[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 42 (Tuesday, March 7, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3574-S3576]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            CORRECTING THE BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT DEBATE

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I also would like to correct the 
record, 
 [[Page S3575]] and so I rise today to set it straight. I am reacting 
to the fact again that the Senator from Mississippi submitted a portion 
of my floor statement from balanced budget debate last year and 
incorrectly described the context of my remarks, and I would like to 
put those remarks in context.
  The Senator claims in the Congressional Record that the statement was 
made in response to the balanced budget amendment as submitted by 
Senators Simon and Hatch. In fact, there were two proposals last year 
on the balanced budget amendment. The statement that is attributed to 
me was made in reaction and in support of the balanced budget amendment 
proposed by Senator Reid, which would have protected the Social 
Security trust fund. I would like to put the statement submitted by the 
Senator from Mississippi in context by briefly reading a couple of 
paragraphs from my floor speech made on February 24, 1994.

       I am here to speak on behalf of the Reid amendment. I 
     believe it is improved over the Simon amendment. This 
     amendment would protect Social Security. I do not believe 
     that the trust fund should be used to balance the budget. It 
     would allow the creation of a capital budget (that is this 
     amendment), just as many cities and States do now. It would 
     allow flexibility in times of recession. And it would keep 
     the courts from mandating actions that are legislative 
     prerogatives.

       These changes make this amendment a much more workable 
     balanced budget amendment.
       There are many in this body who believe that amending the 
     Constitution is very strong medicine, perhaps too strong. I 
     have listened very carefully to those arguments. But I have 
     come to the conclusion that without the strong medicine the 
     patient is not going to heal.
       People have said to me: You come from California and you 
     supported an amendment for earthquake disaster relief that 
     was off budget.
       Yes, I did. Disaster relief for floods was off budget. 
     Disaster relief for Hurricane Iniki was off budget. Disaster 
     relief for Hurricane Andrew was off budget. So why should 
     California be treated any differently? That is why we need an 
     amendment to make everyone play by the same rules.
       I think this is the heart of the matter. If people believe 
     that under our present way of doing business we can balance 
     this budget, then they should vote against a balanced budget 
     amendment.

  This is the part that I was quoted in.

       If in their heart of hearts they believe we are not going 
     to be able to balance the budget under the current process, 
     then I believe they should support the balanced budget 
     amendment. At least that is the conclusion to which I have 
     come. Without a constitutional amendment, a balanced budget 
     just is not going to be achieved.

