[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 8, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2279-S2307]
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 assistant legislative 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 joint resolution.

       Pending:
       Daschle motion to commit the resolution, with instructions 
     to report back forthwith, with Daschle amendment No. 231, to 
     require a budget plan before the amendment takes effect.
       Dole amendment No. 232 (to instructions to commit), to 
     establish that if Congress has not passed a balanced budget 
     amendment to the Constitution by May 1, 1995, within 60 days 
     thereafter, the President shall transmit to Congress a 
     detailed plan to balance the budget by the year 2002.
       Dole amendment No. 233 (to amendment No. 232), in the 
     nature of a substitute.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time between 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. 
shall be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees. 
The Chair recognizes the Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I will manage the time on this side until 
the minority leader appears. I yield to myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. President, this is not an insignificant or an unimportant issue. 
The Senate is debating the issue of whether to change the U.S. 
Constitution and, if so, how to change it.
  The reason we are at this point today is because the country has had 
fiscal policy problems of a very significant nature. We have had very 
significant yearly budget deficits, and we are now bearing a very large 
Federal debt.
  And the question is: What can or should be done about that? I guess 
most people here would not mind very much if we had a very large 
Federal deficit if it resulted from our having to fight a war to 
protect our liberty and freedom. I do not think anyone would complain 
much about floating bonds and going into debt to protect this country 
and to protect freedom and liberty. We would understand that.
  I do not suppose anybody would complain very much about a Federal 
deficit if we spent several hundred billion dollars that we did not 
have and we cured cancer just like that. It would be well worth the 
price. I do not imagine anyone would complain very much of having 
borrowed to do that.
  But that is not what we are doing today. We have operating budget 
deficits year after year after year that represent a very significant 
imbalance between the amount of money we take in and the amount of 
money needed to routinely run the Government and do the things that 
this Government does, including all of the transfer payments and all of 
the programs. And that is the problem. It is not a new problem.
  I understand that in this Chamber when you look at the division of 
the Chamber, some will stand up and decide to boast, ``Gee, we're the 
conservatives, we're the ones who want to help the taxpayer and save 
the money and save the country, and you all, you're the liberals, 
you're the ones who want to tax and spend.''
  Total baloney, total nonsense. There is not a plugged nickel's worth 
of difference between the appetite for spending the taxpayers' money on 
that side of the aisle as opposed to this side of the aisle. That side 
of the aisle wants to spend it on military; we want to spend it on milk 
for hungry kids. The fact is, you look at the record in 15 years and I 
guarantee you will discover not any significant difference at all in 
terms of the appetite about how much money the two sides want to spend. 
Oh, they have different priorities, no question about that. They want 
to spend it on different things. But they all have the appetite for 
spending.
  But we do not have an appetite to raise the money for that which we 
spend. So the question is, what do we do about that? The answer is, we 
cannot spend that which we do not have. We have to cut back. We have to 
deal with that honestly. We have to make tough choices, and that is why 
we come to this juncture.
  Tough choices are choices that often persuade Members of this body 
and the other body in our legislative branch to gnash their teeth and 
sweat profusely and wring their hands and worry and not sleep because 
they are tough votes, they are awful choices. People think that 
somebody is going to be angry, maybe I will lose my job. If that is the 
attitude, one ought not serve here. These are not tough choices. These 
are issues you look at and decide what is right for this country, what 
makes sense, what must we do to fix what is wrong.
  Every day that I serve in this Senate, I am proud of that service, 
and some days I rue the fact that there are many who decide that public 
service is unworthy and Government somehow is corrupt and evil and bad 
and cast those kinds of aspersions. I am proud of my service here. I 
think public service is a wonderful undertaking.
  Mine comes, I suppose, from a family history and background. I was 
reading last evening something my brother, who is a journalist, had 
written about my ancestors. One of them was a great-grandmother named 
Carolyn and a great-grandfather named Otto. They got married in Oslo, 
Norway, and moved to Minnesota. They had eight children. Then Otto 
died, and Carolyn, 
[[Page S2280]]  living in Minnesota with eight children and a husband 
who just died, apparently contemplated what to do in life.
  What Carolyn did was respond to something that the Federal Government 
did. The Federal Government said to the people, ``If you are willing to 
move into a homestead out on the Great Plains, we will give you a 
quarter section of land. If you want to go out and claim it, go farm 
it, go live on it, we will give you a quarter section of land.''
  So Carolyn with all these children, a husband just died, moved to 
North Dakota, Cherry Butte Township, ND, and pitched a tent on the 
prairie with her kids. This strong Norwegian woman homesteaded a 
quarter section of land and built herself a house and built herself a 
farm, raised a family and had a son who had a son who had me. And here 
I am.
  I think of the strength of someone like Carolyn, and all of us have 
these folks in our background. Tough choices? I suppose that is a tough 
choice, losing your husband and deciding to move to pitch a tent on the 
winter prairies of North Dakota with your children to try to start and 
build a farm and make a go of it. That is a tough choice. These are not 
tough choices.
  When we decide that we do not have the strength and we do not have 
the will to do the fundamental things that are necessary to protect and 
preserve and nurture this country's future, then something is wrong 
with all of us.
  So I come to the floor today to say on this question there ought not 
be a serious question about whether we do something about this 
crippling budget deficit. That question ought not be asked anymore. 
Anybody who is still asking that question deserves to go out the other 
side of that door.
  The question is what and how, and that is what the amendment is about 
today. The amendment we are going to vote on in a couple of hours does 
not say we do not want to balance the budget. It does not say we should 
not have a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. I have voted 
for a constitutional amendment to balance the budget in the past. I did 
not come here thinking we ought to do that, but I was persuaded over 
the years by Republicans and Democrats, yes, conservatives and 
liberals, who ratcheted up year after year deficit after deficit. I 
have been persuaded that any additional discipline, any additional 
incentive that requires balance is something I would support.
  But we come today to vote on a constitutional amendment to balance 
the budget, and the question many of us ask is, is this just one more 
empty promise? Because, if it is, the pail is full of those, and the 
American people can hardly lift it anymore. Or does this have some 
strength and some meat? Is this honest? Is this going to lead to a plan 
that actually balances the budget?
  Why do we ask? We ask because those who propose this, those who say 
let us change the Constitution, let us improve on the work of 
Washington and Madison and Franklin and Jefferson and others who 
contributed to the Constitution, they say: ``We want to do a couple 
things. We recognize there is a big deficit in this country, but we 
want to do a couple things. One, we want to cut the income by cutting 
taxes and, two, we want to increase defense spending.''
  It is logical for those who took simple arithmetic that if you are 
going to increase the biggest area of public spending and decrease your 
revenue, one might be willing, and probably required, to ask then how 
are you going to get to a balanced budget? What is your plan? Or is 
this another empty vessel, one more broken promise? Is this just 
politics?
  We have offered an amendment that is called the right-to-know 
amendment, and we are just saying that in this country, if this is not 
an empty promise, if this is not an empty vessel, then somebody must 
have a plan that says we can cut taxes and increase defense spending 
and by the year 2002 find a balanced budget out there.
  I hope we can find a balanced budget by the year 2002, and I plan to 
be part of the solution to do that. I may vote for this constitutional 
amendment to balance the budget, but I do not understand why anyone in 
this Chamber would vote against this amendment called the right-to-know 
amendment.
  One prominent Member of Congress says, ``Well, if the American people 
understood what this means, it would make their knees buckle.'' Does he 
know something that I do not know? Does he know what the plan is? Is 
there a mystery plan there someplace that he is aware of that is going 
to make people's knees buckle? If so, I wonder if he shared it with the 
Presiding Officer. He has not shared it with me. I suspect he has not 
shared it with you.
  The question is, I guess, is there a plan out there someplace? Is 
there a mystery plan floating around that is going to make people's 
knees buckle? If so, let us hear it, let us have it, let us debate it, 
let us discuss it.
  I remember a television commercial--one of my favorites--about 
chicken. The television commercial was a customer that came up to the 
counter and wanted to know what was in these chicken nuggets. The 
person at the counter said, ``Well, its chicken.''
  ``Well, what kind of chicken?''
  ``Chicken parts,'' they said.
  ``Well, what kinds of chicken parts?''
  And the person behind the counter said, ``Different parts.''
  I wonder what is in a plan in the minds of those who propose to 
balance the budget, mystery meat of some type?
  Could they share it with us, maybe? How do you get from here to 
there? Does anybody who took arithmetic understand you cannot increase 
your biggest area of spending, cut your revenue, and get from here to 
there?
  I do not understand what they are telling us. So we are saying if 
this is more than an empty promise, let us fill it up a bit. Let us say 
to the American people here is what we are going to do, and here is how 
we are going to do it.
  If we are not willing to do that, what we are saying is this is 
business as usual. This is not about policy. This is not about 
substance. This is about politics. And if this is about politics, then 
this is not about balancing the budget. This is not about doing what we 
ought to do for this country's future.
  So when we discuss the document that begins with ``We the People,'' 
and we decide we want to change a few words here and there, we are 
going to try and sort of monkey around a little bit because we have had 
a lot of people over a long period of years who have not had the 
courage to say you can only spend what you take in, when we discuss 
that and decide that, I wonder if we cannot begin to discuss what that 
would mean in practical terms for the American people.
  We are going to have a task here that is pretty ominous, actually. 
But I for one think it is a task we must undertake.
  Last evening, I was looking through this sheet, which does not mean 
much to anybody. It is a sheet by the Congressional Budget Office that 
plots out for 10 years what our spending and taxing and deficits will 
be. What this sheet says, to the extent that you can forecast out 10 
years--it is kind of like forecasting the weather in North Dakota, a 
little uncertain. But what this says is at the current rate, with the 
current plan, we are talking about the potential of adding $4.3 
trillion to the Federal debt--$4.3 trillion. If anybody thinks that we 
do not have a problem, just look at all the projections and understand 
we do not have any alternative. We have to deal with this. However, we 
cannot deal with it just as a political issue. We have to deal with it 
in a real way.
  Now, we are going to have an amendment following this one on Social 
Security. I do not want five reasons that someone would vote against 
either the right-to-know amendment or the Social Security amendment. I 
would just like one decent reason, just one. There is only one reason 
someone would vote against a right-to-know amendment, I suppose, and 
that is because they have no plan and you cannot get there from here. 
You cannot be saying I wish to increase spending, and I want to cut 
revenue, and I wish to balance the budget.
  So we have a right to know. The American people have a right to know. 
How can you know something that cannot be accomplished? I guess that is 
why we do not have a plan. But if this is honest, if it is real, if it 
is not just an empty promise, then why would someone vote against this 
right-to-know amendment? Why? And the next 
[[Page S2281]]  amendment, the Social Security amendment, saying we 
take Social Security out of paychecks in a dedicated tax and put it in 
a trust fund. We say we promise, in a promise between the people who 
work and the people who retire in a binding contract, we promise to 
maintain a trust fund as a solemn obligation. We promise that it will 
be used for Social Security.
  Why--just one reason, not five--would anyone vote against an 
amendment that says you cannot use Social Security trust funds, you 
cannot raid Social Security trust funds to balance the budget? It has 
not added 1 cent to the budget deficit. In fact, it is running a 
surplus. To the extent that we now have national savings extracted from 
that system, we need them when the baby boomers retire. So I am not 
asking for five reasons, just one decent reason someone would vote 
against either of these amendments.
  Now, we will in the coming hours this morning continue to discuss 
what all of this means in terms of balancing the budget and plans and 
the ultimate vote on the constitutional amendment. And I would like, if 
I can--I know that we are in a situation where we do not have very 
thoughtful or very interesting debates, unfortunately. I think it would 
be more fun if we all talked to each other on the floor and figured out 
what we are doing. Is it political for you and me? Is it policy?
  The Senator from Utah is here, and I have listened to him at great 
length, and I would like to engage in a dialog with him if we could for 
a couple of minutes.
  We propose that if we say as a body, maybe with my vote, that we 
should change the Constitution, it is a big step. If we say that and we 
should therefore balance the budget by the year 2002, we say we have an 
obligation to the American people, to the State legislatures, to 
everyone out there to decide to give them some skeleton of a plan. Here 
is the way it is going to happen in 7 years.
  Now, some say, well, it cannot be done in 7 years. We have a 5-year 
budget. Well, why not give us five-sevenths of the plan? Just give us a 
part of it. We will take a fraction.
  I would ask the Senator, if I could, without losing my right to the 
floor, what prevents some in this Chamber from believing the American 
people have a right to know?
  Mr. HATCH. That is a good question. I do not think anybody knows 
except for one thing. We have had over 10 plans offered by colleagues 
on both sides of the aisle, some together as bipartisan plans that 
would lead us to a balanced budget by the year 2002.
  The problem is not 1 of those 10 plans has 51 votes. And we have 
worked on trying to come up with some way of satisfying everybody from 
a balanced budget standpoint for the whole 19 years I have been here, 
and we have not been able to do that.
  Our contention is that we will never do that unless we pass the 
balanced budget amendment and put a fiscal mechanism in place so that 
literally we can balance the budget.
  I just cite to the distinguished Senator a very interesting article 
that appeared in the Washington Times just this morning. It is entitled 
``Social Security and the balanced budget.''
  Now, the thrust of it is to criticize those who believe that you 
should exclude Social Security out of the balanced budget amendment; in 
other words, write a statute into the balanced budget amendment. But it 
does make a very interesting point here. This is by David Keating.

       During the Vietnam war, an American officer was quoted 
     saying we had to destroy the village in order to save it. Now 
     the U.S. Senate may apply similar logic when it votes on a 
     proposal to add a huge loophole to the Balanced Budget 
     Amendment, supposedly to save Social Security.

  Mr. DORGAN. All right, I get the drift.
  Mr. HATCH. But the point I wanted to make--let me just take a second 
here. There was a point on this----
  Mr. DORGAN. But I understand the point the Senator has made, and I do 
not want to----
  Mr. HATCH. Let me conclude with just one more sentence to answer the 
Senator's question.
  The fact is we have never been able to do it up to now, and there is 
no way that we should hold the amendment hostage, assuming we pass it 
by a two-thirds vote and send it to the States, there is no reason why 
we should hold it hostage until we take another 18 years to try to get 
together on a balanced budget without the balanced budget amendment 
being in place.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I understand the point the Senator from 
Utah makes. It is an interesting point. The reason I ask the question 
is this. The Senator's party controls the Senate. We understand that. I 
mean I was up election night and saw the results. I did not smile as 
broadly as the Senator did perhaps, but the fact is that is the way the 
system works.
  Mr. HATCH. It is all relative.
  Mr. DORGAN. Republicans control the Senate. Now, when we controlled 
the Senate, we passed a deficit reduction bill in 1993. It was a hard 
bill, in many respects, to get votes for. But we rounded up votes for 
it and, with 51 votes, passed a bill that, the statistics now 
demonstrate, cut the budget deficit by somewhere around $600 billion.
  We did not even get one accidental vote on the other side of the 
aisle. You think somebody would just make a mistake over there. But I 
tell you, it took every single vote that we could muster on this side 
of the aisle to do what was necessary. This is heavy lifting. The 
political vote, the easy vote is to vote ``no'' and walk away. But we 
did not. We did it. We voted to cut the deficit in a significant way, 
and I went home and took a lot of heat, and I was proud to stand up and 
say I am not part of the problem, I am part of the solution. Even if it 
is controversial, even if some of you do not like it, I am going to 
cast my vote to try to fix what is wrong in this country.
  The reason I make that point is this. You say that, well, you know, 
the reason we are not able to give you a plan is we do not think there 
is a plan out there that can get 51 votes.
  Look, part of the responsibility of leadership when you run this 
Chamber is to come up with those votes--and I may join you on those 
votes. But at the very least, especially because of recent experience 
we have had where we could not even get one vote on that side of the 
aisle to do the heavy lifting, I think in this circumstance when you 
say let us change the Constitution, then you have a special obligation 
to provide the leadership to get the votes for a plan to say to the 
American people, here is what we stand for. It is not just words to 
change what Ben Franklin and Madison and others did. It is not just 
words. Here is what we stand for. Here is our plan. And here is what we 
are willing to vote for.
  Mr. HATCH. Will the Senator yield on that?
  Mr. DORGAN. I will be happy to yield.
  Mr. HATCH. I respect the Senator and his Democratic colleagues for 
standing up and doing what they thought was right. We did not think it 
was right because we did not want to increase the taxes the way they 
did--or you did, the highest tax increase in history.
  Mr. FORD. No, no.
  Mr. HATCH. I know there are those who want to say the dollar is worth 
less and, therefore, Reagan's was the highest--therefore, they are both 
high. Both occurred because of people who felt the same way as people 
who voted last time.
  But under the Daschle amendment, what it would do is it would hold 
things up. This is the one time in history where we have a chance of 
passing a balanced budget amendment, sending it to the States, letting 
the States make the determination whether they are going to ratify it, 
three-quarters of them, or 38 States, and make it part of the 
Constitution.
  The Daschle amendment would basically hold that up until we come up 
with a balanced budget approach that passes 535 Members of Congress.
  Mr. FORD. No.
  Mr. HATCH. We think that is not the way to go. We believe we have to 
pass the balanced budget amendment, get it out to the States, and I 
assure my colleague, Republicans and Democrats will get together and we 
will have to come up with that glidepath in the year 2002. I think we 
will have to get a majority of both Houses to do it. That is the only 
way we are going to get there.
  And my point about the last 19 years is that we have never been able 
to do it 
[[Page S2282]] in that time. I want to have the mechanism, the 
procedural route by which we can get there.
  Mr. DORGAN. I understand that and I appreciate the point the Senator 
is making. I understand that is why they are likely to defeat this 
right-to-know amendment--which is a terrible mistake, incidentally, 
because the question of whether this is a real promise or a broken 
promise is really a judgment by the American people about: Is this 
simply more words and more posturing, more politics, or is there 
something here that is real?
  The interesting point of all this is the American people, I think, 
are pretty resilient and pretty strong. You go through 200 years of 
history in this country, and they move right to left but they always 
come back to the strong center. And they have a good sense of what is 
right or wrong and a good sense of what ought to be done.
  Mr. HATCH. I agree.
  Mr. DORGAN. The fact is the American people are a lot more able to 
tolerate the kinds of medicine that need to be administered these days 
than most people here give them credit for. But I think they do want to 
know. They want to know if someone says: ``Look, we have the votes. We 
want to go off and build star wars. We know that is out of fashion, but 
it is not out of fashion with us. We want a star wars program. It is 
$30 billion, $40 billion. We want to build it because we have the 
muscle.''
  Somebody back home will want to know, if you are going to build star 
wars, does that mean you are going to cut school hot lunch programs? 
They want to know what all this means, and those are simple issues. 
What are the priorities?
  You can look back 100 years from now in this country and look at this 
country's budget and you can tell something about what our people were, 
what we felt was important, what we invested in, what we considered 
important for the future. You could tell that by what we decided to 
spend money on.
  The American people, I think, given 18 or 20 years of promises--most 
of them empty--by both parties, given complicity in arranging this 
deficit by creating a situation where we spend more each year than we 
take in because we ratchet up all the entitlement programs to inflation 
and we ratchet down taxes on the other side so you create an 
imbalance--I think the people would want to say if this is not business 
as usual, if it is not really business as usual, why, then, are there 
not, this time, honest answers? Why are there not honest answers to the 
questions of what will this mean to us?
  Mr. HATCH. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. DORGAN. What is this medicine about? I would say to the Senator 
from Utah, we have limited time. I probably consumed a few more minutes 
than I should have on my side. I would love to continue this. I hope we 
can have it when we do not have a time agreement, at some other time, 
because I would like to talk through some of these things. With that, I 
would like to----
  Mr. HATCH. If the Senator will yield on my time?
  Mr. DORGAN. I will be happy to yield on the Senator's time, sure.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HATCH. I think the Senator is making a terrific case for the 
balanced budget amendment. I know he is a supporter of it. So I commend 
him for that as well.
  He makes the case that we are going to spend billions on star wars, 
will that take away from school lunches? Right now we just fund both of 
them because we do not have to live within any procedural or any 
disciplined constraints.
  The balanced budget, if we pass it, then becomes the discipline 
through which we are going to have to look at defense as well as 
everything else and we are going to have to somehow or other come to a 
conclusion among competing programs and make priorities. I think it 
would force us to do that. Of course, that is the whole argument for a 
balanced budget amendment, and I think the Senator is making a good 
case for it.
  I guarantee I will work with the distinguished Senator and others to 
try to get to that consensus, but until we get the discipline in place, 
we will never get there and we know it and everyone knows it.
  Mr. DORGAN. My intention was to make a strong case for the right-to-
know amendment, and I hope we will get some votes on the other side of 
the aisle to pass that. That will make this constitutional amendment an 
honest amendment, give people some hope that instead of talking about 
it, we will finally get something done.
  Mr. President, I have consumed some time on our side of the aisle. We 
have a number of other people who want to speak. I know we have been 
going back and forth.
  I yield to the Senator from Kentucky.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, how much time remains on our side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kempthorne). The minority has 36 minutes.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
distinguished Senator from Wisconsin, Senator Feingold, have up to 10 
minutes and the distinguished Senator from the State of Washington, 
Senator Murray, have up to 5 minutes of our 36 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Chair recognizes the Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I also rise to support this amendment. I 
offered a similar version of the right-to-know amendment, the glidepath 
amendment, in the proceedings in the Senate Judiciary Committee. I 
thought it was the best discussion we had in the committee after a 
couple of days of discussion. I thought the discussion on the right-to-
know amendment was really the most thoughtful and the one that really 
crystallized the issue.
  In at least two important ways, this is the truth amendment. First, 
in one sense the amendment is a truth test. If the supporters of this 
constitutional amendment are serious about balancing the budget, this 
amendment is the one that really provides that opportunity. The central 
concern I have had with the proposed balanced budget amendment is that 
it will actually undercut our efforts to reduce the deficit and balance 
the budget by just providing political cover for those who are 
unwilling to make these really tough decisions. Having voted for the 
balanced budget amendment, I fear Members will feel free to duck the 
real work of actually identifying and voting for real spending cuts and 
they will be able to continue to do this ducking of the issue as the 
States go through the rather laborious process of trying to see if they 
are going to ratify this thing in the next year or 2 or 7 years.
  Of course, supporters of the constitutional amendment deny this 
assertion. They proclaim loudly they will seek specific cuts and we 
just have to wait and see what they might be. This amendment to the 
balanced budget amendment, this right-to-know amendment, provides those 
who are genuinely interested in ensuring the Congress does its job with 
the opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to real deficit 
reduction. It does what the proponents of a balanced budget amendment 
contend they want to do. This amendment forces Congress to get the job 
done. It forces Congress to lay out over the next 5 or 6 or 7 years, 
exactly how we are going to accomplish this.
  Except, Mr. President, the good thing about this amendment that 
cannot be said about the balanced budget amendment is that the right-
to-know amendment does not allow delay and evasion. It does not let the 
104th Congress off the hook by simply passing an amendment, a balanced 
budget amendment, that does not lay out a single spending cut. The last 
Congress made substantial progress in reducing the budget deficits that 
have been generated by the budget policies of the 1980's. That progress 
was made because the 103d Congress was willing to lay out and have a 
very difficult process of discussing specific items to reduce the 
deficit. It was not easy. It was not always popular. But it was 
specific and it worked and the economy is sound and ultimately the 
efforts of the President and the majority at that time have been 
accepted by the American people.
  Now there is a new majority, a new leadership in Congress. As is so 
often the case when there is a change in the ruling party, that new 
majority promises great change. On the first bill we considered in this 
Congress we were told very bluntly there would be no 
[[Page S2283]] amendments no matter how reasonable, no matter how 
necessary, because, in the words of the new majority and in the words 
of one Senator, it was because this is about who runs this place.
  But when is the majority going to show us how they plan to reduce the 
deficit? In other words, when are they going to show us how they are 
going to run the place when it comes to balancing the budget? That is 
part of running the place.
  Why is it the new Congress, from which all things are supposedly 
possible, is apparently incapable of providing us with a plan to reduce 
the deficit? Mr. President, a majority of those supporters of this 
proposed amendment who were here in 1993--and I am referring to the 
balanced budget amendment--refused to support the deficit reduction 
package that was passed and that has resulted in progress.
  I remember the discussion in the Judiciary Committee of the Senator 
from Wyoming, Senator Simpson, who referred to past votes when the 
Republicans were in the majority, which he called times when the rubber 
hit the road. He said the Democrats were not there to help.
  In 1993, the rubber hit the road here; $500 billion in deficit 
reduction was proposed and passed, and not one single Republican in 
either House chose to vote for those specific spending cuts.
  That is, unfortunately, the only way this can be accomplished, 
identifying what has to be cut and actually doing it.
  So I understand that nobody necessarily has to assign any particular 
plan. But if you are going to propose a balanced budget amendment I 
think you have a special burden to at least show us some plan with 
regard to how it is going to be accomplished.
  Mr. President, I said there were two ways this was a truth amendment. 
The other is that this is the truth-in-packaging measure. The voters, 
local government, and the State legislatures that are asked to ratify 
this amendment are all entitled to know what supporters of the 
constitutional amendment mean to do before they modify the Constitution 
of the United States.
  Looking at the Presiding Officer, one of leaders in this body of 
concern with State and local governments, this is exactly the kind of 
thing that this Senator has talked about--the fact that these folks 
have a right to know what we are up to out here, and that we do not lay 
an unreasonable burden on them in the form of the balanced budget 
amendment.
  Unfortunately, though, the supporters of the balanced budget 
amendment have been very reluctant to provide that kind of information. 
They maintain that to reveal the whole horrible truth to the Congress 
and the public would make it impossible to pass the balanced budget 
amendment.
  Mr. President, I find that kind of reasoning to be a gross 
underestimate of the American people. And it is amazing. It even 
reveals a little bit of an antidemocratic philosophy, and is a little 
bit insulting to the American people. This is a critical point. I 
think, in contrast, supporters of this proposal, instead of giving the 
information, want to alter one of the greatest testaments to democracy 
in history, our Constitution, and they want to do it in a way, they 
freely admit, they say would be opposed by the people if they knew what 
was proposed. The obvious irony of this is also a form of hypocrisy.
  Mr. President, though I oppose the proposed constitutional amendment, 
I am convinced that the failure of the supporters to provide a specific 
proposal and glidepath will actually undermine the efforts to have the 
amendment ratified. Even worse, it may jeopardize the real world, the 
real effort that is required to reduce the deficit. Without a broad-
based consensus, no significant deficit reduction plan would stand. Any 
plan which would generate the opposition that the proponents so 
obviously fear would be overturned, and rightly so, in a democracy.
  So, Mr. President, we will not achieve the broad-based consensus that 
we need by dealing dishonestly with the American people. We have made 
progress on the deficit. I for one believe the American people are 
ready to sacrifice and do more, if they are treated with respect, with 
honesty, and with open Government. I have seen this consistently over 
the last 2 years and when I was running for the Senate. I see it in 
each of the 72 counties of our State, where I hold a listening session 
in each county every year. Most recently, I have seen it in the 
willingness of so many of my constituents. The vast majority of my 
constituents say to me, ``Don't take a tax cut and give it to the 
American people.'' They say, ``Just reduce spending to reduce the 
deficit.'' This is the way the people are talking. They are ready to 
handle this problem, if we are open about it.
  Mr. President, the people of this country are willing to make 
sacrifices to help clean up the mess that was not of their making. The 
very least we can do is to deal honestly with them. That is what this 
amendment does. It provides an honest approach.
  To conclude, Mr. President, the Constitution of the United States is 
still our great national contract. Before we ask people to accept a 
change in that contract, they are entitled to read the fine print.
  So I urge my colleagues on this important vote later today to support 
the Senator from South Dakota and provide the American people the 
information they need so they can go forward with some confidence on 
this issue.
  I thank the Chair.
  Mrs. MURRAY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized for 
up to 5 minutes.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, there is no more important aspect to this debate than 
the amendment put forward by my good friend from South Dakota, the 
minority leader.
  Yesterday, the Budget Committee heard very important testimony from 
Dr. Laura Tyson, the Chair of the President's Council of Economic 
Advisers. Dr. Tyson explained how risky passing this resolution can be 
if we do not know exactly what is going to be cut, how much, and when.
  She outlined for us how dangerous these drastic, irrational cuts can 
be to the current economic expansion. She described how our fiscal 
policy will be ``handcuffed,'' that is her word, not mine, if this 
resolution becomes part of the Constitution.
  I refer our colleagues, Mr. President, to her testimony before the 
Budget Committee yesterday. And, I ask unanimous consent that the text 
of an article by Dr. Tyson in yesterday's Washington Post be made a 
part of the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:
                    It's a Recipe for Economic Chaos

