[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 40 (Friday, March 3, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3455-S3456]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, let me indicate that round one of the 
balanced budget effort has been disposed of. But there will be other 
rounds. Our new Republican colleague, Senator Campbell, when he was 
talking to some of the reporters, was saying the thing that really made 
the decision for him was the balanced budget amendment and the games 
that are being played with the balanced budget amendment and those who 
one year vote one way and the next year vote another way on the 
balanced budget amendment.
  As I said in my remarks yesterday, it seems to me that this issue 
should not and will not go away. We will proceed on the basis that the 
balanced budget amendment will be passed. We will see how many are 
willing to make the tough votes--we hope a majority on both sides of 
the aisle--and we will see about Social Security and some of the other 
smokescreens that were talked about during the debate.
  But I would just assure my colleagues that this issue--and it is an 
issue and will continue to be an issue because 80 percent of the 
American people have told us that they want a balanced budget 
amendment. We have told them we do not care what you want, we know what 
is best. A minority of 34 knows what is best, even though a majority of 
80 percent have a different view.
  So I am excited about the prospects of taking this case to the 
American people for the next 3 months, 4 months, 6 months, 8 months, 10 
months, a year, 16 months, whatever it takes because it is that 
important. Again, it is not a matter of partisanship, because I 
congratulate the 14 Democrats who withstood the pressure from the White 
House and the leadership on the other side to vote consistently and to 
vote their convictions. This was a bipartisan effort, as it should have 
been. And I read the obituaries in the morning's paper about what it 
means for A or X or Y or Z. It is what it means to the American people 
that makes the difference. And what it means to the American people is 
that the U.S. Senate by one vote, one vote, has said wait. You have to 
wait. We will make these judgments for you. You do not understand. We 
understand all these complex issues.
  But I must say traveling around the country when you make speeches 
and you talk about unfunded mandates, people say ``Well, I do not think 
I have had that.'' They do not really focus on unfunded mandates. You 
talk about covering Congress like we cover everybody else. Most people 
say that is a good idea. But I find the thing that the American people 
understand without any further explanation is when you say ``balanced 
budget.'' They are doing it in their business. They are doing it in 
their homes. They are doing it in their offices, and they understand 
the balanced budget. They also understand regulatory reform, which is 
another issue that will be on this floor very soon.
  So I do not know when this reconsideration will take place, but 
hopefully very soon. But if not, there is time to take the case to the 
American people. I do not suggest that many of my colleagues were not 
properly motivated. But I think in some cases it was a lot of politics, 
and that is not without precedent on either side of the aisle either, I 
would say, because this is a political institution in a sense. But this 
issue is larger than any one Senator or larger than this institution. 
As I have said, we do not amend the Constitution lightly around here. 
We certainly had adequate debate.
  I conclude by saying to all of my colleagues that we are going to 
have to change our operating rules in the Senate because we are now 
starting to report out some of the legislation.
  So I just alert my colleagues to be prepared to be here almost every 
night until 10 or 11 o'clock. There will not be any recesses in the 
Senate this year that I can see after the Easter recess. We have tried 
to accommodate our colleagues who want to spend 10 days on this, 3 
weeks on this, 3 or 4 weeks on this. And I do not know of any other way 
to finish our work. But I think every Senator will accept that because, 
if we want to have these extended debates and we want to have this full 
discussion, then certainly we understand that it is going to take more 
time. I do not have any objection to that except to say that we are 
going to try to complete our work this year. I do not see any other way 
unless there is some way that the Democratic leader and I could come 
together and figure out some way to do it. But if you look at what has 
happened so far this year, we have had about 2 months now on three 
pieces of legislation.
 And we have been in session almost every day. Maybe that is the way it 
is. On that basis, you would pass about 15 pieces of legislation.

  I alert my colleagues that we are going to meet with the Democratic 
leader next week to try to outline a program for the next couple of 
months. I know that after legislation comes from the House it properly 
goes to committees here and we have hearings and markups. The line-item 
veto will be on this floor by the end of next week, and we will stay on 
the line-item veto and we will be here nights. We are not going to 
spend 30 days on the line-item veto. We will find out where the votes 
are when the President says he supports a line-item veto. We will see 
if 
[[Page S3456]] he really believes in it. If you are really going to 
work for the line-item veto. We hope he does.
  So I alert my colleagues that though many of us would like to have a 
little more time off these next few months, I do not believe it is 
possible. If it is, I will try to accommodate all my colleagues.
  I yield the floor.


