[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 63 (Wednesday, April 5, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5207-S5212]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         BUDGET PROCESS STATUS

  Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I wish to address the underlying 
legislation and also generally about how we stand in this budget 
process, because obviously this piece of legislation has an impact on 
the budgets generally.
  We are about to break here for a couple of weeks, and when we return 
from this break, we will have a chance to debate the basic budget 
resolution before the Congress. This rescission package which we are 
presently taking up is sort of a precursor to that whole debate, the 
budget resolution of the Congress.
  What it all comes down to is an issue of how we preserve the American 
dream for our children. What this debate is about is whether or not we 
are going to start putting fiscal discipline into the Congress and into 
the Federal Government in a manner which will allow Members to avoid an 
economic catastrophe which is looming over the horizon and which, 
unfortunately, our children will be the recipient of.
  [[Page S5208]] If we do not soon get control over the extraordinary 
amount of debt which the Federal Government is running up, we will 
essentially pass on to the next generation a nation which is bankrupt.
  In fact, the national debt today stands at about $5 trillion. It will 
stand at about $8 trillion by the year 2010. Today, about every 
American owes about $19,000 if we take the national debt and divide it 
by the number of Americans. As a result, we are essentially creating a 
situation where the next generation will not have the capacity for 
paying the costs of Government which has been passed on to them by our 
generation. We will be the first generation--talking about the postwar 
baby boom generations that dominates the membership of this Congress--
we will be the first generation in the history of this great country 
which passes less on to our children than was given by our parents. The 
opportunity to survive and have a lucrative and a prosperous lifestyle 
will essentially have been snuffed out for our children by our actions.
  Federal taxes today consume about 25 percent of the median income of 
an American. In the year 1970 it was only 16 percent. Combined Federal 
and State taxes consume about 50 percent of the incomes of an average 
American. That is today. That is a huge amount of money. By the time 
that our children begin to earn and produce, unless we get control over 
the growth of the Government, taxes will consume 84 percent--84 percent 
of their income.
  Now, that is not my number. I did not come up with that number. That 
was a number that was actually in the President's prior budget, not in 
the one he presented this year but the one he presented a year ago. He 
took it out of this year's budget, I suspect, because it was such a 
startling number he did not want to disclose it again.
  Madam President, 84 percent of all the earnings of all Americans will 
be absorbed simply to pay for the Government as we move into the 
beginning of the next century unless we do something, unless we begin 
to bring under control the rate of growth of our Federal Government.
  The current spending policies of this Government also directly 
affects the cost of doing business and the cost of living in this 
country.
  For example, the national debt adds nearly 2 percent to interest 
rates, and that, of course, directly affects everyone's lifestyle. For 
example, those 2 percent in additional interest points represents $900 
on the cost of financing a $15,000 car and represents $37,000 on the 
cost of financing a $75,000 house.
  CBO has projected that interest rates would fall, however, if we were 
able to bring under control Federal spending. In fact, if we were able 
to balance the budget and put in place a balanced budget, interest 
rates would fall by fully 1 percent.
  In addition, we know if we look into the outyears, what is driving 
this deficit, what is driving this rate of growth of the Federal 
Government is entitlement spending. It is not that this country is 
essentially an undertaxed country, it is not that the people of this 
Nation do not pay enough in taxes, it is that the people of this 
country are being asked to spend too much by the Federal Government.
  This chart reflects that, and the problem. The green line, which is 
hard to see, which runs across the middle of the chart, shows what the 
revenues of the Federal Government are, as we project out into the 
future years what they have been since 1970 and what they are as we 
project in future years.
  The blue spaces represent discretionary spending. The yellow space 
represents interest on the Federal debt. And the red space represents 
entitlement spending.
