[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 21 (Thursday, February 2, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1980-S1995]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now 
resume consideration of House Joint Resolution 1, which the clerk will 
report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       A joint resolution (H.J. Res. 1) proposing a balanced 
     budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

  The Senate resumed consideration of the bill.
  Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senate is now considering an amendment 
to the U.S. Constitution. This is not a usual matter and ought not be 
treated as such. Changing the U.S. Constitution is a very solemn 
responsibility, and those who wrote the Constitution made changing it 
very difficult, by design.
  I have in my hand a copy of the Constitution. This is a little 
booklet put out by the bicentennial group that worked on a program to 
educate the American people about the Constitution. The Constitution 
begins, as all Americans know, ``We the people of the United States.'' 
``We the people.''
  I was privileged to go to a celebration in Philadelphia about 8 years 
ago or so. It was the 200th birthday of the signing of the 
Constitution. The birthday, the 200th anniversary, was held in the very 
same room in Philadelphia, called ``The Assembly Room,'' in 
Constitution Hall, the same room where the Constitution was written in 
the first place 200 years previous, when 55 white, largely overweight, 
men sat in a very hot Philadelphia room in the summer and wrote a 
constitution.
  We know that because we know who they were. Two-hundred years later 
fifty-five people, men and women of all races went back into that room 
to recreate in celebration the writing of that Constitution. I was one 
who was picked to be among the 55. And to go into that room on the 
200th anniversary of the date of the writing of this Constitution was 
pretty special. George Washington's chair is still at the front of the 
room, the chair he sat in when he was presiding, and Franklin sat over 
there.
  It was very remarkable to be in this room where they wrote this 
Constitution. Even more remarkable was that it was written over 200 
years ago by patriots, by people who cared deeply for this country, but 
also by a homogenous group of people, only white men who came from 
various parts of the colonies to join in that room and write this 
document.
  We have come a long way. Two-hundred years later it was a diverse 
group of men and women of all races who celebrated. I sat there kind of 
getting some goose bumps about the history of it all. I thought: as a 
little boy I grew up studying about George Washington 
[[Page S1981]] and now I am in the room where he helped write this 
document. It reminded me of what a solemn responsibility it is for us 
to understand this document and what it means for this country.
  We have had all kinds of proposals to change it. I think there have 
been over 2,000 proposals made over the years to change the U.S. 
Constitution. Every time somebody gets a notion they want to change it, 
just change it. Some scruffy little guy in Texas says change the 
Constitution to prohibit something. One of these days somebody is going 
to burn the Bible. They say change the Constitution to prohibit 
something. There are all kinds of ideas on how to change the 
Constitution. Yet, this living document has served this country for 200 
years creating the oldest, most successful representative democracy 
ever on this Earth. So we are here today to talk about a proposal to 
change it.
  If I might give just one quick story about the understanding of 
history here, some years ago Claude Pepper, the oldest Member of 
Congress, was standing out in front of the Cannon House Office Building 
with young Jimmy Hayes, who was in Congress as a freshman. He was 
standing next to Claude. Claude I think was 87, the oldest Member at 
that time. And they were standing talking on the sidewalk when a group 
of Boy Scouts with their leader breathlessly came running down and 
looking for directions. They stopped next to old Claude and young Jimmy 
and they had no idea who they were. They said, ``Can you tell us where 
the Jefferson Monument is?'' Old Claude Pepper said, ``You go right 
across the Capitol Plaza to that building with the flag on it, and take 
a right and go one block, and you will find it.'' Jimmy looked at 
Claude with a kind of certain strange look. Claude was aged 87. After 
they left, Jimmy said, ``I think you have given them bad directions. I 
know where the Jefferson Memorial is. The Jefferson Memorial is a mile 
away, by the river.''
  Well, Jefferson was not around when they wrote the Constitution. He 
was in Europe. But he contributed mostly through writings and through 
the force of his thought and various ways to the writing of the Bill of 
Rights, the most important of which, of course, was free speech. And 
Claude said, ``Since they asked to see a monument to Jefferson, there 
is a demonstration on the subject of abortion going on over in front of 
the Dirksen Building. I feel there is no better place to see a monument 
to Jefferson and free speech than in front of the Dirksen Senate Office 
Building today.''
  I imagine that the Boy Scout leader did not think of it this way, but 
he was looking at a monument to Jefferson contained in this 
Constitution.
  There are plenty of monuments in this Constitution that represent 
timeless truths that have served this country, and will for a long, 
long time. The question is, should a change be made in this document? 
Should we change the Constitution in order to respond to the budget 
deficit? Should we require a balanced budget?
  I have spoken on the floor on many occasions on this subject. I have 
said before--and let me repeat again--that a balanced budget itself is 
not necessarily the most important goal. Does anyone in America believe 
that it would be imprudent for us to spend $400 billion more than we 
have this year and create a deficit of massive proportions if by doing 
so we could with one stroke eliminate cancer? Does anybody believe we 
should not do that? Of course not. The question is though whether the 
budget should be balanced. The question is: What are you doing as a 
result of these deficits? What is causing them?
  What is the result of the deficits? The fact is the deficits that we 
now have in this country are operating budget deficits. They are not 
investments in the future. They are operating budget deficits because 
our fiscal policy has rolled out of control. The question should not 
be, in my judgment, whether we have on obligation to deal with them. 
The question is, how?
  I came to Congress a number of years ago not thinking we should 
change the Constitution in this area. Some years ago I changed my mind. 
We started in 1981 when President Reagan proposed to us a fiscal policy 
strategy that he said would result in a balanced budget. We had 
somewhere around a $60 billion to $80 billion Federal deficit at that 
point. He said, if we simply cut taxes and double defense spending, we 
will have a balanced budget by 1984. Well, Congress cut taxes and 
doubled defense spending, and we all know what happened to the deficit.
  This line has gone way out of control. These are deficits that are 
serious, and these are deficits that have accumulated to make a $4.8 
trillion debt for this country. That threatens this country's future.
  So the question is not whether. The question is what we do about it? 
The top of this line on this chart is about deficits, and shows 
something that I think is important. A couple of years ago we had on 
the floor of this Senate a proposal to deal with the deficits. It was a 
tough proposal and hard to vote for. It raised some taxes--and nobody 
wants to pay for increased taxes--and it cut some spending, a lot of 
folks did not agree with cutting spending in these areas. Yet, our 
deficit cut actually increased after we passed the bill. We thought it 
would cut $500 billion, that it would cut the Federal deficit by $500 
billion in 5 years. We now know it was over $600 billion. So we have 
gotten some additional advantage.
  My point is that we did something significant in law on the floor of 
this Senate. You see what happened to the Federal deficit since that 
point. I am proud to say I voted for that. People come up to me and 
say, ``How dare you, you voted for that?'' I think the political vote 
would have been, ``No, count me out. I am not part of the solution. I 
am not going to make the tough vote.'' I did not say, ``Count me out.'' 
I voted yes because I want this deficit to come down.
  I might say there was not one single vote in this Chamber to help us 
from the other side of the aisle; not one. Not one Republican voted for 
this. I am not going to question their motives. They fell very strongly 
philosophically about some things. When it comes time for heavy 
lifting, it is very important that everybody be lifting. And we on this 
side of the aisle did it. I am proud we did it.
  The problem is this line does not keep going down.
  (Mr. DeWINE assumed the chair.)
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we did this and it was important to do, 
but all of us know that because of health care costs and other things, 
this line starts going back up. So this is not enough. The question is: 
What do we do now to solve this problem in the future?
  The Senator from Utah brings to the floor, with many of his 
colleagues, a proposal to change the U.S. Constitution. I respect him 
for that. I voted for a change in the U.S. Constitution to require a 
balanced budget last year. I likely will vote for one again, although 
there are some changes in this proposal that I do not like.
  I want to talk today about a couple of changes we want to make to 
this proposal and why. As I do that, I want to say that somebody on the 
other side of the aisle was quoted, I guess yesterday, as saying that 
those who say the American people have a right to know how we propose 
to balance the budget are joking. He said that the Senators who make 
this argument simply do not want to balance the budget.
  Wrong. I want to balance the budget. I have voted for a 
constitutional amendment in the past, and I likely will again. But the 
question, in my judgment, is not whether we balance the budget; the 
question is: How?
  I think the Senator from Utah and the other original cosponsors of 
this particular constitutional amendment will agree with me that if it 
passes 90 seconds from this moment, not one single penny of the Federal 
deficit will be reduced--not one. This will simply represent a bunch of 
words that go into the document called the Constitution. And the 
requirement, then, will be that changes in taxing and spending will 
have to occur in the magnitude of somewhere around $1.5 trillion in 7 
years to accomplish a balanced budget by the year 2002.
  I happen to think there is a special responsibility at this moment. 
The special responsibility is for this reason: The majority party, 
having won last November, proposes a contract for this country. In the 
contract, they say two things. They say they want to decrease 
[[Page S1982]] taxes, which means cut the Government's revenue, No. 1; 
No. 2, they want to increase defense spending. If you decide you want 
to cut the Government's revenue and increase one of the largest areas 
of Government spending, it seems to me it is logical to ask, if we 
change the Constitution to require a balanced budget, how do we do it? 
How do we get to that point, if you say we should cut revenue and 
increase one of the largest areas of spending?
  For that reason, many of us--some who are opposed to the balanced 
budget amendment, others who support it--do support an amendment called 
the right-to-know amendment. Once again, the questions for the American 
people are: What are we going to do, and how are we going to do it? The 
proposal to change the Constitution answers the question ``what?'' What 
are we going to do? But the question of how we are going to do it, we 
are told, is an improper question; leave it for later.
  Well, my colleagues, that is business as usual. If ever I have heard 
business as usual, that is business as usual. I have heard that in 
1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, and 1985. Business as usual is: Trust me; I 
promise you; we will tell you later. No, we do not have the details, 
but they are there; believe us, trust us; we promise you.
  Well, look, how many times do you accept a promise? The American 
people, it seems to me, have every right to understand the answer to 
two questions: What are we going to do, and how are we going to do it? 
The American people have a right to know, from those who say, ``I want 
a balanced budget by 2002,'' and ``I want increased defense spending,'' 
and ``I want revenue cuts,'' they have a right to know how we are going 
to get there.
  If I said to the Presiding Officer that I want you to ride with me 
today and we are going to go to New York City, the Presiding Officer 
might want to get to New York City; he might have a desire to visit. He 
might say that sounds like a good trip, and he would like to go. He 
would probably ask, ``How are we going to get there? Are we going to 
take the train; are we going to walk; are we going to take a motor 
scooter; are we going to go through Atlanta or maybe through Los 
Angeles to get from Washington, DC, to New York?'' He would have every 
right to want to know how we were going to do it.
  That is the purpose of the right-to-know amendment. Its purpose is 
not to derail the balanced budget amendment. I happen to think we ought 
to pass the constitutional amendment. I voted that way in the past, as 
I said, and I probably will this time. The purpose of the right-to-know 
amendment is to say this must be more than an empty promise. We must, 
this time, develop a national awareness of what the heavy lifting means 
to all of us. We need to get the Nation behind us to do it.
  Mr. Armey, on the House side, said, ``Well, we cannot tell the 
American people what is required here; it would make their legs 
buckle.'' I think that is far too little faith in the American people, 
honestly. We have to do this together. This country belongs to them, 
not us. This is their country, their democracy. This book, this 
Constitution, means it is theirs. They have the powers, not us. We have 
a responsibility to them at this point to tell them what we are going 
to do and how are we going to do it.
  There are plenty of areas of the Federal Government that can be cut 
and will be cut under any scenario, whether this amendment passes or 
not. I led a project on Government waste when I was in the House of 
Representatives and then here in the Senate. I can cite chapter and 
verse about wasteful spending. I mentioned before the 1.2 million 
bottles of nasal spray on inventory at the Department of Defense. There 
are a lot of plugged noses you are going to be able to treat for two or 
three or four decades. That is the sort of bizarre kind of thing that 
is in the defense inventory. It makes no sense at all. There is too 
much waste.
  The fact is that it is not the waste--while we should eliminate 
that--that drives these numbers. All of us know what drives this. This 
country is growing older. More people are eligible for Medicare and for 
Social Security. What is happening is that entitlement programs are 
ratcheting up costs. But there are no votes on those programs in 
Congress. Those are entitlement programs whose appropriations are 
virtually automatic. We have to respond to that.
  Some of us are also going to offer an amendment on Social Security, 
and we are going to disagree on that. The Social Security system has 
not caused one penny of the Federal deficit. This year, we will collect 
$69 billion more in Social Security than we spend out. That is not an 
accident. We are doing that by design. We need to save that money for 
when the baby boomers retire. But if it is not saved, if it is used as 
an offset to other spending in order to balance the budget, we will 
have broken the trust and the promise between people who work and 
people who are retired.
  We must, it seems to me, say that we are not going to balance the 
budget by raiding the Social Security trust funds. For those who say 
let us not pass that amendment, not give that assurance, I say do not 
give me five reasons; just give me one reason. There is only one reason 
you would not want to give that assurance to seniors, and that is 
because you want to use that money. To use that money is, in my 
judgment, breaking a promise. The money is collected for only one 
purpose. It comes out of the paychecks; it is called the FICA tax, and 
it goes into Social Security, the trust fund, and it is promised that 
it will be saved for only one purpose, and that is Social Security.
  How on Earth can anybody justify saying, well, we do not want to set 
that aside because maybe we will want to use it sometime? For what? It 
can only be used for Social Security. Those are two amendments that we 
are going to have to deal with. And just because we offer them, others 
on this floor should not argue that we do not support a constitutional 
amendment to balance the budget.
  There is a right way and a wrong way to do things. The wrong way is 
to provide empty promises and assurances that we are not going to keep. 
The right way is to tell people you have a right to know; you should 
know this, and here is the plan. We are going to increase defense, 
according to some, and cut revenue and, therefore, here is how we are 
going to deal with other spending.
  That is important. It is important for the American people to know.
  I want to mention one other thing as I am talking about this. I am, 
frankly, a little tired of people in this country in politics and 
especially people in the House and Senate who keep repeating the notion 
somehow that Government is unworthy.
  Government is the way we do things together. It is the way we created 
our schools to educate our kids. It is Government. It is the way we 
built our police forces to keep our communities safe. It is Government. 
It is the way we inspect meat so when you buy some meat someplace you 
have some assurance that it is not contaminated. It is the way we 
regulate our skies so when you are flying up there in a jet airplane 
you are not gong to hit another jet airplane. Government is something 
we do together. We ought to be proud of it, for gosh sakes.
  You must have Government in the affairs of people in a nation like 
this, and we ought to have the best possible Government we can for the 
American people.
  There is a sense in this country these days of a kind of anarchist 
mentality. This philosophy suggests somehow, that our Government is 
just something that just spends all this money and wastes all this 
money, and is totally unworthy, and that what we ought to do is just 
get rid of it.
  But, you know, the fact is this country has changed a lot in recent 
years. The rich have gotten much, much richer, the poor have gotten 
poorer, and there are more of them, more vulnerable people in this 
country. We have to start thinking together, all of us, to try to 
figure out how to respond to some of these problems, how do we deal 
with some of the vulnerabilities in our country. This is how we spend 
our money. And all of us know where our money goes.
  This pie chart shows where Federal spending goes. Defense, 18 percent 
of the spending; Social Security, 22 percent; health care, Medicaid and 
Medicare, 17 percent. And, of course, that is going up every year, 
because more people are getting older, we have more 
[[Page S1983]] poor people, and health care costs increase every year. 
We have to do something about health care costs because if we do not we 
cannot deal with the budget deficit.
  Interest on the debt is 15 percent of the budget. We cannot negotiate 
that. We have had to pay for that. And if Greenspan gets his way, we 
will pay a lot more for it.
  So Medicaid, Medicare are going up. Interest is going up. Social 
Security, more people growing older and on disability. In fact, in the 
Social Security trust fund, we have a surplus for just that reason.
  Defense? My Republican friends say we need more defense, so that is 
going to go up.
  So where do you get the rest of it? International--some people say 
foreign aid, of course, is the biggest area of public spending. It is 
not. We spend 1.4 percent of the budget for international programs.
  So you have other mandatory spending. For domestic discretionary 
spending, 16.5. Now the 16.5 percent of discretionary spending, that is 
the kind of spending that we send out to deal with kids' nutrition, all 
sorts of issues that help people out there who need help.
  I know it is easy to talk about these things in the abstract. But now 
every day you can go out and find what really matters and you can 
determine how this affects real people. You can go to a food pantry and 
who walks in and try to figure out what this means in their lives.
  You say, ``Well, let's cut off funding that does not make any 
sense.'' Nutrition programs? That makes no sense. ``The WIC Program; 
you know, Head Start, we can do without it.''
  Yes, I suppose the country can do without it but it will also be a 
country that is less worthy. It is a country that is not investing in 
its health and in its children, trying to make life better for 
children.
  You know I remember being at a town meeting in eastern North Dakota 
one day. An old fellow came up to me by the name of Thor, a guy who had 
flown combat airplanes in the Second World War. Thor came up to me and 
said, ``I want to show you my mouth. I got sores all around my mouth,'' 
a guy in his seventies. He said, ``I need teeth.'' This was an old 
veteran. He said, ``I have no money. I have nothing.'' And he said, ``I 
need teeth. I have no teeth. I went to the VA and I got a set of teeth 
from them and they don't fit. And so when I use them, it creates sores 
all around my mouth. So I can't use them and I want to show you these 
sores around my mouth.''
  And I am thinking to myself--this was at a town meeting--he walked 
all the way up to the front, had his mouth open showing me how badly he 
needs his new set of teeth.
  Is it not pretty remarkable, in a country as wonderful as this, that 
old Thor, who went off to fight for his country and flew in combat and 
is now in his seventies and for one reason or another ends up with 
nothing, that Thor has to go to a meeting and stand up to beg to try to 
get a set of teeth.
  That is what we are talking about here. We are talking about things 
that improve the lives of people.
  Senator Burns from Montana is on the floor. I was in community near 
the Montana line recently, touring a hospital where they showed me this 
space where the carpenters were knocking out two-by-fours. They were 
going to put in big, breathtaking new things. I think it is was an MRI; 
you know, the technology to look through human flesh to see what is 
there, a diagnostic tool. Breathtaking technology.
  Then about 100 feet down in this hospital wing, they had me hold a 
little baby, tiny little baby, that had been born some while before, 
born premature, as a matter of fact. The mother had come to the 
hospital to have a third child, unmarried. She checked in on a 
Saturday. Her blood alcohol content was .25 when she delivered the 
baby. They checked this baby's blood and this baby was born with a 
blood alcohol content of .21, a little premature baby born dead drunk, 
and the mother did not even want to see the baby, wanted nothing to do 
with it. The baby will probably be fetal alcohol syndrome damaged, they 
do not know.
  But think of the consequence of these things, day after day in our 
country. And we have to be concerned about how we respond to them and 
how we deal with them. We cannot ignore them. These things tear this 
country up from the inside.
  I am not making a case for massive new programs for spending, because 
I do not think this is a case where you have kind of a vending machine, 
where you put in a quarter and get out a national program. But some 
things we do in this country are very, very important.
  Head Start. Boy, you know, we should understand that is a good 
investment. The WIC Program, we know that is a wonderful investment to 
invest in kids and low-income pregnant women.
  I could tell you a hundred stories, as could all of my colleagues, 
about the value of some of these things we do that make life worthwhile 
and make life helpful to people who need help.
  I should tell you that Thor has new teeth. Thor got new teeth. Well, 
it was from a dentist. I talked to a friend of mine, personal friend of 
mine, and he got Thor some new teeth. But should a veteran have to beg 
for new teeth? No, I do not think so.
  The point is there are programs now to help that young baby. Young 
Tamara Demeris, who I have talked about on the floor before, a 2-year-
old, hair pulled out, nose broken, arm broken, because she was put in a 
foster home and nobody checked to see whether the people were 
drunkards. So this little girl was abused.
  The fact is, there are things we can do about that. And we have done 
some things about that. When they come to our attention, we invest and 
we do some things to try to help people.
  But all of these things relate to the decisions we are going to make 
about what are we going to do. People have a right to know. What are we 
going to invest in? Are we going to invest in star wars, or are we 
going to invest in Head Start for our kids? The people have a right to 
know that.
  And to those who say this is joke, I say you are wrong. You know 
better than that. This is not a joke. This is very serious business. We 
are talking about changing the Constitution and we are talking about 
imposing requirements that will make massive changes in the way the 
Federal Government spends money. And count me in, because I want to 
force those changes. I have two children and I do not want to give them 
a $10 trillion debt when they get out of school. So count me in.
  I just say this: We have a responsibility, all of us, to tell the 
people what we are going to do and how we are going to do it. To those 
who say, ``Let's not tell them what we are going to do,'' I say that is 
business as usual, the same old tired promises I heard for 15 years. To 
those of us who say, ``Let's together tell them how we are going to do 
it,'' we say the people have a right to know. And when we offer our 
amendment on the right to know, we say to you, ``Join us, accept the 
responsibility; accept the challenge of closing the loop to give the 
American people the opportunity to know exactly what we are going to 
do, to whom and how.''
  The American people can take it. The American people deserve it. And 
to do less, in my judgment, is the same old tired unfinished business 
of Congress that says, ``Here's our political answer. Now trust us. 
Details later.'' That is not the way we ought to do business.
  I hope that, as we in the coming 2 or 3 weeks move down this road to 
try to consider in a serious way not only what we are going to do but 
how we are going to do it, those of us, Democrats and Republicans, who 
believe the current situation in this country is a crisis,
 the current deficits threaten this country's future. The current 
Federal debt and the prospect of burgeoning future debt are challenges 
we cannot ignore. The question cannot any longer--for anybody on the 
floor of this Senate--be whether we do something about it. The question 
is, what?

