[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 43 (Wednesday, March 8, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3644-S3645]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           A BALANCED BUDGET

  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I have been listening with interest to the 
remarks by the chairman of the Budget Committee, the distinguished 
Senator from New Mexico, who has served so well and so long here. I 
know the people back in his home State recognize and realize that New 
Mexico is well served here with my great friend and colleague.
  I want to simply add my voice of concern, as I think has been so well 
articulated by himself, and I think before him by my friend and 
colleague from the State of Illinois, who has been with us in trying to 
focus attention on the dire consequences of the United States of 
America continuing its course of reckless spending.
  I just cite a statistic or two that I think have been said so many 
times they may be old hat, but I am still not sure are fully 
understood.
  The national debt is the accumulation, year after year after year, of 
budget deficits. Put another way, that means the Government, year after 
year after year, is spending more than it takes in. Then, whether that 
is in millions or billions, it is shifted over at the end of each 
fiscal year to the national debt. But in 1980, the national debt was 
below $1 trillion, the accumulation of all the deficits since this 
Nation started over 200 years ago. From 1980 until 1995, that debt has 
gone up about five times, from under $1 trillion to $4.8 trillion as of 
now. And everyone in this body who understands the budget knows it is 
going to go up over $5 trillion sometime in this calendar year. Then it 
is going to go on up from there, because I have not seen a single 
projection yet by anybody, Democrat, Republican, independent, or any of 
the think tanks, that does not show continual, as far as we can see 
into the future, year after year after year, including up to the magic 
year 2002 that we had outlined in the constitutional amendment to 
balance the budget--it is going to go up each year. That is another way 
of saying--with that kind of accumulation, it is an understatement--
that the debt will be at least $6 trillion by the year 2000, which is 
another shattering statement. It may be part of the reason for the 
decline of the dollar and the concern for that the chairman of the 
Budget Committee has just outlined. I think it is well we understand 
that.
  Having said that, there are many complicating factors in play right 
now. I am not an isolationist, either in military policy or in economic 
policy, but the more and more we internationalize the United States of 
America's economy--the more and more we talk about free trade, the more 
and more NAFTA's that we have, the more and more GATT's that we have--
that is continually putting the economy of the United States of America 
in hands that are beyond our borders, so people in foreign countries 
have more and more to do with whether or not the economy of the United 
States of America is a sound one or a fragile one.
  The Senator from New Mexico made quite a point that the earlier 
estimate by the Clinton administration for the budget deficit at the 
end of this year was about $172 billion and the chairman of the Budget 
Committee further said that has now been revised upward from $172 
billion to $197 billion or $198 billion. Of course, the basic reason 
for that, among other things, was partially a shortfall in the amount 
of money coming into the Treasury, but primarily it was due to the 
Federal Reserve Board raising interest rates, so that hurt Americans. 
But it also hurts the taxpayers in America because they have to pay 
more interest, a higher interest rate on the national debt. So not only 
is the national debt continuing to rise from under $1 trillion in 1980 
to $4.8 trillion now, going up over $6 trillion before we can have any 
hopes of beginning to get it under control through some mechanism, but 
at the same time the interest that the taxpayers pay on that is going 
up dramatically for two reasons. No. 1, the debt keeps going higher 
and, No. 2, interest rates keep inching up.
  Now, we are seemingly getting ourselves into a situation that, after 
