baseline'' each place it appears.

     SEC. 4. THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET.

       (a) Paragraph (5) of section 1105(a) of title 31, United 
     States Code, is amended to read as follows:
       ``(5) except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, 
     estimated expenditures and appropriations for the current 
     fiscal year and estimated expenditures and proposed 
     appropriations the President decides are necessary to support 
     the Government in the fiscal year for which the budget is 
     submitted and the 4 fiscal years following that year.''.
       (b) Section 1105(a)(6) of title 31, United States Code, is 
     amended by inserting ``current fiscal year and the'' before 
     ``fiscal year''.
       (c) Section 1105(a)(12) of title 31, United States Code, is 
     amended by striking ``and'' at the end of subparagraph (A), 
     by striking the period and inserting ``; and'' at the end of 
     subparagraph (B), and by adding at the end the following new 
     subparagraph:
       ``(C) the estimated amount of expenditure and appropriation 
     for the same activity, if any, in the current fiscal year.''
       (d) Section 1105(a) of title 31, United States Code, is 
     amended by adding at the end the following new paragraphs:
       ``(30) a comparison of estimated new budget authority and 
     outlays for each function and subfunction for the current 
     fiscal year with proposed new budget authority and outlays 
     for the fiscal year for which the budget is submitted, along 
     with the proposed increase or decrease of spending in 
     percentage terms for each function and subfunction.
       ``(31) a comparison for each function and subfunction of 
     the current policy baseline level of new budget authority and 
     outlays for the year for which the budget is submitted with 
     the proposed new budget authority and outlays for the year 
     for which the budget is submitted, including changes in 
     percentage terms for each function and subfunction.''.

     SEC. 5. CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET.

       Section 301(e) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is 
     amended by--
       (1) inserting after the second sentence the following: ``As 
     soon as practicable after the President's budget submission 
     under section 1105(a) of title 31, United States Code, the 
     Committee on the Budget of each House shall provide to its 
     members the estimated level of outlays for the current year 
     in each function and subfunction.''; and
       (2) striking ``and'' at the end of paragraph (9), by 
     striking the period and inserting a semicolon at the end of 
     paragraph (10), and by adding at the end the following new 
     paragraphs:
       ``(11) a comparison (for each function) of estimated 
     outlays and revenues for the current fiscal year with 
     proposed spending and revenue levels for the budget year and 
     each outyear, including the increase or decrease (in 
     percentage terms) of spending; and
       ``(12) a comparison (for each function) of proposed outlays 
     and revenues for the budget year with the current policy 
     baseline projection for that year, including changes (in 
     percentage terms).''.

     SEC. 6. CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE REPORT TO COMMITTEES.

       (a) The first sentence of section 202(f)(1) of the 
     Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is amended to read as 
     follows: ``On or before February 15 of each year, the 
     Director shall submit to the Committees on the Budget of the 
     House of Representatives and the Senate a report for the 
     fiscal year commencing on October 1 of that year with respect 
     to fiscal policy, including (A) alternative levels of total 
     revenues, total new budget authority, and total outlays 
     (including related surpluses and deficits) compared to 
     comparable levels for the current year and (B) the levels of 
     tax expenditures under existing law, taking into account 
     projected economic factors and any changes in such levels 
     based on proposals in the budget submitted by the President 
     for such fiscal year.''.
       (b) Section 202(f)(1) of the Congressional Budget Act of 
     1974 is amended by inserting after the first sentence the 
     following new sentence: ``That report shall also include a 
     table on sources of growth in the estimated total current 
     policy baseline spending for mandatory programs for the 
     budget year and the ensuing 4 fiscal years, which shall 
     include changes in outlays attributable to the following: 
     cost-of-living adjustments; changes in the number of program 
     recipients; increases in medical care prices, utilization and 
     intensity of medical care; and residual factors.''.
       (c) Section 202(f)(3) of the Congressional Budget Act of 
     1974 is amended by striking ``and'' before ``(B)'', and by 
     inserting before the period at the end the following: ``, and 
     (C) all direct spending programs''.
       (d) Section 308(a)(1)(C) of the Congressional Budget Act of 
     1974 is amended by inserting ``and shall include a comparison 
     of those levels to comparable levels for the current fiscal 
     year'' before ``if timely submitted''.