  To those who oppose a constitutional amendment, I say I voted for it 
in the past and will likely vote for it again. I say to Members, as 
well, on the other side of the aisle, Members have a responsibility to 
join in the second step of this journey. The second step, just like a 
Montana dance, joins the first step. It is change the Constitution to 
require a balanced budget. And as we do it, tell the American people 
how we will accomplish it because if we fail to do the latter, we know 
the former is 
[[Page S1984]] nothing more than a bunch of words in a document like 
this.
  So, Mr. President, we will have a lengthy debate and an aggressive 
debate on this subject. The debate will not be, I think, as the Senator 
from Utah occasionally would suggest, on whether a constitutional 
amendment is worthy. This Senator has said before, he thinks it is. I 
say now I think it is. But I say to the Senator from Utah and his 
colleagues and my friend from Montana, we have an obligation to do more 
than this.
  I will join Members on this. We have an obligation to do more. We 
have an obligation to give the people the right to know, as we pass 
this, what does it mean; what does it mean to their future, and what 
does it mean to their lives, and how will we respond to it as a 
national commitment in this country.
  Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor.
  Mr. BURNS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I appreciate the words of my friend from 
North Dakota.
  As he held up the Constitution, I want to go back to an article that 
was printed in, I think, the Richmond Times, some time ago, and this 
last Sunday in the Washington Times. It was taken from the life and 
times of Davy Crockett, whenever he represented Tennessee and the House 
of Representatives, and he had to cast a vote to help people when their 
houses had burned down in Georgetown.
  We hold up that Constitution, remember, is a double-bit ax. There is 
nothing in that Constitution that says we have the right to take my 
money and give it to somebody else, free, gratis.
  So, when we talk about a balanced budget amendment, be very clear 
that this is not the first time this was a concern of people and 
leaders in this country. The first constitutional amendment to balance 
the budget was in 1936. And there was a time, I think, this country 
pretty well held its discipline on spending, until we really learned as 
a Government to borrow money, that we could borrow money against future 
collections, and those are taxes.
  I have heard the same old argument, saying, ``How are you going to do 
it?'' Well, I would say I am going to have to approach this just as I 
approached running a farm or a ranch. You do not do the same thing 
every year or nail yourself into a situation that if time and 
circumstance changes, a person cannot. They do that.
  I worked in county government where we balanced the budget. The 
debate started among the commissioners on what is going to get funded 
or how much it is going to get funded; and what, maybe, if we do not 
have the funds, should be cut out. It serves a purpose, but maybe is 
not as high on the priority list as we would like to see it.
  That is what a balanced budget amendment does. It creates the arena 
for debate. It forces us, as debaters or policy setters, to make those 
hard choices between doing this or that, and reexamining the mission of 
government.
  The Senator from North Dakota is exactly right. What is the purpose 
of government? Why do free people establish a government, especially in 
a free society? No. 1, public safety; he is right. That is an 
obligation of the total society, public safety. Now, public safety 
could be food safety, it could be in hygiene; but mostly it is in our 
fire departments, our police departments, our immediate-response 
people.
  The next obligation, we could say, probably is transportation, 
because we have to keep the roads and the bridges so that the area of 
commerce can be carried out. In this great land of ours, we have 
changed everything around to where it is a global economy and global 
communication as to where our roads and bridges are satellites, fiber 
optics, new communications. Those are areas that will be debated here 
on this floor, as new policy is going to be formed that can keep up 
with the new technologies that are out there.
  What some folks would call investment, other folks would call 
spending. If we want to define them, I guess they are about the same. 
Then I guess when we get down to the definition, we come down again to 
the bottom line, and that is priorities.
  Now, with a debt of $4.7 trillion, for too long now after we learned 
to borrow against future collections, we started to move that national 
debt up. As I said, the first balance-the-budget amendment was in 1936. 
In 1934, and that is under the Roosevelt administration, someone had 
the idea that this thing could get out of hand and was concerned about 
it. We were in the depth of the Depression. We were trying to help so 
many people who had been hit by this devastating time; not only the 
Depression, but drought. And I could write a book on that.
  I do not remember those days in 1936, because I was born in 1935. I 
guess I was a result of the drought; I surely was not a result of the 
Depression. The last thing you wanted in 1935 was kids, living on 160 
acres of two rocks and one dirt.
  But the debt that started out, we lost our way a little bit and our 
discipline. So that debt continues, because we continue to deficit 
spend. We should get two things straight right here. There is a 
difference between deficit spending and debt. Deficits cause debt. We 
deficit spend; we create debt. So no matter that that line goes down, 
we are still deficit spending. It is still of concern to people who 
have some kind of sense of responsibility, of fiscal responsibility.
  Ever since I came here 6 years ago, that has been a concern, because 
our concern should be for our children and grandchildren, and the bill 
they will have to pay later on because we are mortgaging their future.
  I was not a Member of Congress when the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act was 
passed, but it was one of the many efforts to control Government 
spending. While well intentioned, this law fell short of eliminating 
the deficit. In other words, we as a body of policymakers never really 
committed ourselves to that law to make sure it worked.
  Even with a balanced budget amendment, I am not really sure that we 
have that discipline today, but I think it will make Members get in the 
debate and talk about priorities. It is true that we do have laws in 
place to balance a budget. We did not have the will to really take it 
serious, to really look at programs, and to take some of the fraud out 
of it.
  My good friend from North Dakota was talking about the man who flew 
the missions that could not get a set of teeth. And we have people that 
take advantage of the veterans programs that never got anything, to 
really have the privilege of using those programs.
  The balanced budget amendment would change all of this rhetoric by 
instilling the necessary fear needed to make the tough decisions and 
take the hard steps. What are we talking about, even in food stamps; $1 
billion a year, $3 billion a year in savings, if we could take the 
fraud out of it?
  Now, that has nothing to do with a balanced budget amendment, but I 
can remember when talking to the former Secretary of Agriculture in the 
Bush administration, Ed Madigan and, of course, Ed is no longer with 
us. We started with a smart card and we saw where we could take some of 
the fraud out of it. Do you know what stopped the expansion of that 
idea? The bureaucracy did, because it cost some jobs in Government. 
Does that not seem strange? We had an opportunity to do that. This will 
force us to do something about that, whether we want to or not. It will 
force Members to do it.
  So as we go down this trail, trying to come up with a mechanism to 
instill fiscal responsibility in ourselves, this is, I think, a 
commonsense approach. And yet there are people that want to make it 
very complicated.
  I came up in 1990 with an idea called the 4-percent solution.
  We wanted to deal with the deficit. At that time, if you wanted to 
reform something to really make it work, the 4-percent solution merely 
said this: Do away with baseline budgeting, but budget and spend based 
on previous years' expenditures and only let Government grow 4 percent 
a year. Based on previous years' expenditures, not previous years' 
budgets, and not an automatic built-in 6 percent as happens in baseline 
budgeting.
  And you know what, next year we would have been looking at a whole 
lot 
[[Page S1985]] different deal had we done that. We had a few cosponsors 
on that. It is a very simple thing. Maybe it was too simple. Nobody 
wanted to really get into it. But basically it just said, ``Government, 
only grow 4 percent. If you don't want to spend the 4 percent over 
here, you can spend it over here. You can move it around. But the total 
growth, bottom line, 4 percent.''
  It would have given Congress the flexibility to increase funding at 
realistic levels for many programs while reducing others and phasing 
out some that have not worked since World War II and they are still 
around here.
  It did not pass, and now the problem is even worse where even the 4-
percent idea will not work. It will not get us to where we want to go.
  I think also we have to look at a way to see how this budget or 
balanced budget will be scored by the CBO and whoever is doing the 
bottom-line figuring.
  There was a joint budget hearing a couple of weeks ago that would do 
exactly that. I am pleased that that hearing looked at the dynamic 
modeling and am encouraged that it gave it the attention it deserves. 
The current revenue method calculates outlays from the Treasury, no 
matter what the cost-benefit ratio. I believe dynamic review estimating 
would be a good way to put Government spending priorities in order.
  What we are saying is, the policies we set here, tax policies, 
whatever, change people and the way they do business. It just changes 
human behavior.
  The dynamic modeling of a program would be scored on its merits. 
Instead of only looking at the amount of money the program costs in 
outlays to the Treasury, it also would take into account how much money 
is raised for the Treasury.
  I have heard this argument on capital gains. Capital gains is a 
voluntary tax. How many ranches and how many businesses are we looking 
at today that are not being sold or even offered to be put on the 
market because of capital gains? They find other ways of transferring 
that property, some way to do it. It is a voluntary tax. You do not 
have to pay the tax because you do not have to sell. So what happens? 
It does not go up for sale and their commercial activity is lost.
  So we have to look for a way, a program which creates jobs, opens up 
employment opportunities, boosts the economy and raises money for the 
Treasury. It is commercial activity that does that. Of course, I was 
not trained in economics. I pretty much have street economics. It is 
pretty simple: This is accounts receivable over here; this is accounts 
payable over here. Nothing happens in accounts payable until something 
happens in accounts receivable. That is the way it is. That is a pretty 
simple way to go through life. Nonetheless, that is the way we have to 
score and take a look.
  Montanans, like all other people around America, sent a loud and 
clear message last November 8. There are still some people who are 
trying to interpret that message, and there will be different 
interpretations of it as long as there are writers of editorials, as 
long as there are coffee klatches, as long as there are service clubs. 
Wherever you hear public discourse, there will be an array of messages 
that was heard November 8.
  But I think I heard the message. I heard the message that says we 
have to change some things before we really get the job done. Three 
reforms have to happen: Spending reform, budget reform and regulatory 
reform; and also something that puts some steel or backbone, as far as 
picking those winners and losers in spending and the way this 
Government spends money--priorities. It makes you get on the field and 
debate the priorities of which direction we are to be going.
  An ABC-Washington Post poll taken early in January showed that 80 
percent of those polled said they support a constitutional amendment to 
require a balanced budget.
  When looking at budget priorities the Federal Government seems like a 
good place to start. The Federal Government consumes 23 percent of GDP. 
The current growth rate of Government spending is 2 percent per year 
faster than the economy. It's time to get a tight rein on the power and 
size of the Federal Government. The economist, Milton Friedman, put it 
best when he said, ``There is nothing so permanent as a temporary 
government program.''
  The Federal Government has encroached on State's rights and spending 
has gone up to keep pace. Its over-ambitious agenda steals individual 
rights even as it indebted the people. Congress and the Federal 
Government have to get their hands out of their pockets.
  It's time to redistribute the power to the States. Shrink the Federal 
Government and given the money straight to the States. Cut out the 
middle man--the paper pusher in Washington, DC.
  By giving the States block grants they can use the money as they see 
fit, tailoring it to their specific needs. Every State is different and 
has different needs. One size does not fit all and the Federal 
Government should not be trying to force one program to fit every 
State. What works in California, doesn't always make sense for Montana 
and West Virginia.
  Once again, opponents of the amendment are using scare tactics to 
defeat this measure. They threaten that important programs will be cut 
or even eliminated, that it will endanger our economic recovery. There 
has to be plenty of places to make responsible cuts in a $1.6 trillion 
budget. And by balancing the budget, Congress can ensure our continued 
economic strength and future power.
  House Joint Resolution 1 allows Congress plenty of time to get the 
fiscal house in order. Under this amendment, Congress would have until 
the year 2002 to balance the budget. That's 7 years.
  Over the course of 7 years, spending can be reduced gradually. The 
budget does not have to be balanced overnight. Seven years is a long 
enough lead time to do the job, and do it fairly.
  The President will be required to offer his budget that is balanced 
based on good faith, but Congress will be forced to stick within its 
budget.
  Balancing the budget is going to take some hard decisions, some 
politically distasteful choices. But the reward will be a balanced 
budget and a more prosperous America. It's time to stop impoverishing 
the next generation of Americans. Pass the balanced budget amendment 
and put some discipline in the budget process.
  I feel very strongly--very strongly--if we do nothing else in this 
104th Congress and we pass this balanced budget amendment, I think we 
have sent a strong message to the American people: We hear you. We 
care.
  But they also hear another message; that they, too, in their 
neighborhoods also have some responsibility of participation to make 
sure it works and to help us. That is the message back to the voters: 
Help us. Help us set those priorities on maintaining this Government 
and also this great, great free society in which we live.
  Thank you, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I want to reemphasize that this is one of 
the most important debates that has ever taken place in the U.S. 
Senate. The subject matter indeed goes to the very heart of the hope of 
the Framers of the Constitution for the constitutional system--a system 
that would protect individual freedom and restrain the size and power 
of the Federal Government. In the latter half of this century, however, 
the intention of the Framers has been betrayed by Congress' inability 
to control its own spending habits. I want to explain how passage of 
the balanced budget amendment will further the intent of the Framers of 
the Constitution. I also want to demonstrate that Federal balanced 
budgets--up to very recently in our history--was a customary norm. We 
must return to that norm if we ever hope to assure the economic well-
being and vibrancy of these United States.