NAFTA and after GATT and after the bailout of the Mexican economy that 
some of us understood NAFTA was going to take care of--that was to take 
care of everything. That would smooth things out between those who live 
north and south of the border, which it obviously has not. But after 
all those concerns, we are still back to a situation where, among the 
other concerns of the budget, the fastest-growing, percentagewise, 
portion of the budget today is not national defense, it is not welfare, 
it is not Social Security benefits, it is not Medicare and Medicaid; 
the fastest growing percentage increase in the national debt is the 
interest, which is now approaching $300 billion a year.
  Talk about the foreigners pulling their money out of the United 
States of America; that is the good news/bad news situation once again. 
The facts of the matter are that foreign investors in the United 
States, those buying T-bills in the United States of America, are now 
receiving somewhere between $50 and $60 billion a year interest that 
the American taxpayers are paying. That is what they get for buying our 
T-bills.
  Another alarming thing, consider that about 25 percent of our debt, 
the excesses that we continue to spend, is being handled by foreigners. 
What kind of shape is the United States of America in today? What more 
reason do we need for some discipline to get our expenditures in line 
with our income on some kind of a reasonable, enforceable glidepath to 
a balanced budget?
  What more reason do we need than the fact that now we are becoming 
nervous because of the collapse of the dollar? The foreign investors in 
the United States may be pulling their money out of the United States 
of America. That could increase our interest rates. I think the sum of 
this whole thing is that the United States of America finds itself in 
an additionally perilous situation today where actions of foreigners, 
foreign entities, could cause a major recession in the United States of 
America. I am not sure, if we could balance the budget tomorrow, it 
would stop that, but it would certainly be a step in the right 
direction.
  Let me conclude, though, Mr. President, by saying let us not be 
pointing fingers at the President of the United States on this. I do 
not agree with the connotation made by the Senator from New Mexico with 
regard to the fact that he said the President of the United States had 
walked away from the deficit problem.
  Mr. President, I submit the record shows that clearly is not correct. 
The President of the United States and the Democrats in 1993 passed, 
for the first time, the only significant decrease in the annual deficit 
that we have ever seen. We took a lot of heat for that. Whether you 
agree with everything that President Clinton does or whether you 
disagree with that, President Clinton is the first President since 
Harry Truman to establish a policy that has had a downward trend in the 
deficit for 3 consecutive years.
   [[Page S3645]] No, he has not licked the problem. There is more to 
do. And I, too, criticize the President's budget this year. Not only 
did the President not attack the deficit as I had hoped and wished that 
he would, but he also fell into line with the Contract With America 
that is supported by the Republicans on the House side and maybe some 
of the Republicans in the Senate to have a tax cut at a time we are 
screaming that we have to balance our budget.
  You cannot have it both ways. Anyone who is out there preaching a tax 
cut today, if they have any basic understanding of the budget of the 
United States of America, is either dead wrong or they are trying to 
mislead the people of the United States of America.
  So I simply say I am pleased that my colleague from New Mexico has 
outlined a very serious problem, another problem, something else that 
we had not anticipated that could have some rather dire circumstances 
on the United States of America. While I say I think it is important we 
press ahead even without the constitutional amendment to balance the 
budget, which I was for and strongly supported, the world has not come 
to an end because that did not pass, and we still have the 
responsibility to work as best we can on a nonpartisan basis to move 
ahead with balancing the budget by the year 2002 or as soon thereafter 
as possible given the new realities of the situation.