  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from South Carolina 
[Mr. Spratt] will be recognized for 15 minutes, and a Member opposed 
will be recognized for 15 minutes.
  Is the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Penny] opposed?
  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I am opposed to the amendment, and I would 
request the time.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Penny] will be 
recognized for 15 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt].
  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Madam Chairman, I rise to move for judgment notwithstanding the 
verdict.
  Madam Chairman, Members of the House have registered their opinion 
strongly in favor of having available to them and to the public a 
current funding baseline and the presentations we received from Budget 
Committee and from the Congressional Budget Office for functions and 
programs in the budget.
  This bill before us, H.R. 4907, this bill about which we are to vote 
now, provides for that very same current funding baseline. It is in 
fact identical. We have agreed, there is no difference between current 
funding baseline required in the bill before us and in the required 
funding baseline in the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm substitute.
  So you can have your cake and eat it too, because this bill clearly 
provides for that baseline which the House has just said it would like 
to have arrayed, presented, displayed in the budget presentations that 
come to the House.
  But in addition, this bill would provide for a current policy or a 
current services baseline. What is a current services baseline?
  Let me just read to the committee what the President's budget 
describes to be the current services baseline. It says it is designed 
to show what receipts, outlays, deficits, and budget authority would be 
if no changes are made in laws already enacted.
  This baseline is not a prediction of the final outcome of the budget 
process nor is it a proposed budget; it is largely a mechanical 
application of existing laws. By itself, it commits no one to any 
particular policy, it does not constrain the choices available, but the 
commitments or constraints reflected in this are inherent in tax and 
spending policies contained in current law.
  I submit to everyone here that it exists for a reason. It exists 
because it is useful, it exists because we have found it necessary for 
various reasons to have a current services baseline in order to do the 
budget every year.
  The minority report to the Committee on Rules itself makes the case 
for having a current services baseline when it acknowledges if you are 
going to do reconciliation, you have to have a projection of what 
mandatory spending is going to be so you can reconcile against that, in 
order to reduce, if not cut, spending, at least reduce the rate of 
increase in spending. You have got to have a current services baseline 
to do it.
  The argument is made here that the public needs to know exactly how 
much we are increasing the budget in actual dollars and cents, and we 
will give them that information because we have the same baseline.
  But Congress also has, I argued earlier, a huge stake in the budget 
itself. We have to make the budget documents, as prepared by the 
President, by the Office of Management and Budget, by CBO, by our own 
budget committee's working documents useful to us, so we can make 
comparisons, project spending and know what we have got to cut.
  Let me submit to the House also that the public has an interest as 
well in knowing what current services are, because the current services 
baseline is a way of telling the public this is what it costs to keep 
programs such as social security and Medicare, popular programs, in 
place, running in place in existing law. If we are going to be able to 
continue the level of benefits adjusted for inflation for the expanding 
beneficiary population, this is what we have to spend. It is useful for 
us, in fact it is necessary for us, in order to do the budget because 
that constitutes well over 50 percent of the budget today.
  But it is also useful for us to tell the public this is what we have 
to spend if we are going to keep pace with inflation if we are going to 
keep pace with the growing beneficiary population.
  I think both we and the public need this additional baseline. You do 
not deny yourselves a thing by voting for the Spratt bill because the 
Spratt bill will preserve the baseline that we have just now dictated 
ought to be in the, must be, in the budget, but it will also give us a 
very useful baseline, a current services baseline.
  I submit we should vote ``yes'' on this and have our cake and eat it 
too.
  Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Fundamentally, this vote is simply designed to defeat the motion that 
was just adopted. If you voted ``yes'' on Penny-Kasich-Stenholm, you 
absolutely must vote ``no'' on Spratt because this amendment simply 
restores language that is in the base bill. If you vote for the 
previous amendment, you vote against this amendment.