  What this chart essentially says is by the year 2010, we as a 
Government are going to be spending so much on entitlement programs and 
interest on the Federal debt that it will absorb all the revenues of 
the Federal Government. We will not be able to pay for things like 
national defense, education, roads, libraries, all the services which 
are discretionary spending. Unless, of course, we wish to tax people at 
84 percent of their earnings. Then, around about the year 2015, what 
this chart essentially says is that because of the force of the cost 
and the rate of growth of the cost of entitlement spending, this 
country essentially goes bankrupt.
  Ironically, the Medicare system, which is one of the major 
entitlement programs and which is the primary health care system for 
senior citizens, that goes bankrupt in about the year 2002, around 
here. But as a result of demographics and the fact that a large number 
of citizens in the postwar baby boom generation become senior citizens 
beginning in about the year 2007, and that group starts to peak around 
the year 2020, as a result of the huge number of people then receiving 
benefits under things like Social Security and Medicare, the whole 
country essentially goes bankrupt in about the year 2015. We end up 
like Mexico, essentially, a country unable to pay for the operation of 
its Government and unable to secure or provide a prosperous lifestyle 
for its people.
  All of this occurs not as a result of the fact that people in this 
country are not paying enough taxes. You would believe they are not 
paying enough taxes if you listen to many of the Members on the other 
side of the aisle, that simply raising taxes will address this issue. 
But that is not the case. As the next chart shows, all of this occurs 
because we are simply spending too much money. Taxes have remained 
fairly constant over the last 20 years and will remain constant over 
the next 20 years as a percent of our national income. But spending has 
gone up dramatically and stays up and then goes up even more 
dramatically as we head into the outyears. So it is spending that we 
must address and addressing the issue of spending we must also address 
the entitlement spending.
  How has the other side decided to do this? How has the President and 
his party approached this issue? The President sent us a budget about a 
month ago which projected $200 billion deficits for as far as the eye 
could see--$200 billion deficits. It added $1 trillion of new debt, 
just in the next 5 years, to our children's shoulders. It made no major 
proposals to control any costs in any of the entitlement programs. 
Imagine that. Entitlement spending makes up 60 percent of the Federal 
accounts--60 percent. And not one proposal was made in the President's 
budget to address any of the entitlement accounts.
  It was, to say the least, a political document--not designed to 
address the substance of the major issue confronting this country, 
which is the fiscal viability of our children's future; not designed to 
address the fact that we are facing an impending bankruptcy in the 
Medicare system and a bankruptcy of this Nation for our next 
generation--but a budget designed to get reelected in 2 years from now.
  I call it the Pontius Pilate school of budgeting. Essentially, the 
President and his party washed their hands of the issue of addressing 
the deficit and the issue of controlling spending and the issue of how 
we protect our children's future, and walked off into the distance and 
said they would give us $200 billion deficits for as far as the eye can 
see.
  This, in my opinion, was an outrage, an inexcusable act, and one 
which clearly did not reflect the need to manage this Government 
correctly and to face up to what is the most significant issue we as a 
Government confront.
  On the other side, we, as Republicans, have proposed substantive 
proposals to address this deficit problem. Today we are taking up this 
rescission bill. It represents specific reductions in spending for the 
next 6 months, the balance of this fiscal year, reductions in spending 
which actually exceed in 6 months what the President has allegedly sent 
up to us over 6 years. He suggested another $13 billion in spending 
cuts. We are proposing $13 billion more--more than $13 billion in 
spending cuts in the next 6 months. He is talking about it over the 
next 5 years and actually does it through budget gimmicks on top of 
that.
  So that is the first step in this exercise, in this critical exercise 
of protecting our children's future. But the more important step is how 
we address the major budget for the next 5 years and how we address 
specifically the entitlement spending that is driving the issue of the 
deficit.
  If you look at the entitlement accounts there are obviously a large 
number of them. Many people do not understand what they are. Basically, 
those are accounts where you have the legal right to receive a payment 
from the Federal Government, unlike discretionary accounts, where the 
Federal 
[[Page S5209]] Government has the option to spend the money. In defense 
we have the option to spend the money. In education we have the option 
to spend the money. In building roads we have the option to spend the 
money. But in entitlement accounts, if you meet certain criteria, you 
have the right to be supported by the Government or have the Government 
pay you.