  That is the context of my remarks, out of which one paragraph was 
taken and attributed to my not being concerned about Social Security 
last year. I submit this as proof that I was concerned about Social 
Security last year. This year I presented a substitute amendment which 
was the balanced budget amendment with Social Security excluded, and it 
lost before this body.
  If I might just quickly restate my views, because I believe it is 
important. Let me speak as someone who does believe in a balanced 
budget amendment. It may not be the same identical one you believe in, 
Mr. President, but then that is why we are legislators, to legislate, 
hear the ebb and flow of debate, make up our minds, and improve 
legislation. I quite genuinely believe, and I think the figures will 
corroborate, that we can take Social Security off budget, create a 
capital budget--as the city of which I was mayor does, as the State of 
California does, as more than 40 other States do--and actually, by so 
doing, have less trouble balancing the budget by the year 2002 than we 
would if the present balanced budget amendment passed.
  Now, perhaps the Federal Government is so far removed from States or 
cities that they cannot countenance financing large items of capital 
like aircraft carriers, at $1 billion per, through a capital budget, 
but I think we can. I think there is room for people to have different 
views about a balanced budget amendment. And I hope that, as others 
state our views, that they would do so correctly.
  I have heard many Members supporting a balanced budget amendment 
say--and heard one on tape just a half-hour ago--``We have no 
intentions of using Social Security to balance the budget.'' That is 
wrong. Social Security's revenues would be used in the balanced budget 
amendment recently voted on to balance the budget.
  Why do I believe that Social Security is as important a contract with 
America as the revisionist Contract With America? The reason I believe 
it is because for years people have been paying FICA taxes with the 
assurance that those taxes are not used for budget purposes, they are 
used for their retirement. That is a contract with America. You pay 6.2 
percent of your salary, your employer matches it, the Federal 
Government holds that and invests it in Treasury bills, and you get it 
back as you retire.
  I believe that obligation ought to be kept intact. If we find we 
cannot keep the obligation intact because more people are retiring and 
not enough are earning, then the system needs adjustment. And I am the 
first one to say that. Or the money is not going to be there, do not 
make young working people with young families pay the FICA tax today. 
Do the honest thing and cancel the FICA tax.
  So I think there are very major and legitimate public policy 
questions at play in this balanced budget amendment and I hope that the 
mentality that I have been surprised to see in the last week--which is 
almost the mentality that anyone who dares disagree with the great 
pundits and proponents of the balanced budget amendment is not quite as 
good an American and does not have the right to disagree--would cease. 
I think that makes a mockery out of the public policy debates of the 
No. 1 one public policy forum of the United States, the U.S. Senate.
  I believe we have a right to listen to debate. I believe we have a 
right to try to forge a better amendment. And I think taking Social 
Security out of the balanced budget amendment does in fact make it a 
better amendment and there is a way to compensate for the loss and that 
is by doing something that most States and every big city in this 
Nation does, which is fund their major capital improvements through a 
capital budget.
  Mr. President, I thank you for the opportunity and I yield the floor.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, last week, I inserted in the Record a list 
of quotations concerning the balanced budget amendment, from several of 
our colleagues who voted against the balanced budget amendment on March 
2 of this year. Those quotes demonstrated their support for the 
balanced budget amendment in earlier years, especially in 1994, when 
there was little chance that it would actually pass.
  Earlier this afternoon, our distinguished colleague from Kentucky, 
Senator Ford, suggested an error in the words attributed to him. As I 
understood him, he has not claimed that he never said the words I 
quoted him as saying. But rather, he said them in support of a 
substitute amendment to the balanced budget amendment, not in support 
of the original legislative language.
  That substitute--a Reid-Ford-Feinstein amendment--had the effect of 
exempting Social Security from the constitutional strictures of the 
balanced budget amendment.
  The Senator is correct in pointing that out. The words I quoted were 
spoken on March 1, 1994, in support of that substitute amendment, 
which, because of its Social Security exclusion, did differ from the 
balanced budget amendment the Senator voted against on March 2 of this 
year.
  If I had been aware of that, I would have duly noted it in the 
material inserted in the Record, but not read. So I apologize to the 
Senator for that misimpression. But in the interest of fairness, I 
think we should lay out the whole story. As another of our colleagues 
said here this afternoon, we want, not just the truth but the whole 
truth.
  And the whole truth is that, after our distinguished colleague from 
Kentucky spoke those quoted words in support of the Reid-Ford-Feinstein 
amendment, that amendment was rejected by the Senate by a vote of 22 to 
78.
  The next vote came 5 hours later. It was a vote on final passage of 
Senate Joint Resolution 41, the balanced budget amendment virtually 
identical to the one narrowly defeated by the Senate only last week. 
And on that vote, Senator Ford voted ``yea.''
  Let me make that clear. Although the Senator's words I quoted were 
directed toward the Reid-Ford-Feinstein 
 [[Page S3576]] substitute amendment, the Senator from Kentucky did 
indeed vote for the original balanced budget amendment last year which 
was basically identical to the one we voted on this year which he voted 
against.
  Methinks, maybe, he protest too much.
  I was raised to believe that actions speak louder than words. And the 
point of my remarks in the Record  last week was that the actions of 
several of our colleagues with regard to the balanced budget amendment 
last year just do not compute, as Dr. Spock would say, with thier 
actions this year.
  I do regret any inconvenience to the Senator caused by the 
publication of his quote from 1994. And I want to assure him that all 
future quotes will be triple-checked for their precise parliamentary 
context.
  But at the same time, those of us who truly support a balanced budget 
amendment owe it to the public--to the taxpayers--to make clear why 
that amendment was defeated, at least temporarily, in this body last 
week.
  It was defeated because several Senators who voted for its exact 
language 1 year ago found some reason, some excuse, to change their 
position 180 degrees this year.
  Whatever their reasons for doing so, that abrupt change is what is at 
issue here. It is what the public is asking question about. And, in 
some cases, it may be difficult to explain.
  One thing is for sure: No one can explain away that radical change in 
position regarding the balanced budget amendment by pointing to the 
Reid-Ford-Feinstein substitute of 1994. That substitute was indeed the 
subject of Senator Ford's remarks as I quoted them, but it ws the 
original, untouched, unamended, unaltered, authentic balanced budget 
amendment for which he voted on March 1, 1994.
  And it was the same amendment, with only the beneficial addition of 
Senator Nunn's language concerning the federal judiciary, which he 
voted against on March 2, 1995.
  Mr. BYRD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may speak for 
not to exceed 10 minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  

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