                              {time}  1310

  This is one of those Capitol Hill procedures where we can do 
something and then undo it on a subsequent vote. It is another 
nonsensical procedure, but it happens all the time. The only way we can 
defeat this king-of-the-hill game is to vote no on Spratt.
  The issue at play is the same. The debate will be almost identical to 
the debate just concluded, and for that reason I do not know that we 
need to eat up a lot of time here.
  Bear in mind this measure supersedes the vote we just cast. To be 
consistent vote no on Spratt.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Alabama [Mr. Bevill].
  Mr. BEVILL. Madam Chairman, I rise in support of the Spratt amendment 
and urge the Members to vote yes on this. We are in effect saying here 
this amendment that we have just passed, of course if it stays into 
effect, we are just in effect saying that we should not have any cost-
of-living expenses on Social Security, cost of living. We are saying to 
some of my projects, like the flood control where we are talking about 
saving lives, we are saying, ``You'll have to assume the inflation, and 
you can only put 90 percent of the bill, that flood control project.''
  We can just go on and on, and it just does not make sense to have 
this kind of change. It is false economics, and I urge everyone to vote 
for the Spratt amendment.
  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Ohio [Mr. Kasich].
  Mr. KASICH. Madam Chairman, we are going to have to get Mona Lisa out 
one more time here to explain what we are doing.
  Now let me, first of all, say categorically this does not affect 
entitlement programs, and I am opposed to doing anything that has any 
impact whatsoever on Social Security, as what happened out here when we 
came out on our entitlement spending program. This is only 
discretionary spending.
  This is the Mona Lisa. Now this Mona Lisa has a frown rather than a 
smile. What the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt] wants to do 
in his bill is to continue to have a chart that confuses people in 
terms of what our budgeting process is.
  One more time, Madam Chairman, this represents a $221 million 
increase in spending. It is described across the newspapers of this 
country as a $476 million cut.
  Now what we just passed was a proposal that budgets like they do in 
west Texas, and like they do in Minnesota, and like they do in Ohio, 
and what we are saying is an increase or a decrease in spending will be 
determined by what we spent the previous year. That is what we just 
passed.
  Now we went on a baseball strike, we are in a baseball strike, but we 
play a little baseball here this morning because we just doubled off 
the wall with the Penny-Kasich-Stenholm amendment. We doubled off the 
wall because we actually passed the elimination of this kind of 
spending, this kind of budgeting. It is gone. The runner is on second 
base, and now there is a line drive in the outfield, and the gentleman 
from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt] wants to throw the runner out at 
second base and continue to confuse the issue.
  What I am suggesting here today is let us bring the runner home, let 
us drive the runner access the plate, and let us complete the job 
today, and, by completing the job today, we will budget like they do in 
west Texas, and in Minnesota, in Ohio and California, just like 
families do it.
  We must reject this because, if we do not reject it, even though it 
is an improvement in the process, it will still be awfully confusing. 
The last thing we need with a $6 trillion national debt and budget 
deficits in the outyears projected to skyrocket is confusion when we 
try to communicate to the taxpayers of this country. Let us call a cut 
a cut.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] has 
expired.
  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I yield 30 additional seconds to the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich].
  Mr. KASICH. Just remember this picture. We do not want to keep doing 
it this way, and, if my colleagues do not want to keep doing it this 
way because the American people do not want to do it this way, reject 
the Spratt substitute. Let us keep the Penny and Stenholm amendment in 
place, and let us get back to something where we can communicate to 
everyone without confusion so that we can deal rationally and sensibly 
with the Federal budget programs.
  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume, and would the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] remain in the 
well?
  I say to the gentleman,

       After your baseball analogy I feel a little like Abbott and 
     Costello, who's on first, who's on second. I'm not sure where 
     you're coming from because I have heard you argue repeatedly 
     with regard to the defense budgets that it needs to be stated 
     in the current services context. It's useful for us to know 
     that $280 billion in 1990 doesn't buy $280 billion of defense 
     in 1995. Why not let the Congress and the public have that 
     kind of projection of what it costs to keep our defense apace 
     with the----

  Mr. KASICH. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SPRATT. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. KASICH. Madam Chairman, I am glad the gentleman from South 
Carolina [Mr. Spratt] raised the issue because, when we were voting on 
the last amendment, several Members on our side argued we think it is 
more useful to list defense spending on the basis of the baseline, and 
I said I think that is wrong. I think we ought to list defense as an 
increase or a decrease based the same way we do with everything else, 
and I would tell the gentleman,

       When you're trying to discuss increases or decreases in the 
     Budget Committee, if you just ignore baselines, people don't 
     even know what language you're talking in.

  So, what I would say to the gentleman is I think it would be helpful 
in this House if we refer to defense spending increases or cuts based 
on the previous year's level, not on baselines, and, if the gentleman 
hears me do that again, I want him to call me on it.
  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I reclaim my time and say simply we will 
give the public and the Congress two baselines, the one the gentleman 
wants and the over which is a useful reminder of what it costs to keep 
defense where it was. That is all we are saying.
  Mr. SABO. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield, and would the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] keep his chart up?
  Mr. SPRATT. I yield to the chairman of the Committee on the Budget.
  Mr. SABO. Madam Chairman, I say to the gentleman, ``I'm just curious, 
my friend. How much bigger is that last bar than the first bar? About 
two, three times as big?''
  Mr. KASICH. No, I would not think it is that big.
  Mr. SABO. About twice the size, twice the size of the first bar?
  Mr. KASICH. Does the gentleman mean this to this?
  Mr. SABO. Yes, three times as big?
  Mr. KASICH. Probably.
  Mr. SABO. And what is the actual change in dollars the first year to 
the----
  Mr. KASICH. Well, the----
  Mr. SABO. About 6, 7 percent?
  Mr. KASICH. Let me explain----
  Mr. SABO. The gentleman is a master of deception with his charts.
  Mr. KASICH. Let me explain to the gentleman. Let me answer.
  I say, ``Under your definition of this bill, this $221 million 
increase is called a $476 million cut----
  Mr. SABO. I am not asking about my description. I am asking about the 
description the gentleman is showing to the House and to the public. A 
6, 7 percent change in actual dollars is in the chart that looks like a 
300 percent change.
  Mr. KASICH. The gentleman's definition shows this going downwards. I 
mean that is the problem. Let us get on the same page.
  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I reclaim my time and yield 2 minutes to 
the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, the 
gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey].
  Mr. OBEY. Madam Chairman, I think the distinguished chairman of the 
Committee on the Budget has just pointed out the incredible deception 
that we find in the chart just used by the gentleman from Ohio. The 
base number for the first bar was 3.1. The final bar number was 3.35. 
Now, if the gentleman can tell me how that small a change in dollars 
results in a doubling visually on that bar graph, I would suggest to 
him he needs a new pair of glasses. The numbers do not match the story 
the gentleman is trying to tell on the graph.
  I simply want to say that this debate has nothing whatsoever to do 
with spending.