           the balanced budget amendment and the Constitution

  Mr. President, let me first say what the modern day crisis is: Our 
Nation is faced with a worsening problem of rising national debt and 
deficits and the increased Government us of capital that would 
otherwise be available to the private sector to create jobs to invest 
in our future. Increased amounts of capital are being wasted on merely 
financing the debt through spiraling interest costs. This problem 
presents risks to our long-term economic growth and endangers the well-
being of 
[[Page S1986]] our elderly, our working people, and especially our 
children and grandchildren. The debt burden is a mortgage on their 
future.
  Mr. President, the time has come for a solution strong enough that it 
cannot be evaded for short-term gain. We need a constitutional 
requirement to balance our budget, Mr. President, House Joint 
Resolution 1, the consensus balanced budget amendment is that solution. 
It is reasonable, enforceable, and necessary to force us to get our 
fiscal house in order. But it not only furthers the economic welfare of 
our Republic; it fosters the Constitution's purpose of protecting 
liberty through the framework of limited Government.
  James Madison, in explaining the theory undergirding the Government 
he helped create, had this to say about governments and human nature:

       Government [is] the greatest of all reflections on human 
     nature. If men were angles, no government would be necessary. 
     If angels were to govern men, neither external or internal 
     controls on government would be necessary. In framing a 
     government that is to be administered by men over men, the 
     great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the 
     government to control the governed; and in the next place 
     oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is no 
     doubt the primary control on government; but experience has 
     taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. 
     [Federalist No. 51.]

  Mr. President, we are here to debate such an auxiliary precaution, 
House Joint Resolution 1, proposing an amendment to the Constitution of 
the United States to require a balanced budget, because our recent 
history has shown us that Congress is not under control.
  The balanced budget amendment helps restore two important elements in 
the constitutional structure: Limited government and an accountable 
deliberative legislative assembly, both of which are vital to a free 
and vibrant constitutional democracy.
  A deliberative assembly, the essence of whose authority is, in 
Alexander Hamilton's words, ``to enact
 laws, or in other words to prescribe rules for the regulation of 
society'' for the common good, was considered by the Framers of the 
Constitution the most important branch of Government because it 
reflected the will of the people. Yet, as the maker of laws, it was 
also considered the most powerful and the one that needed to be guarded 
against the most.