                          (By Laura D. Tyson)

       Continued progress on reducing the deficit is sound 
     economic policy, but a constitutional amendment requiring 
     annual balance of the federal budget is not. The fallacy in 
     the logic behind the balanced budget amendment begins with 
     the premise that the size of the federal deficit is the 
     result of conscious policy decisions. This is only partly the 
     case. The pace of economic activity also plays an important 
     role in determining the deficit. An economic slowdown 
     automatically depresses tax revenues and increases government 
     spending on such programs as unemployment compensation, food 
     stamps and welfare.
       Such temporary increases in the deficit act as ``automatic 
     stabilizers,'' offsetting some of the reduction in the 
     purchasing power of the private sector and cushioning the 
     economy's slide, not be able to moderate the ups and downs of 
     the business cycle on its own as well as it can with the help 
     of the automatic fiscal stabilizers.
       First, monetary policy affects the economy indirectly and 
     with notoriously long lags, making it difficult to time the 
     desired effects with precision. By contrast, the automatic 
     stabilizers of fiscal policy swings into action as soon as 
     the economy begins to slow, often well before the Federal 
     Reserve even recognizes the need for compensating action.
       Second, the Fed could become handcuffed in the event of a 
     major recession--its scope for action limited by the fact 
     that it can push short-term interest rates no lower than 
     zero, and probably not even that low. By historical 
     standards, the spread between today's short rates of 6 
     percent and zero leaves uncomfortably little room for 
     maneuver. Between the middle of 1990 and the end of 1992, the 
     Fed reduced the short-term interest rate it controls by a 
     cumulative total of 5\1/4\ percentage points. Even so, the 
     economy sank into a recession from which it has only recently 
     fully recovered--a recession whose severity was moderated by 
     the very automatic stabilizers of fiscal policy the balanced 
     budget amendment would destroy.
       [[Page S2284]] Third, the more aggressive actions required 
     of the Fed to limit the increase in the variability of output 
     and employment could actually increase the volatility of 
     financial markets--an ironic possibility, given that many of 
     the amendment's proponents may well believe they are 
     promoting financial stability.
       Moreover, they do so quickly and automatically, without the 
     need for lengthy debates about the state of the economy and 
     the appropriate policy response.
       By the same token, when the economy strengthens again, the 
     automatic stabilizers work in the other direction: tax 
     revenues rise, spending for unemployment benefits and other 
     social safety net programs fall, and the deficit narrows.
       A balanced budget amendment would throw the automatic 
     stabilizers into reverse. Congress would be required to raise 
     tax rates or cut spending programs in the face of a recession 
     to counteract temporary increases in the deficit. Rather than 
     moderating the normal ups and downs of the business cycle, 
     fiscal policy would be required to aggravate them.
       A simple example from recent economic history should serve 
     as cautionary tale. In fiscal year 1991, the economy's 
     unanticipated slowdown caused actual government spending for 
     unemployment insurance and related items to exceed the 
     budgeted amount by $6 billion, and actual revenues to fall 
     short of the budgeted amount by some $67 billion. In a 
     balanced-budget world, Congress would have been required to 
     offset the resulting shift of more than $70 billion in the 
     deficit by a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts that 
     by themselves would have sharply worsened the economic 
     downturn--resulting in an additional loss of 1\1/4\ percent 
     of GDP and 750,000 jobs.
       The version of the amendment passed by the House has no 
     special ``escape clause'' for recessions--only the general 
     provision that the budget could be in deficit if three-fifths 
     of both the House and Senate agree. This is a far cry from an 
     automatic stabilizer. It is easy to imagine a well-organized 
     minority in either House of Congress holding this provision 
     hostage to its particular political agenda.
       In a balanced budget world--with fiscal policy enjoined to 
     destabilize rather than stabilize the economy--all 
     responsibility for counteracting the economic effects of the 
     business cycle would be placed at the doorstep of the Federal 
     Reserve. The Fed could attempt to meet this increased 
     responsibility by pushing interest rates down more 
     aggressively when the economy softens and raising them more 
     vigorously when it strengthens.
       Finally, a balanced budget amendment would create an 
     automatic and undesirable link between interest rates and 
     fiscal policy. An unanticipated increase in interest rates 
     would boost federal interest expense and thus the deficit. 
     The balanced budget amendments under consideration would 
     require that such an unanticipated increase in the deficit be 
     offset within the fiscal year!
       In other words, independent monetary policy decisions by 
     the Federal Reserve would require immediate and painful 
     budgetary adjustments. Where would they come from? Not from 
     interest payments and not, with such short notice, from 
     entitlement programs. Rather they would have to come from 
     either a tax increase or from cuts or possible shutdowns in 
     discretionary programs whose funds had not yet been 
     obligated. This is not a sensible way to establish budgetary 
     priorities or maintain the health interaction and 
     independence of monetary and fiscal policy.
       One of the great discoveries of modern economics is the 
     role that fiscal policy can play in moderating the business 
     cycle. Few if any members of the Senate about to vote on a 
     balanced budget amendment experienced the tragic human costs 
     of the Great Depression, costs made more severe by President 
     Herbert Hoover's well-intentioned but misguided efforts to 
     balance the budget. Unfortunately, the huge deficits 
     inherited from the last decade of fiscal profligacy have 
     rendered discretionary changes in fiscal policy in response 
     to the business cycle all but impossible. Now, many of those 
     responsible for the massive run-up in debt during the 1980s 
     are leading the charge to eliminate the automatic stabilizers 
     as well by voting for a balanced budget amendment.
       Instead of undermining the government's ability to moderate 
     the economy's cyclical fluctuations by passing such an 
     amendment, why not simply make the hard choices and cast the 
     courageous votes required to reduce the deficit--the kind of 
     hard choices and courageous votes delivered by members of the 
     103rd Congress when they passed the administration's $505 
     billion deficit reduction package?

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, Dr. Tyson, probably more clearly than 
anyone I have heard in the past few days, explains how dangerous this 
resolution is and why the American people have a right to know what our 
budget will look like before we act on this measure.
  Mr. President, the staff of the Budget Committee prepared an analysis 
of the balanced budget amendment which puts the abstract words of this 
resolution into perspective.
  Now, as you know, Mr. President, the proponents of this resolution 
tell us we must have a balanced budget in the year 2002. But, they 
refuse to tell us how they will achieve that balance. They will not 
level with the American people about what they will cut and what they 
will eliminate. And, Mr. President, the American people have a right to 
know.
  They have a right to know before we pass this amendment how this will 
affect them.
  If we pass this resolution with an exemption for Social Security, 
defense, and some other sensitive programs and if we still enact all 
the tax cuts in the Contract With America, and all of that is possible, 
we will see a 50-percent across-the-board cut in all other programs.
  Is this responsible budgeting, Mr. President? Is this rational? Is 
this common sense? If we put this resolution into action, Mr. 
President, agricultural programs could take a 50-percent cut. So could 
highway funds. We could lose half of our education and job training 
money, and we could lose half of our student loans.
  If the Constitution is amended in this way, and Congress actually 
acts on it, the cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is in 
jeopardy. This is not the way we return security to our Nation, Mr. 
President. And, it is not how we restore the glimmer of hope to our 
children's eyes.
  The radical cuts this amendment will demand will likely fall squarely 
on the backs of the most vulnerable in our society--our children, our 
elderly, our disabled most in need of help.
  And, Mr. President, at a time of uncertainty for all of our working 
families we find this resolution will hurt our workers. The economists 
at Wharton predict Washington State could lose 209,000 jobs the year 
after this amendment takes effect. They predict my State will 
experience a 15-percent drop in total personal income. And, they tell 
me hardest hit will be the manufacturing sector--especially the 
aerospace industry--which is already experiencing massive job losses.
  Mr. President, it is time to level with the American people. If we 
are gong to engage in a discussion of balancing the budget, let's get 
beyond the 10-second sound bites. Let us tell the American people how 
this budget will affect our lives, and their children's lives. Because, 
Mr. President, if we are going to change the Constitution of the United 
States the American people have a right to know exactly how this will 
affect their lives, their security, and their future.
  I retain the balance of my time.
  Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the distinguished 
Senator from New Hampshire.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire is recognized.
  Mr. SMITH. I thank the Senator from Utah for yielding the time.
  Mr. President, as I indicated in previous remarks on the floor in 
this debate on another day, this really is the defining moment. This is 
the opportunity for us to move on balancing the Federal budget. If we 
do not do it during this time when we have the opportunity to pass this 
amendment, it will be the last time. The House has passed it 300 to 
132. It is very close here in the Senate. Some would say that we do not 
have the 67 votes that are required as of now.
  Here we are, out here talking about a right to know, so-called. 
Everyone knows that is a smokescreen. It is dilatory. It is a delay 
tactic to try to stop us from voting on this amendment or to try to 
obfuscate the issue so much that no one will understand what the real 
problems are.
  Here is the real problem, Mr. President. This is the President's 
budget.
  It is interesting that the color is green, and it should be because 
in this budget the President spends one heck of a lot of money. In this 
budget, the President adds, over 5 years, well over $1 trillion more to 
the national debt. The annual deficits run over $200 billion a year, on 
an average, for the next 5 years, adding over $1 trillion to the 
national debt. That is what it says.
  The other side says we need a right to know. Well, what about the 
President of the United States? Why does he not submit to us at least 
something that leads toward a balanced budget? 
[[Page S2285]] He basically has taken a walk and has presented this 
budget. It is green. You know, Mr. President, here is the color it 
should be--red--because it is red ink, more red ink, more red ink, more 
red ink, business as usual, politics as usual. We stand down here on 
the floor and we talk and talk and talk, and the debt goes up and up 
and up, and our children's future is at stake.
  That is what this is all about, Mr. President. Let us face it, that 
is what it is all about. How can the President of the United States, 
with his party on the floor trying to delay this amendment by using 
this phony argument of the right to know, keep a straight face in 
presenting this budget? He ought to replace Jay Leno, for crying out 
loud. It is hysterical. It is so funny that no one could possibly take 
the man seriously. How can you say that?
  If you want further evidence of what this thing is all about on this 
amendment--and I say to my colleague, the floor leader from Utah--I 
remind him because he was very much a participant in this debate a year 
ago, in February 1994, when we had the amendment up here and we lost it 
by three or four votes, as the Senator well remembers. The sponsor of 
this right-to-know amendment by the minority leader of the U.S. Senate 
was on the floor, and it is interesting to hear what he said because he 
supported the amendment in that debate and voted for the balanced 
budget amendment to the Constitution. Here is what he said:

       To remedy our fiscal situation, we must stop spending 
     beyond our means. This will not require the emasculation of 
     important domestic priorities, as some suggest.

  He also said:

       We are building a legacy of debt for our children and our 
     grandchildren and hamstringing our ability to address 
     pressing national priorities.

  And then he said:

       In this debate on a balanced budget amendment, we are being 
     forced to face the consequences of our inaction. Quite 
     simply, we are building a legacy of debt for our children and 
     our grandchildren and hamstringing our ability to address 
     pressing national priorities.

  Here, Mr. President, ironically is what Senator Daschle, the minority 
leader, said on February 28 on the floor of the U.S. Senate about the 
right to know:

       Congress and the President will have 7 years to address the 
     current deficit and reach a consensus on our Nation's budget 
     priorities. We will have time to find ways to live within our 
     means and still meet existing obligations to our citizens, 
     particularly the elderly.