                              {time}  1320

  This issue has only to do with what kind of information is made 
available to the public and to the Congress.
  The gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt] simply says that we 
ought to provide comparisons to both the current funding baseline, 
which is not inflation adjusted, and also to the current policy 
baseline, which is inflation adjusted. Members of the public and 
Members of this House have a right to see the budget from both 
perspectives.
  Now, the gentleman on this side of the aisle who just spoke says it 
has nothing to do with entitlements. He then proceeded to say he was 
sick of seeing budgets for defense adjusted on the basis of the 
inflated baseline.
  The fact is, they are not. I have the defense appropriation report 
right here. The first column reads, Appropriated, 1994. It lists the 
dollar amount for military personnel. The next line lists the amount 
spent in 1985. Then it compares the costs not with an inflation-
adjusted baseline, but with the regular noninflated baseline.
  So if in fact the gentleman is correct on entitlements, and he is 
not, but if he were, then this amendment would have absolutely no 
effect on discretionary spending whatsoever.
  I urge you to vote for the Spratt amendment. It is the only unbiased 
and honest amendment before the House.
  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I was just curious to know if it would 
save time if we replay the earlier debate.
  Madam Chairman, I yield 1 additional minute to the gentleman from 
Ohio [Mr. Kasich].
  Mr. KASICH. Madam Chairman, this is very illustrative of how we do 
it. This is how we reflect the increase in spending, and you are 
complaining about the chart. The way we ought to do is flip it over. 
This is the way you would have it read. See, that is the problem with 
this process.
  Now, you know what is really curious? What is really curious is 
George Bush gives us in 1990 a one-half trillion dollar deficit 
reduction program. This President gives us a one-half trillion dollar 
deficit reduction program. If that is true, why has the national debt 
gone from $4.5 trillion to $6 trillion? If you can explain to me why we 
are cutting all this spending and having massive deficit reduction, why 
is it the deficit is going through the roof?
  I will tell you why. We are not cutting spending, we are only 
counting cuts as slower increases in growth than what the bureaucrats 
in town want to do. I will tell why the people of this country do not 
want to budget it any more. They want to throw it out and do it with a 
straight line based on the year before. Madam Chairman, reject the 
Spratt amendment. Maintain the Penny-Stenholm proposal.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Penny] has 10 minutes 
remaining, and the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt] has 5 
minutes remaining.
  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Texas [Mr. Stenholm].
  (Mr. STENHOLM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. STENHOLM. Madam Chairman, our debate is getting a little bit 
amusing now that we are replaying it for the third and fourth time.
  You know, the important thing for us to remember, and I will start 
and conclude by this, is if you really want to contribute to the 
cynicism of the American people, vote for Spratt and then try to 
explain why you voted for Penny-Kasich-Stenholm and then voted 
immediately to overturn it. You cannot do it, folks.
  Now, we can get into debate on the scales on charts. The fundamental 
here is it does not matter what the scale of the chart is. It is which 
direction the spending is going in and whether we are calling it an 
increase or decrease. That is all that is relevant.
  In the last few days, the American Association of Retired People has 
used some very questionable judgment in some of the pronouncements 
concerning what is going on in this body and inside the beltway, and 
they are doing it again today. Because there is no relevance whatsoever 
to suggesting that either of these bills has anything to do with Social 
Security, Medicare, or any other program, bills that are both alike 
except for one major difference, and that is why we are debating it 
here today.