  In the entitlement accounts are such areas as Social Security--it is 
considered an entitlement account although it is really an insurance 
account--health care, especially Medicare and Medicaid, farm programs, 
SSI, EITC, pensions for Civil Service and military retirees. Those are 
some of the biggest ones--welfare. Those are all entitlement accounts.
  To begin with, Social Security is something that in the short run is 
not a problem and we have not proposed doing anything that would impact 
that in a negative way. Why is that? For the next 7 years, actually, 
Social Security runs a surplus. Every year more money is paid into the 
Social Security system than is paid out: $60 billion this year, by the 
year 2000 it will be $100 billion annually. That is a factor of 
demographics and a tax increase that occurred back in 1983.
  After the year 2005 the postwar baby boom generation hits the system. 
Then Social Security becomes a major problem. But for people who are 
over the age 50 there is no proposal and there should be no proposal 
that would impact their Social Security benefit. So we have not 
addressed that in the short run of the next 5-year budget.
  So we take Social Security off the table but we leave--that leaves on 
the table the other major entitlement issues. Of those health care is 
55 percent of the spending, health care accounts.
  In the health care accounts we are talking about two major areas, 
Medicare and Medicaid. Medicaid is essentially a welfare proposal, 
where moneys come out of the general fund to support people who cannot 
afford their own health care and their own long-term care; Medicare is 
an insurance proposal for the most part, where people pay into it 
through their earnings. What we propose, as Republicans, is not to cut 
Medicare, not to cut Medicaid. There has not been any proposal to do 
any of that. What we propose is to change those programs to make them 
deliver a better service to the people who are receiving them and, in 
the process, slow their rate of growth.
  Today the Medicare and the Medicaid accounts are growing at about 
10.5 percent annually--10.5 percent. That is three times the rate of 
inflation. It is actually about 10 times the rate of inflation in the 
health care community in the private sector. Last year the health care 
community in the private sector actually had a negative rate of growth. 
So it is actually 10 times that. But it is three times the rate of 
growth of the general economy. That is simply too fast and it cannot be 
afforded. What we are suggesting is we should slow that rate of growth 
from 10.5 percent down to about 7 percent. That is still twice, in the 
Medicare area, twice the rate of growth of inflation.
  How do we do that? How do we slow that rate of growth? We are going 
to do it by suggesting to senior citizens that they should have more 
choices. In fact, we are going to say to them essentially we are going 
to try to give you the same type of choices a Member of Congress has. 
That seems pretty reasonable to me. They do not have that today. Today 
most seniors function out of what is known as a fee-for-service service 
in health care. Why? Fee for service is where you go out, hire your 
local doctor, you know him personally, and you pay him personally, and 
you pay whoever he refers to personally. It is a one-on-one type of 
relationship to health care. Most seniors in the fifties, sixties, 
seventies when they were growing up, that was the health care provided 
in this country, about the only health care, and they were comfortable 
with it. So the culture of senior citizens today use the fee for 
service. It happens to be fairly expensive. In fact, it is the most 
expensive form of health care. It is why health care is growing so fast 
as a function of cost.
  So we are going to say to seniors, I hope, as a way to control the 
rate of growth of cost, if you want to stay with fee-for-service, fine, 
do that. We are not going to limit your ability to do that. You can 
keep that program. But if you as a senior decide to choose a program 
which is captivated, where the fee for that program is fixed, you go 
and buy the program at the beginning of the year, they supply you all 
your health care needs, and the needs they supply are the same as you 
get as under your fee for service, if you go into that type of program, 
and that type of program costs less even though it supplies the same 
type of care--it has to supply the same type of care as you get today--
if that program costs less, and it probably will, these are HMO's, 
PPO's, we are going to let you, the senior, say keep part of your 
savings. In other words, if it costs $5,000 to get fee for service and 
you can go out and buy into an HMO for $500, you get to keep 75 percent 
of the $500 you saved. That is a pretty good deal for seniors. They are 
going to get the same, probably better, health care in many areas and 
it is a good deal for the Federal Government. Why? Because it gives us 
a predictable amount of cost for health care and its rate of growth.