  So you have the sponsor of this amendment on the floor of the Senate 
1 year ago in support of the balanced budget amendment and saying pass 
the amendment and we will lay out the plan and we will work together to 
lay out a plan to balance the budget. That is 180 degrees in reverse of 
where we are today with the Senator from South Dakota with his so-
called right-to-know amendment.
  When are we going to do this? The reason why we need the amendment 
could never be more obvious than it was when the President submitted 
that budget, because we will not do it without the amendment. I want to 
comment for a few moments on this issue of the right to know, because 
it is kind of fascinating. I hear about the public's right to know as 
if we have to know every single item, everything we are going to do 
before we pass the amendment. If Congress wanted to get a balanced 
budget, they would have done it, Mr. President, and we would not need 
the amendment. The reason we need the amendment is because they will 
not do it. That is the reason--because they will not do it.
  Do you know what I think? I think the public has a right to know why 
every child born in America today, even as I speak, is born 
approximately $18,000 in debt. I think that child has a right to know 
why that is happening in this country and what we are going to do about 
it. That is a right to know that I think we ought to have.
  Also, I hear on the floor that we are going to make the tough 
decisions. Give me a break. That is why we need the amendment. We are 
not making the tough decisions, and the President did not make the 
tough decisions in this budget. He did not make the tough decisions. He 
took a walk. That is going to continue to happen until the national 
debt goes right through the roof. It is already fast approaching, or 
will be by the turn of the century, over $6 trillion. Where does it 
stop, at $12, $13, $15, $16, $20, $100 trillion? That is where it is 
going to go if we do not stop. We just have to do it.
  Why would anybody think the American people are going to trust us to 
make those decisions? Why should they? We have never done it. That is 
why 80 percent of them have said over and over again that they support 
an amendment. That is why they said it. That is why they want this 
amendment. And that is why those who do not want it are using these 
delay tactics and phony arguments, because they do not want to make the 
tough decisions.
  In order to force us to do what we have been unwilling to do for the 
past 15 years or longer, we need this amendment.
  Do you know what has been really lost in this debate, beyond the 
right to know? We are forgetting about the American people. They are 
the losers in this debate. Many of my colleagues say, oh, the Governors 
are against it, State legislators will not support it; there will be a 
lot of polls cited next week saying that. The only poll that the 
Framers of the Constitution ever thought about or knew about, as far as 
I am concerned, is whether or not 38 States deem this amendment 
essential and a majority of the House and Senate deem it essential. If 
they do, we will be bound by the Constitution that all of us swore to 
uphold to put our fiscal house in order and, by doing so, we will bring 
some dignity to this body and restore fiscal sanity to this country. 
That is what it is all about, fiscal sanity and dignity.
  How in the world can we call it dignified to roll up trillions of 
dollars more of debt on our children, basically saying I am not going 
to worry about it today, I am going to live the good life and do what I 
have to do, and I am going to pass my debts on to my kids. That is what 
we are doing with trillions of dollars.
  My friends who oppose the amendment speak only of their ability to 
make the tough choices. ``We will make the tough choices,'' they say. I 
heard one of my colleagues say how they made the tough choices. In 
fact, it was said this morning that they made the tough choices in 1993 
in the President's budget. He said, ``No Republican voted for this 
agreement.''
  I remind my colleagues that Republicans were not a party to the 
agreement. We did not have anything to do with negotiating the 
agreement. We were not invited to participate in it. I do not know what 
the discussion was like behind closed doors, nor do any of my 
Republican colleagues know. Do you know what they talked about in those 
meetings and discussions? They did not talk about cutting spending or 
balancing the budget. They talked about, should we raise the top tax 
rate 5, 8, 9 percent? What are we going to raise it to? They talked 
about raising taxes. They talked about, should we make tax increases 
retroactive for 6 months, 1 year, year and a half? How long can we go 
with a millionaires' surtax? Should it be $500,000 or $250,000. That is 
what was going on. There were no talks in those meetings about spending 
cuts or about tough decisions.
  So that is one of the reasons why I believe my friends fear the 
constitutional amendment, those who are opposing it, because they know 
exactly what is going to happen. You will have to cut spending and cut 
the bloated bureaucracy and eliminate outdated programs, and you will 
have to make the tough decisions. That is the truth. They are not ready 
to do it. That is the bottom line.
  I will close on this point. I was very much interested in the story 
in the Washington Post this week regarding Washington, DC. They 
announced they are $722 million in debt. And Mayor Barry is telling us 
in the papers that home rule does not work. He is one of the most noted 
figures in the history of home rule in the District. He is now saying: 
I have to have the Federal Government take over some of the services, 
the prison system, and other programs that he says he cannot maintain. 
He is in debt.
  Now, why has the Mayor changed his mind? Why has he changed his tune 
from the big government mayor that he was for all those years?
  It is quite simple. He does not have the tax base any longer to 
maintain 
[[Page S2286]] the bureaucracy that had been created by him and his 
predecessors. The well is dry. They cannot raise any more taxes.
  Indeed, we have the representative from Washington, DC, in the House 
saying we may want to eliminate income taxes altogether for people who 
live in the District. They cannot pay any more taxes. They are up to 
here. That is the problem.
  That is not the answer. The answer is not raising more taxes. The 
answer is cutting spending. That is the issue. So he has given up. So 
the Mayor says, ``Come in. Take these things from me. I can't deal with 
it any more. I do not have the tax base.''
  That, my friends, is exactly the predicament that we are going to be 
in in the very, very near future. We are going to go to the well once 
too often. There is not going to be any more money there. You cannot 
squeeze any more blood out of this turnip, out of the American people. 
They do not have it any more. They are fed up. They have had enough. 
You cannot get any more. And, therefore, the end is in sight. That is 
what is going to happen. That is where we are going to get to.
  And when that point comes, what do we do? Are we are going to turn 
and say, ``Take these programs''? The answer is no. We all know, when 
that comes, it is going to be too late and we will have bankruptcy, the 
equivalent of chapter 1, where we spend a whole bunch more dollars.
  That is not what the American people want. The American people want 
us to be fiscally responsible, to make the tough decisions and pass 
this amendment so that the Congress and the President, both political 
parties, Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, sit down in a 
room and make the decision to balance the budget. Yes, we will differ 
on where the priorities are, but we have to do it. Now we do not have 
to do it. That is why we need the amendment.
  So I urge my colleagues to move off this phony debate of right to 
know and exempting programs and get on to the business of passing this 
amendment sooner rather than later and stop the dilatory tactics.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I thank the Senator from Utah for yielding to me.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from New 
Hampshire for his excellent statement. It was terrific.
  Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to our courageous colleague from 
Illinois.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized.
  Mr. SIMON. Mr. President and my colleagues in the Senate, I am for 
the basic aim of this amendment, but I am going to vote against the 
amendment for two reasons.
  One is, while I think we do need to spell out in broad outlines where 
we are going and how we are going to achieve a balanced budget before 
it goes to the States, I do not believe this should be in the 
Constitution. We are talking about a procedural thing that should not 
be in the Constitution.
  Second, to spell out down to $100 million where we are going I think 
is just totally unrealistic in terms of where we are going to be 7 
years from now. So I think it is an unwise amendment.
  I would add, if we pass the balanced budget amendment--and my hope is 
that we will have the wisdom and the courage to do so--I will request--
and I hope to be joined by Senator Hatch and others on this--I will 
request the leaders of both parties to either ask the Budget Committee 
or a special task force to put together in broad outlines how we can 
get to a balanced budget in the year 2002.
  Now, CBO has outlined some things; the Concord Coalition has outlined 
some things. There have been other suggestions. But I think a task 
force that can be appointed immediately after passage and report back 
to the Senate is the way we should go. I do not believe we should put 
this kind of an amendment in the Constitution. I think it is just not 
constitutional in nature.
  Second, I think to say where we are going to be 7 years from now in 
terms of $100 million--and at that point it will be about a $1.8 
trillion budget--is just unrealistic. So I will be voting for the 
motion to table.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. President, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished Senator from 
Montana.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana is recognized for 1 
minute.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Utah for yielding.
  Mr. President, I have been listening to the speeches and debate on 
this amendment and especially on this issue. I just want to go to the 
bottom line real quick.
  We have to get away from these scare tactics that everything is going 
to be cut. I have had people come into my office and say, ``We are 
going to lose our programs. Everything is going to be out because you 
will not tell us how you are going to do it.''
  Let me tell you, this is going to make us all set up a criteria to 
select those things to be funded that should be funded. How many 
programs have we got right now that are being funded that have not been 
authorized by this body or the other body or ever signed into law by 
the President of the United States? If that is one of those criteria, 
then we are going to see those folks who want to fund programs that 
have not been authorized or cannot pass the scrutiny of the Senate or 
the House and we get them out. We just go ahead and fund them.
  A case in point is the National Biological Survey. We appropriate all 
kinds of money for a program that has never passed this Congress. And 
if we do not have the criteria on which we fund and what we do not 
fund, we will never do it, we will never get it under control.
  So the scare tactics are all baloney.
  I thank my friend from Utah for yielding me the minute. You usually 
hear a lot of flowery speeches, but that is the bottom line when you go 
to taking up this issue.
  Mr. HATCH. I thank my colleague from Montana for his cogent remarks.
  I now yield 15 minutes to our distinguished chairman of the Policy 
Committee, the Senator from Oklahoma.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized for 15 
minutes.
  Mr. NICKLES. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I wish to compliment my colleague from Montana for his 
remarks. They were brief, but they were right on target.
  I also wish to compliment Senator Hatch, Senator Craig, and Senator 
Simon. I very much appreciate the bipartisanship which we have 
exhibited in trying to pass this constitutional amendment.
  We have all been working for a long, long time to pass a 
constitutional amendment saying, ``Congress, you cannot spend any more 
than you take in.'' It is long overdue.
  Consider the remarks Thomas Jefferson made in 1798. He said, ``I wish 
it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution.'' He 
further says, ``I mean an additional article, taking from the Federal 
Government the power of borrowing.'' These are Thomas Jefferson's words 
and he was correct.
  Mr. President, we have a heck of a problem. We are spending a lot 
more money than we take in and we have been doing it for a long time. 
We did it for many years under Republican administrations, under 
Democratic administrations, and under primarily Democrat Congresses. We 
had a Republican Senate in the interlude. But we have seen Federal 
spending escalate year after year.
  Mr. President, I am going to put a lot of tables into the Record 
which represent the facts, the fact that Federal spending has been 
exploding.
  In 1960, Mr. President, the Federal Government spent less than $100 
billion. In 1970, we spent less than $200 billion. In 1980, we spent 
$591 billion. So, we went from less than $100 billion in 1960, less 
than $200 billion in 1970, and less than $600 billion in 1980. By 1990, 
Mr. President, we spent $1.25 trillion.
  I am bothered, Mr. President, when the President of the United States 
claims in his State of the Union Message that he cut spending by $250 
billion. The fact is that Federal spending has not been reduced; it has 
climbed every year. The only way that the President can say we have cut 
spending is by using the inflated baselines that only the Federal 
Government would 
[[Page S2287]]  use. He is not accurate. Federal spending has gone up 
every single year.
  In 1992, Federal spending was $1.382 trillion; in 1994 it was $1.461 
trillion; in 1995 it will be $1.531 trillion. The President's budget 
for next year is over $1.6 trillion--And the spending continues to 
escalate. By the year 2000, spending exceeds $1.9 trillion. Federal 
spending continues to climb every year, and it has under every 
President and every administration.
  Revenues have been climbing as well, but not quite as fast. I really 
think we need some kind of restraint. I happen to think a 
constitutional amendment is the restraint we need. I wish we did not. 
Some of my constituents asked me recently, was it really necessary? I 
said it would not be necessary if we had a strong majority in both the 
House and the Senate that was willing to make the tough fiscal 
decisions that would have to be made to balance the budget.
  We have not seen that kind of majority. Maybe with the new Congress 
we will have that kind of opportunity, but history has shown that we 
have not had it in decades. Most States have a balanced budget 
requirement. Some may allow exceptions, but most States have something 
in their constitution that limits the amounts of money that they can 
spend and/or the amount of money they can borrow.
  So, Mr. President, I think it is vitally important we pass a balanced 
budget amendment. It has to be a bipartisan effort, and I hope we will 
have bipartisan support to make it happen.
  Mr. President, some people have said, ``How do you do it?'' This is 
the intent of Senator Daschle's amendment on the right to know. 
Unfortunately, Senator Daschle's amendment amends the Constitution. 
This is not the proper way to do what he wants to do. I happen to agree 
that we should put out as much information on how we will get there as 
possible. I would also say that 7 year estimates are just guessing. No 
one knows what will happen in the economy between now and then, and 
certainly the economy makes a lot of difference on what the outlays 
will be and what the revenues will be. But to put something like his 
amendment in the Constitution is wrong. I just hope my colleagues 
before they vote on this amendment will read the amendment that is 
pending and read section 9. It includes about 11 or 12 paragraphs.
  The rest of the balanced budget amendment is quite simple. The rest 
of the amendment, which is similar to an amendment we passed in the 
Senate in 1982, one which Senator Daschle himself has supported in the 
past, makes sense. It is logical. It would fit in the Constitution. 
Section 9 does not belong in the Constitution.
  I hope that my colleagues will not support the right to know 
amendment. Does that mean that Congress should abdicate its 
responsibility and wait until the seventh year to do anything to 
balance the budget? No, we should take concrete steps each year to 
reduce our deficit down to zero.
  I regret to say that President Clinton, in his latest budget 
submission, has not done that. I think he has raised the white flag on 
deficit reduction. His deficit stays at about $200 billion in the 
foreseeable future, and beyond the year 2000 increases rather 
dramatically. The President's budget touches a little bit on 
discretionary spending, it increases it dramatically in some areas, 
cuts it in defense and some other areas, and does not touch 
entitlements.
  Entitlements have been exploding. I think that is irresponsible. I 
think, basically, the President punted and said, ``Congress, you take 
over. We will wait and see how you do and we will throw rocks at it.'' 
I think that is irresponsible.
  Regardless of what the President does, we need to move toward a 
balanced budget. Regardless of whether or not we pass this amendment, 
we need to move to balance the budget. I hope we will. I hope we take 
concrete steps this year and each and every year to reduce the deficit, 
reduce the enormous debt load we have on the American people.
  Mr. President, we do have enormous debt load. Federal debt in 1994 is 
$4.6 trillion. Mr. President, per capita that is $17,848 for every man, 
woman, and child in the United States. That is the amount of public 
debt we have today. Next year, 1995, that figure is $18,800. So that 
figure has risen by over $1,700 for every man, woman, and child in the 
United States, the amount of debt load increase they have all 
inherited.
  I do not think that is acceptable. I think we have to manage 
something. Maybe this is not the perfect solution, but it happens to be 
one of the few that I think will work. We are sworn to uphold the 
Constitution, and we all take an oath that we will uphold the 
Constitution, I think we will show the courage to do so.
  Unless and until we have that constraint, I am afraid we will fall 
back to business as usual, and business as usual is passing the Daschle 
amendment or passing another amendment that says we will exclude Social 
Security or gut this amendment some way or another and not pass it, and 
we will continue spending more money than we take in.
  Why do we do that? Senators are a lot more popular if we spend money 
than if we take it. People do not like taxes. They like spending. 
Therefore, we spend more, tax less, and have big deficits. I do not 
think that is responsible, Mr. President. I do not think we can 
continue doing that.
  How can we balance the budget? Can we do it? CBO says we will have to 
cut spending by $1.2 trillion. The President's budget would cut 
spending by $144 billion in the next 5 years. Mr. President, we will 
spend over $10 trillion in the next 6 years. The President is talking 
about a marginal reduction of about 1 percent. Again, Federal spending 
under the President's program goes from $1.5 to $1.9 trillion. That is 
not a spending reduction. If spending goes up by a dollar, we should 
say spending went up, not that we reduced the rate of both and 
therefore it is a spending cut.
  Mr. President, we can balance the budget if we allow spending to 
increase, but spending cannot increase as fast. According to the 
baseline that CBO uses, spending is increasing right now about 5.26 
percent. We can balance the budget keeping spending growth to 3.21 
percent for the next 7 years. Then we can balance the budget. Let me 
repeat that: Spending can increase each and every year, by 3.26 
percent.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I will not yield. I have a few more 
points to make, and I will be happy to yield in a moment.
  So, Mr. President, how do we do that? We have some programs growing 
astronomically. I will mention a few: Defense has actually gone down, 
but there are a lot of other programs that are growing very 
dramatically. Medicaid, for example, in the last 4 years has grown at 
28, 29, 12, and 8 percent. We cannot continue that rate of growth.
  Earned income tax credit, a program that this President is very proud 
of, the last 4 years has grown at 11, 55, 18 percent, 1994 at 22 
percent, 1995 at 55 percent. That is an exploding entitlement program 
that this President expanded. I could go on. Food stamps in the last 4 
years has grown 17, 25, 21, and 11 percent. Last year, zero percent. We 
can see it has exploded in growth. In 1990 we spent $15 billion in food 
stamps; in 1994, $25 billion in food stamps.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that these tables be printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the tables were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                       FEDERAL SPENDING CATEGORIES                      
              [In billions of nominal dollars--Source: CBO]             
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                             Dollar    Percent   Percent
              Year                 Outlays   Growth    Growth    of GDP 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
            Mandatory                                                   
                                                                        
1980............................      $292  ........  ........        11
1981............................       341      $49         17        11
1982............................       373       32          9        12
1983............................       412       39         10        12
1984............................       406       (5)        -1        11
1985............................       450       44         11        11
1986............................       460       10          2        11
1987............................       470       11          2        10
1988............................       494       24          5        10
1989............................       526       32          6        10
1990............................       567       41          8        10
1991............................       634       67         12        11
1992............................       712       78         12        12
1993............................       762       50          7        12
1994............................       789       27          4        12
1995............................       845       56          7        12
1996............................       899       54          6        12
1997............................       962       63          7        12
1998............................     1,026       64          7        12
1999............................     1,097       71          7        13
2000............................     1,173       76          7        13
                                                                        
            Domestic                                                    
                                                                        
1980............................       129  ........  ........         5
1981............................       137        7          6         5
1982............................       127       (9)        -7         4
1983............................       130        3          2         4
1984............................       135        5          4         4
1985............................       146       10          8         4
1986............................       148        2          1         3
1987............................       147       (0)        -0         3
1988............................       158       11          8         3


                                                                        
[[Page S2288]]
                 FEDERAL SPENDING CATEGORIES--Continued                 
              [In billions of nominal dollars--Source: CBO]             
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                             Dollar    Percent   Percent
              Year                 Outlays   Growth    Growth    of GDP 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1989............................       169       11          7         3
1990............................       183       14          8         3
1991............................       195       13          7         3
1992............................       214       19         10         4
1993............................       229       15          7         4
1994............................       242       13          5         4
1995............................       253       11          5         4
1996............................       262        9          4         4
1997............................       274       12          5         3
1998............................       284       10          4         3
1999............................       295       11          4         3
2000............................       304        9          3         3
                                                                        
          International                                                 
                                                                        
1980............................        13  ........  ........         0
1981............................        14        1          6         0
1982............................        13       (1)        -5         0
1983............................        14        1          5         0
1984............................        16        3         20         0
1985............................        17        1          7         0
1986............................        18        0          2         0
1987............................        15       (3)       -14         0
1988............................        16        1          3         0
1989............................        17        1          6         0
1990............................        19        3         15         0
1991............................        20        1          3         0
1992............................        19       (1)        -3         0
1993............................        22        2         12         0
1994............................        20       (2)        -7         0
1995............................        21        1          5         0
1996............................        22        1          5         0
1997............................        22        0          0         0
1998............................        22        0          0         0
1999............................        23        1          3         0
2000............................        24        1          6         0
                                                                        
             Defense                                                    
                                                                        
1980............................       135  ........  ........         5
1981............................       158       23         17         5
1982............................       186       28         18         6
1983............................       210       24         13         6
1984............................       228       18          9         6
1985............................       253       25         11         6
1986............................       274       21          8         6
1987............................       283        9          3         6
1988............................       291        8          3         6
1989............................       304       13          5         6
1990............................       300       (4)        -1         5
1991............................       320       20          7         6
1992............................       303      (17)        -5         5
1993............................       293      (10)        -3         5
1994............................       282      (11)        -4         4
1995............................       270      (12)        -4         4
1996............................       270        0          0         4
1997............................       278        8          3         4
1998............................       285        7          3         3
1999............................       295       10          4         3
2000............................       304        9          3         3
                                                                        
         Social Security                                                
                                                                        
1980............................       117  ........  ........         4
1981............................       138       21         18         5
1982............................       154       16         12         5
1983............................       169       15          9         5
1984............................       176        8          5         5
1985............................       186       10          6         5
1986............................       197       10          5         5
1987............................       205        9          4         5
1988............................       217       12          6         4
1989............................       230       14          6         4
1990............................       247       16          7         4
1991............................       267       20          8         5
1992............................       285       18          7         5
1993............................       302       17          6         5
1994............................       317       15          5         5
1995............................       334       17          5         5
1996............................       352       18          5         5
1997............................       371       19          5         5
1998............................       390       19          5         5
1999............................       411       21          5         5
2000............................       433       22          5         5
                                                                        
          Net Interest                                                  
                                                                        
1980............................        53  ........  ........         2
1981............................        69       16         31         2
1982............................        85       16         24         3
1983............................        90        5          6         3
1984............................       111       21         24         3
1985............................       130       18         17         3
1986............................       136        7          5         3
1987............................       139        3          2         3
1988............................       152       13          9         3
1989............................       169       18         12         3
1990............................       184       15          9         3
1991............................       195       10          6         3
1992............................       199        5          3         3
1993............................       199       (1)        -0         3
1994............................       203        4          2         3
1995............................       235       32         16         3
1996............................       260       25         11         3
1997............................       270       10          4         3
1998............................       279        9          3         3
1999............................       294       15          5         3
2000............................       310       16          5         3
                                                                        
    Earned Income Tax Credit                                            
                                                                        
1980............................         1  ........  ........         0
1981............................         1        0          0         0
1982............................         1       (0)        -8         0
1983............................         1        0          0         0
1984............................         1        0          0         0
1985............................         1       (0)        -8         0
1986............................         1        0         27         0
1987............................         1        0          0         0
1988............................         3        1         93         0
1989............................         4        1         48         0
1990............................         4        0         10         0
1991............................         5        1         11         0
1992............................         8        3         55         0
1993............................         9        1         18         0
1994............................        11        2         22         0
1995............................        17        6         55         0
1996............................        20        3         18         0
1997............................        23        3         15         0
1998............................        24        1          4         0
1999............................        25        1          4         0
2000............................        26        1          4         0
                                                                        
            Medicaid                                                    
                                                                        
1980............................        14  ........  ........         1
1981............................        17        3         20         1
1982............................        17        1          4         1
1983............................        19        2          9         1
1984............................        20        1          6         1
1985............................        23        3         13         1
1986............................        25        2         10         1
1987............................        27        2         10         1
1988............................        31        3         11         1
1989............................        35        4         13         1
1990............................        41        7         19         1
1991............................        53       11         28         1
1992............................        68       15         29         1
1993............................        76        8         12         1
1994............................        82        6          8         1
1995............................        90        8         10         1
1996............................       100       10         11         1
1997............................       111       11         11         1
1998............................       123       12         11         1
1999............................       136       13         11         2
2000............................       149       13         10         2
                                                                        
          Unemployment                                                  
                                                                        
1980............................        17  ........  ........         1
1981............................        18        1          8         1
1982............................        22        4         21         1
1983............................        30        8         34         1
1984............................        17      (13)       -43         0
1985............................        16       (1)        -7         0
1986............................        16        0          2         0
1987............................        16       (1)        -4         0
1988............................        14       (2)       -12         0
1989............................        14        0          2         0
1990............................        18        4         26         0
1991............................        25        8         43         0
1992............................        37       12         47         1
1993............................        35       (2)        -4         1
1994............................        26       (9)       -27         0
1995............................        22       (4)       -15         0
1996............................        23        1          5         0
1997............................        24        1          4         0
1998............................        26        2          8         0
1999............................        27        1          4         0
2000............................        28        1          4         0
                                                                        
           Food Stamps                                                  
                                                                        
1980............................         9  ........  ........         0
1981............................        11        2         24         0
1982............................        11       (0)        -3         0
1983............................        12        1          7         0
1984............................        12       (0)        -2         0
1985............................        12        0          1         0
1986............................        12       (0)        -1         0
1987............................        12        0          0         0
1988............................        12        1          6         0
1989............................        13        1          4         0
1990............................        15        2         17         0
1991............................        19        4         25         0
1992............................        23        4         21         0
1993............................        25        2         11         0
1994............................        25        0          0         0
1995............................        26        1          4         0
1996............................        27        1          4         0
1997............................        29        2          7         0
1998............................        30        1          3         0
1999............................        32        2          7         0
2000............................        32        0          0         0
                                                                        
            Medicare                                                    
                                                                        
1980............................        34  ........  ........         1
1981............................        41        7         21         1
1982............................        49        8         19         2
1983............................        56        6         13         2
1984............................        61        6         10         2
1985............................        70        9         14         2
1986............................        74        5          6         2
1987............................        80        6          8         2
1988............................        86        6          7         2
1989............................        94        9         10         2
1990............................       107       13         14         2
1991............................       114        7          6         2
1992............................       129       15         13         2
1993............................       143       14         11         2
1994............................       160       17         12         2
1995............................       176       16         10         2
1996............................       196       20         11         3
1997............................       217       21         11         3
1998............................       238       21         10         3
1999............................       262       24         10         3
2000............................       286       24          9         3
                                                                        
              AFDC                                                      
                                                                        
1980............................         7  ........  ........         0
1981............................         8        1         12         0
1982............................         8       (0)        -2         0
1983............................         8        0          5         0
1984............................         9        1          6         0
1985............................         9        0          3         0
1986............................        10        1          8         0
1987............................        11        1          6         0
1988............................        11        0          3         0
1989............................        11        0          4         0
1990............................        12        1          9         0
1991............................        14        1         11         0
1992............................        16        2         16         0
1993............................        16        0          3         0
1994............................        17        1          6         0
1995............................        18        1          6         0
1996............................        18        0          0         0
1997............................        19        1          6         0
1998............................        19        0          0         0
1999............................        20        1          5         0
2000............................        20        0          0         0
                                                                        
       Farm Price Supports                                              
                                                                        
1980............................         3  ........  ........         0
1981............................         4        1         43         0
1982............................        12        8        193         0
1983............................        19        7         62         1
1984............................         7      (12)       -61         0
1985............................        18       10        142         0
1986............................        26        8         46         1
1987............................        22       (3)       -13         0
1988............................        12      (10)       -46         0
1989............................        11       (2)       -13         0
1990............................         7       (4)       -39         0
1991............................        10        4         55         0
1992............................         9       (1)        -8         0
1993............................        16        6         68         0
1994............................        10       (6)       -36         0
1995............................        10        0          0         0
1996............................         9       (1)       -10         0
1997............................         9        0          0         0
1998............................         8       (1)       -11         0
1999............................         8        0          0         0
2000............................         8        0          0         0
                                                                        
 Veterans Benefits and Services                                         
                                                                        
1980............................        14  ........  ........         1
1981............................        15        1         10         1
1982............................        16        0          3         1
1983............................        16        0          1         0
1984............................        16        0          1         0
1985............................        16       (0)        -1         0
1986............................        16       (0)        -1         0
1987............................        16        0          0         0
1988............................        18        2         12         0
1989............................        18        0          1         0
1990............................        16       (2)       -10         0
1991............................        17        1          9         0
1992............................        20        2         13         0
1993............................        21        1          7         0
1994............................        18       (3)       -14         0
1995............................        17       (1)        -6         0
1996............................        17        0          0         0
1997............................        18        1          6         0
1998............................        19        1          6         0
1999............................        20        1          5         0
2000............................        21        1          5         0
                                                                        
     Federal Retirement and                                             
           Disability                                                   
                                                                        
1980............................        32  ........  ........         1
1981............................        37        5         17         1
1982............................        41        3          9         1
1983............................        43        3          6         1
1984............................        45        2          3         1
1985............................        46        1          2         1
1986............................        48        2          4         1
1987............................        51        3          7         1
1988............................        54        3          7         1
1989............................        57        3          6         1
1990............................        60        3          5         1
1991............................        64        5          8         1
1992............................        67        2          3         1
1993............................        69        2          3         1
1994............................        72        3          5         1
1995............................        75        3          4         1
1996............................        77        2          3         1
1997............................        81        4          5         1
1998............................        85        4          5         1
1999............................        90        5          6         1
2000............................        96        6          7         1
                                                                        
         Other Mandatory                                                
                                                                        
1980............................       160  ........  ........         6
1981............................       187       27         17         6
1982............................       196        9          5         6
1983............................       208       13          6         6
1984............................       219       10          5         6
1985............................       241       22         10         6
1986............................       233       (8)        -3         5
1987............................       235        2          1         5
1988............................       255       20          8         5
1989............................       270       15          6         5
1990............................       288       18          7         5
------------------------------------------------------------------------


                                                                        
[[Page S2289]]
                 FEDERAL SPENDING CATEGORIES--Continued                 
              [In billions of nominal dollars--Source: CBO]             
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                             Dollar    Percent   Percent
              Year                 Outlays   Growth    Growth    of GDP 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1991............................       314       26          9         5
1992............................       336       23          7         6
1993............................       352       16          5         6
1994............................       368       16          4         5
1995............................       394       26          7         6
1996............................       412       18          5         6
1997............................       431       19          5         5
1998............................       454       23          5         5
1999............................       477       23          5         5
2000............................       507       30          6         6
------------------------------------------------------------------------


                                                               HISTORICAL BUDGET ESTIMATES                                                              
                                                                [In billions of dollars]                                                                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                             Net        Deposit        Off.                             
                     Year                         Revenues   Discretionary   Mandatory     interest       ins.       receipts     Outlays      Deficit  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1970..........................................          193           125            69           14          (1)         (12)          196          (3)
1971..........................................          187           127            83           15          (0)         (14)          210         (23)
1972..........................................          207           133            97           16          (1)         (14)          231         (23)
1973..........................................          231           135           112           17          (1)         (18)          246         (15)
1974..........................................          263           143           127           21          (1)         (21)          269          (6)
1975..........................................          279           163           164           23           1          (18)          332         (53)
1976..........................................          298           176           190           27          (1)         (20)          372         (74)
1977..........................................          356           197           207           30          (3)         (22)          409         (54)
1978..........................................          400           219           228           36          (1)         (23)          459         (59)
1979..........................................          463           240           248           43          (2)         (26)          504         (40)
1980..........................................          517           277           292           53          (0)         (29)          591         (74)
1981..........................................          599           308           341           69          (1)         (38)          678         (79)
1982..........................................          618           326           373           85          (2)         (36)          746        (128)
1983..........................................          601           354           412           90          (1)         (45)          808        (208)
1984..........................................          667           380           406          111          (1)         (44)          852        (185)
1985..........................................          734           416           450          130          (2)         (47)          946        (212)
1986..........................................          769           439           460          136           2          (46)          990        (221)
1987..........................................          854           445           470          139           3          (53)        1,004        (150)
1988..........................................          909           465           494          152          10          (57)        1,064        (155)
1989..........................................          991           490           526          169          22          (64)        1,144        (154)
1990..........................................        1,031           502           567          184          58          (58)        1,252        (221)
1991..........................................        1,054           535           634          195          66         (106)        1,323        (269)
1992..........................................        1,092           537           711          199           3          (69)        1,382        (290)
1993..........................................        1,153           543           761          199         (28)         (67)        1,408        (255)
1994..........................................        1,257           545           789          203          (7)         (69)        1,461        (203)
1995..........................................        1,355           544           845          235         (16)         (77)        1,531        (176)
1996..........................................        1,418           549           899          260          (9)         (73)        1,625        (207)
1997..........................................        1,475           548           962          270          (5)         (76)        1,699        (224)
1998..........................................        1,546           547         1,026          279          (5)         (79)        1,769        (222)
1999..........................................        1,618           566         1,097          294          (3)         (82)        1,872        (253)
2000..........................................        1,697           585         1,173          310          (3)         (84)        1,981        (284)
2001..........................................        1,787           605         1,245          325          (3)         (88)        2,084        (297)
2002..........................................        1,880           626         1,328          344          (3)         (93)        2,202        (322)
2003..........................................        1,978           647         1,417          365          (3)         (97)        2,329        (351)
2004..........................................        2,082           669         1,513          387          (3)        (102)        2,465        (383)
2005..........................................        2,191           692         1,617          412          (4)        (106)        2,611        (421)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