  The gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] is correct. All of those who 
argue that we need all kinds of information are correct. What we are 
arguing is let us not confuse the American people with our policy 
business that we do in the Committee on the Budget. Let us tell the 
American people there is one budget baseline.
  The people that drink coffee in the Dairy Queen in Stanford, TX, do 
not understand when we explain it to them any other way than this. If 
you get $100 this year and you get $99 next year, for whatever reason, 
that is a cut. If you get $101, that is an increase. That is the 
fundamental debate in this whole area of discussion today.
  Madam Chairman, vote ``no'' on Spratt, particularly if you voted 
``yes'' on Penny, because you cannot explain it any other way, unless 
you wish to continue the confusion on the American people of having 
dual baselines and all of the things that go with it.
  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Michigan [Mr. Ehlers].
  Mr. EHLERS. Madam Chairman, I hope you do not mind if I try to inject 
a little rationality into the discussion, but I simply have to rise and 
defend my colleague from Ohio, who has been falsely accused of 
doctoring the chart to make it look favorable to his comments.
  I would point out the little zig here. For those of you who are not 
mathematicians, I simply say this indicates a zero suppression. Anyone 
looking at a chart with a little zig there, should consider you are 
doing a comparative analysis, rather than an absolute one. The chart is 
perfectly accurate and illustrates that in fact the amount of spending 
has been increasing.
  In the remainder of my time I simply want to comment on the previous 
speaker, Mr. Stenholm's comments, and he is absolutely right. When the 
American automobile manufacturers publicize the price of their new car, 
and it has gone up $200, they are comparing it to the previous year's 
price. They do not advertise well, if you take the baseline adjusted 
for inflation, we are cutting the cost of our cars by $50 a year. Every 
press release that goes out, every statement made, every comparison by 
the buying public says in fact the price has gone up, and that is what 
is happening with our budget.
  I urge that we reject the Spratt amendment.
  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from 
Texas [Mr. Stenholm].
  Mr. STENHOLM. Madam Chairman, I want to thank my colleague for 
explaining not only to me, but also for the people of the Stanford 
Dairy Queen, what that signature means on that, because I think the 
whole world will know better now what we are talking about in the 
charts. I appreciate the edification.
  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New 
Hampshire [Mr. Swett].
  Mr. SWETT. Madam Chairman, I thank my colleague from Minnesota for 
yielding.
  I just want to add to, and I hope very briefly, the common sense that 
I am hearing out of people like the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm] 
and the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Penny] with regard to this 
amendment.
  We have got to represent in our budgets the things that we are doing 
here in Washington in terms that most Americans can understand and 
believe. That is what we dealt with on Wednesday with the congressional 
accountability legislation, where we voted to bring Congress under 
every law that it passes for the rest of the country. That is what we 
have to do here when we talk budgets with small business people, with 
housewives, with those American citizens that live throughout the 
country and are trying to make sense out of these convoluted and 
complicated processes.
  We are not changing the numbers. We are not misrepresenting anything. 
We are putting it all in terms that the average American can easily 
grasp. I think, quite honestly, it will make it easier for many of us 
here in Congress to understand as well. We have already had the zig 
explained. Now we have to make sure we get the zag out of there and 
come up with a budget we all understand. I urge support for the Penny 
amendment, and no vote on the Spratt amendment.
  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Minnesota [Mr. Sabo], the distinguished chairman of the Committee on 
the Budget.
  Mr. SABO Madam Chairman, I rise in support of the Spratt amendment. 
If you wanted the most complete, total information available using a 
variety of options, you support Spratt. You compare it to last year, 
you compare it to existing law, you compare it to the existence of 
inflation.
  To the last speaker, I would only say when he plans for the future 
and having resources available to educate his kids, I hope he considers 
the long-term impact of inflation. Most Americans do. When Americans 
plan for their retirement, they consider the impact of inflation. We 
should too. When we look at what has historically happened in our 
country, we need to know how programs have changed, dollar for dollar. 
But we also need to know how it has been impacted by inflation.