  Recognizing that ``[in] republican Government the legislative 
authority, necessarily, predominates'' and to prevent ``elective 
despotism,'' James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, recommended 
that the Philadelphia Convention adopt devices in the Constitution that 
would safeguard liberty. These include: Bicameralism, separation of 
powers, and checks and balances, a qualified executive veto, limiting 
congressional authority through enumerating its powers, and, of course, 
the election of legislators to assure accountability to the people.
  However, in the late 20th century, these constitutional processes, 
what Madison termed ``auxiliary precautions,'' have failed to limit the 
voracious appetite of Congress to legislate into every area of private 
concern, to invade the traditional bailiwick of the States, and, 
consequently, to spend and spend to fund these measures until the 
Federal Government has become functionally insolvent and the economy 
placed in jeopardy.
  Congress has been mutated from a legislative assembly deliberating 
the common interest into the playground of the special interest.
  The balanced budget amendment, Mr. President, will go a long way 
toward ameliorating this problem. It will create an additional 
constitutional process--an auxiliary precaution--that will bring back 
legislative accountability to the constitutional system. The balanced 
budget amendment process accomplishes this by making Federal deficit 
spending significantly more difficult. Significantly, it advances 
liberty by making it more difficult for the Government to fund 
overzealous legislation and regulation that invades the private lives 
of citizens.


            The Historical Norm of Federal Balanced Budgets

  Mr. President, I would like to read two quotations:
  First, ``The public debt is the greatest of dangers to be feared by a 
republican Government.''
  Second, ``Once the budget is balanced and the debts paid off, our 
population will be relieved from a considerable portion of its present 
burdens and will find * * * additional means for the display of 
individual enterprise.''
  These quotations are not recent statements by current proponents of 
the proposed amendment. The first statement was made by Thomas 
Jefferson and the second by Andrew Jackson.
  These two quotations illustrate an important truth: No concept is 
more a part of traditional American fiscal policy than that of the 
balanced budget. In fact, Jefferson himself wished the Constitution had 
included a prohibition on Government borrowing--an early version of a 
balanced budget amendment, if you will--because he thought that one 
generation should not be able to obligate the next generation.
  Throughout most of the Nation's history, the requirement of budget 
balancing under normal economic circumstances was considered part of an 
unwritten customary national policy.
  Influenced by individuals such as Adam Smith, David Hume, and David 
Ricardo, the drafters of the Constitution and their immediate 
successors at the helm of the new Government strongly feared the 
effects of public debt. The taxing and borrowing provisions of the new 
Constitution reflected a need of the new Republic to establish credit 
and governmental notes and negotiable instruments that would spur 
commerce.
  Yet, the Founders and early American Presidents were in virtual 
unanimous agreement on the dangers of excessive public debt. 
Consequently, for approximately 150 years of our history--from 1789 to 
1932--balanced budgets or surplus budgets were the norm.
  While budget procedures had little of their present organization, the 
concept of a balanced budget was accepted widely as the hallmark of 
fiscal responsibility. Those deficits that did occur--during wartime or 
during
 the most severe recessions--normally were offset by subsequent 
surpluses.

  Between 1932 and 1960, the rigid rule of annual balanced budgets gave 
way to a fiscal policy in which balanced budgets remained an overall 
objective, but in which deficit spending was also viewed as a tool 
occasionally useful to affect appropriate economic results. 
Nonemergency deficit spending was legitimized in 1936 with the 
publication of John Maynard Keynes' ``General Theory.'' Great weight 
was placed upon the ability of the Federal Government to manage the 
economy through fiscal policy; that is, through spending and taxation.
  However, a real turning point in the history of U.S. fiscal policies 
occurred during the 1960's. Even the Keynesian objective of balancing 
surplus years with deficit years succumbed to the idea of regular, 
annual uncompensated-for deficits. In other words, our deficits, which 
were historically cyclical, reflecting boom and bust, war and peace, 
became structural and permanent.
  During the 1960's, we were paying for the Vietnam war at the same 
time as the war on poverty. The Great Society had noble goals and great 
intentions. But, the Great Society, on top of the war, was financed 
through debt and helped to develop our proclivity for deficit financing 
our national aspirations.
  During the past three decades, the Federal Government has run 
deficits in all but a single year. The deficits have come during good 
times, and they have come during bad times. They have come from 
Presidents who have pledged themselves to balanced budgets, and they 
have come from Presidents whose fiscal priorities were elsewhere. They 
have come from Presidents of both parties.
  Even more alarmingly, the magnitude of these deficits has increased 
enormously. During the 1960's, deficits averaged $6 billion per year. 
In the 1970's, deficits averaged $36 billion per year. In the 1980's, 
deficits averaged $156 billion per year. And, in the 1990's so far, 
deficits have averaged $259 billion per year.
  The total national debt now stands at over $4.8 trillion. While it 
took us over 200 years to acquire our first trillion dollars of debt, 
we have recently been adding another trillion dollars to our debt about 
every 5 years and will 
[[Page S1987]] continue to do so under current projections at a 
slightly faster rate as we approach the end of the decade.
  Deficits and the national debt have grown, in large measure, because 
Government spending has grown. As total Government spending has 
increased, so has Government's relative share of the economy. In 1929, 
Federal expenditures of $3 billion represented just 3 percent of GNP. 
By 1950, the Federal share had risen to 16 percent of GDP or about $43 
billion. For fiscal year 1993, Federal Government spending of over $1.4 
trillion commanded nearly 23 percent of GDP.
  To illustrate this growth in another way, the first $100 billion 
budget in the history of the Nation occurred as recently as fiscal year 
1962, more than 179 years after the founding of the Republic. The first 
$200 billion budget, however, followed only 9 years later in fiscal 
year 1971. The first $300 billion budget occurred 4 years later in 
fiscal year 1975; the first $400 billion budget 2 years later in fiscal 
year 1977; the first $500 billion budget in fiscal year 1979; the first 
$600 billion budget in fiscal year 1981; the first $700 billion budget 
in fiscal year 1982; the first $800 billion budget in fiscal year 1983; 
the first $900 billion budget in fiscal year 1985; and the first $1 
trillion budget in fiscal year 1987. The budget for fiscal year 1995 
was over $1.5 trillion.
  Under current projections, Government spending will continue to rise, 
using capital that would be put to better use by the private sector to 
create jobs. To starve the primary engines of economic growth of needed 
capital is to risk our long-term economic security.
  Mr. President, it is absolutely clear that to restore the 
constitutional concept of limited Government and its protection of 
liberty--as well as to restore fiscal and economic sanity--we must pass 
this balanced budget amendment.
  Mr. REID addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we have been focused in the last 6 months on 
the O.J. Simpson trial, and one of the first mistakes made in that case 
by one of the defense lawyers was when the defense lawyer allowed O.J. 
Simpson to give a long statement to law enforcement. It led to that 
attorney being fired by O.J. Simpson because O.J. Simpson, could have 
given testimony incriminating himself.
  Those of us who have practiced criminal law recognize that people 
have a constitutional right to not incriminate themselves. The fifth 
amendment provides for this right. I am sure we have all seen movies 
where people stand and say, ``I refuse to testify for fear that I will 
incriminate myself.''
  The reason I mention that today, Mr. President, is the majority of 
people pushing the balanced budget amendment are unwilling to tell the 
American public what they have a right to know: How the budget will be 
balanced. They, in effect, are taking the fifth amendment because they 
do not want to incriminate themselves. They do not want to tell Social 
Security recipients, and others, that they are going to use the Social 
Security trust funds to balance the budget.
  I believe that this right-to-know amendment that will be offered by 
the minority leader tomorrow is an important amendment. It is an 
important amendment because I believe that we have an obligation to 
tell the truth to whomever asks us for the details. And that is the 
question that is being asked in the form of the Democratic leader's 
amendment: How are you going to arrive at the numbers in 2002 to 
balance the budget?
  I think it is important that we recognize that the American people 
care about this. Eighty percent of the American public believes that 
there should be a balanced budget amendment. I believe that. But you 
ask that same number of people whether you should balance the budget 
using Social Security trust funds, and over 85 percent of the people 
say it should not be done that way.
  So, in effect, the numbers do not support a balanced budget amendment 
if you are going to use Social Security.
  The reason I have been such an advocate of the right to know is 
because I am the one who last year offered an amendment to protect 
Social Security. I am going to offer that same amendment. I am going to 
be joined by a significant number of my colleagues to exclude Social 
Security from the balanced budget amendment.
 That in fact should be done.

  I believe it is important the American public know how we are going 
to balance the budget. Why? My friend, the majority leader in the other 
body, Representative Armey from Texas, has stated that we cannot have 
the right-to-know amendment passed, for if we did, the knees of all 
Members of Congress--in both the House and the Senate--would buckle and 
they would not vote for the amendment. Why? Because the American public 
then would know, in his words, too much. So I believe the American 
public has a right to know.
  Maybe what we should do is change the name of this balanced budget 
amendment to the trust me amendment. Just trust me. Everything will be 
just fine. Do not worry about it. We do not need to tell you how we are 
going to do it. Just trust me. We will call it the trust me amendment.
  I believe, Mr. President, that the Democratic leader's demand for 
greater details is the right way to go. It is insulting to the American 
public, the people of the State of Nevada, to suggest that we cannot 
tell the American people how we will balance the budget because, if 
they knew, they would not support the passage of this amendment. So let 
us call this the trust me amendment rather than the balanced budget 
amendment. The American people, you see, Mr. President, should not be 
treated like sick children: Take the medicine; it will taste fine; it 
will make you feel better. Trust me.
  No, I do not think we can treat the American people like sick 
children: Just open up and swallow the medicine; it is good for you. 
They have a right to know and we have an obligation to tell them. We 
cannot, I repeat, take the fifth amendment and say we do not have to 
tell you for fear you will hold it against us.
  Amending the Constitution is serious business that carries with it 
far-reaching ramifications. Like a patient about to undergo serious 
surgery, the American people ought to be told of all the options and 
all the possible ramifications.
  Mr. President, when I first started practicing law many years ago, a 
doctor did not have a profound obligation in law to tell the patient 
what might happen to them when they undertook a procedure. They really 
did not have to sit down the night before the operation and indicate to 
them: You are going to be just fine, but you should know that in 10 
percent of these surgeries this dire result takes place.
  No, that was not the rule. But it is now. The case law has made it so 
that physicians now have an obligation to tell a patient what are the 
ramifications from the procedure they are about to undertake. The 
patient has a right to know. The American public, being the patient in 
this instance, has a right to know what is going to happen, and that is 
why we are asking that there be a glidepath as to how the balanced 
budget is going to be reached.
  All we are asking--it does not seem too much--is an honest, up-front 
accounting of how we will be able to balance that budget.
  Let us assume that today or tomorrow we passed an amendment to the 
Constitution that outlawed all violent crimes. It sounds good: We are 
going to outlaw all violent crimes. But unless we set out a detailed 
plan as to how this amendment would be enforced and the crimes to 
necessarily be included, it would not be worth the paper on which it is 
written.
  That is what the balanced budget amendment or the trust-me amendment 
is all about. We are going to do the right thing, and balancing the 
budget sounds like the right thing to do.
  It kind of reminds me of about 15 years ago at Caesar's Palace in Las 
Vegas. They were going to have an event. The event was that Evel 
Knievel was going to jump across the fountains at Caesar's Palace. None 
of us thought he could do it. He said, ``Trust me; I can do it.'' I can 
drive my motorcycle and make this giant leap of faith and I will be 
just fine.
  Thousands of people went to Caesar's Palace that day to watch this 
man perform this act that no one thought he could do. Millions of 
people watched it 
[[Page S1988]] on television. And sure enough, he could not do it. He 
revved up that motorcycle in his red, white, and blue jumpsuit and off 
he went. The motorcycle turned in the air, and he was splattered all 
over the pavement at Caesar's Palace. He still has wounds and he still 
limps as a result of that event.
  Well, that is just like this trust me amendment. There can be no way, 
in this Senator's opinion, that you can balance the budget by 2002 
unless you take Social Security trust fund moneys. Logic tells me that 
is the case. And as I said yesterday on this floor, Willie Sutton, the 
famous bank robber, after he got out of prison was interviewed. He was 
asked: Why do you rob banks? Willie Sutton said, ``Because that's where 
the money is.''
  Well, with the Social Security trust fund, that is where the money 
is. We are going to have surpluses of billions and billions of dollars 
by the year 2002 or 2003. It will be about $800 billion. It will go up 
higher than that, into the trillions, before the downside starts.
  I see seated in the Chamber today my friend from Wyoming, the senior 
Senator from Wyoming. He and I serve together on the entitlement 
commission. Social Security has problems if we do not bother it, but if 
we take those Social Security trust fund moneys and use them to retire 
the debt, we have big problems real quick.
  Also, one of the first things I learned in law school is that if you 
are going to have a contract, you should put it in writing. We have 
heard a lot on this Senate floor, and especially in the other body, 
about a Contract With America. We all realize that the real contract 
with America was negotiated in 1935 when Social Security was passed. 
That is the real contract with America. And I believe that the trust-me 
amendment should be an amendment that is a real, true, balanced budget 
amendment and Social Security should be excluded from it. And to do 
that we have to put it in writing. We can no longer say to the Social 
Security recipients--and that is not only old people in this country. 
It is my children and my grandchildren. I want them to be able to have 
the ability to receive Social Security. So we want this Social Security 
exclusion to be put in writing, not some kind of a resolution that does 
not mean anything.
  I have heard that there is going to be a resolution offered that will 
get overwhelming support in this body. The resolution will say, ``We 
will not touch Social Security, cross my heart.'' But the American 
public should understand that resolution does not mean anything 
legally. I say we must put it in writing in the amendment itself in 
order to have a real binding, meaningful balanced budget amendment.
  So those who may offer a resolution declaring Social Security not 
applicable under the balanced budget amendment should understand that 
it will pass overwhelmingly but it means nothing. I respectfully 
suggest that we need to make sure and understand that such a resolution 
is only a figleaf to make people's consciences seem a little bit 
better. Unless it is in the balanced budget amendment--that is, the 
exclusion for Social Security--Social Security will be the tool used 
because it is ``where the money is,'' as Willie Sutton said.
  On this floor yesterday--I had a dialog with my friend from Utah, the 
senior Senator from Utah, who has for a considerable period of time 
managed this bill. Referring to the Record of yesterday, I read a 
statement from my good friend the senior Senator from Utah, where he 
said:

       Now, that is where we are headed. Make no bones about it. 
     The only way to protect the Social Security trust fund and 
     the Treasury bonds it buys, is to pass this amendment and 
     balance the budget.
       Now, Senator Reid says we must exempt Social Security 
     because what is--[it says ``what'' but it means ``that"]--
     that is where the money is. That just is not true. That is 
     where the Treasury bonds are. There is no money there. There 
     are only IOU's which will be valueless if we do not get 
     spending under control.
       How do we protect Social Security? We who support this 
     amendment know how. Through good economics, and through a 
     balanced budget amendment. It is the best protection we could 
     give them. The Social Security trust fund is not where the 
     money is. There is no money there. There are only IOU's 
     there.

  He goes on to say:

       We have already used the money to pay for other bills of 
     the Federal Government and other spending items.

  That is my whole case. That is my whole case. We do not want to do 
that anymore. This year there will be an excess, a surplus of $70 
billion and they will continue to grow. We want to maintain those 
moneys. We do not want to do what my friend from Utah recognizes has 
been done.
  So I am for the right-to-know amendment. I believe that amendment 
suggests we should have an exclusion for Social Security. If we do not, 
we are going to have a cruel hoax perpetrated on the people of this 
country.
  My friend from Utah further is quoted in today's Washington Post as 
saying, ``The right to know is a joke by those who don't want to vote 
for the amendment anyway.'' Mr. President, I support the balanced 
budget amendment and have for many years. But I also support the 
American public's right to know how we will get the budget in balance. 
I suggest the only joke we are hearing around here is voices saying, 
``trust us.'' The sad fact, however, is that this joke is at the 
expense of the American people.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I ask the Chair notify me when I have 
consumed 14 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair will so notify the Senator.
  Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, this is probably one of the most important 
issues we are going to be asked to debate in this Congress, or maybe 
several Congresses. I suggest if the Senate today was debating whether 
Members of the Senate should be allowed to have lunch with a lobbyist, 
the press gallery would probably be overflowing. They would be 
listening to every word we say on whether we should have lunch with 
lobbyists when we come to Washington. But here we are, talking about 
amending the Constitution of the United States, a decision that can 
affect every single individual American today--the press gallery looks 
like a hurricane has just blown through it.
  This is an incredibly important decision we are embarking on, taking 
on in a relatively short period of time--to amend the Constitution of 
the United States. The balanced budget amendment, it is like apple pie 
and motherhood and the San Francisco Forty-Niners, everybody loves it 
in concept. But the devil is really in the details of what we are 
talking about, and I suggest the details are well hidden. Details about 
what this means are still in the dark and I suggest that is not the way 
the U.S. Senate and Congress of the United States should legislate. I 
think we have an obligation to be honest and frank with the American 
people, and tell them what we are getting ready to do to them and to 
the respective 50 States of the United States.
  I will start off by saying I support the balanced budget amendment. I 
have supported it in the past. I have voted for it in the past. I think 
it is incredibly important that the Federal Government do what most of 
the States do, although they differ and do it in a very different 
fashion with the type of budgets they have to keep in balance. They 
have a capital budget and an operating budget. If the Federal 
Government had a capital budget and an operating budget, it would be a 
lot easier for us to balance the budget. We do not have that luxury 
like most of the States have. We have only one budget and everything is 
put in. So an effort to balance the budget by the year 2002 is a noble 
idea, one I support, but one that is not going to be very easy.
  My point is everybody is for this in concept but nobody knows the 
details. So many, in fact, are concerned about what the details really 
mean and how we are really going to go about doing it that the 
Republican leader in the House of Representatives, when they asked him 
what about spelling out the details of how you are going to do this so 
the people can see it, suggested that we really cannot talk about the 
details because if we do it nobody will vote for it.
  Is that not a heck of a statement to make in the Congress of the 
United States? That the details are so difficult, and what we are 
asking the American people to face having happen to them is so 
difficult to face we cannot tell them about it because, guess 
[[Page S1989]] what, if we tell them about it we may not be able to do 
it.
  What kind of principles does that stand for? What does that say? We 
have to pass this in the dark because if we open it up nobody will vote 
for it? Are we telling the 50 State legislatures if we tell you exactly 
what this means you will never pass it so we are not going to tell you 
what it means, we are just going to give you a title and the title says 
we are going to balance the Federal budget by the year 2002?
  If it is good enough to do it is good enough to do in the daylight. 
Why do we have to do it in the dark? What is wrong with telling them 
what a balanced budget by the year 2002 really means?
  We have to understand in Washington that this balanced budget 
amendment is not something we are doing here by ourselves. We cannot 
balance the budget in Washington, amend the Constitution in Washington 
with a balanced budget amendment, without a partnership arrangement 
with the States. They have to ratify the amendment that we send to 
them; 38 States have to analyze it, take a look at it, and say: Our 
legislators say this is good policy; we will vote to put a balanced 
budget amendment in the U.S. Constitution.
  So they have to be involved. It is a partnership between the Federal 
Government and the various States in amending the Constitution of the 
United States. Therefore I suggest the States need to know exactly what 
this is going to mean-- not in Washington, but what it means in the 
various State capitals around the United States. And I suggest it is 
not enough for us to say, ``trust us,'' here in Washington--a very 
novel idea at best. Trust us to do what is right. Trust us to pass this 
in a way that you are going to be very happy with, trust us to do the 
right thing that is not going to abnormally affect your States and your 
citizens. Trust us to make it in a way that you will like. But do not, 
do not ask us to tell you what it is all about, because you know if we 
tell you what it really involves you may not vote for it and, boy, 
would that not be terrible? So please trust us.
  President Ronald Reagan used to have a great line when he was talking 
about the Soviet Empire and all the meetings they had. All the meetings 
were going fairly well and Reagan would get up in the press conference 
and say, ``trust but verify.''
  It was a great line. It made sense. We wanted to make sure that, yes, 
we trusted the Soviets to do what was right because that is what they 
told us, but he also said yes, but let us verify. Let us make sure the 
trust is more than a promise to do it right, that we actually see in 
writing what they are going to do. Trust but verify.
  The right-to-know amendment that we are suggesting to be added to 
this balanced budget amendment is really that: Trust but verify. Tell 
the States what it is going to mean when that balanced budget amendment 
hits the capital steps in the various State capitals. What does it 
mean?
  I spoke to the National Governors' Conference the other day and I 
asked the Governors, I said, Governors: What are you going to say to 
the President of your senate or the speaker of your house when this 
amendment hits the steps of your capital and you submit it for them to 
ratify and those gentlemen or ladies come up and say: Governor, what 
does it mean for us to vote yes to ratify this amendment? What does it 
mean to my State of Louisiana? Does it mean we are going to have 
programs cut and if so which ones are we going to have to cut or 
eliminate or change? Governor, does it mean we are going to have to 
increase taxes on the State level if the Federal Government quits 
giving us these moneys for these programs?
  Under the current suggestion of our Republican colleagues, do you 
know what the answers would be of the Governor? ``I don't know. They 
didn't tell me. They just said we are going to balance the budget. I 
don't know how we are going to do that. They never told me that. I'm 
sure they are going to do it right. Trust them.''
  I suggest any State legislature that is comfortable with the concept 
of trusting Washington to do something that makes them feel good and 
solves their problems without giving them an unnecessary burden has not 
been in State office very long.
 Trust but verify.

  I looked at the Department of the Treasury. These are folks who 
crunch numbers, that wear the green eyeshades, and they really work on 
numbers all the time. They are not political appointees. These are 
economists who have probably been through several administrations.
  Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont, the past president of the National 
Governors Association, has done a tremendous job in this area. He was 
concerned, just as I am, and he wrote the Treasury Department. He said, 
``Can you tell me, making various assumptions, what a balanced budget 
amendment would mean to the various States?'' That is a partnership 
idea. Remember? It is not just us doing it. The States want to know how 
it is affecting them. Governor Dean wrote to the Treasury Department 
and said, ``Give me a projection as to what it means to the various 50 
States if the Congress passes a balanced budget amendment which 
requires a balanced budget by the year 2002.''
  He got an answer from the Treasury Department. He mentioned all 50 
States. I am particularly interested in one State, the State of 
Louisiana, that I represent. They said this--this is really important 
information--about the impact of the balanced budget amendment and the 
Contract With America on the State of Louisiana. They said that for all 
calculations if a balanced budget is achieved by the year 2002 through 
across-the-board spending cuts that exclude defense and Social 
Security--that is probably a fairly reasonable assumption. Our 
colleagues on this side are talking about increasing defense spending. 
I think in some areas we need to increase. I would agree with them in 
some areas. We just had our colleague from Nevada saying do not cut 
Social Security. Does anybody believe that this Congress or the next 
Congress or any Congress is going to slash Social Security in order to 
balance the budget? I doubt it. So I think this assumption is fairly 
significant, and probably pretty reasonable.
  Here is what it said about my State. A balanced budget amendment 
would reduce annual Federal grants in Louisiana State government by $2 
billion. There is $1.5 billion per year in lost funding for Medicaid. 
My State has a $750 million shortfall in Medicaid this year without the 
balanced budget requirement being in effect. It would mean $94 million 
per year in lost highway trust funds. What is going to happen to the 
roads of Louisiana? Are they going to crumble and fill up with water? 
There will be $48 million per year in lost funding for welfare 
programs, AFDC for our children; $324 million per year in lost funding 
for education, for job training, and the environment, housing, and 
other areas. Talk about the devil is in the details. This is really 
devil in the details.
  Then it said Louisiana would have to increase State taxes by 27.8 
percent across the board to make up for the loss in grants. A 27-
percent tax hike? I think not. Louisiana is not going to raise taxes 27 
percent. They are not going to raise them 2 percent. The conditions in 
the State do not allow it. It is not good fiscal policy.
  Some of my particular colleagues said that is just the Treasury 
Department's assumptions, and that is not correct, and you cannot 
depend on that. Fine. Tell them what they can depend on. If it is not 
these assumptions that are going to go into play, let us know what 
these assumptions are. Tell us by showing the States what we are going 
to have to do to get to that point in the year 2002 when the budget is 
in balance so that when that State legislature, when the President of 
the Senate, the Speaker of the House, goes to the other legislators and 
asks them, ``Bob, Susan, Bill, I need your vote on this,'' they will 
say, ``Well, you know, if it is going to mean we have to raise taxes 27 
percent, I do not think that is a great idea. I am not going to vote 
for that,'' because they will have the right to say the Federal 
Government is getting ready to stick it to the States, getting ready to 
stick it to them in the dark because we are not telling them what it is 
all about.
  I would suggest very simply, if these numbers that the Treasury 
Department have presented here are not accurate, then, fine. But we in 
the Congress have an obligation to give them accurate figures as to how 
we are going to 
[[Page S1990]] reach that goal of a balanced budget in the year 2002.
  Here is the resolution that the Governors have adopted, the 
Democratic Governors. Everybody was all for it. They thought they were 
going to make us do something that was uncomfortable. Now they are 
figuring out how it directly affects them. They are saying, ``Wait a 
minute.'' The Democratic Governors said:

       We support a federally balanced budget amendment. The 
     Democratic Governors believe the citizens of this country 
     also deserve the right to know the implications of a 
     federally balanced budget amendment. Congress must detail its 
     plans to balance the budget before sending the resolution to 
     the States for ratification.