                              FEDERAL DEBT                              
                        [In millions of dollars]                        
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                Amount  
                             Gross      Held by     Held by   subject to
          Year              Federal       the     the public   the debt 
                             debt     Government                 limit  
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1940....................      50,696       7,924      42,772      43,219
1945....................     260,123      24,941     235,182     268,671
1950....................     256,853      37,830     219,023     255,382
1955....................     274,366      47,750     226,616     272,348
1960....................     290,525      53,685     236,840     283,827
1965....................     322,318      61,540     260,778     314,126
1970....................     380,921      97,723     283,198     372,600
1971....................     408,176     105,139     303,037     398,650
1972....................     435,936     113,559     322,377     427,751
1973....................     466,291     125,381     340,910     458,264
1974....................     483,893     140,194     343,699     475,181
1975....................     541,925     147,225     394,700     534,207
1976....................     628,970     151,566     477,404     621,556
1977....................     706,398     157,295     549,103     699,963
1978....................     776,602     169,477     607,125     772,691
1979....................     828,923     189,207     639,716     827,615
1980....................     908,503     199,212     709,291     908,723
1981....................     994,298     209,507     784,791     998,818
1982....................   1,136,798     217,560     919,238   1,142,913
1983....................   1,371,164     240,115   1,131,049   1,377,953
1984....................   1,564,110     264,159   1,299,951   1,572,975
1985....................   1,816,974     317,612   1,499,362   1,823,775
1986....................   2,120,082     383,919   1,736,163   2,110,975
1987....................   2,345,578     457,444   1,888,134   2,336,014
1988....................   2,600,760     550,508   2,050,252   2,586,869
1989....................   2,867,537     678,210   2,189,327   2,829,770
1990....................   3,206,347     795,990   2,410,357   3,161,223
1991....................   3,598,993     911,060   2,687,933   3,569,300
1992....................   4,002,669   1,004,039   2,998,630   3,972,578
1993....................   4,411,489   1,100,758   3,309,717   4,378,039
1994....................   4,644,000   1,212,000   3,432,000   4,605,000
1995....................   4,942,000   1,325,000   3,617,000   4,902,000
1996....................   5,280,000   1,443,000   3,838,000   5,240,000
1997....................   5,641,000   1,563,000   4,077,000   5,599,000
1998....................   6,001,000   1,684,000   4,317,000   5,959,000
1999....................   6,392,000   1,803,000   4,589,000   6,349,000
2000....................   6,814,000   1,923,000   4,891,000   6,771,000
------------------------------------------------------------------------


                         FEDERAL DEBT PER CAPITA                        
                              [In dollars]                              
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                Amount  
                             Gross      Held by     Held by   subject to
          Year              Federal       the     the public   the debt-
                             debt     Government                 limit  
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1940....................         384          60         324         328
1945....................       1,963         188       1,775       2,028
1950....................       1,691         249       1,442       1,682
1955....................       1,662         289       1,373       1,650
1960....................       1,614         298       1,316       1,577
1965....................       1,666         318       1,348       1,624
1970....................       1,869         479       1,390       1,828
1971....................       1,979         510       1,469       1,933
1972....................       2,093         545       1,548       2,054
1973....................       2,222         597       1,624       2,184
1974....................       2,289         663       1,626       2,248
1975....................       2,544         691       1,853       2,507
1976....................       2,930         706       2,224       2,895
1977....................       3,264         727       2,537       3,235
1978....................       3,559         777       2,782       3,541
1979....................       3,766         860       2,906       3,760
1980....................       3,998         877       3,122       3,999
1981....................       4,333         913       3,420       4,353
1982....................       4,907         939       3,968       4,933
1983....................       5,865       1,027       4,838       5,894
1984....................       6,633       1,120       5,512       6,670
1985....................       7,637       1,335       6,302       7,665
1986....................       8,829       1,599       7,230       8,791
1987....................       9,681       1,888       7,793       9,641
1988....................      10,637       2,252       8,386      10,580
1989....................      11,618       2,748       8,870      11,465
1990....................      12,857       3,192       9,665      12,676
1991....................      14,243       3,605      10,637      14,125
1992....................      15,697       3,938      11,760      15,579
1993....................      17,126       4,273      12,849      16,996
1994....................      17,848       4,658      13,190      17,698
1995....................      18,808       5,043      13,766      18,656
1996....................      19,906       5,440      14,469      19,755
1997....................      21,072       5,839      15,230      20,915
1998....................      22,217       6,235      15,983      22,062
1999....................      23,459       6,617      16,842      23,301
2000....................      24,795       6,997      17,797      24,638
------------------------------------------------------------------------

miMr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I could go on. Medicare, in the last 4 
years is compounded at 13, 11, 12 percent. This year it is expected to 
compound at 10 percent. Those are rates greater than 3.2 percent.
  I admit, we will have to slow the rate of growth in a lot of programs 
if we will balance the budgets. Will it be easy? Not necessarily. The 
point is that Federal spending will continue to grow and we can still 
balance the budget. It will not be able to grow as much or as fast.
  Again, I have heard people say, wait a minute, to balance the budget 
we will have to reduce spending $1.2 trillion. Over the next 7 years we 
will spend about $15 trillion. Can we afford $1.2 trillion? I think we 
can reduce the rate of growth and not spend $15 trillion.
  I think we have to do it, Mr. President. I think passing a 
constitutional amendment to balance the budget will make us do it. If 
we do not pass it, I am afraid we will be back to business as usual. I 
hope that is not the case. I really do hope we will be serious. I hope 
that we will be serious and make a concerted effort to balance the 
budget, make the tough decisions, cut spending, cut entitlement 
programs, reduce those programs that are growing to astronomical 
levels, and try to live within our means. We have to do it.
  I just have a couple of comments concerning the pending Daschle 
amendment. It says:

       In order to carry out the purpose of this article, Congress 
     shall adopt a concurrent resolution setting forth a budget 
     plan to achieve a balanced budget (that complies with this 
     article) * * *.

  And so on. And it says in section C:

       New budget authority and outlays, on an account-by-account 
     basis, for each account with actual outlays or offsetting 
     receipts of at least $100,000,000 in fiscal year 1994.

  [[Page S2290]] This does not belong, Mr. President, in the 
Constitution. This does not fit. It does not work. And it will not 
work.
  I will read from Senator Daschle's comments that he made last year on 
February 28. He said:

       To remedy our fiscal situation, we must stop spending 
     beyond our means. This will not require emasculation of 
     important domestic priorities, as some suggest.

  And then he says:

       Congress and the President will have 7 years to address the 
     current deficit and reach a consensus on our Nation's budget 
     priorities. We will have time to find ways to live within our 
     means and still meet existing obligations to our citizens, 
     particularly the elderly.

  I happen to concur with that. However, his amendment does not concur 
with the statements last year. His amendment does not belong in the 
U.S. Constitution, with all respect to its supporters. I may concur 
with their desire for Congress to set out a glidepath. The glidepath is 
this: Let us limit Federal spending to 3.2 percent, and if we want 
spending in some areas, like Social Security, to grow at 5 percent, 
that is fine; we have to find some other spending areas to be reduced 
to offset that amount. We can do that, if we will just show the courage 
to do it. Unfortunately, Congress has not shown the courage in the 
past.
  Mr. President, I will conclude with, again, complimenting the 
sponsors of the balanced budget amendment, Senators Simon, Hatch, and 
Craig, and many others who worked tirelessly to make it happen. We 
passed a similar amendment in 1982--I wish it would have been adopted 
by the House--in 1982, we were spending about $746 billion. We are 
spending more than twice as much today, in 1995, as we did in 1982.
  So I think we need this balanced budget amendment. It is regretful we 
did not pass it a decade ago, or maybe in Jefferson's time. We would 
not be in the plight we are in, with our children inheriting a debt of 
over $18,000 per person. So I hope that the Daschle amendment will be 
either defeated or tabled, and I hope that we will pass a 
constitutional amendment to balance the budget identical to that of the 
House and then allow the States to go forward with the ratification 
process.
  I yield the floor.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I intend to yield time to the Senator from 
Illinois. Let me for 30 seconds on my time indicate that which sounds 
deceptively simple is just plain wrong. As someone said, as happens 
often, you can simply limit to 3 percent growth and you solve the 
problem. If you limit Social Security to 3 percent growth, you 
effectively--Social Security recipients would not have the cost-of-
living adjustments--but you tell the 6 million new people who become 
eligible, ``There is no money for you; you don't get your Social 
Security benefits.'' It sounds simple.
  Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. DORGAN. I do not have the time, as the Senator did not, either. 
Let me yield 10 minutes, if I might, to the Senator from Illinois.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized for up 
to 10 minutes.
  Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator from Illinois yield for 30 seconds?
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Mr. President, I cannot yield because there is 
precious little time left in the debate. I would like to take this 
opportunity to state my support for the right-to-know amendment.
  Mr. President, I am a strong supporter of the balanced budget 
constitutional amendment, and I am an equally strong supporter of the 
American people's right to know what balancing the budget will mean for 
them, for their future, and for their children's future.
  Frankly, I do not understand why the right-to-know amendment should 
be the least bit controversial. I cannot believe that any Member of 
this Senate would argue that the American people should not know how 
the Government spends their money. I cannot believe that any Member of 
this Senate would argue that the American people should not know--in 
advance--what programs will need to be cut, or consolidated, or 
terminated, in order to balance the budget. I cannot believe that any 
Member of this Senate would argue that the American people should not 
have the right to make their views known on the options for balancing 
the budget before we are committed to any particular set of options, 
and that includes options for changes in tax laws, as well as spending 
cuts. Most of all, I cannot believe that any Member of this Senate 
would seriously argue that the American people should be asked to make 
a decision on an issue as important as the balanced budget 
constitutional amendment without knowing in detail--before they 
decide--what balancing the budget will mean, both for the United States 
in general, and for themselves.
  It seems to me that we have an obligation to give the American people 
the absolute truth about the Federal budget, and about the choices we 
have to make to bring it back to balance--and to keep it there. If we 
think balancing the budget is important--and I, for one, believe that 
it is critically important to meeting our responsibility to future 
generations--then we have an obligation to present the facts to our 
constituents, to let them know what the options are, and the 
consequences they entail. In a democracy, the only way to build broad, 
sustainable support for the hard decisions that adopting a balanced 
budget constitutional amendment will force is to talk sense to the 
American people and to tell them the truth.
  The people know the truth when they hear it--and they want to hear 
it. They know that, all too often in the past, budgetary issues have 
been presented to them as if they were the marks in a three-card monte 
con game.
  Americans don't want to put up with that any more. They want the 
truth--now. They know they haven't been getting that truth, but they 
also know that in our democratic system, they deserve that truth, and 
they are entitled to it.
  What the right-to-know amendment is all about is seeing that they get 
the truth. It calls for nothing more than treating the American public 
with the respect they deserve. It does nothing more than ask the 
Congress to do what common sense requires--to simply tell the truth 
about what it means to balance the budget, and about the changes that 
balancing the budget will bring. Most importantly, it means putting an 
end to the kind of budgetary gamesmanship that has contributed so 
greatly to the rise in public cynicism about Government, and its 
ability to tell the truth.
  Just yesterday I was talking to an auto worker from Decatur, IL. He 
recounted a joke that goes something like this: ``How can you tell the 
government official is lying?'' The answer is: ``Because his lips are 
moving.'' That response is a telling indictment of the Government's 
stewardship of the budget and the kind of cynicism that is out there 
about what we do. In 1981, the American people were asked to believe in 
supply side economics, a plan that told the American people that 
cutting taxes would lead to faster economic growth, generating 
additional Federal revenues that would painlessly balance the budget. 
Of course, the only thing that it actually generated was staggering 
deficits that led to a quadrupling of the national debt from $1 
trillion to over $4 trillion in just 12 years.
  And the American people were told that Gramm-Rudman budget discipline 
would lead to a balanced budget. That effort also failed, because, like 
supply-side economics, it was more a cosmetic fix. It made the Congress 
look good and look like it had the discipline to make hard choices 
concerning the budget. But it was not based on telling the American 
people the truth about the Federal budget, or about what it would 
really take to balance it.
  That is why the right-to-know amendment is so important now. If the 
balanced budget constitutional amendment is not to be seen as another 
budgetary gimmick, as another way to avoid the decision, or as another 
attempt to concentrate on process in order to again postpone the real 
decisions that must be made, the American people need to know that 
Congress is prepared to act, realistically and forcefully, based on 
budgetary realities rather than political illusions. And the only way 
they will be convinced of that 
[[Page S2291]]  is if they are made a full partner in the 
decisionmaking process.
  There are those who fear that telling the American people the truth 
will undermine support for the balanced budget amendment, and there are 
others who hope it will. But there is no reason to fear the truth. The 
only thing we should fear is the consequences for our country and our 
democracy if we do not tell the truth.
  Yet, there are those who continue to twist and turn in order to avoid 
meeting their obligation to the American people--to avoid telling the 
truth about the budget--and thereby put the balanced budget 
constitutional amendment unnecessarily at risk. These continued 
attempts at evasion make the right-to-know amendment, and the facts it 
will provide, even more necessary.
  After all, according to the Congressional Budget Office, it will take 
over 1.2 trillion dollars' worth of budget changes to reach a balanced 
budget by the year 2002. And that is just the beginning, because 
balancing the budget that year will not ensure that it is balanced from 
then on, and that is what the balanced budget amendment requires.
  The fact is that, as difficult as it will be to balance the budget by 
2002, that task looks almost insignificant when compared to the 
challenge of keeping it balanced. I served on the Bipartisan Commission 
on Entitlement and Tax Reform. That Commission's interim report, 
adopted by an overwhelming 30 to 1 vote, found that, without major 
reform in entitlements, the Federal Government will almost double in 
size by 2030 as a percentage of the economy, and the Federal deficit 
that year would exceed 18 percent of the economy.
  Think of that. Not only would the Federal deficit in 2030 equal 
virtually one-fifth of our GDP that year, but interest expense alone 
would consume over $1 of every $10 our economy generates.
  The Commission report also made it very clear that growth in spending 
on discretionary programs subject to annual appropriations is not what 
is driving the growth of Federal spending. As a percentage of overall 
Federal spending, discretionary spending has dropped from over 70 
percent of the budget in 1963 to only 28 percent of the budget now.
  What is growing is entitlement spending, spending for activities like 
Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and the like. Entitlements 
consumed only 22 percent of the Federal budget in 1963, but by 2003, 
together with interest on the national debt, they will account for 72 
percent of overall Government spending.
  The report of the Congressional Budget Office entitled ``The Economic 
and Budget Outlook: Fiscal Years 1996-2000,'' confirms the findings of 
the Entitlement Commission. It found that nondefense discretionary 
spending has basically not grown at all, as a percentage of GDP, since 
1960. Over that same period, however, the CBO report found that 
entitlement spending has more than doubled.
  Some might say, however, that looking only at percentages of the 
economy masks very large spending increases. The actual numbers tell 
much the same story. For example, based on CBO's latest estimates, 
Federal spending increased by a total of $70 billion between fiscal 
1994 and fiscal 1995. Ninety-five percent of that increase was
 due to growth in entitlement programs and interest expense. In fact, 
those two budget areas actually increased by a total of $88 billion, 
well over the $70 billion net overall increase in Federal spending this 
year.

  It seems to me, Mr. President, that every American has a right to 
know these budget facts, and that every American has a right to know 
what Congress plans to do about them. Yet, it is also very clear that 
the American people have not been told these facts, either by the media 
or by the Congress or the administration. Instead, the American people 
have been led to believe, as a recent poll by the Wirthlin Group found, 
that ``cutting welfare, foreign aid, and `congressional perks''' would 
``do a lot towards balancing the budget.''
  Most Americans, however, harbor substantial doubts about what they 
know about the budget. According to a recent memo done for the 
Republican Conference by the Luntz Research Cos., entitled 
``Communications Strategy for the Upcoming Budget Battle'':

       Again and again, focus group participants complain that 
     they don't have anywhere close to the information on the 
     budget that [Members of Congress] do. Survey respondents 
     always overestimate their knowledge on nearly any subject, 
     and only 22% believe they know either ``a lot'' or ``a good 
     amount'' about the budget process.

  What that means is most Americans know that they are missing a lot of 
important information about the budget. Most Americans do not know, for 
example, that AFDC spending--and I have heard a lot of talk about 
programs for the poor--in real dollars per beneficiary, is down by 
roughly 40 percent since 1970. Most Americans do not know that foreign 
aid is only about 1 percent of the Federal budget, and that the value 
of congressional perks much, much smaller than that. But every American 
has a right to know these and the myriad other important facts about 
the budget, and every American has a right to know how Congress plans 
to change the budget if the balanced budget constitutional amendment 
becomes the law of the land. Americans have a right to know in advance 
so that they can determine whether those plans make sense, whether they 
will work, who will be affected, and why.
  There are those who argue against providing details at this point, on 
the ground that it is somehow premature. Timing, however, did not 
prevent the new House majority from laying out its tax proposals in 
great specificity, proposals that the Treasury Department estimates 
will cost $375 billion over the next 7 years, and increase the size of 
the budget gap over that period by almost 40 percent.
  Why is it, Mr. President, that now is the time to be specific about 
tax cuts, but now is not the time to be specific about the changes on 
the spending side of the equation that will be required to pay for 
those tax cuts and still balance the budget by the year 2002?
  Americans have the right to know the specifics. It is time to put 
aside talking about waste, fraud, and abuse, and pork barrel spending 
as if the budget could be balanced by eliminating those sins. It is, 
instead, time to come clean with the American people and tell them what 
balancing the budget will really mean. I do not say that to suggest 
that we abandon our efforts to deal with waste, an inefficiency. Far 
from it. Tackling those issues must continue to be a priority. But it 
is time to acknowledge reality, and the reality is that dealing with 
waste, fraud, and abuse is not, and cannot be, in and of itself, a 
complete strategy for
 dealing with the budget deficit. It is only a component of a strategy, 
and not even the biggest one.

  It is time to stop diverting the American people's attention from the 
major policy options that absolutely must be examined if the budget is 
to be balanced. If we are serious about balancing the budget, if we 
want to meet our obligation to future generations--and if we want the 
American people to support the tough decisions that will be required--
then we have to stop the budget gamesmanship now, and enter a real 
partnership with the American people.
  The American people need to know the dimensions of the budget 
problems we face, and what the realistic options are to address those 
problems. They need to know that it would take a 13-percent across-the-
board cut in every Federal program, including Social Security and 
Medicare, to balance the budget by 2002--and that more cuts would be 
needed thereafter to keep it balanced unless the rate of growth of 
entitlement spending can be cut.
  They need to know that it would take an 18-percent cut in every other 
program but Social Security to balance the budget by 2002, if that 
program is taken off the table, and that further cuts would be needed 
in those other programs to keep the budget balanced after 2002. And 
they need to know that even taking Social Security off the table will 
not keep Social Security viable in the long run, because that does 
nothing to restore the actuarial balance in that program that the 
Social Security trustees say is now out of balance. They need to know 
that we must act to keep Social Security available for future 
generations--and that the sooner we act, the easier it is to 
accomplish. And they need to know that maintaining Social Security's 
viability 
[[Page S2292]] can be accomplished without cutting the benefits of any 
current beneficiary by even a nickel.
  They need to know that it would take a 32-percent cut in all other 
Federal programs, including defense, to balance the budget by the year 
2002, if both Social Security and Medicare are taken off the table--and 
more cuts in those programs thereafter to keep it balanced, because 
both Social Security, and particularly Medicare, are growing faster 
than our economy or Federal revenues. And they need to know that it 
will take a cut of 36 percent in all other Federal programs if defense 
is also taken off the table.
  They need to know that it is not the programs benefiting the poorest 
Americans that are driving the growth of the Federal budget. They need 
to know that the real engines of growth are rapidly rising health care 
costs, and the fact that the baby boom generation is moving toward 
retirement.
  Perhaps most of all, they need to know what some of the options for 
balancing the budget might mean for them. Would the proposed path 
toward the balanced budget mean rougher roads, or higher subway fares? 
What would it mean to their children, to their opportunity to get a 
good grammar school and high school education, and to their chances to 
go to college. What will it mean to their ability to buy a home and to 
obtain a mortgage? And what would
 it mean to older Americans who need access to affordable health care? 
Would they face additional gaps in coverage, higher premiums, higher 
deductibles, or some combination of all of these? Would older Americans 
be able to choose to pay somewhat more in taxes to keep Medicare 
solvent, or would the only choice they are offered be private 
insurance--even if that option were to be more costly. Will COLA's--
cost of living adjustments--be set based on the facts and the best 
measurement of inflation we can make, or will COLA's be determined on a 
more political basis?

  Americans also want to know whether the result of Federal actions to 
balance the budget means higher State and local taxes for them. After 
all, the Federal Government currently provides more than 21 percent of 
the State of Illinois' budget, and provides major support for the 
budget of towns and cities across my State. An analysis done by the 
Treasury Department at the request of the chairman of the National 
Governors Association found that across-the-board cuts in Federal 
spending to balance the budget could lead to tax increases in my State 
of over 10 percent--and in some States, the tax hikes necessary to make 
good the loss of Federal funds could be as much as 25 percent.
  In the 1970's and the 1980's, both the Presidents and the Congress 
failed in their obligation to face our long-term budget problems. They 
flinched from making the necessary decisions because those decisions 
were politically difficult and because it was easier to talk about 
fiscal responsibility, than to act to achieve it. However, if we had 
balanced the budget in 1980, there would be no need for even a single 
dollar of program cuts this year. The budget would actually be in 
surplus. Dealing with the rapid cost increases in Medicare and Medicaid 
would be much easier than it will be now. The Government would have a 
far greater ability to act to address problems that need our attention, 
because it would not be spending over $200 billion a year just on debt 
service.
  The failures of the 1980's brought us to where we are now, and those 
failures make the job of restoring fiscal discipline more difficult 
now. The lesson of that failure is that we cannot afford further delay. 
That is why I was critical of the President's budget that was released 
yesterday It avoids facing our budget problems. It avoids telling the 
American people the truth about those budget problems, and what it will 
take to solve them. It does not meet the responsibilities that 
leadership entails.
  But the fact that the President did not act aggressively does not 
lessen the responsibility of the Congress to act, particularly when 
Congress is attempting to add a balanced budget amendment to the 
Constitution. We must begin to act--now--whether there is a balanced 
budget constitutional amendment or not.
  And that is the real importance of the right-to-know amendment. It 
properly focuses attention where it absolutely must be focused--on the 
decisions involved in implementing a constitutional amendment--on what 
is
 involved in turning the promise of a balanced budget into a reality. 
The work is not done if and when the balanced budget amendment becomes 
a part of the Constitution, and the truth is that the real work cannot 
wait until a constitutional amendment is ratified.