                              {time}  1330

  When we measure the wage base of the American public and how, 
frankly, it has declined for millions of Americans over the last 20 
years, we use inflation to understand that change and what is happening 
to millions of working Americans.
  So, Madam Chairman, if we want to preserve the most options and 
understand what is happening with Federal budget policy, rather than 
fitting some little dogma, we vote for the Spratt amendment.
  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Ohio [Mr. Hoke].
  Mr. HOKE. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to 
me.
  I just wanted to add an anecdote from last summer that I thought 
might be of interest to the House.
  Then Director of OMB, Leon Panetta, was in Cleveland for a roundtable 
conference. He is now, of course, the President's Chief of Staff. We 
were talking about the budget.
  And I said we ought to start cutting with the Government, the Federal 
Government, ourselves. And Mr. Panetta said, ``We did, we cut the pay 
of Federal workers.''
  And I looked at him and I said, ``That is not true. We didn't cut the 
pay of Federal workers at all.''
  He said, ``Yes, we have decreased the amount of the increase.''
  I said, ``Mr. Panetta, when you say to the people in Parma, OH or in 
Rocky River that you have cut their pay, that means that if they made 
$34,000 this year, they will make $35,000 next year. That is a pay cut. 
It is not a decrease in an increase.''
  Mr. Panetta looked at me like I was from another planet. This is the 
former chairman of our distinguished Committee on the Budget.
  That is the whole problem that we have got here in Washington with 
this baseline budgeting. I call it the dark alchemy of numbers.
  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Cunningham].
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Madam Chairman, I think when we go to explain how we 
are cutting spending to the American public, they do not understand 
because of the current system we are in.
  I talked to my Mom. And I said, Mom, we are going to have a turkey 
for Thanksgiving, but next year the whole family is going to come so we 
need 10 turkeys. But came this year, the family called up and said, 
Mom, we cannot come. So we canceled the 10 turkeys and we stuck with 
the one turkey.
  Under this system, we would tell the American public that we just cut 
90 percent of the turkey expenditures. It is just not true.
  We need to tell the American people instead of being able to confuse 
them, let them know exactly what they are spending.
  As far as inflation, we could take care of inflation every year, 
because that happens yearly, not biyearly.
  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut [Mrs. Johnson].
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Madam Chairman, not one person in this 
Nation sits at their kitchen table and plans for the next year, 
assuming they are going to get a salary increase equal to inflation.
  Nobody does. It would be awfully nice if they could. Most of them do 
not get a salary increase equal to inflation.
  Why does this Congress continue to believe it is all right for us to 
assume the budget is going to go up by inflation and only above 
inflation that we should tell the citizens of America that we increase 
spending? Get real.
  This is about sunshine. This is about honesty. This is about 
accountability. And this is easy. The simple things in life matter. We 
will never ever cast a more important vote than we will cast today on 
this issue for deficit reduction. Because if we pass this, from now on 
the public will be able to see whether we increase spending 1 percent 
or 2 percent and we can say, yes, that is less than inflation.
  They will be able to see what we are doing and judge us by our work.
  Mr. PENNY. Madam Chairman, in urging a no vote on Spratt for those 
who voted yes on Penny, I yield my final minute and a half to the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Cox].
  Mr. COX. Madam Chairman, a recent survey of the American people asked 
them do you trust Congress to do the right thing most of the time. One 
percent said yes.
  Why are the American people so cynical? It is because we can do 
things like call a spending increase a spending cut.
  If we abolish baseline budgeting, we will not stop spending 
increases. We will simply require that when we increase spending, we 
say so. And we do not call it a cut.
  Recently, a bipartisan coalition proposed reforms in 12 Federal 
programs. Overall the proposal allowed spending to grow by $18 billion. 
But using this baseline budgeting technique, the supporters of big 
spending were able to claim that the coalition wanted to cut spending 
these in programs by $11 billion.
  Now we are going to compound the deficit of baseline budgeting by 
using a procedural trick called king of the hill. After pretending to 
say that we stopped baseline budgeting, we can come back and use king 
of the hill to undo it all.
  The Penny-Kasich-Stenholm amendment passed by 247 to 171. It 
abolishes baseline budgeting. Now the Spratt amendment is offered to 
repeal it. Cynical Members of Congress who just minutes ago voted to 
abolish the accounting trick that says a spending increase is really a 
cut can now vote to put this accounting slight of hand back into the 
big spenders bag of tricks. This is double deception.
  Thomas Jefferson once noted, ``He who permits himself to tell a lie 
once finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time until at 
length it becomes habitual. The falsehood of the tongue leads to the 
falsehood of the heart and in time depraves all good dispositions.''
  Jefferson was right. The baseline is a lie and it eats away at the 
credibility of this Congress. The king-of-the-hill procedure is a 
deceit. We should abandon use of this practice at once.
  I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this double deception.
  The CHAIRMAN. All time of the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Penny] 
has expired.
  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Madam Chairman, let me first make the argument that a vote for Spratt 
for the underlying base bill is completely consistent, even though you 
may have voted for the Stenholm-Penny-Kasich substitute. Why is that?
  Undoubtedly Members of the House voted for Penny-Kasich-Stenhom 
because they wanted to have a frozen baseline. They wanted to have this 
year's spending baseline against which to measure increases in next 
year's budget. I understand that.
  Indeed, we have, as a first step in this bill, accommodated that 
desire on the part of all Members and the desire of the public by 
having a current funding baseline authorized in this bill. It 
represents actual funding, what CBO calls a freeze.
  There is also a need expressed by the fact that we use it continually 
for a current policy baseline both for us and for the public. And so if 
Members vote now for Spratt, we will simply say we want to have what we 
voted for before. We want the current funding baseline. But we would 
also like to have and have it displayed in the budget documents the 
current policy baseline.
  Those who want to argue that an increase is an increase and a cut is 
a cut will have the current funding baseline against which to measure 
what is an increase and what is a cut. Those who would like to say, we 
are not keeping the Social Security Program adequately funded, we are 
not keeping Medicare adequately funded to maintain the benefits that 
are existing this year and next year, would have a current policy 
baseline as well.
  We talk about entitlements but it applies to defense as well. If you 
want a current policy baseline so that you can say, do not fool 
yourself, a $1 billion increase in defense is not an increase, it is 
really a decrease. It will mean less pay, less O&M, less things that we 
essentially need for financial security. You need the current policy 
baseline for that purpose.
  So this is a consistent vote. Members can vote to uphold what they 
voted for before because that is in this bill. But vote also for 
something useful, something analytically purposeful, the current policy 
baseline.
  Vote for Spratt. Vote for good budget, full disclosure.
  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Chairman, I rise in support of the legislation 
proposed by Representative Spratt, a member of the Government 
Operations Committee, to reform our budget laws and provide more 
complete budgetary information to Congress.
  H.R. 4907 reforms the baseline concept for the congressional budget 
and appropriations process. Currently, a program's baseline is adjusted 
each year so its spending level keeps pace with inflation and other 
factors. These adjustments make sure that Members of Congress, when 
asked to vote on budget and appropriations bills, are aware of the full 
cost of today's programs. H.R. 4907 would keep this baseline 
calculation and add a current funding baseline, which is not adjusted 
to reflect inflation.
  In a series of Government Operations Committee hearings, several of 
our colleagues criticized the current baseline as providing for 
automatic spending increases and permitting Congress to call reductions 
in the size of the baseline increase a cut in spending.
  These colleagues would prohibit inflation adjustments as Congress 
considers program funding levels. However, inflation is a very real 
cost for Federal programs.
  The current baseline lets Members know that $1 of services this year 
is worth 97 cents next year because of inflation. Many Members want to 
know this information because it represents real reductions in 
programs, whether for kids or the Pentagon.
  The new baseline estimate proposed in this bill would give Members a 
program's uninflated baseline. This should satisfy those Members who 
think the most important information is how much we spent last year.
  Unlike the alternatives we will consider today, H.R. 4907 puts all of 
the information, with and without inflation, adjustments, before 
Members of Congress. We should not put new restrictions on the 
information Members of Congress can, and cannot, consider when making 
spending decisions. We cannot do our job if we have only half of the 
needed information.
  If we are to impose spending cuts, we need to know what the full 
impact of these decisions will be. We cannot do this if we ignore the 
current costs of today's problems by focusing only on last year's 
costs. Under such a formula, Congress would always be behind the curve 
in addressing today's urgent priorities.
  Madam Chairman, I urge adoption of H.R. 4907. The legislation will 
present all of the information Members of Congress need to fully 
evaluate spending decisions. I urge opposition to amendments which 
require Congress to turn a blind eye to today's needs. Thank you, and I 
yield back the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1340

