[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 36 (Monday, February 27, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3140-S3142]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, we are approaching perhaps one of the most 
historic moments in the history of the Congress, when tomorrow this 
Senate will vote on the balanced budget amendment. We have not had an 
opportunity to pass a balanced budget amendment of this magnitude since 
my tenure in the Congress, and I doubt this century. We are very, very 
close--perhaps only one vote away. I think it is important for the 
Senate to understand, and for Senators to consider, just how critical 
it is that we bring to a final resolution this now 4-week-long debate 
on the necessity of a balanced budget.
  I went back and grabbed a copy of the General Accounting Office 
report to the Congress, written in 1992, to review what their 
conclusions in a study entitled ``Prompt Action Necessary to Avert 
Long-Term Damage to the Economy.''
  I will just cite a couple of items from their conclusion. They said, 
``Failure 
[[Page S3141]] to reverse the trends and fiscal policy,'' current 
fiscal policy, ``and the composition of Federal spending will doom 
future generations to a stagnating standard of living, will damage the 
United States competitiveness and influence in the world and hamper our 
ability to address pressing national needs.''
  In 1992, the General Accounting Office warned the Congress, as it has 
repeatedly--and as many others have warned--that failure to reverse the 
current trends in how we spend money and the composition of that 
spending will doom future generations. It will doom future generations. 
They go on to say, ``If not nothing is done to reverse current trends, 
deficits will explode over the longer term.''
  Finally, they conclude, ``The economic and political reality is that 
the Nation cannot continue on the current path.''
  The discussion over the past 4 weeks in this Senate Chamber has been 
on whether or not we continue on the current path, or whether we put in 
place a device which will cause us to change direction, which will 
fundamentally alter the way in which this Congress addresses the 
spending of taxpayers' dollars, through a constitutional mandate, 
constitutional direction to balance the Federal budget. That is the 
question that is before us.
  We have heard speeches and we have had many, many amendments saying 
we need to exempt certain programs from the balanced budget amendment. 
Primarily, the emphasis, as we have just heard, is: let us not follow 
the mandates of the contract because it will doom our children. It will 
adversely impact those children. We have had a number of amendments 
saying let us exempt programs for children from the effect of the 
balanced budget amendment. But it seems to me that if we are really, 
truly interested in our children, we will face up to the responsibility 
that is ours to address this deficit and this national debt--a debt 
which has run beyond our control and, as the General Accounting Office 
reports, ``will doom future generations of these children.''
  The contract was put before the American people, and it outlined a 
new direction for this Congress and a new direction for this Nation 
that was overwhelmingly endorsed in the last election. We are going 
forward in an attempt to take a look at the Federal programs as they 
currently exist, including those that address children, and ask 
ourselves the fundamental questions: Is this the best expenditure of 
taxpayers dollars? Can we maximize that expenditure with fewer dollars? 
Is this the most efficient way of getting support to the very children 
that our colleagues were talking about here this morning? When we delve 
into the record, we find that it is not efficient. There is duplication 
and overlap, waste and mismanagement, and administrative costs that 
deny benefits to the very people that we are trying to help. Many of 
these programs were well-intended when they were started.
  But because the Congress failed to adequately oversee the 
implementation of these programs, and because we have been in literally 
a feeding frenzy over the past couple of decades of adding more and 
more programs, we end up with an inefficiency in Government that is 
staggering. This Government spending is driving our deficit and driving 
our national debt to the point where we will have very little, if 
anything, to offer to those children in the future.
  The Labor and Human Resources Committee on which I serve looked at 
job training and found that there were 163 separate Federal job 
training programs. Is job training a worthy goal? Of course, it is. Can 
it be done more efficiently? I think we instinctively understand that 
if there are 163 programs administered by 14 agencies of the Federal 
Government that perhaps we can consolidate those and run those programs 
more efficiently.
  In child care, a component of the children's programs, there are 93 
separate programs of child care administered by 11 different Federal 
agencies, disbursing $11.5 billion a year in targeted programs. Many of 
those programs overlap. In fact, a child in poverty could theoretically 
qualify for 13 separate child care programs, all providing the same 
benefit.
  So the charge to this Congress is: Can you do it better? Can you do 
it more efficiently? Can you do it more effectively? And time after 
time, year after year, Congress has failed in that responsibility.
  We are here seeking a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution 
because Congress has failed in its responsibility to provide efficient, 
effective management of the programs that it enacts. It has failed to 
correctly oversee the spending of taxpayers' dollars to the point 
where, in just the last 14 years, we have driven the national debt from 
less than $1 to $4.8 trillion.
  We are saddling future generations with enormous debt. Each new child 
born in America bears a cost of nearly $20,000 which will have to be 
repaid. We are approaching an interest payment alone that exceeds 
virtually every other category of discretionary domestic spending for 
the Government. Interest does not go to children's lunches. It does not 
to go child care. It does not go to road investment. It does not go to 
community policing. It does not go to fight crime. It does not go to 
fight drugs and all the other numbers of programs the Federal 
Government has been involved in. It simply goes to pay interest, simply 
interest on the debt. And that interest is going to explode in the 
future.
  If we really care about our children, we will look at where we are 
today and say: ``We must change course. We must do something 
differently than what we have done before.''
  We have had all kinds of so-called congressional solutions, 
legislative solutions, to deal with this deficit. And while we are 
touting the promise of the latest proposal by the Congress to deal with 
the deficit, the deficit keeps mounting at a staggering rate.
  The National Taxpayers Union has estimated that for a child born 
today, by the time that child is 18 years old, he or she will have 
accumulated $103,000 in extra taxes over his or her lifetime because of 
the debt. Today's debt burden is over 10 times more than the debt 
today's adults inherited from their parents. Let me repeat that. The 
debt that I inherited from my parents is one-tenth of what my children 
will inherit from me.
  The National Taxpayers Union goes on to say:

       Our children and grandchildren will pay. In many ways--not 
     just in extra taxes. But in higher interest rates. Less 
     affordable homes. Fewer jobs. Lower wages. Decaying 
     infrastructure. Meager retirement incomes. A debt-burdened 
     Government unable to afford programs and benefits Americans 
     now take for granted.

  The very programs that our colleagues were talking about--the School 
Lunch Programs, the Child Care Programs that go to benefit children and 
which we now take for granted--will become completely unaffordable by 
an increasing debt-burdened Government.
  Thomas Jefferson left us with words of wisdom that we have not 
followed, and that we need to ponder as we come to a decision about how 
we are going to vote on this balanced budget amendment. He said:

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

  We are entrusted with a unique privilege and responsibility as 
Members of the U.S. Senate. We should heed the words of Jefferson that 
say we should be morally bound to pay our own debts.
  What right do we have to enjoy a standard of living now and simply 
dump the payment for that standard of living on to our children and our 
grandchildren? What right do we have to do that? It is immoral to do 
that. We should, as Jefferson said, be morally bound to pay for what we 
spend. And we have not done that. We have not done that in small 
margins, we have not done that in massive margins.
  We have expanded our national debt from less than $1 trillion in 1980 
to nearly $5 trillion in 1994. We have quintupled it in 15 years. We 
have quintupled the debt that took 200 years to accumulate prior to 
that.
  And so, as Members contemplate their vote, I hope they would see the 
extraordinary implications of this vote. If the balanced budget 
amendment fails, I fear we will not have another opportunity to address 
the primary and fundamental issue facing this 
[[Page S3142]] Nation. If it passes, we will begin a process of doing 
what we were elected to do in the first place--of determining 
priorities, of establishing ways in which the taxpayers' dollar can be 
spent in effective, efficient ways. We will have to go into every 
program, every program of Government, to ask ourselves the fundamental 
question: Is this the best way we can spend this money? Is this the 
highest priority for this money? Is there a more efficient way to do 
it? It is a question, as Jefferson said, of such consequence to place 
it among the fundamental principles of Government.
  It is wrong. It is wrong for us to continue this course.
  We have a choice before us tomorrow evening that will fundamentally 
alter the way we do business. We have proven our incapacity to be 
careful stewards of the Nation's debt, careful stewards of the Nation's 
earnings, careful stewards of the future of this country for our 
children's sakes, for our grandchildren's sakes, for future 
generations' sakes.
  Let us do what we all know we need to do--save us from ourselves. 
Give us a tool which will allow us to balance that budget and once and 
for all end this practice of saddling posterity with our debts.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor
  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. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 
to continue as though in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, will the Senator yield briefly for an 
inquiry?
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I yield.
  Mr. BYRD. Am I still to be recognized for 1 hour as under the 
previous order?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia is correct, 
that would be the order. The Chair has just recognized the Senator from 
Vermont for an extension of morning business.
  Mr. BYRD. That would not interfere with my hour?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There will be no interference.
  Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair. I thank the Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I assure the Senator from West Virginia 
that I will not be long. I had not realized that he had that order.

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