  The ongoing Mexican financial situation gives us a glimpse of the 
future if we do not tell the truth to the American people about or 
budget problems and get their help in beginning to solve them now. 
Mexico was financing economic growth with foreign capital, and was 
therefore vulnerable to a loss of confidence. The result of that loss 
of confidence is creating economic recession in Mexico, and real 
hardship for millions of Mexicans.
  The United States economy is much larger and stronger, and much more 
resilient than Mexico's. We do not face the same kind of sudden 
collapse. But the U.S. national savings rate has been declining for 
many years now. We are financing an increasing portion of our 
Government debt, and private economic investment with foreign capital. 
And the result will likely be every-higher interest rates in the United 
States, and increasing pressure on the incomes of most Americans, if we 
do not begin to act now. On the other hand, if we do begin to move 
toward a balanced budget, OMB Director Alice Rivlin, in her ``Big 
Choices'' memo, tells us that we can turn the anemic 3.7-percent 
national savings rate into a 6.1-percent savings rate by the year 2000. 
And that higher national savings rate would mean more opportunity and a 
brighter future for our children--and their children.
  As important as it is to our futures, and our country's future, to 
restore discipline to the Federal budget--to balance the budget--how we 
get to that balance makes a difference. Some options work better for 
the American people than others. How we choose to get to a balanced 
budget makes a big difference.
  The right-to-know amendment ensures that every American has the 
opportunity to get a good, hard look at the plans for balancing the 
budget, and, indeed, at all of the available options. It takes the 
abstractions involved in the balanced budget amendment, and makes them 
concrete and real.
  The right-to-know amendment calls on Congress to meet its obligation 
to American democracy. It is nothing less than a recognition of our 
fundamental moral responsibility to our country, because it seeks to 
ensure that the American people have the information they need to be 
able to meet their own responsibilities as Americans.
  No one can make good decisions without good information. In a 
democracy, that means not only must Congress and the President have 
good information, but so must the American people. For that reason 
alone, it should have universal support in this Senate. It is the only 
way to demonstrate that Congress is serious about wanting to balance 
the budget, that Congress wants the American people to be real partners 
in the decisions required to make that happen, and that Congress is 
committed to doing what is right--telling the whole budget truth to the 
American people.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. I ask if the Senator will yield for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DORGAN. I have 12 minutes and two additional statements.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. I conclude by saying, Mr. President, the balanced 
budget amendment is going to require some real hard decisions by all of 
us, decisions that will affect our States, decisions that will affect 
our constituencies, and it seems to me that we have an obligation to 
tell the truth beforehand so people get a sense of exactly how this 
will work.
  Taking Social Security off the table, taking Medicaid off the table, 
taking defense off the table, doing the kinds of changes that will come 
up in amendments after we get past this one, will, I think, require 
some hard decisions. It seems to me that with the right-to-know-
amendment the people will have 
[[Page S2293]] the truth. They can evaluate our actions more accurately 
and more effectively. They can hold us accountable for what we do.
  With that, Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Dakota and I 
yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized.
  Mr. GORTON. I yield myself 6 minutes.
  Mr. President, at the outset of this debate, I observed that Members 
of the Senate divided into three distinct groups in connection with the 
proposal now before us.
  The first was those who believe that the present budget and financial 
system of the Government of the United States is broken, broken 
seriously and requires major surgery in order to fix it. The evidence 
which we, a majority, in this body have cited is the fact that in 30 
years we have had but one balanced budget. In the last 20 years, the 
total debt has multiplied by more than 10 times to almost $5 trillion, 
a tremendous burden on the people of the United States of America; that 
even at the present time, at a time of relative prosperity, we are 
running deficits of $200 billion a year, adding that amount to our 
total debt. The cure, it is the belief of the substantial majority of 
the Members of this body, is the balanced budget amendment in the form 
in which it passed the House of Representatives.
  The second group in this debate are those who claim allegiance to the 
concept of a balanced budget but not in this fashion, not through the 
provision for such a budget in the Constitution of the United States.
  Now, I believe that the overwhelming challenge to that second group 
is if not this way, what way? What indicates to them in the history of 
the last 30 or 40 years that either a President of the United States or 
a Congress of the United States without any external discipline 
whatsoever will change the course of action of several decades and work 
toward a balanced budget without external discipline?
  So far, this second group has been quite silent about what there is 
that has so profoundly changed in America that we will now get what we 
have lacked over the course of the last 30 years. In fact, it seems to 
me that it is more the duty of that group to show us how they would 
reach the goal than it is of those who believe that a constitutional 
amendment is necessary and who are the subject of the demands in this 
motion by the distinguished Democratic leader.
  Third, of course, is the group that does not believe in a balanced 
budget at all, who feel that the present, the status quo is perfectly 
appropriate. There are relatively few in number in this body who 
candidly advocate that position but one certainly can credit their 
candidness. Probably a number of those in the second group really fall 
into the third group with the balanced budget as a low priority or no 
priority at all.
  That third group, however, got a wonderful new recruit on Monday. On 
Monday, the President of the United States, William Clinton, joined 
them by presenting to us a budget with a $200 billion deficit and 
projections that are very optimistic from the perspective of inflation 
and economic growth, projections that never bring the budget deficit to 
significantly less than $200 billion a year, with a deficit that 
increases after the turn of the century, so that another $1.5 trillion 
will be added to the debt. That budget, that Presidential budget is the 
best single advertisement for the passage of this constitutional 
amendment in its original form.
  The Daschle motion, the motion of the distinguished Democratic 
leader, is designed to justify doing nothing, to retain the status quo. 
I cannot imagine that any of its proponents really believe we ought to 
include in the Constitution of the United States two pages of detailed 
instructions which will become irrelevant if the constitutional 
amendment is actually passed. They cannot believe it.
  But beyond the inappropriateness of putting such language in the 
Constitution of the United States is the unconstitutionality of the 
motion itself because our Constitution tells us that this Congress 
passes proposed constitutional amendments which are then submitted to 
the States for their ratification. Under the Daschle motion, no such 
thing will happen. The submission to the States is conditioned upon 
Congress passing a series of laws before that submission takes place.
  The Daschle motion is, therefore, not only bad policy, not only bad 
aesthetics by putting terrible language in the Constitution of the 
United States, it is itself blatantly unconstitutional.
  Both for reasons of policy and for reasons of constitutionality, the 
Daschle motion should be decisively and swiftly tabled so we can move 
on to a debate over the merits of the constitutional proposal itself.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kyl). Who yields time?
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I yield 7 minutes to the distinguished 
Senator from Maine.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine is recognized.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the pending resolution 
to amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget.
  I have not always supported the balanced budget amendment. When this 
measure was considered by the Senate in 1982 and again in 1986, I felt 
that Congress could and would address deficits without the aid of a 
constitutional amendment. Several years ago, however, I realized that I 
had overestimated Congress' ability to deal responsibly with the 
budget. We have not balanced the budget in 25 years.
  When it came time for the tough spending cuts ordered by the Gramm-
Rudman deficit reduction law, Congress did not have the will to follow 
through. So in 1992, for the first time I supported a balanced budget 
amendment in the Senate.
  Public debt is not inherently bad. It was both necessary and wise for 
the Federal Government to borrow heavily during World War II. In the 
three decades following the war, the United States gradually paid down 
this debt. Beginning in the 1970's and worsening in the 1980's, 
however, the Federal Government reversed this trend by borrowing more 
and more to pay for current expenses. The huge deficits we have been 
running for the past 15 years have not been to finance public 
investments that will yield benefits in the future. We have been 
borrowing primarily to pay for current consumption. We're not borrowing 
to build roads; we're borrowing to put gas in the car.
  Contrary to popular belief, Congress is never faced with the option 
of raising taxes or borrowing money to finance Government. Spending can 
only be paid for through taxes--it is simply a question of whether we 
raise taxes today or tomorrow. Borrowing invariably means that future 
generations will face a heavier tax burden. In fact, the Office of 
Management and Budget last year published an analysis of the growing 
tax burden. The report forecast that, without changes in Federal law, 
the average net tax rate for future generations would eventually reach 
82 percent of their lifetime earnings. Clearly, such a tax burden would 
be unacceptable.
  The real harm caused by Government borrowing is that it draws down 
the pool of savings available for investment. Rising standards of 
living are possible only through investments in infrastructure, in 
plants and equipment, and in education. Savings by American families 
and businesses provide the capital for these investments. But deficits 
draw down, or crowd out, the national pool of savings. This year, for 
instance, the first $200 billion in savings will not go to investments 
in new plants and equipment but to feed the deficit.
  As more and more of our savings are devoured by the deficit, 
investments for the future decline--and with them, the rate of economic 
growth in the country.
  So the deficit is a double hit on future generations. We are not only 
asking them to finance our current spending; we are handicapping their 
ability to meet this obligation--by crowding out investments for the 
future. We are not only eating their seed corn, we are asking them to 
pick up the dinner check.
  This travesty simply must end. As nearly every economist in the 
country 
[[Page S2294]] agrees, the surest way to increase investment in the 
future is to cut the deficit. And, the surest way to cut the deficit is 
to pass the balanced budget amendment. All other remedies have failed.
  Repeated deficits have done serious damage not only to the economy 
but to Congress' standing with the public. The low esteem in which 
Congress is held is directly related to our fiscal irresponsibility. 
For the sake of the integrity of this institution, we cannot continue 
to promise the American people long-term deficit reduction and do 
little about it. Actions do speak louder than words.
  We have tried every conceivable legislative option to force a more 
responsible budget policy. With few exceptions, these efforts have 
failed. A constitutional amendment appears to be the only solution 
left. As others have said, it may be a bad idea but one whose time has 
come.
  Amending the Constitution should not be proposed lightly. It is a 
very serious matter. However, the balanced budget amendment is 
consistent with the historic role of the Federal constitution in 
safeguarding the rights of those who may be under-represented in the 
political process. In this case the under-represented individuals are 
future generations who are being asked to pay for our profligacy.
  Numerous arguments have been made in opposition to the balanced 
budget amendment. Some have argued that the balanced budget amendment 
is a gimmick that will not work, while at the same time arguing that it 
will wreak havoc by imposing draconian cuts. The balanced budget 
amendment is neither a gimmick nor a merciless ax hanging over all 
Federal programs--and it is certainly not both.
  The balanced budget amendment is not an easy political vote. The easy 
votes have been the routine ones to spend beyond our means. The 
proposed amendment will not--with certainty--end deficit spending, but 
it will undoubtedly make it more difficult.
  When the 1990 budget agreement required a supermajority to exceed 
annual caps in discretionary spending, no one argued that the 
supermajority requirement was a gimmick. It was recognized as an 
essential step toward fiscal responsibility. When all the smoke is 
cleared on the balanced budget debate, it is undeniable that deficits 
will be harder to continue under a constitutional amendment. If you 
want to make it more difficult for Congress and the President to pass 
the tax bill on to future generations, you should support the balance 
budget amendment.
  The amendment does not tie Congress' hand to the point that it could 
not respond to a national crisis. With the approval of three-fifths of 
the Congress, deficits would be permitted. In times of war or dire 
economic circumstances, three-fifths of the Members of the Congress can 
be expected to recognize the need for deficit spending.
  Unfortunately, Congress has too often viewed deficits not as a 
necessary tool in dire circumstances but as a
 convenient way to spend beyond our means. We have turned the exception 
into the rule and have become hooked on deficit spending. It has been 
easier to reach for the deficit brew than to abstrain and act 
responsibility. The practical effect of the balanced budget amendment 
will be to put this elixir a little higher on the shelf and further out 
of Congress' reach.

  In closing, I would like to make three points that I think put this 
debate into context.
  First, 37 States have balanced budget amendments. Complying with 
these requirements is not always convenient. But over the long term, 
forcing governments to balance their budgets promotes good and 
disciplined government.
  Second, the fact that taxpayers are willing to finance only $1.4 
trillion of the $1.6 trillion worth of current Government services, 
begs the question of whether the public really wants as much Government 
as currently exists.
  Last, we should not lose sight of the fact that there is no free 
lunch here. Every dollar the Government borrows is a dollar unavailable 
for job-creating investment in the private sector. Also, every dollar 
the Government borrows today is a dollar tomorrow's taxpayers will have 
to repay. At its most basic level the balanced budget amendment stands 
for the simple principle that we should pay today for the Government we 
use today. If we are unwilling to put the money on the barrel 
ourselves, by what right can we ask future generations to put their 
money on the barrel?
  The balanced budget amendment offers the best hope of ending the 
fiscal child abuse in which we have been engaged. The bruises may not 
show right now, but the pain is going to last a lifetime. We owe it to 
our children and their children to balance the budget. I have no 
illusions that this will be an easy task, but if we do not in earnest 
set this as our goal and accept it as our responsibility, it will never 
happen. The debate today is not about how do we get there, it is about 
where are we going.
  Thomas Jefferson once said that whenever one generation spends money 
and taxes another to pay for it, it is squandering futurity on a 
massive scale. Let us end this squandering and pass the balanced budget 
amendment now before our task becomes even more difficult.
  Mr. President, now let me speak briefly about the pending amendment, 
the so-called right-to-know amendment.
  The word ``gimmick'' has been thrown around here quite a bit in this 
debate, with the opponents of the balanced budget amendment arguing it 
is simply a gimmick rather than a serious effort to balance the budget. 
I respectfully suggest if there is a gimmick stalking the Chambers 
these days, it is the so-called right-to-know amendment. It is designed 
to kill the balanced budget amendment and nothing else. Some of its 
principal sponsors supported the balanced budget amendment last year, 
and there was no mention on their part of a right to know at that time. 
Curiously, suddenly it has emerged.
  Any one of us can produce a balanced budget plan by the year 2002. 
Indeed, some of us have. I joined last year with Senators Danforth, 
Boren and Johnston, to offer the only bipartisan alternative to the 
President's budget. Our plan called for cutting spending on the basis 
of $2 for every $1 in taxes. It was a serious and detailed plan. 
Unfortunately, it gathered more critical acclaim from the Concord 
Coalition and others than it did from Members of the Chamber.
  But the issue pending before the Senate is not how we are going to 
get somewhere. It is about where we are going. Are we truly committed 
to balancing the budget? If so, let us take the first step by passing 
this amendment. The process of figuring out how we achieve the goal is 
going to be difficult. Everyone in the Chamber understands just how it 
is that no serious debate can take place in an atmosphere of partisan 
sniping, where one side is trying to score points through fear 
mongering, by saying the other side is trying to attack Social Security 
or veterans or some other group.
  Three years ago, Senators Nunn and Domenici offered a plan to cap 
entitlement spending the way we already cap discretionary spending. I 
supported it. Unfortunately, there were only 28 votes in favor of that 
approach.
  A second-degree amendment was offered by the Democratic leader to 
exempt veterans' programs. It was effective. Very few Senators wanted 
to vote against that amendment. It was effective in terms of short-term 
politics, but it served to underscore what is wrong with Congress and 
why the American people are basically fed up with Washington. Every 
thinking person who has looked at the Federal Government knows 
entitlement reform is the key to any serious deficit reduction, yet the 
political fires are stoked to the point where no one dares to discuss 
openly what we know privately to be essential--entitlement reform.
  During the debate on the Nunn-Domenici plan, we were told, do not 
undertake broad entitlement reform, that is really not where the 
problem is. The problem is with health care spending. We need health 
care reform.
  After a year of debate in this Chamber, after the President submitted 
his 1,435-page proposal for health care reform, the best that could be 
said was that it was deficit neutral. Yet before we were told, ``Wait 
until we get to health care reform, that is where the savings are, 
forget about entitlement reform,'' and when the plan finally came up it 
was at best deficit neutral. It certainly did not reduce the deficit.
  [[Page S2295]] It is a mistake both in terms of politics and policy. 
The atmosphere around here has become so poisoned that honest debate 
has become nearly prohibited, and that is neither in the country's nor 
the Senate's best interest.
  The President's budget calls for $200 billion in deficits as far as 
the eye can see. We all understand why it does not call for a long list 
of specific cuts, because he would be attacked, just as Republicans are 
when we produce lists of spending cuts. We need an environment like the 
one Chief Justice Earl Warren sought when the Supreme Court took up the 
case of Brown v. Board of Education, dealing with racial segregation in 
public schools. The Chief Justice, knowing this would be a landmark and 
controversial case in the country's race relations, first sought an 
agreement among the Justices for unanimity in their decision. He did 
not want such an important decision to be decided by a split Court.
  I have no illusion that the Members of Congress could unanimously 
agree on a difficult deficit reduction package, but I do think we ought 
to learn from Chief Justice Warren's approach in terms of securing an 
atmosphere where debate can be undertaken without fear of being 
punished for candor. The budget deficit is rivaled only by the candor 
deficit. Until we can openly discuss these issues without fear of 
charges of heresy, is any serious progress ever going to be made? The 
balanced budget amendment is necessary to create that atmosphere, and I 
urge my colleagues to reject the attempt to subvert and derail this 
effort by the so-called right-to-know amendment.
  I yield the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield the remaining 11 minutes to the 
Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy].
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Do I understand the Senator from Connecticut desires 
time?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, first of all, I thank the distinguished 
Senator from Massachusetts. I will ask for just 2 minutes, if that is 
appropriate, if the Chair will notify me so I do not eat into the time 
of the Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. President, I rise to support the right-to-know amendment offered 
by the distinguished Senate minority leader, Senator Daschle.
  The first headline to greet me yesterday morning was ``Republicans 
Vow Leadership They Say Clinton's Budget Lacks.''
  Mr. President, I look forward to their leadership on this vitally 
important matter. We have not seen any yet, but I am sure it is right 
around the corner.
  I look forward to providing as much scrutiny of Republican deficit 
reduction efforts as has been accorded to the President's efforts. To 
my Republican friends, I say it is time to see your cuts. The 104th 
Congress has now been in session for 36 days, and we have yet to see 
any specific cuts.


                           the Clinton record

  Twenty-seven days after President Clinton assumed office he submitted 
a detailed budget plan that contained more than $500 billion in deficit 
reduction. He did not say ``I want to see the Republicans plan first.'' 
Instead he did what he was elected to do--he led.
  He made difficult and painful choices. The choices were so hard, in 
fact, that not a single Republican Member supported his deficit 
reduction initiative. The House Budget Committee chairman, 
Representative John Kasich, proposed an alternative plan that cut the 
deficit by $15 billion less than the President's plan.
  Despite the doom and gloom predictions of our Republican colleagues, 
the President's plan has substantially reduced the deficit and helped 
the economy. President Clinton has reversed the trend of the Reagan/
Bush era. Then the national debt was growing faster than the economy. 
Now the economy is growing faster than the debt. And the combined rates 
of unemployment and inflation have reached a 25-year low.


                              Health care

  Last year, the President exercised considerable leadership again by 
tackling the principle cause of rising deficits, skyrocketing health 
care costs. The President offered a comprehensive plan to reform our 
health care system and contain rising health care costs that are 
fueling deficit growth. Forty percent of the increase in spending is 
due to increasing medical costs.
  Last February, CBO reported that:

       Once the administration's proposal was fully implemented, 
     it would significantly reduce the projected growth of 
     national health expenditures *  *  * from 2000 on national 
     health expenditures would fall below the baseline by 
     increasing amounts. By 2004, CBO projects that total spending 
     for health would be $150 billion--or 7 percent--below where 
     it would be if current policies and trends continued.

  Unfortunately, the President's efforts were thwarted.
  The President remains committed to reining in rising health care 
costs and reforming our system in a comprehensive manner. Health care, 
however, is not even mentioned in the Contract With America.


                        fiscal year 1996 budget

  On Monday, the President submitted his 1996 budget and recommended an 
additional $81 billion in deficit reduction. That savings, and the 
President's tax cuts, are fully funded with specific spending cuts.


                         republican leadership

  Mr. President, we have heard much from our colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle about their desire to achieve significant 
accomplishments in the first 100 days of this session. We are now 36 
days into that benchmark and we have yet to see the Republicans 
spending cut plans.
  We have heard much talk, and seen very little action. The GOP has 
reversed the advice of a great Republican leader, Theodore Roosevelt. 
Instead of speaking softly, and carrying a big stick, they are shouting 
loudly and carrying a fig leaf. A constitutional amendment provides 
their cover.
  Congressman Kasich said recently, ``You can't have people who are 
afraid to break china when you've got to go at this with a 
sledgehammer.''
  Let us see what the sledgehammer will produce.


                        right-to-know amendment

  Mr. President, that is the purpose of this amendment. It is no more 
and no less than a truth in budget advertising amendment. It says 
simply that we must be honest with the American people.
  Before we pass a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, 
we should tell the American people how we intend to accomplish this 
task. I cannot imagine this effort being at all controversial anywhere 
but Washington, DC. It simply says if you are going to talk the talk of 
balanced budgets, you have to walk the walk of how you get there. So 
far, that is exactly what is not happening.


                          Reneging on promises

  Several weeks ago, in response to President Clinton's demand that any 
tax cuts be deficit neutral, our Republican colleagues promised that 
spending cuts would precede tax cuts. The message was clear: Before we 
pass broad new benefits, we must assure the American public that they 
will be paid for. This promise has since been abandoned to concerns of 
kneebuckling constituents.


                       More promises--no details

  The Contract With America promises to balance the budget by 2002. CBO 
estimates that this will cost $1.2 trillion over 7 years.
  The contract also promises $200 billion in tax cuts over 5 years, and 
$700 billion in cuts over 10 years. Fifty percent of the tax cuts, I 
might add, would benefit Americans with incomes in excess of $100,000 a 
year.
  Before attempting to pay for these promises, the GOP proposes to take 
more than half the budget off the table. Republicans want to increase 
defense spending and remove Social Security, while at the same time 
continuing to pay interest on the debt. Less than half the budget would 
then remain on the chopping block.
  Removing these items would require a 30-percent across-the-board 
reduction in everything else.
  That means a 30-percent across-the-board cut in: Violent crime 
programs, veterans pensions, Medicare benefits, child nutrition, 
headstart, health programs, low-income energy assistance, 
     [[Page S2296]]  student loans, research and development, and 
     so forth.
  Let us analyze further for a moment what these cuts may well mean in 
human terms:
  A 30-percent across-the-board could mean:
  A $5,175 increase in Medicare premiums and out-of-pocket costs for 
seniors.
  An elimination of nursing home coverage or optional services like 
home care and prescription drugs.
   Some 6.6 million less children with health care coverage through the 
Medicaid Program.
  A drop of a third in NIH biomedical research grants severely impeding 
research on cancer, AIDS, heart disease, and other illnesses.
  Veterans disabled in their service to our country could expect their 
average monthly benefit check to decline from $819 to $574.
  A middle-class family relying on Government loans to send a child to 
college could owe over $3,000 in additional interest.
  As many as 3,000 teachers could lose their jobs, dramatically 
increasing class sizes.
  Over 200,000 American families could lose the child care subsidies 
that enable parents to work or attend school.
  Approximately 1.8 million households could lose the Federal 
assistance that enables them to pay their heating bills during the 
winter.
  Over 150,000 jobs could be lost through cuts in highway funds.
  Almost 2 million pregnant women and young children could lose infant 
formula and other nutrition supplements.
  Over 30 million meals on wheels for homebound seniors might not be 
delivered.
  Over 38 million means might not be served at seniors centers.
  The average interval between inspections of food manufacturing 
facilities could increase from 6 to 11 years.
  Over 200,000 dislocated workers could be denied retraining and job 
replacement services; 40,000 violations of workplace safety regulations 
uncovered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration could 
remain uncorrected.
  Mr. President, it is clearly impossible to achieve significant 
deficit reduction without pain.
  That is the whole point of this amendment. Before we promise to 
balance the budget, and enact new tax cuts, the American public 
deserves to know exactly what kind of pain to expect.
  The President has revealed his cuts. Democratic members have made 
painful choices and tough votes. It is time for the Republicans to 
reveal how they intend to fulfill their own promises.