  We know that if we can move people out of the fee-for-service system 
into a captivated system, we can in the outyears save a dramatic amount 
of money and be assured of the rate of growth. We can afford, instead 
of the 10-percent rate of growth, closer to the 7-percent rate of 
growth which we need to reach.
  It also creates a huge attitude in the marketplace where you will see 
competition rise, and you will see seniors given all types of choices. 
Who knows what will come forward. The market has imagination. They will 
be able to get programs today that we cannot conceive of, probably 
offers to give them drugs, long-term care, and probably offers to give 
them all sorts of different opportunities that they continue to have 
today under their present plan.
  That is a result of marketplace forces competing for those dollars, 
as a thoughtful senior out there purchasing and make the senior a 
smarter purchaser. As a result the Federal Government and the seniors 
are the winners. We will see a reduction in the rate of growth. That is 
one approach which we will take. We call that creating a better 
program.
  Medicare was created in the 1960's. It is a sixties health care 
program. It no longer functions in the present climate effectively as a 
way to deliver health care. We need to change it. Unfortunately, the 
forces of the status quo which have dominated this place for the last 
30 years resist any type of change. But this type of change is needed 
in order to bring these costs under control, and in order to assure 
that our children have an opportunity to have health care and that the 
Medicare system does not go broke so that our seniors get health care 
after the year 2002. Medicaid accounts, and the welfare accounts, two 
major entitlements where we have essentially said--and I think most 
people would agree with this, especially in welfare--the Federal 
Government has failed. If there is an example of the failure of the 
liberal welfare state, it is welfare. We have created generations of 
dependency and despondency. People are locked into their system and 
told they cannot be productive citizens, and if they try to be they are 
beaten down by a bureaucracy which says you are not capable of being 
productive. We are going to keep you in this atmosphere, this endless 
cycle of dependency on the Federal Government and on the Federal dole. 
It has not worked. Welfare is a failure. The vast majority of Americans 
know that. The only folks who do not seem to know that are some of our 
more liberal colleagues who appear to be tied inexorably to this 
holdover from the concepts of the past.
  What we are going to suggest is that the States should have the 
responsibility of managing the welfare systems, and they are willing to 
do it. Given the imagination, the creativity and the flexibility the 
States have shown in all sorts of areas, release that sort of 
enthusiasm and energy on the issue of welfare reform and Medicaid, and 
you will see programs which are better. You will see the recipients and 
the people who need the care and the assistance get better care, better 
assistance programs, and the States feel they can do it at less cost. 
We will design these programs in relationship in conjunction with the 
Governors so that they will be Governor-driven, so to say. They will be 
imaginative. They will be 
[[Page S5210]] creative, and bring to the process a much better view 
and a much better approach to welfare and to Medicaid. We will get a 
better program, and we will get it for less money again because the 
States freed of this huge overhead of Federal bureaucracy can deliver 
more for the dollar, deliver it for less because they do not have to 
comply with all of this endless paperwork and bureaucracy.
  As Governor of New Hampshire, I knew that if I did not have to comply 
with an overwhelming morass of Federal red tape and the number of 
people that we had to keep on the payroll just to comply with the 
absurd regulations, the massive regulations that were coming out of 
Washington, that I could have taken that dollar and gotten more dollars 
out of my welfare for recipients who needed it, make sure the folks who 
did not need it did not get it, make sure the people who you had to 
help transition out of welfare were helped transitioned out of welfare, 
and in the process do it for considerably less and be more efficient. 
The Governors feel that way too. That is why they have supported this 
initiative.
  So we will undertake that process in reforming that type of program. 
In other entitlement accounts we can take the same type of approach--
imaginative, creative approaches which will slow the rate of growth. 