  The CHAIRMAN. All time has expired.
  The question is on the amendment in the nature of a substitute 
offered by the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt].
  The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the noes 
appeared to have it.


                             recorded vote

  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 170, 
noes 243, not voting 26, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 396]

                               AYES--170

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Andrews (ME)
     Applegate
     Barlow
     Becerra
     Beilenson
     Berman
     Bevill
     Bilbray
     Bishop
     Blackwell
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boucher
     Brooks
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Bryant
     Byrne
     Cardin
     Carr
     Chapman
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clyburn
     Coleman
     Collins (IL)
     Collins (MI)
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     de la Garza
     de Lugo (VI)
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Derrick
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Durbin
     Edwards (CA)
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Evans
     Farr
     Fazio
     Filner
     Flake
     Foglietta
     Ford (MI)
     Ford (TN)
     Frank (MA)
     Gephardt
     Gibbons
     Gonzalez
     Green
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hamburg
     Hamilton
     Hastings
     Hefner
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hoagland
     Hochbrueckner
     Holden
     Hoyer
     Hughes
     Jefferson
     Johnson, E.B.
     Johnston
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Klein
     Klink
     Kopetski
     Kreidler
     LaFalce
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lowey
     Maloney
     Manton
     Markey
     Martinez
     Matsui
     McCloskey
     McDermott
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meek
     Menendez
     Mfume
     Miller (CA)
     Mineta
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Moran
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Neal (MA)
     Norton (DC)
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pastor
     Payne (NJ)
     Pelosi
     Peterson (FL)
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reed
     Richardson
     Rose
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanders
     Sarpalius
     Sawyer
     Schumer
     Scott
     Serrano
     Sharp
     Skaggs
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (IA)
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stokes
     Strickland
     Studds
     Stupak
     Swift
     Tejeda
     Thompson
     Thornton
     Thurman
     Torres
     Torricelli
     Towns
     Traficant
     Tucker
     Unsoeld
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Volkmer
     Waters
     Watt
     Waxman
     Wheat
     Whitten
     Wilson
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wyden
     Wynn
     Yates