                               No details

  On spending cuts, the Republicans are essentially saying to each 
other, like Connie Chung, ``Whisper it, just between you and me.'' They 
do not want a serious debate by an informed public of all the 
implications of this constitutional amendment.
  It is true that 80 percent of the American public supports a balanced 
budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as long as it remains a 
slogan or a simple statement of principle. But what happens to that 80 
percent figure when people are presented with various spending cut 
options?
  A Washington Post-ABC news poll is telling:
  Only 59 percent still support the balanced budget amendment if it 
would mean cuts in welfare or public assistance to the poor.
  Only 56 percent still support it if it would mean cuts in defense.
  Only 37 percent still support it if it would means cuts in education.
  Only 34 percent still support it if it would mean cuts in Social 
Security.
  Mr. President, before we amend the fundamental charter of our Nation, 
the U.S. Constitution, we must be open and frank with the American 
people about our plans.
  I urge my colleagues to support this amendment to inform the 
electorate of the important budgetary choices this body intends to make 
in the years ahead.
  Let me briefly say it is no secret to my colleagues here that I am 
opposed to this amendment to the Constitution. My intention would be to 
vote against all amendments that are offered to it. This amendment, 
however, I think, deserves support. It simply asks us to know what I 
think most persons would like to know: Before their Congressmen or 
Senators vote on something as significant and profound as to change the 
organic law of the country into which we will incorporate economic 
theory--and it is always open to speculation and guesswork in such an 
organic law--to have some idea as to how this is all going to be 
achieved.
  It is, as one would enter into contract negotiations--since that is a 
subject of some heated debate now in this city, between baseball owners 
and players--as if someone would suggest: Look, sign the contract. We 
will talk about the details afterwards.
  You would be ridiculed if you made such a proposal.
  Here, what we are merely suggesting is that as we go down this road, 
which will incorporate for the first time a real straitjacket into the 
Constitution of the United States, what are the implications of this? 
What does it mean to people out there who pay the taxes and fund all 
these programs? They, it seems to me, are really the ones who have a 
right to know how their tax dollars will be used or not used in the 
future.
  The suggestion, somehow, their knees would buckle if they knew 
because it is painful is no reason to reject the desire to find out 
exactly how this is going to work. And for that reason I strongly 
support this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I oppose the proposed balanced budget 
constitutional amendment, because it is unnecessary and unwise to write 
a balanced budget requirement into the Constitution.
  It is obvious why the Republican majority has scheduled consideration 
of the balanced budget amendment now, so early in this new Congress.
  The Republican majority wants to pass the constitutional amendment 
before more pressure builds for them to explain how they would achieve 
the balance. The more the American people understand this leap-before-
you-look strategy, the less the people like it.
  The House Republican majority leader has already admitted to this 
strategy. Congressman Armey, a strong supporter of the proposed 
constitutional amendment, said that if Members of Congress know what it 
takes to comply with the requirement, ``their knees will buckle.'' He 
also is reported to have said that ``putting together a detailed list 
beforehand would make passing the balanced budget amendment virtually 
impossible.''
  Instead of devoting the time and effort to craft a responsible 
budget, the Republican majority asks us to amend the Constitution now, 
ask questions later. But the Constitution has served this Nation 
through wars, economic depressions, and other crises far worse than the 
current budget deficit. Amending the Constitution should be the 
considered option of last resort, not the expedient course of first 
resort.
  For that reason, I commend Senator Daschle's amendment to insure that 
the constitutional amendment will not take effect unless Congress first 
passes a resolution specifying in detail how the budget would be 
balanced by 2002. The American people and their elected representatives 
in the State legislatures have a fundamental right to know how this 
constitutional amendment would affect their lives.
  The Congressional Budget Office estimates that a total of $1.2 
trillion in deficit reduction will be required to balance the budget by 
the year 2002. And that total does not include the tax cuts called for 
by the Republican Contact With America, which would raise the total of 
cuts required to $1.5 trillion.
  If Social Security, defense, and interest on the national debt are 
excluded from the deficit-cutting calculations, all other Federal 
programs will have to be cut by 22 percent to achieve a balanced budget 
in 2002. And if the tax cuts in the Contract With America are included, 
all other Federal programs will have to be cut by 30 percent. That's a 
30-percent cut in spending on Medicare, Medicaid, veterans benefits, 
student loans, farm benefits, and all other Federal programs.
  The American people have a right to know if that is how the 
Republican majority will balance the budget.
   [[Page S2297]] Across-the-board 30-percent cuts would have a 
disastrous impact on children, the elderly, and hard-working familes 
throughout the United States. Here are just a few examples:
  Over 220,000 children would be unable to enroll in Head Start early 
childhood programs.
  Over 200,000 families would lose the child care subsidies that enable 
parents to work or attend school.
  And 1.9 million students would lose the opportunity for remedial 
education through title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education 
Act.
  Also, 3,000 teachers would lose their jobs, dramatically incresing 
class sizes in many school districts.
  To achieve the necessary cuts, the House Budget Committee has already 
proposed that the Federal Government should stop paying the interest on 
student loans while students are in college or professional school. 
Middle-class students on the full available amount of such loans would 
owe over $3,000 in additional interest at the end of 4 years of 
college. Instead of $17,000 in loans to pay back, they would have to 
pay back over $20,000.
  The challenge that we are facing in higher education is not how we 
are going to raise the burden on middle-income families to send their 
children to school, but how we are going to dampen that burden, lessen 
that burden, so that their young members of their family are going to 
be able to go to school. The fact, even as we are here this morning, is 
that efforts are being made within the Republican Budget Committee and 
by the Republican chair of the Appropriations Committee to raise the 
cost of those loans significantly for future years.
  If those same needy students were to attend medical school and 
continue to borrow the full amount available, they would owe over 
$16,000 in additional interest at the end of medical school. A debt 
that would be $51,000 under current law would climb to a debt of 
$67,000.
  If Pell grants are slashed by 30 percent, eligible students would 
receive a maximum of $1,560, a fraction of the $8,000 it now costs to 
attend many State universities. Many students could not even afford 
community college at this reduced level of support.
  What we have seen in the 1980's to 1992 is a dramatic shift from the 
grant programs for the children of working families to go to schools 
and colleges which they were qualified to go to and to which they 
wanted to go--three-quarters for the grants and one-quarter for the 
loan. Now it is three-quarters for the loan and one-quarter for the 
grant.
  Now the Republicans are talking about increasing the costs of those 
particular loans and indenturing young sons and daughters of working 
families for years to come. That will only be increased dramatically 
with a balanced budget amendment.
  If the cut is achieved by reducing the number of students receiving 
Pell grants rather than the amount of the grant, 1.1 million students 
would fail to receive the Federal aid they need to attend college.
  Senior citizens would face drastically higher medical bills. Medicare 
beneficiaries would pay an additional $1,320 more in premiums and out 
of pocket costs.
  Monthly benefits for disabled veterans would drop from $819 to $574 a 
month.
  A 30-percent cut in Federal support for biomedical research would 
reduce the number of annual research project grants awarded by the 
National Institutes of Health from 6,000 to 4,200. This cut would 
severely damage research on cancer, AIDS, heart disease, and other 
illnesses affecting millions of Americans. The promising current effort 
to identify a genetic basis for diabetes would be set back.
  The greatest opportunity for breakthroughs that we have had in the 
history of this country is out at the NIH. There is a difficulty, even 
with the administration getting an additional $500 million for 
additional grants. More than 90 Nobel laureates won because of NIH 
support over the history of the NIH with extraordinary opportunities 
for breakthroughs in cancer and many other diseases that affect 
families all across this country.
  The effect of a balanced budget amendment, in cutting back what is 
called discretionary funds--we are not talking about exempting NIH. No; 
no. We are talking about cutting discretionary funds, whatever that 
means. Make no mistake about it. You are talking about cutting NIH; you 
are cutting cancer research; you are cutting heart disease research; 
and you are cutting AIDS research. That is going to be a direct result 
with a balanced budget amendment.
  Why not give us the opportunity to find out from those that support a 
balanced budget amendment whether they are going to include the NIH? 
Let us have a debate on it. What is wrong with that? Why not say: Are 
you going to include NIH, or are you going to be willing to cut back on 
other kinds of spending? Or, do you want to enhance some fees in terms 
of other parts of the country, mining fees or grazing fees? But we are 
denied that opportunity, and the Daschle amendment would require that 
kind of a factor.
  Approximately 1.8 million households would lose the Federal 
assistance that enables them to pay their heating bills during the 
winter. Alternatively, the assistance available to all eligible 
households would be cut to only $120 each year, barely enough to pay a 
single month's bill.
  Nearly a quarter million senior citizens who rely on the Meals on 
Wheels Program for their nutrition would be denied that assistance. 
There are some 32,000 seniors every single day who get Meals on Wheels 
in my State of Massachusetts. You are talking about cutting thousands 
off of that particular list. Over 700,000 senior citizens who benefit 
from the congregate meals program would lose that assistance. Large 
numbers of these senior citizens, unable to feed themselves, would no 
longer be able to live at home and would be placed into institutions.
  The Occupational Safety and Health Administration would be able to 
carry out 12,000 fewer inspections each year. Some 40,000 violations of 
workplace safety regulations that OSHA uncovered last year might remain 
uncorrected. A similar number of violations uncovered by the Mine 
Safety and Health Administration might remain uncorrected.
  Over 200,000 dislocated workers would be denied retraining and job 
placement services. An additional 200,000 teenagers seeking summer jobs 
would be refused that opportunity.
  The average number of food inspections by the Food and Drug 
Administration would fall from 10,000 to 7,000.
  The average interval between inspections of food manufacturing 
facilities would go from 6 years to 11 years. The average frequency of 
blood bank inspections would decrease from once every 2 years to once 
every 3 years.
  The process for reviewing new pharmaceutical products would lengthen 
from approximately 20 months to 30 months initially, and get longer as 
the backlog carries over from year to year.
  Those are but a few of the examples of the impact of the 30-percent 
across-the-board cut in Federal spending that would be required under 
the Republican proposal for a balanced Federal budget by 2002.
  If that is what the Republican majority have in mind to comply with 
the proposed constitutional amendment, the American people have a right 
to know it.
  The Treasury Department has also estimated the impact of the proposed 
constitutional amendment on the States.
  An across-the-board deficit reduction package that excluded Social 
Security and defense would require cuts in Federal grants to States of 
$97.8 billion and cuts of an additional $242.1 billion in other Federal 
spending that directly benefits State residents.
 We can ask whether the States have a full understanding and awareness 
of this as they begin this debate.

  According to the Treasury Department, State taxes would have to 
increase an average of 17.3 percent, just to offset the loss of Federal 
grants.
  If that will be the impact of the proposed constitutional amendment, 
then the States have a right to know it.
  Asking the States and the American people to support this proposed 
constitutional amendment without telling them what it means is bumper 
sticker politics at its worst. The American people deserve facts, not 
slogans.
  I urge my colleagues to support the right-to-know amendment. Sunshine 
is 
[[Page S2298]] the best disinfectant. It is understandable that the 
Republican majority prefers to keep Congress and the country in the 
dark about this proposal. But if it cannot stand the light of day, it 
does not deserve to pass.
  We have the election of Republicans, and they have leadership 
positions in the House and Senate of the United States. I hope that at 
least they would feel honor bound to be able to describe to the 
institutions and the American people what their vision is in terms of a 
balanced budget.
  That is all this amendment does. If we are going to have a balanced 
budget, why not let the American people understand exactly what is 
going to be involved, both at the Federal level and at the State level? 
This particular amendment would give that kind of information to the 
American people. I think the amendment is flawed without this 
amendment.
  I hope that the amendment will be agreed to.
  I yield back whatever time remains.
  I thank the Chair.
  Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah is recognized.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I enjoyed listening to my dear colleague 
from Massachusetts, and almost everyone, I think, knows of my affection 
for him. But we know what is going to happen if we do not do this 
balanced budget amendment. He and his friends are going to continue to 
spend us blind, which is what they have been doing for most of the last 
60 years.
  The fact of the matter is everyone knows that this country is in real 
trouble and they know who has basically put the Great Society programs 
into effect, many of which, if not all of which, were well-
intentioned--they know who has caused the entitlements to grow to now. 
If you put interest in the entitlements, which it should be, 72 percent 
of the total Federal budget, it is running out of control. And if you 
add in the factor that most of them do not support any type of fiscal 
discipline to bring the Federal Government into some sort of a balance, 
and now they come to us and say: Well, now that you have the balanced 
budget amendment on the floor, you ought to tell us how you are going 
to do it, knowing that we have all kinds of plans already on the 
boards, some of which I agree with and some of which I do not, but 
nevertheless budgets that would get us to balance without the draconian 
30-percent cut that the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts is 
talking about, this 30-percent cut across the board that my friend from 
Massachusetts has been presenting is highly exaggerated.
  Congress could adopt many types of these plans or parts of these 
plans into a consolidated whole, if they want to, and we can reach a 
balanced budget without cutting 30 percent across the board. In fact, I 
do not think anybody would argue against that provision.
  But while we have been talking here in the Congress--we are now in 
our 10th day since we started this--our balanced budget debt track we 
reach each day, $4.8 trillion is the baseline; that is our debt which 
we started with before we started this debate. We are now in our 10th 
day, and we are now up to $8,294,400,000 in additional debt just in the 
9 days since we started here.
  All I hear from my friends is you should not be able to enact a 
balanced budget amendment until you tell us how you are going to reach 
a balanced budget, and you cannot submit it to the States until you do. 
They know once we put this fiscal discipline into place, the game is 
over. And they know that they are going to have to start to live within 
their means. No longer can they spend themselves into the Senate or 
keep themselves in the Senate by spending and telling the people how 
much we are doing for them while we are spending them into bankruptcy.
  I cannot sit here and simply ignore the fact that the liberals, who 
have spent us into bankruptcy, are the ones who are fighting against 
this amendment. We have irresponsible debt in this country. We have 
runaway spending. We have a destructive welfare system that not only is 
too expensive but it is destroying families. We have an antisavings Tax 
Code that is eating us alive. We have a huge Washington bureaucracy. We 
are killing the American dream, and we are killing our children's 
future.
  We have to cut the waste. We have to cut the fat. We have to do it 
through a discipline that only the balanced budget amendment will bring 
to us.
 And if we do not do that, I just worry about the country, and so does 
everybody else. This is not a game around here. For those who are 
against the amendment to come and say, now, after they have been in 
control for most of the last 60 years, and never having reached a 
balanced budget for the last 26 years, to come to us and say, you have 
to explain how you can do it and satisfy 535 Members of Congress before 
you can put the discipline into place that will get us there, it seems 
to me is pure sophistry.

  We need the discipline. That is what is missing. Remember Gramm-
Rudman-Hollings? We all thought that statute was going to do the job. 
It did do a little bit until we amended it and set the goals farther 
out there, and amended it again, and now we have done away with it 
altogether because it was a simple statute. It was well-intentioned, 
and a lot of people thought it might work, and it did to some to 
degree, but it was tossed out when they decided to spend more around 
here.
  The Democrats against this balanced budget amendment were in charge 
last year, and they have been in charge since 1986. They have never 
presented a balanced budget, nor have they presented a plan. Certainly 
the President's program is not a plan either to get us to a balanced 
budget. His budget, very clearly, is not a plan to get us there.
  Now we come down to the Daschle amendment, this right-to-know 
amendment. I have seldom seen a more frivolous trivialization of the 
Constitution than what this amendment would do, because it would write 
a section 9 into the balanced budget amendment that would put new 
language into the constitutional amendment--new language for the first 
time, all kinds of budgetary terms, all kinds of language that really 
would allow loopholes galore, which would institutionalize even 
committees in the Senate and the Congressional Budget Office.
  Look at this language and you have to say, constitutional language? 
That is with a big question mark. I do not see how anybody can argue 
this is what we ought to do for the Constitution, even though they talk 
about the right to know. Aggregate levels of new budget authority. In 
the Constitution? Major functional category, account-by-account basis, 
allocation of Federal revenues, reconciliation directives, section 
310(a) of the Congressional Budget Act. That can be changed by a simple 
majority vote? Talk about trivialization. Omnibus reconciliation bill. 
What in the world does that mean? That is going to be written into the 
Constitution so they can continue doing business as usual? 
Congressional Budget Office. They are going to go write that into the 
Constitution, the Congressional Budget Office? For all of its good 
intentions, it has been wrong more than it has been right on budgetary 
matters. Economic and technical assumptions. And then they are going to 
write the Committee on the Budget into this Constitution?
  Let me just end. This is a trivialization of the Constitution. It 
does not make constitutional sense. It would destroy the balanced 
budget amendment. It would destroy the one time in history since the 
House, for the first time, has passed the balanced budget amendment, 
the one time in history when we really have a chance to restore 
discipline to this process. It would put language into the Constitution 
that is totally unworkable, unless you want to keep spending.
  I thought it was appropriate for some of those who did come out here 
and speak right before this important vote. The opponents are 
apologists for the status quo. They are the people that have been here 
30, 40 years. They are the people that have been around here and have 
seen it go the same way every time, and they say we ought to have the 
guts to do it. Yet, when they had control, they could not do it because 
there was not a fiscal discipline in the Constitution that required 
them to do it, or at least gave incentives, which is what this 
amendment does, to get to a balanced budget.
  Are we going to stick with the old order around here, the old way of 
doing things, the status quo, that now has us $4.8 trillion in debt, 
plus another $8.294 
[[Page S2299]] billion in the 10 days we have been debating this? Are 
we going to stick with the people who brought us to this and let them 
come in here with this phony trivialization of the constitutional 
amendment and say all of a sudden, in just a short period of time, you 
Republicans, before you pass a balanced budget amendment and submit it 
to the States, you have to show us how you are going to cut the budget? 
The fact of the matter is that we will show them once the discipline is 
in place, because we will all have to show them. The Democrats who 
support this amendment will be right there with us helping us to show 
how this can be done. But you cannot do that in less than a year or so, 
and we have to get the balanced budget amendment in place before we do.
  The Daschle proposal raises a lot more questions than it will answer. 
For example, it would require a statement of new budget authority and 
outlays only on accounts which were over $100 million in 1994. What 
about accounts which were under $100 million in 1994 but have grown 
over that? What about new accounts? This proposal would also require an 
allocation of Federal revenues among major resources of such revenues. 
But what qualifies as major? This proposal would further require a 
detailed list and description of changes in Federal law required to 
carry out the plan. Such information is currently in a document 
separate from the budget resolution. That document for President 
Clinton's 1993 budget plan was over 1,000 pages long. His budget plan 
will keep deficits at around $200 billion well into the future, for 12 
years into the future, and then we do not know what will happen. That 
is assuming if the rosy economic circumstances continue that they are 
claiming will be the case.
  Do we really want to increase the already mammoth budget resolution? 
In addition, the provision is vague and incoherent. The Daschle 
proposal literally requires that we predict over the next 7 years not 
just the changes in law Congress may ultimately pass, but the date that 
Congress will pass them.
  The Daschle proposal creates additional problems by making 
constitutional reference to statutory law, as I have just shown on this 
chart. It is ridiculous. Incorporate 310(a) of the Congressional Budget 
Act of 1974 by reference. What happens if Congress amends that section? 
Does that qualify as a constitutional amendment by a simple majority 
vote? Similarly, as we have said, the CBO is explicitly referred to in 
this proposal. That means that the Constitution will now have to refer 
to four branches of Government: judiciary, executive, legislative and, 
of course, the Congressional Budget Office.
  Here we are in the new Congress trying to reduce the Federal 
bureaucracy, and the Daschle proposal attempts to enshrine a part of it 
in the Constitution. Those of us on both sides of the aisle who have 
worked for years to pass this constitutional amendment have 
consistently heard from our opponents that we are trivializing the 
Constitution with this budget matter. Talk about trivializing the 
Constitution.
  The Daschle proposal would have us add a new section to the 
Constitution that is longer and extraordinarily more detailed and 
technical than the proposal that has been the subject of hearings, 
committee debate, vote, and a committee report. It adds new terms to 
the Constitution like ``concurrent resolution.'' I have gone through 
those terms. They will no longer have just lawyers pouring over the 
document; we are going to need a slew of accountants to tell us what 
the Constitution means as well.
  I think we ought to vote this amendment down. It does not deserve to 
be in the Constitution.
  Mr. President, I have stated many times during this debate that the 
balanced budget amendment represents the kind of change the American 
people voted for in November. The American people know that the mammoth 
Federal Government must be put on a fiscal diet. In contrast, the 
proposal offered by the distinguished minority leader, with all due 
respect, is offered in the defense of the status quo and business as 
usual.


                      the right to stall amendment

  The Daschle motion to recommit has been termed by the opponents of 
the balanced budget amendment the right-to-know motion. But it has 
rightly also been called the right-to-stall proposal. It purports to 
put off the requirement of a balanced budget until Congress actually 
agrees to a balanced budget, by adopting such a budget plan.
  Mr. President, this proposal actually will give to Congress a 
constitutional right to stall the requirement of a balanced budget by 
mere failure to balance the budget. Mr. President, the very reason we 
need a balanced budget amendment is because Congress has failed to 
balance the budget for decades. The Daschle right-to-stall amendment 
would make that abject failure of responsibility the explicit condition 
of avoiding the acceptance of that responsibility. If there is a better 
manner to lock in business as usual, a better way to constitutionalize 
our borrow and spend status quo--our ever-steeper slide into the debt 
abyss--I admit I cannot think of it.
  Consider, Mr. President, that the proponents of the right-to-stall 
amendment want to use Congress' historical inability to balance the 
budget as a reason--a constitutional reason--to deny the American 
people, to deny future generations, the requirement they want to force 
Congress to act responsibly, get its fiscal house in order, and live 
within its means. Talk about a recipe for inaction. The right-to-stall 
proponents say ``if Congress cannot balance the budget, they should not 
have to.'' They say, ``if Congress has been and is unable to balance 
the budget in the absence of a balanced budget requirement, we should 
not impose a balanced budget requirement on it.'' Is this what the 
American people want? Do they want Congress' failure to fulfill its 
responsibility to be a reason to drop the requirement? Does this even 
make any sense?
  If my colleagues supporting the Daschle proposal had been in the 
First Congress, we would never have adopted the first amendment in the 
Bill of Rights. Just imagine James Madison defending the free speech 
clause of the first amendment from some of my colleagues: Does this 
mean you cannot yell fire in a crowded theatre? they would ask. Does it 
protect obscenity? If not, what is the line between obscenity and 
protected free speech? We cannot accept the free speech clause without 
these details spelled out, they would say. Does the free speech clause 
protect the American flag from desecration? If so, we cannot accept the 
first amendment. Some of my colleagues made that clear when they turned 
down the flag-burning amendment twice a few years ago.
  What about the religion clauses, the free exercise clause and the 
establishment clause, of the first amendment? Would supporters of the 
Daschle proposal, had they been in the First Congress, demanded an 
accounting of just when and how the Government can aid religious 
schools? Would they have insisted on knowing all of the circumstances 
under which citizens or local governments can put a Menorah or a creche 
on public property? Would they have turned down the first amendment 
because the First Congress could not fulfill the ludicrous task of 
answering these questions? Or would they have accepted the principles 
contained in the first amendment and allowed those principles to 
develop, as they have over the years?
  Just imagine when the following clause in article I, section 9 came 
before the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia: ``No 
money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in Consequence of 
appropriations made by law * * *'' Oh no, my colleagues would have 
said, tell us how much the appropriations will be over the next 7 years 
or we cannot adopt this provision and this Constitution.
  What about the clause in article I, section 8, giving Congress the 
power to regulate foreign and interstate commerce? Oh no, some of our 
colleagues would have said in Philadelphia in 1787. We cannot give 
Congress the power to regulate commerce until we know the tariffs and 
interstate regulations Congress will enact over the next 7 years.
  Here and now, let us adopt the principle of a balanced budget with 
the careful exceptions of war time or when a supermajority consensus is 
reached for a pressing national purpose, on a rollcall vote. Then, 
after we adopt the principle, we can implement it over the next 7 
years, adjusting the budget to 
[[Page S2300]]  take into account changing circumstances during that 
time.
  After all, this is a constitution we are amending, not budget 
legislation. In fact, as I read the Daschle proposal, it requires that 
we pass a resolution laying out the details of a plan starting in 
fiscal year 1996 even though that requirement is contained in an 
amendment that does not become effective until 2002.
  To require that a constitutional provision be fully implemented 
before it is adopted puts the cart a long way before the horse. After 
all, the whole problem is that Congress has not been able to balance 
the budget in the absence of a constitutional requirement to do so.
  It seems to me that the people who really have the burden of showing 
us how they will balance the budget are the ones who claim we do not 
need the balanced budget amendment. We say the budget cannot be 
balanced without a constitutional requirement. To those who think we 
can balance the budget without the balanced budget amendment, I say 
show us how. If you cannot show us the way to a balanced budget without 
the amendment, this suggests one of two things. Either you agree with 
us that it cannot be done without the constitutional requirement, or 
you are simple arguing against balancing the budget at all.


               confusing process with substantive choices

  Mr. President, the right-to-stall amendment confuses the difference 
between choosing rules and making choices within the rules. Yesterday, 
I mentioned a letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal by Prof. 
James M. Buchanan, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, who explained that 
important distinction. I would like to quote it again because I believe 
it points up a basic fallacy in the reasoning of the objection of the 
right-to-stall proponents. Professor Buchanan states:

       The essential argument [of the Daschle amendment 
     proponents] against the balanced budget amendment reflects a 
     basic misunderstanding of the difference between
      a choice of rules and choices made with rules. The Clinton-
     Democratic argument suggests that proponents of the 
     amendment should specify what combination of spending cuts 
     and revenue increases are to be implemented over the 7-
     year transition period. This argument reflects a failure 
     to understand what a choice of constitutional constraint 
     is all about and conflates within-rules choices and 
     choices of rules themselves.
       Consider an analogy with an ordinary game, say poker. We 
     choose the basic rules before we commence to play within 
     whatever rules are chosen. Clearly, if we could foresee all 
     of the contingencies beforehand (for example, how the cards 
     are to fall), those of us who know in advance that we shall 
     get bad hands would not agree to the rules in the first 
     place. Choices of rules must be made in a setting in which we 
     do not yet know the particulars of the within-rule choices.
       Applied to the politics of taxing and spending, the 
     constitutional amendment imposes a new rule of the game, 
     under which the ordinary interplay of interest groups--
     majoritarian politics will generate certain patterns of 
     taxing-spending results. By the very nature of what rules-
     choices are, outcome patterns cannot be specified in advance.
       The opponents of the proposed balanced budget amendment 
     should not be allowed to generate intellectual confusion 
     about the difference between choices among verus within 
     rules. There are, of course, legitimate arguments that may be 
     made against the amendment, but these involve concerns about 
     the efficacy of alternative rules, including those that now 
     exist, rather than a specific prediction of choices to be 
     made under any rule or choices made during the transition 
     between rules. [Wall St. Journal, 2/6/95, p. A13.]