That is what we are talking about; slowing the rate of growth of these 
entitlement accounts. Why? For two simple goals. First, to make sure 
that these programs work a lot better because they are not working 
today very well. But, second, to make sure that we do not bankrupt our 
children's future. That must be one of our primary thoughts.
  So as we go forward in this budget debate, we need to be sure that we 
understand what is at risk here. We can follow the course which has 
been laid out by some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
which is to resist every proposal that comes forward to impact any of 
these programs, and to say that it is wrong--wrong to change one ``i'' 
or change one ``t'' as it has been dotted and crossed for the last 20 
years. But we can attempt to go in and fundamentally change and reform 
the manner in which Government is delivered in this country, to slow 
the rate of growth of Government, to downsize the size of the Federal 
Government, to return power to the States, the power to the people, to 
have a Government which understands the delivery of these programs to 
be significantly improved through delivering them at the State level, 
and with the programs that we retain here make sure we take a number of 
imaginative, more creative approaches such as giving choice to our 
seniors in the area of health care. Those are the types of changes we 
need to undertake in order to assure that our children have some 
opportunity for a prosperous lifestyle.
  If we make those choices here on this rescissions bill, and when we 
come back on a budget bill which would substantially reduce the rate of 
growth over the next 5 years, then we will see a budget that will come 
into balance. That is what this black line means. The red line happens 
to be the President's budget as it is projected out over the next 5 
years, with the $200 billion deficits, continuous $5 trillion new debt. 
But the type of budget we are going to propose will be a budget that 
will lead us to a balanced budget by the year 2002.
  Yes. The decisions will be challenging, and I suppose the votes will 
be defined as tough, hard-to-make votes. But they really are not. They 
really should be fairly easy votes because what we are talking about 
here is how to reform this Government so that it delivers the services 
it is supposed to deliver, but delivers them in a manner which can be 
afforded not only by our generation but by the next generation which is 
going to have to pay for the costs which we are passing down to them.
  I believe we can accomplish that. I believe we must reject the debate 
tactics which we have heard on this floor for the last few days which 
has essentially demagoged every cut as an act that shows no compassion 
to whatever constituency has been identified for the moment and 
acknowledge the truth of the matter, that if we are truly concerned 
about our children--and there has been so much rhetoric from the other 
side about this program or that program being an issue of caring for 
children and compassion for children--if we really care about our 
children, then we have to be willing to address the deficit and the 
fiscal crisis which we are facing today and the fact that we are going 
to pass into a bankrupt Nation if we do not act and act quickly and act 
now.
  We should also reject the view that all compassion is retained here 
in Washington, that the only people who can run a program that really 
is caring and thoughtful is some small cadre of bureaucrats aided by 
their assistants here in the Congress of the United States out of 
Washington. How arrogant that is. How elitist that is. It assumes that 
Governors are not compassionate, State legislators are not 
compassionate, that the people on the main frontline of the issue, the 
folks in the towns and cities across this Nation who deliver these 
programs do not have the compassion to manage them themselves; they 
must be told how to do it by this cadre of self-appointed experts here 
in Washington.
  That theory of compassion holds no substance. It is not defensible. 
This debate, when you hear those terms, is not about compassion. This 
debate is about power. That is all it is about, the fact that there are 
folks in this city who have built their careers around the capacity to 
control the dollars which flow back to run these programs. And they 
understand that when we move these programs back to the States and the 
dollars back to the States, they will lose that power and they do not 
like it. And so they mask their fear of losing that power or they cover 
up their desire to retain that power with this inflammatory language 
about compassion which on the face of it is not defensible because it 
presumes that they are the only ones who possess such traits and that 
elected officials at the local level and at the State level cannot 
equal their level of compassion, which is absurd.