                             Senate Comity

  Mr. President, I wish to make some brief remarks on another subject 
that I think ties in with the reason that this Senate of ours gets 
itself tied up from time to time in gridlock. The events following the 
failure by one vote in this body last week to pass the constitutional 
amendment are something on which I wish to make a few remarks.
  I appeal to all Members of this body, regardless of which side of the 
aisle they sit on and what their political affiliation is, to begin to 
recognize the lack of comity, the lack of understanding, the failure of 
those of us on both sides of this aisle to walk in other people's shoes 
on the other side of the aisle.
  I have been here now for 17 years. I must say, Mr. President, I am 
very much concerned about the fact that this body is becoming more and 
more a body of vicious arguments, a body that does not play within its 
rules somehow that we do not falsely accuse each other, with the 
teamwork that is necessary in passing many good pieces of legislation; 
the fact that if someone on the other side of the aisle or someone on 
our side of the aisle does not go along with a key vote that one of us 
thinks is absolutely critical, then there are some recriminations 
taking place.
  I need only cite the meeting that I understand from the press is 
going on today where the Republican majority in this body is meeting to 
see whether or not they are going to censure one of the most dedicated 
and talented Members on that side of the aisle, Senator Hatfield from 
the State of Oregon. Senator Hatfield had the unmitigated gall, in the 
opinion of some, to vote his conviction from that seat the other day 
and thereby, along with several other Senators that could be mentioned, 
caused the balanced budget amendment to fail.
  Now, I think I have the credentials to talk about that, Mr. 
President, because I did not agree with Senator Hatfield's vote. But I 
will defend to the end his right to vote his convictions. And if we are 
going to send a message throughout the land directed by the new 
majority that was elected in both the House and the Senate in the 
November elections, if that majority is going to be sending out the 
message that you march in lockstep with the contract, you march in 
lockstep with whatever we tell you to do or you are out as chairman of 
a committee or can be otherwise censured, then I think that points up 
and proves the point I am trying to make today, that this institution 
is beginning to break down and become a pit of rhetoric, not 
understanding that each one of us is pledged to do what he or she 
thinks is best for our State and best for our Nation.
  The Democrats sure do not have all the answers. We have proven that. 
The Republicans do not have the answers either, and I think they are 
proving that even faster than I thought they could. I simply say it is 
about time the freshmen Members of this body come into it with a bit of 
humbleness. Just because they served over in the other body where they 
could not talk more than 1 minute at a time, time and time again I have 
seen them come over to this body and languish in their new found 
freedom of talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.
  It does hurt, Mr. President,
   when Members on this side of the aisle or Members on that side of 
the aisle by statement, by implication, and by action indicate that we 
are going to punish our Members when they do not hew the line.

  I would only hearken back for a moment, if I might, Mr. President, to 
that 1993 budget bill that was passed by 50 votes in this body. We had 
to have the Vice President in the chair to cast the vote to break the 
tie. Those were all Democratic votes. There were defections from what 
was the position of the President of the United States, a Democrat. 
There were defections from what most of the Democrats in this body, 
including this one, thought was the right thing to do. Some of those 
defections were some of my closest friends and associates in this body 
who I served with and considered their actions and their decision at 
that particular time. While I did not agree with it, there was never a 
murmur on this side. I have never heard even in Cloakroom talk or out 
on the street a thought of trying to punish the six over seven 
Democrats that did not follow the party line. And maybe in the end, Mr. 
President, that is a basic difference between the Democratic Party and 
the Republican Party in the United States of America. They choose to 
try and whip their people into lockstep.
  I am proud to say--at least as far as I know--while we hope that 
there is discipline on this side to a degree when things which are 
fundamentally important are concerned, I have never heard of the 
Democrats ever considering censoring someone because they had the 
courage to vote their conviction.
  Mark Hatfield voted his conviction last week. While I thought it was 
a wrong vote, I admire him for that conviction. I hope that the cooler 
heads--and there are many of them on that side of the aisle--will not 
start on a warpath and not demean the standing and respect that I think 
this body should have in the public's eye by trying to whip or punish 
Senator Hatfield for casting the vote that he thought was right.
  Democrats and Republicans, it seems to me, can only expect us--and 
our constituents can only expect us--to trust our judgment to listen to 
them, but in the end vote our convictions and our consciences as to 
what is the right thing for our State and the right thing for our 
Nation. Mark Hatfield did that last week.
  I again say that I wish he had done otherwise. I wish he would have 
been the one vote that we needed to pass it. But I felt that I would 
not be stating my fondness for this institution and what it stands for 
without coming to the floor in defense of my friend Mark Hatfield 
because I am convinced that, while he did what he thought was right, if 
we ever get to the place in this body where Democrats are going to 
dictate whether they are in the majority or the minority, the 
Republicans are going to dictate whether they are in the majority or 
the minority, how I and every one of the Members of the party vote, 
then we have destroyed I think the deliberative body that I think the 
people expect from this great institution that we call the U.S. Senate.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. MACK addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ashcroft). The Senator from Florida.

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