                     The Balanced Budget Amendment

  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, we have heard speeches this morning that 
suggest because the balanced budget amendment has been defeated, we 
somehow have to wait to balance the budget. I simply say that there is 
no need to wait. There is nothing that prevents us from moving to write 
budgets that balance the budget. We can do that in the normal process 
of the Congress--and we should.
  Mr. President, no one should use as an excuse that the balanced 
budget amendment failed. Mr. President, we have an obligation--all of 
us, Democrats and Republicans--to now go to work to move this country 
toward balance. And there is no time to spare, because we face a 
demographic time bomb in this country; that is, when the baby boomers 
start to retire and the number of people who are eligible for Medicare 
and Social Security doubles. That requires that we go to work and write 
balanced budgets.
  Mr. President, I want to just put in some perspective why some of us 
felt so keenly that the balanced budget amendment that was before us 
was flawed. I come from a financial background. I was a tax 
commissioner of my State before I came to this body. In that position, 
I fought the looting of trust funds at the State level. We were faced 
with it consistently because we had large energy trust funds and, 
repeatedly, there were attempts by people in the legislature to raid 
those funds. I thought it was wrong then. I thought it was wrong when I 
came to this Chamber that we were doing the same thing with respect to 
trust funds.
  Mr. President, I think when people talk about a balanced budget 
amendment, we ought to ask: What budget was being balanced? What budget 
was being balanced with that amendment that we considered yesterday?
  I remind my colleagues of the language of section 7, which defined 
what budget was being balanced. It said:

       Total receipts shall include all receipts of the United 
     States Government except those derived from borrowing. Total 
     outlays shall include all outlays of the United States 
     Government except for those for repayment of debt principal.

  Mr. President, this definition includes all Social Security revenue 
and all Social Security outlays. And the problem is, Social Security is 
not contributing to the deficit; it is in surplus. So, by definition, 
the amendment we were considering yesterday would have taken Social 
Security surpluses and applied them to other operating expenses of the 
Federal Government. That is what was wrong with the amendment we 
considered yesterday. In principle, that is what was wrong.
  Mr. President, I understand fully that when you do not use Social 
Security surpluses, when you do not use trust fund moneys, that makes 
the task more difficult. That makes the challenge greater. But I do not 
think we should say to the American people we are balancing the budget 
when we are really looting and raiding trust funds in order to balance 
the budget. That is a fraud. That should not be enshrined in the 
Constitution of the United States, because that would make it virtually 
impossible to fix. And if we fail to fix it, the economic implications 
for the future are far more severe. We will never be able to keep the 
promise to those who have paid the taxes on the promise that they will 
receive retirement benefits, if we do not treat the Social Security 
surpluses that are supposed to be treated as a trust fund in that way.
  During the discussions, a number of the leaders who were proponents 
of the amendment came to me in an attempt to secure my vote and said 
they would agree to stop using the Social Security trust fund surpluses 
by the year 2012.
  Mr. President, this chart shows what they were suggesting. This chart 
shows the flow of funds in the Social Security trust fund. The year 
2012 is about here on the chart. So when they are saying they would use 
the Social Security trust fund surpluses until the year 2012, they were 
saying they would use most of the trust fund moneys, because you can 
see that is about the high-water mark of the buildup of the trust fund. 
Then it starts to decline as the baby boom generation starts to retire. 
I said, no, I would not accept a proposal that would use trust fund 
moneys until the year 2012. That is about $2 trillion that would have 
been used. They came back to me several moments later and said, ``How 
about if we stopped using the Social Security trust fund money by the 
year 2008?''
  Mr. President, I said no to 2008 because after consulting on the flow 
of funds that moved through the trust funds or the projections of the 
flow of funds, my staff reported to me that it would be $1.3 trillion. 
Mr. President, I think those exchanges confirm that those who were 
proponents of the amendment fully intended to use Social Security trust 
fund moneys to offset other Government operating expenses. I think that 
is wrong as a principle, just wrong. I do not think we should do that. 
I think it would be a mistake to do that. I understand that it makes 
the job tougher.
  Mr. President, if we are going to tell the American people we are 
balancing the budget, then I think we ought to do it honestly. We ought 
to be really balancing the budget, not taking trust fund moneys to help 
balance the budget. If that means we have to stretch out the time 
period so that we set an honest goal, then we should do that. And the 
reason I feel this so acutely is when we look at what the flow of funds 
will be, or are projected to be, if we do not save that money, when we 
reach out here in 2025 and when we reach 2029, all of the money is 
gone. It is all gone by 2029. And that assumes that we allow the trust 
funds to be built up. So I think it is imperative that we treat the 
trust funds separately from the other operating accounts of the 
Government.
  Mr. President, let me just go back to this final chart because it 
speaks to the need for all of us to come together.
  We have had high levels of partisanship in the last days, and perhaps 
that was inevitable. I think some of the things that have been said 
that question each other's motives are unfortunate. I think when 
Members of Congress start name calling, that is uncalled for. None of 
us should engage in that. That demeans this institution.
  Mr. President, we now do have an obligation to try to address what is 
a serious crisis facing this country.
  This chart shows why current trends are not sustainable. The green 
line here shows the revenues anticipated for the United States. It 
shows the history from 1970 to today and a projection out to the year 
2030. Revenue is pretty constant. The colored bars here show the 
expenses. And we can all see what is going to happen because of this 
demographic time bomb, the tremendous number of baby boomers who are 
going to retire and what that does to Medicare and Medicaid and Social 
Security. It explodes the costs. That has to be addressed. And nothing 
precludes us from doing that.
  Mr. President, it is time for us to work together, to put aside 
partisanship to get the job done.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  Mr. SANTORUM addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from 
Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Thank you, Mr. President.

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