  Mr. President, Professor Buchanan is obviously correct. Proponents of 
the balanced budget amendment recommend a rule change. Opponents argue 
against the amendment on the basis of either possible choices under the 
new rule which could hurt well-organized special interest groups or the 
failure to specify which well-organized special interest groups will be 
hurt under the new rule. Either objection is, as Professor Buchanan 
points out, intellectually confused as an objection to the new rule. 
The proponents do not advocate any particular outcomes, just a new way 
of making those choices. The right-to-stall motion offered by the 
Democrat leader does not move the debate forward.
  In fact, Mr. President, the Daschle right-to-stall amendment is 
nothing more than a way to stop Congress from adopting the resolve to 
force itself to act responsibly and balance the budget and live within 
its means in the future.


              president clinton's deficit reduction record

  This brings me to the President. If President Clinton gets his way 
and defeats the balanced budget amendment this year as he did last 
year, what is his purpose? Does he not want a balanced budget? Does he 
stand for the status quo of ever higher taxes and even higher deficits? 
Let us look at his record.
  The President's 1993 deficit reduction tax plan has failed to control 
even the growth of annual budget deficits, which continue to rise 
during the later years of the plan, surpassing $200 billion as early as 
1996, reaching the record level of $297 in 2001, and topping $421 in 
2005.
  The President's so-called deficit reduction plan, which included 
massive tax increases on working people, retirees, and other Americans, 
neither stopped the growth of the national debt nor balances the 
budget.
  Now, the opponents point to President Clinton's tax plan of 1993 as 
the great epitome of budgetary courage we should follow. But, Mr. 
President, that was no plan to balance the budget. I would ask my 
colleagues, did the 1993 tax bill balance the budget? Does the 
President propose a path to a balanced budget?
  Now look at the President's budget released this week. It projects 
$200 billion yearly budgets as far as the eye can see--and that is the 
best case scenario with the most optimistic assumptions. There is no 
budget balancing leadership here.
  Mr. President, those who say we can balance the budget without the 
balanced budget amendment are the ones who should show us how they 
propose to do it. They are the ones who say, regardless of history, we 
can balance the budget now, without a rules change. But I continue to 
ask in vain, how do they propose to do it, Mr. President? Why should we 
trust they will do better under the status quo than they have for the 
last 26 years? Mr. President, I ask again, where is their plan?
  Mr. President, this will not do. We should adopt the binding resolve 
to accept our responsibility, and then fulfill it. We should not avoid 
responsibility on the ground that we have so far failed to act 
responsibly. We should not be able to deny the American people and 
future generations the responsible rule of fiscal discipline on the 
grounds of our historical lack of discipline.
  Mr. President, let us take the first step first, and let us get our 
house in order by adopting the balanced budget amendment.
  The fact is that if House Joint Resolution 1 passes in its current 
form, we can and will balance the budget. It is not the lack of plans 
that has prevented us from balancing the budget; it is the lack of 
will.
  We don't claim to have the perfect, painless way to balance the 
budget, but there are quite a number of options for us to examine and 
draw from, at least in part. In fact, as I stated previously in this 
debate, over the last few years we have seen a number of plans released 
from both sides of the aisle, from both bodies, and from outside 
organizations. [I will just hold up a few of them]: The Concord 
Coalition zero deficit plan; the Republican alternative to the fiscal 
year 1994 budget, and the Congressioinal Budget Office's illustration 
of one path to balance the budget in their Economic and Budget Outlook 
1996-2000, just to name a few.
  Even the current White House Chief of Staff submitted a balanced 
budget proposal during his tenure in the House.
  Other ideas include limiting the growth of spending to 2 percent 
without touching Social Security, or cutting 4 cents a year off of 
every dollar of planned spending except Social Security.
  Furthermore, there are many proposals out there to reduce spending 
significantly and reduce the deficit: The Dole 50-point plan; the 
Penny-Kasich deficit reduction plan; the Brown-Kerrey bipartisan 
cutting plan; the prime cuts list prepared by Citizens Against 
Government Waste; the Kasich budget alternatives for fiscal year 1994 
and fiscal year 1995; and the Brown deficit reduction plan.
  I do not think that any one of these proposals is necessarily the 
ultimate solution. Yet, they all have some ideas worth considering. I 
certainly believe that we could evaluate and analyze 
[[Page S2301]]  proposals in these plans as well as other ideas that I 
guarantee will be forthcoming from both sides of the aisle if we pass 
this amendment.
  Let me say it one more time: The problem is not the lack of ideas, it 
is the lack of will. House Joint Resolution 1, in its current form, 
will provide that will.


the unworkability of the daschle proposal and the trivialization of the 
                              constitution

  Furthermore, the Daschle proposal raises more questions than it would 
answer. For example, it would require a statement of new budget 
authority and outlays only on accounts which were over $100 million in 
1994. What about accounts which were under $100 million in 1994 but 
have grown? What about new accounts? This proposal would also require 
an allocation of Federal revenues among major resources of such 
revenues. But what qualifies as major?
  This proposal would further require a detailed list and description 
of changes in Federal law required to carry out the plan. Such 
information is currently in a document separate from the budget 
resolution. That document, for President Clinton's 1993 budget plan, 
was over 1,000 pages long. Do we really want to increase the already 
mammoth budget resolution?
  In addition, this provision is vague and incoherent. The Daschle 
proposal literally requires that we predict, over the next 7 years, not 
just the changes in law Congress may ultimately pass, but the date that 
Congress will pass them.
  The Daschle proposal creates additional problems by making 
constitutional reference to statutory law. It incorporates section 
310(a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 by reference. What 
happens if Congress amends that section? Does that qualify as a 
constitutional amendment?
  Similarly, the Congressional Budget Office is explicitly referred to 
in this proposal. That means that the Constitution would now refer to 
the four branches of Government: Congress, the Supreme Court, the 
President, and the Congressional Budget Office.
  Here we are in the new Congress, trying to reduce the Federal the 
bureaucracy, and the Daschle proposal attempts to enshrine a part of it 
in the Constitution.
  Those of us on both sides of the aisle who have worked for years to 
pass this constitutional amendment have consistently heard from our 
opponents that we are trivializing the Constitution with budget matter. 
Talk about trivializing the Constitution. The Daschle proposal would 
have us add a new section to the Constitution longer and 
extraordinarily more detailed and technical than the proposal that has 
been the subject of hearings, a committee debate and vote, and a 
committee report. It adds new terms to the Constitution like concurrent 
resolution, aggregate levels of new budget authority, account-by-
account basis, allocation of Federal revenue, reconciliation 
directives, section 310 of the Congressional Budget Act, omnibus 
reconciliation bill, Congressional Budget Office, and economic and 
technical assumptions. We will no longer have just lawyers pouring over 
this document, we'll need a slew of accountants.