                               NOES--243

     Allard
     Andrews (NJ)
     Andrews (TX)
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus (AL)
     Baesler
     Baker (CA)
     Baker (LA)
     Barca
     Barcia
     Barrett (NE)
     Barrett (WI)
     Bartlett
     Bateman
     Bentley
     Bereuter
     Bilirakis
     Bliley
     Blute
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Browder
     Brown (OH)
     Bunning
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Cantwell
     Castle
     Clement
     Clinger
     Coble
     Collins (GA)
     Combest
     Condit
     Cooper
     Coppersmith
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cunningham
     Danner
     Darden
     Deal
     DeFazio
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Dornan
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Edwards (TX)
     Ehlers
     Emerson
     English
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fawell
     Fields (TX)
     Fingerhut
     Fish
     Fowler
     Franks (CT)
     Franks (NJ)
     Frost
     Furse
     Gallegly
     Gallo
     Gekas
     Geren
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Gingrich
     Glickman
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Gordon
     Goss
     Grams
     Grandy
     Greenwood
     Gunderson
     Hall (TX)
     Hancock
     Hansen
     Harman
     Hastert
     Hayes
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Hoke
     Horn
     Houghton
     Huffington
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hutto
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Inhofe
     Inslee
     Istook
     Jacobs
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson, Sam
     Kasich
     Kim
     King
     Kingston
     Kleczka
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kyl
     Lambert
     Lancaster
     LaRocco
     Laughlin
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lehman
     Levy
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Lightfoot
     Linder
     Lipinski
     Livingston
     Long
     Lucas
     Machtley
     Mann
     Manzullo
     Margolies-Mezvinsky
     Mazzoli
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McCurdy
     McDade
     McHale
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McKeon
     McMillan
     Meehan
     Meyers
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Minge
     Molinari
     Moorhead
     Morella
     Murphy
     Myers
     Neal (NC)
     Nussle
     Orton
     Oxley
     Packard
     Pallone
     Parker
     Paxon
     Payne (VA)
     Penny
     Peterson (MN)
     Petri
     Pickett
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Poshard
     Pryce (OH)
     Quillen
     Quinn
     Ramstad
     Ravenel
     Regula
     Ridge
     Roberts
     Roemer
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roth
     Roukema
     Rowland
     Royce
     Sangmeister
     Santorum
     Saxton
     Schaefer
     Schenk
     Schiff
     Schroeder
     Sensenbrenner
     Shaw
     Shays
     Shepherd
     Shuster
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (OR)
     Smith (TX)
     Snowe
     Solomon
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stump
     Swett
     Talent
     Tanner
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas (CA)
     Torkildsen
     Upton
     Valentine
     Vucanovich
     Walker
     Weldon
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Zeliff
     Zimmer

                             NOT VOTING--26

     Bacchus (FL)
     Ballenger
     Barton
     Brewster
     Faleomavaega (AS)
     Fields (LA)
     Gejdenson
     Lantos
     Lewis (FL)
     Lloyd
     McCandless
     Michel
     Montgomery
     Pickle
     Reynolds
     Romero-Barcelo (PR)
     Rostenkowski
     Slattery
     Sundquist
     Synar
     Thomas (WY)
     Underwood (GU)
     Vento
     Walsh
     Washington
     Williams

                              {time}  1358

  The Clerk announced the following pairs:
  On this vote:

       Mr. Pickle for, with Mr. Barton against.
       Mr. Vento for, with Mr. Thomas of Wyoming against.

  Ms. FURSE changed her vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
  Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts changes his vote from ``no'' to ``aye.''
  So the amendment in the nature of a substitute was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.


                          PERSONAL EXPLANATION

  Mr. GEJDENSON. Madam Chairman, today I was absent for rollcall votes 
Nos. 395 and 396. Had I been present, I would have voted against the 
Penny amendment, No. 395, and in favor of the Spratt amendment, No. 
396.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the committee amendment in the 
nature of a substitute, as amended.
  The committee amendment in the nature of a substitute; as amended, 
was agreed to.
  The CHAIRMAN. Under the rule, the Committee rises.
  Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. 
McDermott) having assumed the chair, Mrs. Schroeder, Chairman of the 
Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, reported that 
that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 4907) to 
reform the concept of baseline budgeting, pursuant to House Resolution 
512, she reported the bill back to the House with an amendment adopted 
by the Committee of the Whole.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the rule, the previous question is 
ordered.
  Is a separate vote demanded on the amendment to the committee 
amendment in the nature of a substitute adopted by the Committee of the 
Whole? If not, the question is on the committee amendment in the nature 
of a substitute, as amended.
  The committee amendment in the nature of a substitute, as amended, 
was agreed to.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the engrossment and third 
reading of the bill.
  The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was 
read the third time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the bill.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Was the gentleman of his feet?
  Mr. COLEMAN. The gentleman was on his feet.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair will recognize that the gentleman 
was on his feet. The Chair will count for the yeas and nays. Those 
favoring the yeas and nays will rise and be counted. Members may be 
seated.
  The Chair will count the House. In a House of obviously more than 220 
Members, the Chair counts 45 in favor of a vote by the yeas and nays. 
Therefore, an insufficient number has arisen.
  The yeas and nays were refused.
  So the bill was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________