  I think that is at least the minimum that we can do here at the 
Federal level as we debate this particular resolution. I suggest that 
it is important for us to let the States know what we are talking about 
doing to them.
  Final point: Some of my colleagues on this side have said, ``Well, we 
cannot do that. We do not know what it is going to be like 7 years from 
now.'' I mean we do not know the economic conditions. We cannot project 
out 7 years. Last year and the year before last we passed the budget 
reconciliation bill. We did exactly what we are talking about doing 
today for 5 years. Would my colleague, since they cannot go 7 years, at 
least tell the States what they can expect for 5 years? We do that all 
the time. Every bill we bring up has a 5-year glidepath. How much are 
we going to lose in taxes? How much are we going to raise? What kind of 
programs are going to have to be cut to meet certain goals?
  Let me ask my colleagues who say we cannot do it for 7, would you go 
5? Would you consider we do a budget resolution for 5 years and spell 
it out for 5 years as part of this balanced budget amendment? At least 
the State of Louisiana would know what it is going to be like for 5 
years. I will go 5 years if we cannot go 7. Do not tell them we cannot 
go 5 because we do that all the time. When we passed the budget 
reconciliation years ago, we cut the deficit by one-half trillion 
dollars. Not one Republican colleague stepped up to the plate to 
support that because it was tough.
  I would simply suggest that it is not that we cannot do it, but 
rather that we will not do it. It is easy to pass a balanced budget 
amendment in general terms, but this Congress, I would suggest, does 
not have the courage or the wherewithal or the strength to tell the 
States what it really means to them. How is it going to affect them? A 
budget resolution accompanying this balanced budget amendment would let 
the States know what we are really getting ready to do to them. 
Shifting the burden of taxation is really easy. It is real easy. I will 
tell you. If I was a State, I would want this Congress and any Congress 
to accompany that balanced budget amendment with a budget resolution 
that spells out exactly what it is going to mean. Without that, we do 
not have a partnership. Without that, they do not have the information 
to make the right decision. I want to give it to them. I think that 
they ought to look at it and decide whether that is what they want to 
ratify. But do not ask them to do it in the dark.
  I yield the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). The Senator from Wyoming is 
recognized.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I want to speak on behalf of Senate Joint 
Resolution 1, the resolution to provide for the ratification of the 
balanced budget amendment.
  I want to commend Senator Hatch for his extraordinary work and 
patience in regard to this measure.
 And also Senator Simon, Senator Heflin, Senator Thurmond, and back 
through the years, Senator DeConcini. So many of us have worked for so 
long on this measure. There are really no other questions to ask about 
this measure. We have asked them all. We have heard every hypothetical, 
every argument, every horror story. Everything that could possibly be 
laid out would fill the Chamber to the seals on the ceiling.

  Recently, the President, working with the then Democratic majority in 
both Chambers of Congress, passed the latest in a series of deficit 
reduction plans. We have heard reference to that. We did the Omnibus 
Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, or OBRA, and it was supposed to 
shave $500 billion off of the Federal deficit over the next 5 years. 
This, of course, was $500 billion in ``deficit reduction,'' as defined 
in the exceedingly perverse language employed only here in Washington. 
Mind you, this meant not that deficits would be $500 billion lower, or 
that the total debt would be ``reduced''; it meant that rising deficits 
would cumulatively amount to $500 billion less than some esoteric, 
abstract figure which only Washington policymakers seem to understand, 
and it is quaintly called ``the baseline.''
  The ``baseline,'' of course, is everchanging. Lord only knows how the 
baseline is properly figured, but its chief function seems to be as a 
device of consolation for the poor, beleaguered American taxpayer. Debt 
continues to compound and annual deficits are projected still to 
skyrocket. But, take heart, ye of the faithful, unwashed taxpayers, 
there was an even worse scenario out there for you called ``the 
baseline.'' Thank heavens we have all done better than that, and the 
public is then assured that all is well.
  Mr. President, all is not well, and all will not be well until this 
situation is brought under control with finality. The 1993 budget was 
only the latest in a long series of similarly hyped budget procedures. 
Both parties and all Presidents have been so good at it. 1990 was the 
last one before that, and I voted for that one. We have been passing 
deficit reduction acts around here for as long as I can recall, and the 
numbers are always off. They never match; they are never right. Five 
years later, there was always some dramatic thing that skewed the 
numbers.
  Time and again, they have failed to resolve this situation once and 
for all. Why is that? One reason and one reason only: Each one of them 
has failed to deal with the fundamental problem of the entitlement 
spending explosion. The 1993 Budget Act most certainly failed to do 
that. President Clinton proposed only modest reforms in Medicare, and 
he had to face down a revolt from his own liberal wing and remove even 
those slight changes in order to pass his Budget Act and leave that 
spending to grow on, unabated, unrestricted. All the while, Congress 
was debating a huge new entitlement in the form of the Health Security 
Act.
  What is the latest verdict on the 1993 Budget Act? Where are we 
heading now that we have passed this landmark legislation? The CBO has 
just reexamined the entire Federal budget outlook, and here is what 
they find: In fiscal year 1994, the annual deficit amounted to $202 
billion. In fiscal year 1995, they project that figure will shrink to 
$176 billion, and there is joy in the streets with regard to that 
figure--at least more joy on the other side of the aisle than here, 
because that does not mean we now will owe less money as a Nation; it 
is $176 billion more in debt that future taxpayers will have to pay 
off, but it would represent slightly less than we added in fiscal year 
1994.
  Where do we go from here? In fiscal year 1996, the CBO tells us the 
annual deficit will again be back up to $207 billion--more than either 
of the 1995 or 1994 figures--and it keeps going up after that. We all 
know it and we talk about the figures on the floor. It will go up to 
$253 billion in fiscal year 1999, and we all know it.
  Not only do hundreds of billions in debts stand to be added to 
posterity's burden every year, but we stand to add to that debt still 
more quickly--not at some distant, far-flung date, but next year, 1996, 
according to CBO, is when annual deficits begin to skyrocket again.
  Mr. President, the 1993 Budget Act affected no fiscal years earlier 
than 1994. This is progress? Skyrocketing annual deficits are still 
projected for as far as the eye can see beginning next year. I can 
personally tell you that the long-term picture is much, much worse than 
that.
  I had the ``honor''--and I put that in quotation marks--to 
participate in the collective suicide mission that was known as the 
President's Bipartisan Entitlement Commission, or the Kerrey-Danforth 
commission, named after its tireless chairman and vice chairman. If you 
want to know what will happen to this country in the next century, in 
the next 25 years, the next 50 years, get a copy of our report. There 
were more than several Senators 
[[Page S1991]] on the bipartisan commission, a wonderful group of 
people, Democrats and Republicans alike. Get a copy of the report that 
was released last Friday. It lays it all out in vivid, full-color 
graphs. The Senators involved on the entitlements commission were 
Senators Kerrey, Danforth, Moynihan, Sasser, Moseley-Braun, Reid, 
Bumpers, Domenici, Gregg, Cochran, Wallop, and myself. We all were 
involved. See our work product. See that 30 of the 32 of us agreed that 
in the year 2012, even with no new spending initiatives and with no 
increase in taxes, there will be only sufficient funds to pay for 
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Federal retirement, the other 
entitlement programs, and interest on the national debt; and there will 
be nothing--nothing--for defense, transportation, education, WIC, WIN, 
Head Start, NEA, NEH, or any other discretionary program of the Federal 
Government. Zap. Nothing. We all know that, too. At least 30 of 32 of 
us who sat for nearly a year know that. I would think our colleagues 
would want to listen to what we presented.
  But I favor the balanced budget amendment because I just simply think 
it is ``shock therapy.'' There is no other purpose for it. It is to 
force us to confront the real components of the Government's spending 
problem. The opponents of the balanced budget amendment say it is not 
needed, that all is needed is for Congress to ``screw up'' its 
collective courage to pass legislation curbing rising deficits. That is 
an appropriate, I think, two-word description of what we have been 
doing with regard to the budget for years.
  I know all too well what happens when you try to do that. You get 
exactly the sort of hysterical propaganda that is currently being 
hauled out in bales by the metric ton in opposition to the balanced 
budget amendment.
  Phrases ring through the Chamber: ``Tell us how you are going to take 
food away from starving seniors and hungry children,'' they say. Spell 
it out to us. When you try to explain that you are only talking about 
more modest increases in Government spending, you are lost and they are 
lost. And then they unleash on you.
  We have not proposed a ``cut'' of anything in Social Security. We 
have not proposed a ``cut'' of anything in Medicare, or a ``cut'' in 
Medicaid. We are just trying to slow the growth. Apparently, it is 
still not being heard. So if Medicare is going up 9 percent, we say let 
us let it go up only 6 percent, and it is described to the American 
people as a ``cut.'' It is a sad day for the use of the English 
language and a true distortion of what is being said.
  A 6-percent increase is not a cut. And it is sad to watch that 
continual description over the media and in this Chamber about cuts 
when all you are trying to do, and we all are trying to do, is limit 
the increase in growth. Not a cut in a carload.
  In short, Federal budget policy debates are eternally paralyzed 
around this place because the real issues are obscured in a haze of 
misleading anecdotes, rhetoric, and carefully crafted statistics. Just 
try to come down to the floor, as I say, and suggest that this year we 
are going to let Medicare go up only 8 or 6 percent instead of the 10 
or 9 percent projected. Broadsides will be fired all across the country 
saying that you are planning brutal cuts in Medicare. How could you--
choke, gasp, sob--do such things?
  Why should you make such a heartless proposal anyway? Why not just 
cut foreign aid, or raise taxes on the rich, or get rid of the tse-tse 
fly study? That is a marvelous thing, if we could just get rid of the 
tse-tse fly study. It is only 100,000 bucks. Or get rid of the highway 
demonstration projects. Try that one, at least in the House. They used 
to try it. That is like pulling teeth with no anesthetic. Or, of 
course, if we get rid of the restoration of Lawrence Welk's house, that 
would do it. If we could only end that sort of thing. Or congressional 
pay raises and we should look at that, indeed.
  And we never did one of those here in all my time here while in the 
dark. The last one which was reported to the American public by the 
media was that we voted in the middle of the night for a pay raise. I 
think it was about 9:45 in the evening and everybody was here and 
everybody voted ``yes'' or ``no.'' I do not think that is too much of a 
secret endeavor. And anybody can go look and see how anybody voted. We 
do not do it that way.
  Well, maybe get rid of the franking privilege. That's it. That would 
solve all our problems. Or just simply abolish waste, fraud, and abuse. 
Oh, if we all did that, there would be no problem.
  Well, so long as Congress is not forced to actually balance its 
books, it will be possible to survive politically--and there is the 
key, ladies and gentleman--while pandering to every public 
misconception there is about the structure of the Federal budget.
  I have served our party as assistant leader for some 10 years. And I 
commend my successor. He is doing a splendid job. I am proud of him, my 
friend, Senator Trent Lott.
  And, as an aside here, let me tell you why I am going to vote for 
term limits, so that you may hear. Of course, I was not for it when I 
was running for my third term, but that is another story! But I can 
tell you, I will vote for that and I will tell you why.
  I cannot tell you how often--about once a month--in my duties I would 
say, ``We need your vote. It is a very critical vote for the Nation's 
best interest. We need it.'' And they would say, ``I know it is a 
critically important vote and we do need it, but I cannot vote for it 
because if I do I will be history. I will be gone. I will not get 
reelected.'' And I would say, ``So this is your sole reason for not 
voting for this amendment or this bill, is that you will not get 
reelected?'' And they would say, ``You got it.''
  And so I say, nothing would be better than the term limits 
legislation, because once it kicked in, one-third of this body would be 
voting right. One third of these Senators would vote right. And then, 
in the duties of the leadership, all you would have to do is go find 18 
other people out of that pool of about 40 who always cast the tough 
votes. There are a group of about 40 in here, Democrat and Republican 
alike, who often cast the tough votes, consistent tough votes. Do term 
limits, then you would have a third of them doing it right. They would 
be unshackled and you then go dig up 18 more and you have your 51 to 
pass an issue. It would change this body immensely.
  So I certainly look forward to the day when the Congress actually has 
to balance the books as would be required by the Constitution of the 
United States and as required in constitutions of other States. And I 
said before and say again, it would be ``shock therapy.'' And I would 
relish it.
  Because everyone who has been making a lifetime career of running 
against foreign aid or for increased taxes on the rich or always 
prattling about class warfare and why cannot we just do what we were 
hired on to do--let us check them out in the old hypocrisy index. The 
index hurt a lot of them in the last cycle. It scored up how much they 
talked about cutting and how they actually voted, especially and solely 
on spending. We all do it. I do it. We all do it. Look at our votes. 
One man's junk is another man's treasure; some pet project, some 
massive public works. We all do it. Every single one of us do it.
  And so, if we would do those things, we would see those people 
exposed in one fell swoop. They will then be bound to the Constitution 
with hoops of steel to balance the books, and when they come out with a 
proposal to eliminate the 1 percent of the budget that goes to foreign 
aid--1 percent--that just will not get the job done, and they will be 
forced to come back and try again.
  Or they will say, let us raise those taxes on ``the rich,'' and they 
will get about a half inch closer to solving the problem that way and 
once more they will have to try again.
  I have a certain perverse strain in my nature. When people at a town 
meeting say, ``Why don't you just nail the rich and we could seal this 
hole and make progress?''
  I say, ``No, no. Let's not increase their taxes. Let's take 
everything they've got. Why mess around? Let's take every stock 
certificate, every ranch, every yacht, every piece of property. Let's 
take it all. Let's take every debenture. Let's take all the big family 
money in America, all the Wal-Marts, all of this, all of that.''
  Guess what? It would be about $800 billion and that would run the 
country for 6 months--$800 billion would run the United States for 
about 6 months. 
[[Page S1992]] That is in taking it all. That is in taking the Fortune 
500, the Forbes list, the whole works. Take it all, $750 billion or 
$800 billion, and yet the budget this year is $1.506 trillion. Not a 
very good idea then, but it sounds so good.
  Certainly, just as there are today, there will be those who will win 
elections by uttering such platitudes, and in today's process, they can 
still go back to the electorate the next time around and say, ``Well, 
we failed to balance the budget because the Congress didn't adopt my 
wisdom. We aren't taxing the rich enough, we did not cut foreign aid.'' 
And there are still some to cut out there. I saw it myself. ``There is 
$15 billion out there, folks,'' and they all get glandular reactions 
from that. But $15 billion will not get you there because the budget is 
$1.506 trillion. And who is the wiser in that process?
  But with this amendment, this courageous amendment, the American 
public will become educated in a real hurry about where and how the 
Government spends its money, and I am greatly looking forward to the 
anguish connected to it all. No wonder it is opposed by every special 
interest group whose job it is to drain the Federal Treasury. Their 
executive directors are paid to horrify the membership to get them all 
worked up, to be sure that they earn their salary, to be sure the 
letters come cranking in, without regard to the burden placed on future 
taxpayers.
  Do you really think that the AARP--the American Association of 
Retired Persons--really wants the people of the United States, or even 
their membership, to really find out that you cannot enact their $1.3 
trillion--get this figure, $1.3 trillion--agenda and balance the books 
at the same time?
  Hear me. This is a report from the National Taxpayers Union 
Foundation of April 28, 1993. The next time you go to a town meeting 
and the AARP is out there--and let us remember who they are--there are 
33 million of them who pay 8 bucks dues and they are bound together by 
a common love of airline discounts,
 and automobile discounts and pharmacy discounts.