  So as we move out back to our States over the next couple of weeks 
and we discuss the issue of the deficit and of the budget, and as we 
take on issues such as this rescission package and later this budget 
itself, I think it is absolutely critical that we be honest with the 
American people, that we explain to them that if action is not taken 
very soon on bringing this deficit under control, on bringing the rate 
of growth of this Federal Government under control, our senior citizens 
will find a Medicare system that goes bankrupt in the year 2002 and 
that our children will find a nation that goes bankrupt in the year 
2015, 2020, somewhere in that range; that we will have passed on to the 
next generation a nation that is unable to supply them the 
opportunities for prosperity and hope that we were given by our 
parents. And as I said at the beginning of this talk, it is not right 
and not fair for any generation to do that to another generation.
  So I hope that as we go forth over these next few weeks we will 
honestly discuss what is truly at risk here, and what is at risk is the 
future of our children.
  Mr. President, I yield back the time.
  Mr. President, I make a point of order that a quorum is not present.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Grams). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. 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. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, we have a solemn responsibility the 
people have given us. It is a responsibility to control the spending of 
this Government, to bring it in line with the concept of balance, to 
somehow manage the resources of this Government in a way which would 
not continue to jeopardize future generations.
  You and I are keenly aware of the fact that every man, woman, and 
child in the United States of America has a debt of about $18,000, 
every family of four a debt of about $72,000.
  We have before us a rescission bill, this measure to try and rescind 
certain spending items which we think we can afford not to spend--as a 
matter of fact, we cannot afford to spend. These are items which ought 
to be cut.
  The freshman class of the Senate in this body in the last several 
days has forwarded additional cuts that would 
[[Page S5211]] allow us to save additional resources. The original 
proposal for rescissions in the Senate was about $13.3 billion, and 
this Senate just a few evenings ago in an act of rather courageous 
judgment decided that we would defer an additional $1.8 billion in 
spending by deferring the construction of a number of courthouses 
around the country.
  I think it is important for us to look carefully at the proposal of 
the freshmen Senators that would provide for another $1.3 billion in 
spending reductions. That money would be available for future 
generations because it would not be an encumbrance of debt placed upon 
them. And the kinds of places in which there are projected cuts are 
places where we can afford to trim back spending, not the least of them 
is the AmeriCorps of President Clinton, the so-called volunteer arena 
where people are paid significant sums of money in order to go and 
volunteer.
  What is interesting about AmeriCorps is that it has been costing the 
American citizens an average of $30,400 per volunteer.
  Now, most people do not think of $30,400 price tags on volunteers. We 
think of volunteers as a part of a great American tradition of giving. 
This is part of the great American governmental tradition of spending. 
Not only is it $30,400, a lot of that just goes into the bureaucracy to 
support those so-called volunteers. As a matter of fact, the data we 
have indicates that $15,000 of each one of those $30,400 items goes 
into the bureaucracy and overhead and administrative costs to support 
the volunteers. That only leaves $15,400 remaining. So that money then 
supports the so-called volunteer.
  But it is interesting to know where the volunteers work. The 
volunteers, 20 percent of them, one out of every five of them, works 
for the Government. And frequently these individuals are not really 
volunteering in the traditional area of volunteer service in America at 
all. It is just a back-door way of bringing more people into the 
bureaucracy.
  So the AmeriCorps Program is a program that ought to be carefully 
looked at. And when the freshman class proposed, in response to the 
mandate of the American people, that we cut an additional $206 million 
from the AmeriCorps Program, it was a worthy thing to consider.
  Now there are those who have come to say to us, ``Well, volunteering 
is noble; volunteering is wonderful.'' It is noble and it is wonderful, 
but it is very expensive if you accept the administration's definition 
of a volunteer. Here you have volunteers in the State of Alaska 
averaging over $40,000 apiece in terms of cost. I know there are a lot 
of folks in my home State that would consider that kind of volunteering 
a great opportunity.
  So, I would just say that when we have come forward with the 
potential of cutting $206 million from the AmeriCorps Program, I think 
we have come forward with a reasonable way to say that we ought to 
restrain spending, to rescind this appropriation so that we do not 
unduly jeopardize future generations with debt.