                the daschle proposal is unconstitutional

  Perhaps the most significant reason for opposing this proposal is 
that it is unconstitutional. Article V of the Constitution provides for 
two--and just two--ways to amend the Constitution: By a proposal passed 
by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, or by a proposal of a 
constitutional convention called by two-thirds of the States. In either 
case, three-fourths of the State legislatures must ratify the proposal 
before it becomes part of the Constitution.
  The Daschle proposal is infirm because it places a condition 
subsequent to the explicit methodology for amending the Constitution 
contained in article V. Article V mandates that whenever two-thirds of 
both Houses concur, a proposed amendment must be promulgated to the 
States for ratification. The Daschle proposal, on the other hand, 
delays sending the proposed amendment to the States after passage by 
Congress until Congress acts again, this time by a simple majority on a 
budget resolution. It is black letter law that Congress may not alter, 
expand, or restrict, procedures established and explicitly mandated by 
the Constitution. See Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha, 
462 U.S. 919 (1983) (the Supreme Court held unconstitutional the one-
House congressional veto as violative of the bicameralism and 
presentment to the President requirements of the Constitution).
  Now Senator Daschle defended his proposal by referring to the 7-year 
time requirement in House Joint Resolution 1 itself as an example of a 
condition that Congress has historically set to the amendment process. 
Indeed, the Supreme Court in Dillon v. Gloss, 307 U.S. 433 (1939), did 
hold that the 7-year limit that appears in the text of an amendment is 
a constitutional condition placed on the ratification process.
  Senator Daschle, however, misstates my argument. Article V sets forth 
the exclusive conditions for promulgation of a constitutional 
amendment. The 7-year time limit is a condition on ratification. 
Promulgation and ratification are, of course, distinct acts, and the 
two should not be confused.
  Under article V, once Congress has passed an amendment by the 
necessary two-thirds margin in both Houses, the amendment must be 
promulgated to the States for ratification. There is nothing in either 
the text of article V nor in our constitutional history that suggests 
that Congress can play slick games with the States by passing an 
amendment but keeping it from going to the States. The act of 
promulgation is a ministerial act that must be performed once the two-
thirds vote has been obtained.
  By contrast, there is ample reason why Congress should be permitted 
to include additional conditions on ratification, such as the 7-year 
time limit. Article V itself makes clear that it is up to Congress to 
specify the mode of ratification. There is also substantial precedent 
in our constitutional history for Congress to specify time limits on 
ratification.
  In conclusion, the promulgation of a constitutional amendment is 
distinct from its ratification. The Daschle substitute is 
unconstitutional in that it would place an additional condition on, and 
thereby delay, Congress' promulgation of the balanced budget amendment. 
Under article V, once Congress passes an amendment, it shall be 
promulgated to the States. The Daschle substitute violates this 
provision.
  Mr. President, for the forgoing reasons, I urge my colleagues to 
support the Dole amendment and vote to table the Daschle proposal.
  I would like to point out that, look, we would like to resolve these 
problems. We hope there are enough Senators here who are willing to 
stand up for this one time in history, Democrat-Republican, bipartisan 
amendment that would put us on the fiscal path we should be on. We 
would not have to worry about all those moneys being laundered through 
the Federal Government and getting back to the people Senator Kennedy 
said they are meant for. I think it is time to get real about budgeting 
and spending and real about balancing this budget and real about what 
is best for this country. The only way we are going to do that is by 
passing the balanced budget amendment intact, without statutory 
language added to it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the hour of 11:30 
having arrived, the Senator from South Dakota [Mr. Daschle] is 
recognized for 15 minutes.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I yield 2 minutes of my time to the 
distinguished Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. BREAUX. I thank the minority leader for yielding.
  I would just say this, as we come down to the critical point of the 
vote: You would think that when someone proposes a balanced budget 
amendment, they must have a plan to get to it after the balanced budget 
amendment passes. The only thing I am suggesting is that they should 
share that information with the American public. They should share it 
with the States.
  If there is a secret plan that they have to balance the budget, does 
it include massive cuts in Social Security? Or does it include massive 
reductions in veterans' pension plans? Or does it include the 
dismantling of the highway assistance programs for the States? I am not 
sure what it includes.
  But if there is a secret plan to reach this balanced budget, I would 
suggest that it should be secret no longer. If it 
[[Page S2302]]  is good enough to balance the budget in the year 2002, 
let the States see it. Let them have an opportunity to vote knowing how 
we are going to balance that budget.
  How can we send this amendment to the States and not let them know 
what the plan is as to how we are going to achieve it?
  Oh, perhaps, maybe there is a golden secret plan they have that does 
nothing with regard to cutting Social Security and does not increase 
taxes and increases defense spending and yet still balances the budget. 
Maybe they have that type of a plan. But let us see it.
  I mean, somebody over there who is proposing this must have a plan on 
how to get to the end result. How are you we doing to ask the States to 
be able to pass this amendment unless they know what that plan is?
  And that is what the right-to-know amendment is all about. I think 
the people of America have a right to know how they are going to do 
this. How are we all going to do it, because it is a collective effort. 
It is going to be a partnership between the Federal Government and the 
States. And the States are not going to be able to vote unless they see 
what plan they are going to be voting on. I think we need a right-to-
know amendment. I think America needs it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, let me thank the Senator from Louisiana 
for his comments this morning.
  Like this Senator, the Senator from Louisiana was in the House of 
Representatives in 1981. I am sure he, like I, remembers the ease with 
which we passed the tax package of 1981. The President and the 
Republican leadership at that time convinced the Congress and the 
American people to cut taxes, to increase defense spending, to protect 
Social Security, and to balance the budget by 1984. There were no 
details, very few specifics, just a promise and the words ``trust us.'' 
The vote was overwhelming.
  I will never forget that morning on the floor and the overwhelming 
vote. Everyone applauded. We all went home.
  But 10 years later, the American people saw an increase in the 
national debt to $4 trillion, four times what it was when we had cast 
that vote in 1981.
  I also remember the difficulty we encountered in 1993, as we passed 
the President's economic package. That did not pass overwhelmingly. 
That passed by a margin of 50 to 49, amid doom and gloom predictions of 
recession and mass unemployment and negative market reaction. We heard 
it all. It was a very, very tough vote. I vividly remember that 
morning, as well.
  But the difference between 1981 and 1993 was more than the difficulty 
in passage. Rather than vague predictions with rosy scenarios of 1981, 
the 1993 proposal put details into black and white--details involving 
cuts, details involving revenue, details requiring major changes in the 
way we do business; hundreds and hundreds of pages of black and white 
details. It was controversial. And we fought over many of the details 
in this document for days. No one can forget that.
  But, do you know what? It was effective. And in the end, the 103d 
Congress passed a 5-year deficit-reduction plan that reduced the 
deficit by $500 billion. Instead of asking the American people to trust 
us, we showed them, up front, line-by-line, what our intentions were. 
And the results--well, the results speak for themselves.
  Mr. President, those are the two models from which we can choose 
today. The only difference is that today the issue is far more 
serious--more serious because the debt has now risen to $4.5 trillion; 
more serious because this is the first time in history that we may be 
adding an amendment to the Constitution affecting the fiscal policy of 
this Nation.
  The question for the American people is really very simple: After 
those two experiences, will the Senate roll the dice, will it roll the 
dice and say, ``trust us again,'' or will we do what we know we must 
do? Will we show in 1995, as we showed the American people in 1993, 
exactly what must be done? That is the issue.
  The Senator from New Hampshire, my good friend, this morning 
mentioned my willingness to support a balanced budget amendment last 
year and took issue with us for not arguing the right-to-know amendment 
then.
  Well, the reasons are easy for anyone to understand. First, we had 
just passed our own version of the right to know. It was right here. 
The print was hardly dry. Second, we were not faced then, as we are 
today, with the exact situation with which we were faced in 1981--
promises of tax cuts, promises of increases in defense, promises to 
protect Social Security, and promises to balance the budget in a 
designated period of time, but no promise to explain how it is going to 
be done.
  If the Senate is unwilling to promise the American people a 
blueprint, I guess I would have to ask: What is it they are trying to 
conceal? What is it we are trying to conceal from Social Security 
recipients whose pensions are affected by the decision we are going to 
make in the next couple of weeks? What is it we are trying to conceal 
from the Pentagon and our allies about the true commitment to the 
military strength of this Nation in the coming years? What is it we are 
trying to conceal from veterans and military retirees about our true 
intentions with respect to their future?
  What about States? What are we trying to conceal about the real 
impact this decision will have on them, on the Governors, and on their 
fiscal health?
  And, very honestly, what about us? What about us? What are we trying 
to conceal from ourselves, and how is it possible that we can commit 
ourselves to repeating the clear mistake of the past? How can we set a 
goal and have no idea--none--how we are going to get there?
  Tax cuts, defense spending increases, protection for Social 
Security--all these are doable in the abstract. It is only in the 
context of a constitutional amendment to balance the budget in 7 years 
that the job becomes nearly impossible.
  Assuming we pass the Contract With America, assuming that we protect 
Social Security, our job is to cut $2.2 trillion in 7 years. That is 
our goal--$2.2 trillion. That means we have got to cut $300 billion for 
each of the next 7 years.
  Pass the Contract With America, protect Social Security, balance the 
budget by the year 2002. And we are going to ask our colleagues in the 
next 7 years, each and every year, to cut $300 billion. And every year 
we delay, the task becomes even more overwhelming the next year.
  But that is only part of the story, because if we actually take 
Social Security off the table, if we take defense off the table, and 
because we must exclude interest payments, we are left with a mere 48 
percent of the budget with which to work. That is really what we have 
left--48 percent. If you take those three items off the table, that is 
all we have left, 48 percent of the entire Federal budget from which we 
now must cut $2.2 trillion in 7 years.
  Well, do you know what the American people are saying? The American 
people are saying: ``Right. Show me. Show us how you are going to cut 
all that and how you are going to cut funding for the States. Show us 
how you are going to cut my farm programs and other programs directly 
affecting rural America. Show us how you are going to deal with 
education, nutrition, health and housing, and as you do, do not even 
think about saying any of this is going to be easy or painless.''
  Mr. President, I bet there is one thing for which there is universal 
agreement within this Chamber. That is, there is a lot of skepticism 
out there, and, frankly, I think there is skepticism for a good reason.
  Too many times, Washington has said one thing and done another. We 
cannot afford, on something this important--this important--to let that 
happen again. We cannot afford to add to the deep-seated skepticism 
about this institution or its actions. Not now. Not on an issue this 
important.
  My Republican colleagues have lodged three basic objections to the 
right-to-know-amendment. The House majority leader said recently, 
``Once Members of Congress know exactly, chapter and verse, the pain 
that the Government must live with in order to get a balanced budget, 
their knees will buckle.'' The majority's apparent solution is to hide 
the truth and sidestep the pain. But the right-to-know-amendment says 
we have tried all that. We did it back in 1981, and $4 trillion 
[[Page S2303]] later, we now must come to the realization that we have 
to end business as usual. That will not work again.
  The second objection is that they cannot be precise about a 7-year 
budget process. Yet, the current law requires already that we offer 5-
year estimates. What is so much more mysterious or unknowable about 
years 6 or 7 than years 4 and 5? All the health reform proposals last 
year were evaluated over a 10-year budget projection. The Congressional 
Budget Office already has the ability to give us 7-year budget 
estimates. We should use them. I have not heard one credible economist 
tell Members that this cannot be done, that we cannot lay out a 
budgetary glidepath for 7 years.
  The third objection is especially ironic. It asserts that the right-
to-know-amendment is somehow unconstitutional because the Constitution 
does not specifically sanction Congress to set conditions on an 
amendment before it goes to the States for ratification. But neither 
does the Constitution specifically sanction the 7-year limit for 
ratification that is found in the underlying amendment.
  I have not heard any of my colleagues argue that their amendment is 
unconstitutional because it includes the customary but not 
constitutionally sanctioned time limit. As everyone here knows, the 
Constitution has just two requirements: First, that we pass the 
amendment by a two-thirds vote in both Houses; and second, that it be 
ratified by three-fourths of the States. That is all it says. Period.
  Mr. President, the issue is pretty simple. If we are going to build a 
sturdy house of real deficit reduction, do we have a blueprint? Are we 
going to ask this body to lay out the blueprint by which that will be 
done? Or do we just start pounding away, hoping we have the materials 
to build that house, hoping we know where the budget-cutting rooms 
really are, hoping we can do it all in 7 years, hoping that somehow we 
can build a house of real deficit reduction without the details.
  The American people would never build their house without a 
blueprint. They know we cannot, either. By a margin of 86 to 14 
percent, they are saying, ``Show us. We have a right to know if you are 
going to affect Social Security. We have a right to know if you are 
going to cut defense. We have a right to know if you are going to cut 
veterans programs. We have a right to know how you plan to cut $2.2 
trillion from 48 percent of your budget in 7 years. We have a right to 
know if you have learned from the mistakes of the past. We have a right 
to know if you are really serious.''
  So today, Mr. President, the Senate has an opportunity. It is an 
opportunity to end business as usual, an opportunity to be honest, an 
opportunity to affirm that when it comes to an amendment to the U.S. 
Constitution, the American people have a right to know.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, the majority leader is in a meeting and is 
having a difficult time getting here, and has asked that I take a few 
minutes before he gets here. He may have to use some of the leader's 
time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas was to be recognized 
for 15 minutes.
  The Senator from Utah will be recognized.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I particularly enjoyed the comments of the 
distinguished minority leader of the Senate. He is a very fine man. I 
am sure he is very sincere in what he is talking about. And he is a 
good friend. I do not have any desire to make this a partisan thing. 
This is a bipartisan constitutional amendment. We are fighting to try 
to get this country's fiscal house in order.
  To have people come here now and say, ``Just show us a blueprint,'' 
and to use that tax vote a year ago, when they increased taxes on the 
American people--and they did get the deficit down to a little below 
$200 billion, but this was nothing, and they all know that that very 
bill that they passed and they are taking such credit for, touting it 
as their fiscal responsibility, that bill had the deficit jamming 
upward in 1996 and thereafter to the point where we get to a $400 
billion deficit after the turn of the century.
  That is hardly something I would brag about, increasing taxes against 
the American people, the largest in history, and then a jump in 
spending, starting in 1996. Now, the President has come in and he has 
tried to reduce that jump in spending, but even his budget admits, 
until the year 2007, we will have at least a $190 billion deficit a 
year.
  Now, we have had 38 years since the balanced budget amendment has 
been introduced. Since we passed it when I was Constitution chairman 
back in 1982 in the Senate, we have had 13 years. And every time we 
turn around, somebody is saying, ``Well, show us how you will get to a 
balanced budget before we pass a balanced budget amendment,'' or, as in 
this amendment's case, ``Show us how you will get there before you can 
submit the balanced budget amendment, once passed, to the States,'' 
putting another requirement into the Constitution that really does not 
deserve it to be there.
  Now, look, this is a game. It is a game by those who personally do 
not want a balanced budget amendment, although some who will vote for 
this will do so out of loyalty to the leader on the other side. It is 
not a game to us. The distinguished Senator from Illinois and I are not 
playing games. We have worked to bring the whole Congress together on a 
bipartisan consensus--Democrat and Republican--constitutional 
amendment, and we intend to get it there. This type of an amendment to 
the basic constitutional amendment would gut the whole amendment, and 
everybody on this floor knows it.
  I yield a couple of minutes to the distinguished Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, let me thank the Senator from Utah for 
yielding. Let me express my thanks for the leadership that he and the 
Senator from Illinois have taken on this issue, along with myself and 
others, to bring to the floor and to build the consensus that is 
clearly here in a strong majority to pass a balanced budget amendment.
  Now, within a few moments, we will have a vote on the Daschle motion. 
We have been debating this amendment and the Daschle motion in part for 
a week and a half, without a vote. I think the American people expect 
Members to move in an expeditious fashion through this issue, to a time 
when we can vote up or down on it, and send it to them to make the 
decision.
  Article V of the Constitution is very clear. We have the right to 
propose amendments, and when we do, they must go straight to the 
States. In all fairness, the Daschle amendment has to be called not the 
right to know, but the right to stall, and stall and stall, and deny 
the American people the opportunity to express their will through their 
State legislators as to whether they want a balanced budget amendment, 
as to whether they want a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution 
to be the 28th amendment to our Federal Constitution.
  So while Senator Exon or Senator Hollings may have offered similar 
amendments to the unfunded mandates issue, they were entirely 
different. That was a statute. That was an issue that can be changed 
year to year, day to day, as the Congress meets. This is an amendment 
to our Constitution. Nowhere has there ever been within the 
Constitution such a prescriptive process as so designed by the Senator 
from South Dakota. It is not the right to know, it is simply the right 
to stall, in an effort to defeat this amendment or to deny the American 
people the right to express their will.
  The Senator from Utah has made that evident time and time again. I 
have and our colleagues have joined Members on the floor to debate this 
issue.
  Certainly we are now at a point, within a few moments, of voting, the 
very first vote in over a week and a half, while the other body has 
already moved several other pieces of legislation.
  I am not at all convinced that just stalling and stalling and 
stalling, as has been proven here, is the way to solve this problem. 
Thorough debate is, and I am all for adequate and thorough debate on 
this issue. Now it is time to vote and move on to other portions of it 
in a timely fashion, and then allow 
[[Page S2304]] the American people to make the decision on how we 
govern, not the elite few.
  I yield back to the Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise to give my strong support to the 
right-to-know amendment.
  The American people have a right to know what a balanced budget 
means.
  If a balanced budget amendment is added to the U.S. Constitution 
without a plan for how to balance the budget, we will leave the 
American people in the dark.
  Mr. President, I will not defend every line item in the Federal 
budget. I believe we must look at the mission of programs. If a program 
achieves its mission and helps people, it should continue. If not, it 
should be scrapped.
  However, before we adopt a balanced budget amendment, we should know 
exactly what it is that we are doing. We need to know just how these 
programs are going to be affected. What cuts are going to be taken. How 
deep. What programs. And most importantly what the consequences will be 
to the health, safety, and security of the American people.
  My first question is how a balanced budget amendment will affect 
Medicare.
  Achieving a balanced budget in 2002 will require cuts of between 20 
and 30 percent in Medicare--between $75 and $100 billion in 2002. What 
will this mean for seniors?
  Medicare already pays less than half of older Americans' health 
costs. In the year 2002, older Americans are expected to spend more 
than $4,600 on health care premiums and other out of pocket health 
costs. But a balanced budget amendment could make seniors pay $1,300 
more. What will that $1,300 mean? It could mean forcing older Americans 
to choose between health care and eating, or between health care and 
heat.
  Could a balanced budget amendment restrict access to health care 
providers? We do not know. If the cuts are taken out of payments to 
providers, those providers may decide not to see Medicare patients. 
This could leave millions with no access to health care, especially in 
rural areas. We have a right to know.
  Could a balanced budget amendment mean raising the eligibility age 
for Medicare up to age 70? We do not know. Unemployed individuals in 
their fifties and sixties already find it difficult to obtain health 
insurance. Many struggle with no insurance, hoping they will not get 
sick before they reach age 65, when they will at least have access to 
Medicare. If we raise the Medicare eligibility age, many more seniors 
could be forced into poverty, unable to pay their medical bills. We 
have a right to know.
  Will the balanced budget amendment force elderly Americans into 
managed care plans so they are no longer able to choose their 
physicians? We do not know. We--and they--have a right to know.
  There are many other agencies and many other programs that the 
American people depend upon to protect their health, their safety, 
their economic security. Law enforcement, traffic safety, education--
now will they be affected? What is the plan? Do we not owe it to the 
people we represent to explain to them how they will be affected by the 
balanced budget amendment?
  I applaud this effort by my colleague Senator Daschle, the Democratic 
leader. His amendment would satisfy the American people's right to 
know. I am proud to cosponsor and vote for this amendment, and I urge 
each of my colleagues to join me.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, Senator Daschle has put before us a common 
sense addition to the balanced budget amendment, that requires us to 
tell the people of the States--the people who will decide on 
ratification of the balanced budget amendment--what the effects of 
their decision will be.
  Should we and the people who will be asked to ratify this permanent 
change to our Constitution not be given the facts we need to understand 
its effects?
  It seems to me that to oppose full disclosure is to say that we want 
this decision--that is a fundamental change in our Nation's charter--to 
be made in the dark, in ignorance.
  Two years ago, we voted for a budget plan that laid out a course of 
action that identified the specific changes that would be needed to cut 
half a billion dollars from our deficits over 5 years.
  That plan was clear and detailed; it was of course subject to both 
honest disagreement, and, unfortunately, some partisan distortion. But 
it has cut the deficit for 3 years running, for the first time since 
the Truman administration.
  We told the American people what we were going to do, and we did it. 
We cut over $500 billion from our deficits over 5 years.
  And a strong economy that followed passage of that plan has brought 
our deficits even lower.
  Like all of us here, I hope that the most recent action of the 
Federal Reserve Board will not be the one-two punch that wipes out the 
benefits of that plan--a blow that both flattens the economy and 
increases our deficits with higher interest rates.
  Our plans here in Congress, like the plans of private citizens and 
businesses across the country, now hang on the hope that the Federal 
Reserve has not gone too far.
  But that is a topic for another day.
  Some of my friends here who voted against cutting the deficit back 
then, and some of my newer friends, who do not like the way we did it, 
now act surprised to see that deficits will rise again in the future, 
even though no one--certainly not the administration--ever claimed they 
would not.
  We all knew that fundamental health care reform and other actions 
would be necessary to turn the deficit trend down permanently, and not 
just over the life of the 1993 budget plan.
  But the fact is that we passed that budget plan with the narrowest 
possible margin in each House of Congress.
  As for those who now complain, their own plan was less specific than 
ours and still could not promise as much deficit reduction as we have 
actually accomplished.
  So let us not be distracted from our duty of being honest about the 
future by arguments about the past.
  With the release of President Clinton's budget plan, we hear again 
from those who voted against deficit reduction in 1993 that they could 
do better.
  Well, Mr. President, I believe them. That is why I challenge them to 
tell us how they would do better, as specifically as the plan they are 
attacking.
  If an amendment to the Constitution is needed to keep building on the 
accomplishments of the last few years, to force us to confront the 
continuing deficits that are predicted through the end of this decade, 
then it only makes sense for us to prepare a document that sets forth 
the choices that will be necessary to bring the budget into balance.
  Right now, we are confronted with an interesting situation. A new 
majority in Congress, that promised a new legislative agenda, now tells 
us that they cannot commit themselves to bring the budget into balance 
until after the Constitution is changed to force them to do it.
  It is certainly within the competence of our budget committee and 
Congressional Budget Office to provide us with the specifics of a 
budget path that will bring us to balance by the year 2002.
  Of course projections are only our best scientific estimates of 
future economic activity. But virtually all of my friends who support 
the balanced budget amendment have made good use of projections of 
future deficits under current law.
  Those estimates are the best view we have of the future, even if we 
cannot be certain that all of our assumptions will hold true.
  So let us drop that argument right now--we all accept that it is 
possible to make useful estimates about our economic and budget future.
  It is because we accept such projections that we are here today, 
contemplating an amendment to our Constitution.
  [[Page S2305]] The particular problem this year is that this 
amendment is part of an economic plan--as announced in the so-called 
contract--that, taken all together, raises serious problems.
  If we cut taxes, increase defense spending, and promise not to push 
any new costs off onto the Governors and mayors, the road to the 
balanced budget looks rocky indeed.
  It may be, Mr. President, that you cannot get to a balanced budget 
from here, if the contract is your road map.
  There is powerful evidence--the one-vote margins in both Houses for 
the 1993 budget package--that votes for deficit reduction are difficult 
to find.
  How much more difficult will it be if we reduce our revenues, and 
keep major segments of the budget safe from the requirements of the 
balanced budget amendment?
  Well, we know that it will be difficult, but we cannot know just how 
difficult until we see some numbers about where the axe is going to 
fall.
  Mr. President, I would like to echo the astute observation of a new 
member of the judiciary, the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. 
Feingold].
  During the debate in the Judiciary Committee on a similar proposal, 
Senator Feingfold responded to the suggestion that this was a 
transparent ploy to kill the balanced budget amendment.
  I want us all to reflect on that charge for a moment--that an attempt 
to find out just how a permanent addition to our Constitution will work 
is nothing but a ploy by those who oppose it.
  Mr. President, when I took on the task as floor manager for this 
important proposal, I did so because I am genuinely torn between my 
concern for our fiscal future and my concerns about the effects of this 
balanced budget amendment on our Constitution and on our economy.
  I did not anticipate that honest questions about the effects of a 
permanent change in our fundamental charter would be dismissed as 
insincere or disingenuous.
  But I ask my colleagues to consider Senator Feingold's response to 
that charge. He said that the American people would be more likely to 
ratify this amendment if they knew for sure what was in it, than if 
they had to buy it sight unseen.
  Those of us who have faith in the people who will make the final 
decision on this amendment believe--whether we support or oppose it 
ourselves--that it is our constitutional duty to establish a record of 
debate and evidence before we send this amendment to the people.
  Not often enough, I am afraid, does this chamber live up to its claim 
to be the world's greatest deliberative body. Certainly, we should 
aspire to fulfill that role as we debate a change in our Constitution.
  And certainly, the American people deserve to know what the new 
majority party has in mind when they say that they can comply with the 
terms of the balanced budget amendment.
  If we truly believe that amending the Constitution is the right thing 
to do, then let us give the American people the facts they need to make 
that choice themselves.
  Certainly, that is not too much to ask.
  In addition to the very real benefits of being honest with the 
American people, and restoring some of their faith in our ability to 
solve problems, there is another substantial benefit of accepting 
Senator Daschle's amendment.
  If we accept this amendment, we will have the assurance that we have 
in place a plan to get us from where we are today to a balanced budget 
by the year 2002.
  By itself, that is no small accomplishment.
  I cannot believe where we now find ourselves in this debate--where 
the call for a specific set of goals that provide a path to a balanced 
budget is denounced as a delaying tactic, a distraction.
  And where those who call for an amendment to the Constitution that 
will go into effect in the next century say that a promise to take 
action in the future is more serious than a call for action now.
  That does not make sense to me.
  If we accept this amendment, we will still have to send the amendment 
to the States. Let us assume for a moment that the American people lose 
their enthusiasm for the balanced budget amendment. What happens if we 
put all our eggs in that one basket?
  Will we wait for the year or more that ratification is likely to take 
before we decide what to do next?
  Or would we be more prudent, more serious, more committed to real 
deficit reduction if we were to also pass a binding budget resolution 
that sets a course for a balanced budget regardless of the outcome of 
the ratification process?
  I believe that the answer to that question is clear. The more serious 
approach is to pass the actual law that compliance with the balanced 
budget amendment would require, not simply to pass an amendment with 
the promise that at some future date we will get down to the real work 
of balancing the budget.
  And there is a further substantial advantage to what Senator 
Daschle's amendment offers--a commitment to start now on the very 
difficult journey ahead of us.
  Without a plan that starts now to build on the real progress of the 
past 3 years--without such a plan in place from the beginning, we will 
have established a collision course between our Constitution and our 
economy.
  In a game of chicken, we will approach the year the balanced budget 
amendment comes into effect, without the capacity to comply with its 
mandate.
  If we wait until the last minute, when huge budget cuts will be 
required--over $300 billion for the deficit in 2002--we will swerve, 
and avoid the economic crash that deficit reduction on that scale would 
cause.
  At that point, the balanced budget amendment will not keep us from 
extending the year of reckoning yet further into the future. As we all 
know, it will not make deficit spending--at any level--
unconstitutional.
  Lest we forget, Mr. President, the balanced budget amendment makes 
deficits difficult, not illegal.
  And if we make use of the established procedure in the amendment to 
permit continued deficits--probably rightly, if the cost would be a 
disastrous recession--we will only add to the frustration and anger of 
the American people.
  The balanced budget amendment will be not just another empty promise 
from Washington, but the most cynical one of all--one that we were 
willing to put into the Constitution, but not into action.
  And so Mr. President, to avoid making a mockery of our constitutional 
duties, to avoid a collision between the Constitution and the economy, 
to provide the American people the facts they need to make an informed 
decision, we should adopt this right-to-know amendment.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise in support of this amendment to 
require us to pass a detailed plan on how we will balance the budget 
before we act to send this proposed balanced budget amendment to the 
States for ratification. This amendment makes good sense because it 
requires us to consider in the here and now--not at some undefined time 
in the future--just what steps we will take to get our books in order. 
I support getting us to a balanced budget. And I support tough cuts in 
programs to get us there. But taken alone, I am not convinced that a 
balanced budget amendment will get us to make those tough cuts. Taken 
alone, I am not convinced that a balanced budget amendment will get us 
in balance by the year 2002. In fact, taken alone, I am concerned that 
the balanced budget amendment may have the unintended consequence of 
taking us further, not closer to, the goal of a balanced budget.
  That is why I support this right to know amendment. What I do not 
support is an amendment which might make us all feel better but will 
not make us behave better with taxpayer dollars. Taken alone, the 
balanced budget amendment is long on the atmospherics and short on the 
details--the amendment does not take Social Security off the table, it 
does not provide for a continued strong national defense, it does not 
require us to choose difficult cuts over increased taxes. And although 
I know it is not intended to be I am fearful that this amendment is 
potentially dangerous to our economic 
[[Page S2306]]  health. I say potentially dangerous because I am 
fearful that this amendment may lull us into a false sense of 
security--that we have balanced the budget just by saying we will do 
so.
  Mr. President, this Chamber has just spent long hours debating the 
unfunded mandates bill. The idea behind that bill is that we should not 
pass on costs to other levels of government, particularly if we have no 
clear idea what those costs will be. In a certain sense if ever there 
was an unfunded mandate it is asking the States to ratify the balanced 
budget amendment without fessing up to what that amendment will cost. 
By refusing to give the details on how we will achieve the goal of a 
balanced budget, we are hiding the costs, and pushing the tough 
decisions we must make into the future. We may also be pushing the 
costs of getting our financial house in order onto our States and our 
localities. At least one Treasury study shows that a balanced budget 
amendment would reduce Federal grants to Connecticut by $1 billion a 
year. Treasury estimates that if Social Security and defense are off 
the table, Connecticut would be faced with truly draconian cuts in 
education, job training and the environment.
  If those are the decisions we intend to make, then let us debate 
them. If they are decisions that we would prefer to avoid, let us 
figure out what we can support in a rational and thoughtful way. What 
we really need to do, is figure out how we intend to get to a balanced 
budget and map out that strategy. If we are serious about balancing the 
budget, the least we can do is provide those details and start working 
toward our goal. Because I believe that it is both desirable and 
possible to come up with a workable roadmap to a balanced budget, I 
strongly support the right-to-know amendment which calls for a 7-year 
approach to get us to a balanced budget by the year 2002. This approach 
makes good sense and prods us toward action sooner rather than later.
  The consequences of waiting are daunting and quite frankly, the 
balanced budget amendment gives us the excuse to wait. If we wait until 
the year 2002, when this amendment would go into effect, the 
Congressional Budget Office [CBO] has estimated that we would need to 
cut $322 billion--that is billion with a ``b''--out of the Federal 
budget in a single year. That would create national, local and personal 
chaos. What we need to do is start acting now by making the kind of 
tough spending cuts that will bring us closer to our goal of a balanced 
budget and by implementing policies that will help our economy to grow 
in a healthy way.
  Standing in front of the mirror and announcing that you are going to 
lose 10 pounds does not take the weight off, dieting and exercise does. 
That is what this Chamber must pledge to do. As Hobart Rowen noted a 
few weeks ago, ``By itself, such an amendment would cut neither a 
dollar nor a program from the Federal budget.''
  As anyone who has read the resolution mandating a balanced Federal 
budget can tell you, it is sketched with a very broad brush. It 
excludes nothing from the requirements of a balanced budget--not Social 
Security, not defense, not veterans' benefits. Nor does it leave higher 
taxes off the table. And it allows 40 rather than 50 percent of the 
House and Senate to hold up the entire Federal budget in the event that 
there is a Federal deficit. I have spent a tremendous amount of time 
exploring ways to bring that deficit down. At the same time, I do not 
support increasing the power of large States with lots of Members of 
the House. By decreasing the number of House Members needed to hold up 
the budget we would be doing just that. When you come from a small 
State like mine, changing the rules in this way just does not sit well.
  I want us to balance the budget in a responsible and thoughtful way. 
For this reason, I support drawing up a 7-year plan toward that goal. 
Regardless of what happens in this particular debate, I hope that all 
of us in this Chamber will pledge to work together to make that happen.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise in support of this commonsense 
amendment to the balanced budget proposal. No matter what our beliefs 
are on the wisdom of this amendment, we should at least ensure 
America's right to know who will be hurt and what will be cut if we 
pass a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
  It would seem to me, Mr. President, that notwithstanding any 
Senator's position on this legislation, this amendment--which simply 
requires that we be honest about the impact of our actions--is little 
to ask in the face of such a monumental constitutional change.
  Frankly, I cannot imagine that we would consider passing any piece of 
legislation, regardless of the subject, without doing our best to 
understand as much as possible about its potential impact on the 
general public. Is that not, in fact, our fundamental responsibility as 
legislators? Is that not what we were sent here to do?
  Is that not what we just asked in the legislation this body passed 
not more than a week ago that required the CBO to advise us of the 
impact on State and local governments of the unfunded mandates bill?
  I have to say, Mr. President, I am somewhat confused. The same 
Senators who insisted on knowing the nature and the exact impact of 
that legislation are now arguing that we do not need to know the 
financial impact of our actions. Are we not supposed to know what we 
are doing here?
  I ask you, are we not obligated--as a body--``to protect the 
people,'' as Madison said in his Journal of the Federal Convention 
``against the transient impressions into which they themselves might be 
led.''
  And here we are, legislating by impressions. That is exactly what we 
are doing if we do not show the people what this means.
  We do not need to know the contents. We do not need to know how it 
works or what it does, we just need to buy it, we are told.
  Mr. President, is this the modern day equivalent of the ``traveling 
salvation show'' complete with snake oil and magic elixirs that cure 
all of our ills? We do not need to know what is in it. Trust us. It 
works.
  Have we lost our perspective here? Have we lost all touch with 
reality? I wonder if anyone in this Chamber can go home to his or her 
constituents and say, ``Ladies and gentlemen who elected me, I have 
absolutely no idea what this legislation will do. However, I've been 
assured that everything will be fine. Trust me, and thank you for your 
continued support.''
  And yet here we are suggesting that we pass this constitutional 
amendment and worry about the details later. By God, let us be honest 
with our constituents.
  If achieving a balanced budget by 2002--with half of the budget 
protected from cuts--will cost my State, annually, $1.9 billion in 
Federal grants, then let us be honest about it.
  If a balanced budget will cost Massachusetts $248 million in highway 
trust fund grants, $459 million in lost funding for education, job 
training, the environment, and housing, then let us be honest about it.
  If--over 7 years--it will cost over $1 billion in Medicaid, and 
almost $2\1/2\ billion in Medicare, then let us be honest.
  Mr. President, what are we afraid of? If we support it, let us talk 
about it. If we believe in it, let us defend it. But I implore you, let 
us be honest about the impact of what we do here. It is our job. It is 
our obligation. It is our only mandate from the people who sent us 
here.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I have been informed that the majority 
leader is in meetings which he cannot interrupt.
  (At the request of Mr. Hatch, the following statement of Mr. Dole was 
ordered to be printed in the Record):
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, let us be clear about one thing. Whether or 
not the Senate votes to approve the balanced budget amendment, 
Republicans intend to offer a detailed 5-year budget plan that will put 
us on a path toward a balanced budget by 2002--a test that President 
Clinton's latest budget makes no attempt to meet.
  The Daschle amendment is a poorly crafted, last-ditch effort to 
thwart the will of the American people who overwhelmingly support a 
balanced budget constitutional amendment. The distinguished chairman of 
the Judiciary Committee, Senator Hatch, and the distinguished chairman 
of the Budget Committee, Senator Domenici, and others have already made 
that point.
  [[Page S2307]] The Daschle amendment is an effort to change the 
subject. Rather than debate the value of making a balanced Federal 
budget a national priority, most opponents of the balanced budget 
amendment would prefer talk about potential cuts that might affect 
their pet programs.
  This bait-and-switch effort will not work.
  This Congress will put forward a plan to control Federal spending and 
move us toward a balanced budget without touching Social Security and 
without raising taxes. Everything else, every Federal program from 
Amtrak to zebra mussel research will be on the table. For those who 
want an idea of how we would try to achieve this goal, look at the 
Republican alternative budgets that have been introduced in each of the 
past 2 years.
  Mr. President, it is ironic that on April 1, 1993, the vast majority 
of those who now support the Daschle right-to-know amendment voted to 
adopt a budget blueprint paving the way for President Clinton's massive 
tax increase before President Clinton submitted the legally required 
details of his plan to Congress. They voted to adopt a budget blueprint 
that called for a massive tax increase without knowing the specifics.
  This debate is different. It is a lot simpler. The central issue is 
whether or not we should vote to make balancing the budget a national 
priority. We are debating whether or not future generations of 
Americans--our children and our grandchildren--deserve constitutional 
protection. That is what this amendment is all about.
  This year, we have a real chance to approve a balanced budget 
amendment and send it to the States for ratification. It is the best 
chance we have had in years. Every single vote matters.
  Several Senators who voted for a balanced budget amendment in the 
past are now under tremendous pressure from the special interests and 
others who are addicted to Federal spending. The special interests are 
trying to convince past supporters of the balanced budget amendment to 
switch their votes. I hope that every Senator who supports the balanced 
budget amendment will continue to stand firm, do what is right for our 
children and our grandchildren, and vote for the balanced budget 
amendment.
  Let us get on with the real debate.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I would like to just read a few of the 
distinguished majority leader's remarks because I think they are very 
appropriate.
  I will read these for and on behalf of the majority leader:

       * * * Mr. President, it is ironic that on April 1, 1993 the 
     vast majority of those who now support the Daschle right-to-
     know amendment voted to adopt a budget blueprint paving the 
     way for President Clinton's massive tax increase before 
     President Clinton submitted the legally required details of 
     his plan to Congress. They voted to adopt a budget blueprint 
     that called for a massive tax increase without knowing the 
     specifics.
       This debate is different. It is a lot simpler. The central 
     issue is whether or not we should vote to make balancing the 
     budget a national priority. we are debating whether or not 
     future generations of Americans--our children and our 
     grandchildren--deserve constitutional protection. That is 
     what this amendment is all about.
       This year, we have a real chance to approve a balanced 
     budget amendment and send it to the States for ratification. 
     It is the best chance we have had in years. Every single vote 
     matters.
       Several Senators who voted for a balanced budget amendment 
     in the past are now under tremendous pressure from the 
     special interests and others who are addicted to Federal 
     spending. The special interests are trying to convince past 
     supporters of the balanced budget amendment to switch their 
     votes. I hope that every Senator who supports the balanced 
     budget amendment will continue to stand firm, do what is 
     right for our children and our grandchildren, and vote for 
     the balanced budget amendment.
       Let us get on with the real debate.

  On behalf of the majority leader, I move to table the Daschle motion, 
and I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to 
lay on the table the Daschle motion to commit House Joint Resolution 1. 
The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thomas). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 56, nays 44, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 62 Leg.]

                                YEAS--56

     Abraham
     Ashcroft
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brown
     Burns
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Coats
     Cochran
     Cohen
     Coverdell
     Craig
     D'Amato
     DeWine
     Dole
     Domenici
     Faircloth
     Frist
     Gorton
     Gramm
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Hatfield
     Heflin
     Helms
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Jeffords
     Kassebaum
     Kempthorne
     Kyl
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Packwood
     Pressler
     Roth
     Santorum
     Shelby
     Simon
     Simpson
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Warner

                                NAYS--44

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Bradley
     Breaux
     Bryan
     Bumpers
     Byrd
     Conrad
     Daschle
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Exon
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Glenn
     Graham
     Harkin
     Hollings
     Inouye
     Johnston
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Mikulski
     Moseley-Braun
     Moynihan
     Murray
     Nunn
     Pell
     Pryor
     Reid
     Robb
     Rockefeller
     Sarbanes
     Wellstone
  So the motion to lay on the table the motion to commit House Joint 
Resolution 1 was agreed to.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________