  Do their members know what their agenda is, ladies and gentlemen? 
Their agenda is this: Long-term health care for everyone in the United 
States, regardless of their net worth or their income. Ring that one 
up. Universal long-term health care, regardless of wealth. That is $60 
billion over 10 years. Second, expand Medicaid to cover all below 
poverty, $35.7 billion over 10 years. Catastrophic care, $15.8 billion. 
Medicare to cover ``near elderly''--I suppose those are people that 
fall into the 45-year-old category, because that is only 5 years below 
the admission date of your ``elderly'' age to get into the AARP; 
members only have to be 50, so I suppose ``near elderly'' is defined as 
one 45 years old--that is $10 billion. Expanded Medicaid long-term 
care, $7.3 billion. Changes in Social Security benefit formulas, $19.1 
billion. Expansions in earned income credit, $15.2 billion. Expansions 
of SSI, $7.7 billion. Housing assistance for all who qualify, $34.6 
billion.
  So the next time Members are getting in a little scrap from the old 
AARP, and they are out there with signs and posters, ask them if they 
have any grandchildren, first. That will get a rise out of them. Then 
ask them how we are supposed to pay $1.3 trillion for the next 10 years 
to take care of their agenda they tell their Members about in their 
magazine that looks like a clone of the Smithsonian magazine. Ask them.
  I imagine my mail will pick up when I return to my chamber. There 
will probably be a little bit of light anecdotal material like, ``You 
rotten--.'' I do not know what it will be, but it will be heavy, and it 
will come from AARP members who do not know one thing about their 
membership asking this Treasury to cough up 1.3 trillion bucks in the 
next 10 years for people, regardless of their net worth or income.
  Some of it is not ``affluence tested.'' We ought to affluence test it 
all. I want to be very clear. I am not talking about people who are 
poor. I am not talking about seniors who have no proper nutrition. I am 
not talking about Meals on Wheels. I am not talking about Green Thumb. 
I am talking about people who, to some, the cost of living index and 
the cost of living allowance is the cost of ``living it up.''
  One of the saddest things--the saddest thing--that I saw in the 
entitlements commission was where a young man came and testified with a 
young people's advocacy group. Boy, young people better start paying 
attention here. These young people came and testified, one young man 
with sadness, said that he visited his grandfather in Florida, and he 
loved his grandfather dearly. And the COLA, cost-of-living-allowance--
to his grandfather, who was a lovely man and had done well in life, was 
whether he would be able to upgrade his country club membership. Ladies 
and gentlemen, that is not what a COLA is for. A cost-of-living-
allowance is something to take care of someone who is truly needing 
that.
  We are going to have to start affluence testing the COLA's. We are 
not talking about cutting a single cent from a Social Security benefit. 
Hear that one. I do not want to hear any more of that babble. Nobody 
here except one group, which I believe is a remarkable group, including 
our former friends from the Senate, Paul Tsongas and Warren Rudman, 
have suggested affluence testing of the benefits. I have not subscribed 
to that. But we are certainly going to subscribe to affluence testing 
of the COLA's or we will not make it, because they range between $7 
billion to $22 billion a year, depending on the Consumer Price Index, 
the CPI. Unless we breathe reality into that index, we will not make 
it, either. It is distorted. It needs correction. It still has a 
commodity designation in it called typewriters. It is not even current.
  Well, I could go on, and Members are thinking, ``He is going to.'' 
But I will say this. This is a tremendous challenge. The House has 
taken up the burden. They secured 300 votes. We in the Senate should 
pay careful attention.
  Let me conclude with what should be obvious to all Members, if not so 
already, is that the struggle is between those who are seeking to keep 
this amendment in a form that can pass this Congress, and those who 
will find every single indirect means to bring it crashing down.
  I applaud the distinguished Senator from West Virginia [Mr. Byrd], 
the very able, venerable conscience of the Senate, for his 
forthrightness and courage in opposing the balanced budget amendment. 
Subterfuges are not for him. Deception and chicanery are not his tools. 
He is right out front. He openly declares his opposition to this 
amendment, honestly lays himself out to the judgment of his 
constituents, makes his argument, and states his reasons for opposition 
as his means of fighting hard against the passage of the amendment.
  But it is my view that the greatest danger comes from those who will 
be tripped up in supporting, with all good intention, any number of 
amendments that will be offered as a means of peeling away the two-
thirds majority support that the amendment must have. Members will see 
those. And the House protected itself against those carve-outs.
  Make no mistake: We will kill the balanced budget amendment if we 
pass any modification that will leave us with a resolution where we 
cannot secure the necessary two-thirds in both the Senate and the House 
and we must not do that.
  Let me put it quite bluntly: A vote to exempt Social Security from 
the balanced budget amendment is a vote to kill the balanced budget 
amendment; a vote to include a tax limitation is a vote to kill the 
balanced budget amendment. I am not talking about motives here. I am 
speaking of the serious practical effects. That is what will happen if 
these modifications pass. A vote to create a capital budget is a vote 
to kill the balanced budget amendment. Those issues have been tested, 
fought over already in the House, and in the Senate for years in the 
Judiciary Committee. We want to send the balanced budget amendment to 
the States for ratification. We need to keep it in a form we know to 
have the requisite support. Every supporter of the balanced budget 
amendment needs to clearly understand this, as there is little margin 
for error at this stage of the game.
  To those who assert that the balanced budget amendment would impose a 
terribly unfair burden on individual States as the Federal Government 
pares down its spending, I make two 
[[Page S1993]] points in response, in final response. First, we just 
completed action on the unfunded mandates legislation. This is the best 
ever protection of its kind for State budgets. Second, it seems to me 
that the States are in the best position to decide that, after all, and 
this must be ratified by the States; three-fourths of them have to 
decide that they want this. They are far better custodians of their own 
interests than we could ever be.
  So, Mr. President, I look forward to vigorous and healthy debate. I 
think we have begun this on this issue of central importance to our 
country. I have great enthusiasm for this one, albeit a bit of a 
personal stake. I personally assumed the ill-advised and totally 
politically incorrect responsibility of charting out just how I would 
get this country's fiscal house in order during the coming decades. It 
is enclosed with the Entitlements Commission report. Members may ask me 
for a copy, and I shall send it to Members in a brown, unmarked 
envelope so Members need not know that we are really proposing some 
dramatic things. No one will know Members received it. And there is 
nothing I would enjoy more than some added company in the suicide 
mission, however involuntarily compelled. I seek your assistance if 
this earnest effort.
  I thank my colleague, and I yield the floor.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for the recognition. I 
do not plan to take a long time in my remarks here on our 
constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. I want to thank the 
distinguished Senator from Illinois [Ms. Moseley-Braun] for her 
cooperation in allowing me to go forward. I want also to commend her 
for her very fine statement on the balanced budget on Tuesday.
  Mr. President, the election of 1994 was more than the usual biennial 
contest for seats in the Congress. It was, in effect, a national 
referendum. The American people made a historic choice between more 
government and less government. They chose the latter--less government. 
Their message to us could not have been more clear. They want 
fundamental changes in the way the Congress conducts business.
 And the most important change they want is in the way we spend their 
money.