  Another important area they are recommending and we are recommending 
for rescission is the area of foreign operations, in the area of our 
generosity to countries overseas. The original recommendation of the 
Senate was that we would have a foreign operations cut of $100 million. 
That represents about an eight-tenths of 1 percent cut. The House had 
recommended $191 million. If we were to move from the eight-tenths of 1 
percent, or $100 million, figure to the $191 million figure, we would 
only be moving to about a total of 1.4 percent cut in the so-called 
foreign operations budget.
  Now, this foreign aid that we give to other countries can be 
important, can be in the national interest. But let us not suggest to 
the entire world that the American people are the only people that are 
going to have to act responsibly in the area of restraining spending. 
Other countries around the globe are going to have to participate with 
us, as we tighten our belt in order to reach a balanced budget, in 
order to have the kind of fiscal restraint and financial responsibility 
that our children are demanding of us. As a matter of fact, not just 
our children and their yet unearned wages, but the people across 
America are demanding of us.
  Incidentally, I think countries around the world are demanding that 
we act responsibly. If you will look at what has been happening to the 
American dollar on world monetary markets recently, we have been in a 
free fall. We ought not to have the picture of George Washington on the 
American dollar. We ought to have a parachute, if we are going to 
continue to see its value plummet.
  Why does the American dollar plummet on world markets? I think it is 
a lack of confidence in the discipline of this Government to restrain 
its spending. And we ought to be restraining spending. So if we do 
restrain spending and if we are in a position to restrain spending in 
such a way as to protect the future of America and stabilize the world 
economy, our restraint of spending the additional $91.6 million in 
foreign operations will be a great benefit not only to us in balancing 
the budget, but of great benefit to the world because we will have 
helped create an environment of financial stability.
  Well, there are a whole range of things that are a part of this 
proposed rescission bill. It includes everything from public 
broadcasting, to the foreign operations, to the AmeriCorps, to the 
Legal Services Corporation, a variety of items, all of which at one 
time or another, or some of which even today are laudable things, but 
things we simply cannot afford.
  Mr. President, I believe the American people expect us to live within 
our resources. The question is not, Is it something you want? The 
question is, Is it something that we should be spending for, especially 
in light of the fact that we do not currently have the resources?
  When you and I sit down at our kitchen table to develop the budgets 
that we must have with our family, we ask more than the question: Is 
this a good thing or is it a bad thing? We have a list of good things 
that we might like that would be a mile long. We look at the catalog, 
whether it be from Sears or Lands End, or wherever it was that we are 
looking at. There are all kinds of good things there.
  The question is not whether they are good things. It is whether or 
not they are a priority for us, whether or not we really have the 
wherewithal to engage in this kind of activity.
  Now those who have come to attack the committee's proposed reductions 
have suggested that we are cutting children; that we are somehow 
injuring young people. They have elevated horror stories. They have 
elevated very sad scenarios, suggesting that we are heartless and 
compassionless.
  This has been done irresponsibly, in my judgment, because, as a 
matter of fact, we are responsibly addressing these problems.
  One of the things that was projected for reduction and rescission was 
the WIC Program, Women, Infants, and Children. It is a nutrition 
program. There was a modest reduction there, I think, of $35 million.
  There is a great outcry as a result of that modest reduction, saying 
that this was heartless, it was compassionless, it was going to be 
taking food from the mouths of women, infants, and children, and it was 
going to be destructive of the future because people would have lower 
levels of nutrition.
  The truth of the matter is this money was to be rescinded from an 
unallocated, undistributed surplus in the Women, Infants, and Children 
Program. The surplus was about $150 million. And to reduce the surplus 
by $35 million, from $150 million to $115 million, would not impair the 
nutrition, not impair the health, not impair the safety, not impair the 
standing of any of these individuals.
  But it is important for us to impair the deficit. And we need to look 
carefully at the way we are managing resources, even resources that are 
devoted to things of relatively high priorities, even resources that 
are devoted to things like health and the like. If they are not being 
utilized, if they are in unallocated and undistributed surplus 
accounts, let us make sure that we do not leave that resource there or 
otherwise fail to rescind it so that we occasion additional spending 
somewhere else.
