[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 60 (Friday, March 31, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S4989]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    PRIORITIES AND DEFICIT REDUCTION

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, relating to the debate that we began this 
morning, let me say that I hope we can renew our debate about 
priorities as we approach the last week of this particular session 
before the Easter recess.
  It was a debate about priorities and a debate about the need for 
deficit reduction and a debate about how we get there.
  An amendment that I offered today achieves exactly the same level of 
deficit reduction as the level proposed in the committee-reported 
rescissions bill, but it does so without damaging our children's 
educational and health care needs.
  What the amendment was designed to do, without adding one penny to 
the deficit, in a way that was completely paid for, was to create a 
better balance between the requirements laid out in the original 
rescissions package and the objectives that we all have with regard to 
distributing the burden of deficit reduction fairly. On the list of 
priorities we say we all share, education is high. But certainly that 
was not reflected to the degree that it should be if, indeed, our 
priorities are as we say they are.
  We all had hoped we could have a good debate this afternoon with 
regard to those priorities, with regard to our Nation's values, the 
values of families, but we were not given that opportunity, and for 
that I am very deeply disappointed.
  The majority leader, as is his right, offered a second-degree 
amendment that really does not address this issue of education and the 
needs of working families. Obviously, there are many ways in which to 
continue to work at meaningful deficit reduction, but that really was 
not the sole purpose of the amendment on our side.
  What we were attempting to say is that you can have good and 
constructive debate about how we ought to reduce the deficit, and that 
part of that debate ought to be about the values and the tremendous 
priorities that we have invested in in the past, with regard to 
education and children.
  We wanted to call upon the Senate to reconsider how we treat working 
families with children. The response, unfortunately, that we received 
was a proposal to gut our amendment and have the bill pulled entirely.
  I do not know what the other side may be afraid of here, but it seems 
to me that support for our amendment is very loud and very clear. The 
support, again announced on the west side of the Capitol this morning 
in very clear terms, was that we ought to recognize that we have 
priorities that stand not as mutually exclusive but clearly in tandem--
meaningful deficit reduction at the same time we have meaningful 
investments in the priorities that this country ought to insist upon.
  Since we stood up for working families of 1 million children, 
telephones have been ringing off the hook in the Senate offices across 
the Capitol. Our amendment is building support because it addresses the 
need to reduce the deficit at the same time it restores funds that are 
needed for working families.
  If this amendment is not adopted, America's children will pay the 
price in terms of their education, their housing, their health care, 
and their child care. We need to invest in our future, and our 
amendment says going after children's programs first is wrong.
  We also need to ensure that we properly fund the Federal Emergency 
Management Administration so that we meet emergency needs caused by 
recent natural disasters. Our amendment does that. It is also 
completely paid for. It restores the $1.3 billion simply by taking what 
is viewed as excessive funding for FEMA in the years beyond 1996 and 
dedicating that money, as it should be dedicated, to the investment in 
children.
  The total rescission under this substitute is identical to the level 
in the pending Senate bill--$15.1 billion, including the money 
allocated to the Shelby amendment.
  The substitute provides FEMA with exactly the same level of funding 
as the House bill--$5.36 billion.
  If our colleagues dispute the level of funding in our amendment, they 
are also disputing the Republican leadership in the other body, because 
the figure is identical on both sides of the Capitol.
  One million children should not be left out or ignored as we continue 
the duel on priorities that we have here--priorities that recognize 
their interests, future needs, and their interest in inheriting a 
country that is not as deficit-laden as it is today.
  So we can do both. I hope that as we work through this rescissions 
bill, and certainly through the budget priorities we will be debating 
as we consider a budget resolution later on, we can recognize the need 
to do both in a meaningful and bipartisan way. That is what this 
amendment attempts to do. That is what I hope the Senate will do. That 
is what I hope we have the opportunity to do next week.


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