  Every Member of Congress knows that the public wants a balanced 
budget amendment to the Constitution. Poll after poll shows that. The 
only question is whether we will give them what they want.
  I think we will. I am convinced that no matter how ferocious the 
opposition, the time has finally come when the Congress will submit a 
balanced budget amendment to the States.
  I do not say that as boast or bravado because the drive for a 
balanced budget amendment is not something for which we can take 
credit. I do not think any of us in Washington can.
  If there has ever been a grassroots crusade, this is it. If ever the 
American people were determined to take the future back into their 
hands, I think it is now. That is the reason the House has already 
passed the joint resolution for a balanced budget amendment to the 
Constitution, the one we are debating now, by an overwhelming vote of 
300 to 133. That was a bipartisan vote, or rather, it was nonpartisan. 
After a lot of debate, after rejecting some tough amendments, and after 
resisting pressure from all the usual special interest groups, 300 
Congressmen voted for this balanced budget amendment.
  I hope the amendment will have the same broad support in the Senate. 
Even if, in the past, most of the votes have come from this side of the 
aisle, it is obvious that there is support for it on the other side as 
well. There is support for a balanced budget amendment from Republicans 
and Democrats, from conservatives, moderates, and liberals. And we 
should come together, after full debate, vote on this issue and pass 
it.
  The reason for the amendment's broad support, both in the Congress 
and most importantly among the public, is that it is no longer just a 
fiscal issue, no longer an accounting question. More than anything 
else, it has become a moral issue with the American people. It has 
become a question of what we are doing to our children and our 
grandchildren--leaving them a monstrous national debt of some $4 
trillion, a debt that will eventually crush the life out of their 
economy and the spirit out of their enterprise.
  There will be those who will say, ``Well, how did we get here? Why 
didn't you fix this problem in the eighties? Why didn't we do more in 
the seventies?'' We can debate that and we can point back, but I am 
reluctant to do that. A lot of us in this Chamber have to take some of 
the blame. I think we all do, especially those of us who have been here 
more than a couple of years.
  So I am not trying to say the blame should go back to President 
Carter or President Reagan or President Bush or a Democrat Congress, or 
to the Appropriations Committee in the House or the Senate. That is 
past. Let us talk about how we can go forward and get control of the 
insatiable appetite that we have developed over the last 40 years to 
spend and spend and spend. It is really that simple.
  We cannot fix the deficit this year or in 2 years or in 3 years. But 
we have to begin sometime, someplace. Now is the time, and this is the 
place. We can get the budget on a glidepath toward balance over a 
period of years.
  The number of years it takes is not as important as the fact that we 
get started.
  Thomas Jefferson summed up the matter two centuries ago. This is not 
one of his more familiar quotes, but I think it is important that 
Thomas Jefferson, in retrospect, thought it was a mistake not to 
include a balanced budget requirement in the Constitution. This is what 
he wrote:

       The question of whether one generation has the right to 
     bind another by the deficit it imposes is a question of such 
     fundamental importance as to place it among the fundamental 
     principles of the government. We should consider ourselves 
     unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts and morally 
     bound to pay them ourselves.

  Those are powerful words from Mr. Jefferson. And when I said, a 
minute ago, that the deficit is more than an accounting problem or a 
fiscal problem, I was echoing Jefferson's observation that we are 
morally bound to pay, ourselves, the debts that we incur and not dump 
them off on our children. That is what is involved here.
  Jefferson's advice has fallen on deaf ears in Congress, at least for 
the last several decades. Even when the Republican economic program of 
the early 1980's launched the longest peacetime economic expansion in 
our country's history, with a tremendous increase in revenues for the 
Federal Government, the Congress--and perhaps the executive branch as 
well--managed to spend all that new money and still go deeper into 
debt.
  For the last 2 years, some people have been trying to revise history 
by making the decade of the eighties a bad time. But in fact, the 
eighties were prosperous. A tremendous explosion of additional revenue 
came into the Treasury. And with it, we should have been able to 
control the deficit. But we did not do so because we kept spending even 
more. Every time we got more revenue, we would spend more money.
  We all go home to our States, counties, and cities and they say, 
``Can you help us with the water system?'' ``Can you help us with 
another highway project?'' ``Can you help us with more funds for this 
good program or that good program?"
  We all say, ``Gee, you're right.'' We want to do that. So we come 
back up here and want to give them everything they want. But in 
fairness, it should also be our responsibility to balance the books. We 
have forgotten that part.
  It is not as if we have not had enough revenue. We have had ever-
increasing revenue every year. But in search of even more revenues, 
Congress raised taxes in 1982, in 1984, in 1987, in 1989, in 1990, and 
most recently in 1993 with a whopping $241 billion hike. Through it 
all, spending outran those revenue increases.
  I voted for some of those tax increases because I thought, if the 
people want all these expenditures, then we have to pay for them. So I 
voted for the tax increases in 1982 and 1984 and, I recall, reluctantly 
in 1987. But then I said, ``Wait a minute, I'm not doing this anymore. 
Every time I vote that way, it doesn't help reduce the deficit. We just 
spend even more.'' So I did not vote for a tax increase in 1990 when 
George Bush was President, and I did not vote for it in 1993 when Bill 
Clinton 
[[Page S1994]] was President. I decided that more revenue would not 
help to control spending or reduce the deficit. We would just spend it.
  Time and again Congress promised to reform, lamely requiring a 
balanced budget at sometime in the future. We had Gramm-Rudman. I voted 
for that. I thought it would work. What did we do? We started off 
saying, ``Look, we can't have it apply to this program or that 
program,'' and after a while, 21 programs were exempt. I was in the 
gang of 17 in the eighties when we tried to get control of spending. We 
had the Fort Belvoir exercise in budget control. That didn't work 
either.
  So time and time again we in Congress have tried to do it ourselves, 
to find a procedure to make it happen. It did not work. Those votes we 
had did not do any good. The debt continued to increase to the point 
that interest payments alone are costing us $230 billion in the current 
fiscal year.
  It would be nice to think, Mr. President, that everyone on Capitol 
Hill has learned their lesson and that things will be different from 
here on. That is what Lucy tells Charlie Brown every time she pulls 
away the football and he lands flat on his back. Sooner or later, even 
Charlie Brown may run out of trust. The American people certainly have, 
and they said so last November. We fooled them too many times. That was 
the real meaning of the 1994 elections.
  In simplest of terms, the public took back the football. Now they are 
demanding a permanent structural change in official Washington. They 
will not be content with superficial adjustments. Who can blame them? 
The Congress has not balanced the budget in a quarter of a century--
since 1969. And without the discipline of the balanced budget 
amendment, I do not see any prospect of our doing it any time soon.
  In recent years, poll after poll showed the public's poor regard for 
the Congress. And yet, just recently our positive polling numbers 
doubled, from the 20's to the 40's. What has happened in the last 2 or 
3 months that caused the approval rating of the Congress to go up?
  I found out this past weekend when I went home. I went to Hernando, 
MS, to Grenada, Carroll County, and Cleveland. You know why people are 
pleased with us now? Because they think we are beginning to do some of 
the things they want us to do.
  Now, they are still dubious. They want to see action, not just words. 
But they like better what they see us talking about. They like the fact 
that we are doing more things in a bipartisan way, and that maybe we 
can work with the President. That's progress.
  In recent years this institution, in my opinion, has been viewed as 
the pickpocket at the parade. When we do business, the cheering stops. 
We have to change that image.
  This balanced budget amendment is our best means to set things 
aright. It will do more than restore fiscal sanity to the Congress. It 
will go a long way toward restoring the trust of the American people in 
their institutions of Government. That task is probably even more 
urgent than balancing the budget, although I think that is an important 
part of regaining that trust.
  I realize that amending the Constitution is not a casual exercise. I 
struggled with that. It is a last resort, sometimes a desperate resort, 
when all else has failed. That is the case with the amendment before 
us.
  Many of us in Congress, both in the House and Senate, have worked 
over the years to stop, or at least slow down the spiral of debt. We do 
not have much to show for our work. In the same way, the American 
people have tried by protest and petition, by their voices and their 
votes, to discipline the appetite of the Federal establishment, to 
restrain its growth and limit its intrusion into their lives.
  Those ways have not worked. So now we have no recourse. If the 
Congress would be fiscally restrained no other way, by either honor or 
common sense, then let it forever be bound by a constitutional 
amendment.
  If we want the people to trust us, we have to trust the people. We 
have to trust their judgment about this amendment. Remember, they will 
make the final decisions as to whether it becomes a part of the 
Constitution. Our vote here will only give the States the opportunity 
to vote. The State legislatures, on behalf of the people, decide 
whether the language we have before us actually goes into the 
Constitution.
  Sometimes they surprise us. If we get carried away, the States do not 
ratify the amendments we send them. Recall that after the equal rights 
amendment passed the Congress, and even after Congress gave it a 
legally dubious extension of time to seek ratification, it did not get 
the approval of three-quarters of the States.
  The last constitutional amendment Congress approved, giving the 
District of Columbia the same voting representation in Congress as the 
States, failed miserably. Only a handful of States ratified it.
  So if we do not deal with this amendment in the right way, the States 
will simply not approve it. They will not rubberstamp the balanced 
budget amendment or any other constitutional amendment we send them.
  There are those who are going to say, ``Show me how you are going to 
balance the budget. You say you are for a balanced budget amendment. 
Show me your cards.'' I think we could turn that around and say, ``Show 
me how you are going to do it if we do not pass a balanced budget 
amendment.'' We have been going through that exercise for years. We 
cannot bind future Congresses. Budget projections are so unreliable, we 
can barely depend on them for a year or two, much less through the 
decade ahead. So much always depends on things we cannot know at the 
present. We cannot say with great detail what money will be required 
for defense or welfare or disaster relief in the future. We just have 
to get started. But there has to be a hammer, and this constitutional 
amendment for a balanced budget is the hammer.
  That is all the more reason to keep the language of this amendment 
clean. It is not a mere law, which we could come back to in a month and 
amend. If ratified, it will be a part of the most remarkable political 
document in history: the Constitution of the United States.
  That political treasure should not be made to read like a section of 
the Code of Federal Regulations, citing chapter and verse of various 
programs. Attempts along those lines are rightly suspect when they come 
from those who, for years or for decades, played key roles in running 
up the staggering deficits we now face.
  The Federal deficit is like a fire consuming our national prosperity. 
And now the barnburners want to tell everybody else how to put out the 
flames and where to aim the hoses.
  Their advice has a hollow ring. It seems designed to insulate the 
Federal spending machine, not any particular program. No one should be 
surprised at that. The special interests that have, for so long, 
dominated the Government's budget do not want to leave their places at 
the public trough. So they are fighting this amendment with every 
diversion, every red herring they can devise.
  Those liberal lobbies had their chance to appeal to the American 
people last fall, but the voters resoundingly rejected their case. That 
is why we are now considering this amendment: Because the Federal gravy 
train stops here.
  I realize that, to some of my colleagues, the balanced budget 
amendment must seem like a repudiation of their entire career, negating 
their lifetime in public office. So be it. We are guaranteed a 
favorable place in history only when we write it ourselves. This time 
around, others are doing the drafting.
  Some may find comfort in the past, when it was political summertime, 
and the spending was easy. But those days are over. The American people 
are looking to the future, and they are determined to shape it their 
way, this time around.
  The balanced budget amendment is one instrument for doing that. It 
should not be delayed, or stalled, or stonewalled. But if it is, we can 
take the time, days or weeks, with the Nation watching and listening.
  After all, it took us decades to get this far. And with all due 
respect to my colleagues who oppose the balanced budget amendment, I 
say, in the words of the old song, ``we ain't gonna let nobody turn us 
round.''
   [[Page S1995]] I feel sure I will be back in the Chamber before we 
finish on this amendment to speak again. But we have a great 
opportunity here. The amendment is the responsible thing to do. There 
may be efforts to distract us, and there are of course legitimate 
concerns as well, but let us keep our eyes on the ball. If you are for 
the balanced budget amendment, you should vote for the balanced budget 
amendment, rather than finding excuses to oppose. There will not be any 
place to hide this time. The American people will know who is for it 
and who is against it when we take the vote in a few days.
  Mr. President, in view of the fact there are others on the floor 
waiting to speak, I yield the floor at this time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. Johnston pertaining to the introduction of S. 333 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kyl). The Senator from Illinois is 
recognized.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. I thank the Chair. I thank the Senator from 
Mississippi for his graciousness. I guess because we are on the same 
side on this particular issue it makes it a little easier, and it is a 
delight to have a chance to work in a bipartisan fashion on behalf of 
the balanced budget amendment.

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