  We have come in response to the voice of the people last November. As 
one of the newly elected Senators, I know my colleagues and I, when we 
came to add our voices to the voices 
[[Page S5212]] that were asking for rescission of unnecessary spending, 
we knew we were doing that representing the American people. We were 
doing that because the people are demanding responsibility in 
Government. They were demanding reasonable, but tough decisions. They 
were demanding we restrain the growth of Government. They were 
demanding that we limit the kind of jeopardy into which our children 
will go because the debt is higher and higher and higher.
  We are not talking about an environment where the debt is going down 
and down and down. The President has proposed debts of $200 billion a 
year as far as he is forecasting.
  As a matter of fact, the data from which he is creating the forecasts 
is data that is now coming out of OMB. A year ago, it was represented 
that we would be using data from the Congressional Budget Office, but 
that data is not nearly as favorable to the President as the OMB data 
is.
  The OMB data suggests the deficit would only be about $200 billion--
only about $200 billion--next year and the year after and the year 
after and the year after and the year after. But the Congressional 
Budget Office data indicates that the deficit is substantially greater, 
hundreds of millions of dollars greater in the outyears than the 
President's forecasts have indicated.
  So we are not talking about a circumstance or situation where it does 
not matter whether we are cutting, it does not matter whether we are 
rescinding. It does matter. It matters not only to taxpayers today, but 
it matters to the young people of tomorrow.
  An ordinary family, the father, the mother, no matter how deeply they 
go into debt, they simply cannot provide or mandate that the youngsters 
will some day have to grow up and pay that debt. There is a rule 
against that in America, you cannot be held responsible for the debt of 
another. No matter how reckless I might be, I cannot create debts my 
children would have to pay off.
  However, there is an exception to the rule. The Congress can incur 
debt that the next generation will have to pay off, and we have been 
incurring that debt at an incredible rate. Now each family of four 
faces a debt of $72,000, and it is growing and growing and growing.
  We have the opportunity in this body to say we will stop some of the 
spending, we will stop the hemorrhaging where we can, we are going to 
restrain this outflow, and it is time for us to restrain the outflow.
  We will restrain it in terms of the AmeriCorps Program, yes, the so-
called volunteer program that costs $30,000 per volunteer. We will 
restrain it in the area of foreign operations and foreign aid. Yes, if 
we are going to have some belt tightening in this country, other 
countries around the world should share in that belt tightening as 
well. We will restrain it even for the Corporation for Public 
Broadcasting, which is an institution of great wealth, but is an 
institution which ignores that great wealth and continues to draw upon 
taxpayers' resources and which ought to be able to use that wealth to 
avoid having to draw on taxpayers' resources.
  We need to make sure that we even implement the rescission cuts which 
the President of the United States has asked us to implement. When we 
first started this debate on rescissions, we were going to ignore over 
$300 million of cuts that the President asked us to make. It is time 
for us to knock those earmarked special projects out. Those are the 
projects which the President next year, under a line-item veto, will 
have the authority to knock out.
  He said this year that he would like for us to knock those out, and I 
think we ought to accommodate the President in that respect and knock 
out that kind of spending. If we do, we will be responding 
constructively to the mandate of the people. If we do, we will be 
responding constructively to what they have asked us to do in the 
election last year. I believe that is very important. They have asked 
us to be responsible in restraining spending.
  The Senate has an opportunity, as a result of the report of the 
committee and the amendment offered by the freshmen Members of the U.S. 
Senate, to rescind the expenditure of resources, the expenditure of 
which will drive us deeper and deeper into debt.
  Mr. President, it is time for us to accept the challenge of the 
American people to respond constructively to rescind unnecessary 
spending and to devote the proceeds of the rescissions to the reduction 
of the Federal deficit. That is the mandate of the people. It is the 
opportunity which we have. I yield the floor.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.

                          ____________________