[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 65 (Friday, April 7, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5530-S5531]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            BUDGET DEFICITS

  Mr. COVERDELL. Madam President, I have been presiding, as you are, 
over the Senate for the last couple of days, and I would like to make 
some remarks about what I have heard from the other side, not the least 
of which we just heard from the good Senator from North Dakota.
  First, I will say that the charts that he has described do one thing. 
They very clearly paint a picture of the enormous financial crisis that 
our country faces. It was just the other morning that I spoke before 
the Senate and I pointed out that within 10 years, Madam President--and 
that puts virtually every American I have spoken with at the table--all 
U.S. revenues will be consumed by just five things: Social Security, 
Medicare, Medicaid, Federal retirement, and the interest on our debt. 
Every dime of U.S. revenue will have been expended by those five 
outlays in just 10 years. So it is going to be this generation that has 
to come to grips with this issue.
  We cannot pass the baton to anybody else. It is going to happen on 
our watch. The clock has run out. It will be this generation of 
Americans that come to grips with this.
  But as I listened to the Senator from North Dakota as he was 
analyzing what our side of the aisle is coming with, he left out a 
couple salient facts.
  The first is that the new majority's budget has yet to be presented. 
He was talking about the tax cut provisions that have come from the 
House, but we do not yet have the budget that has been presented from 
the House or Senate Budget Committees.
  I am comfortable that both those committees are going to come with 
budgets that move toward balance and do not add to the deficit. After 
all, it was the new majority that had to fight through this body the 
rescission cuts from the House which were $17 billion and, as the 
majority leader noted this morning, on the Senate side late last night, 
$16 billion. I might add, that is a stark contrast from what the 
President came to Washington to do, which was to add $16 to $19 billion 
just 2 years ago straight to the deficit if it had not been defeated by 
our side of the aisle. So he failed to address the fact that the new 
budgets have yet to be seen.
  The second point he left out is that the only budget that has been 
given that we have seen has been given to us by the President of the 
United States. We do have that budget. That budget adds $200 billion to 
the deficit for as far as the eye can see. If he had put the 
President's proposal on his chart, it would have had to have reached 
clear to the top of the ceiling. The President has totally ignored the 
deficit--totally ignored it.
  The President was in Atlanta just this past week, and the President 
and the Secretary of the Treasury both said--this is an unbelievable 
statement--but they both said that the United States is actually 
operating in an operational surplus. That is a stunning statement from 
the President, the Chief Executive of the United States of America, 
that we are actually operating--he told a group of 2,000 students that 
we are actually operating with a surplus.
  He went on to say--asterisk--``that is, if you do not count the 
interest on the debt.''
  Of course, most people I go to work with every day and who live in my 
hometown and my State recognize that if they go to the bank and they 
ask for a loan and the loan officer says, ``Your financial statement 
just won't allow the loan,'' they would say to the loan officer, 
``Yeah, but if you don't add all the interest I am paying on my 
mortgage, I'd be in great shape,'' you would either be laughed out of 
the loan office or thrown out of the loan office.
  Madam President, I am just going to leave two points: One, the 
Senator from North Dakota completely overlooked that the budget they 
presented is $200 billion in debt for as far as the eye can see; that 
this administration, through the budgets that they have offered and the 
actions they have taken, are doing the equivalent of adding $2.2 
trillion to the debt--$2.2 trillion to the debt. He left that 
completely out of his remarks.
  And the second point I want to make is you cannot talk about what the 
new 
 [[Page S5531]] majority planned until the new majority puts its 
budgets on the table. They will be here soon, and they will move to a 
balanced budget by the year 2002.
  I might also add, if the Senator from North Dakota had voted for a 
balanced budget amendment, we might be on a near course to getting this 
job done. I yield the floor.
  Mr. KERREY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska is recognized.

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