[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 83 (Thursday, May 18, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6849-S6850]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               A HISTORIC DEBATE ON THE BUDGET RESOLUTION

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, in less than an hour, the Senate will 
begin a truly historic debate on a budget resolution reported by the 
Senate Budget Committee. It is a budget resolution which, for the first 
time, perhaps, since the Budget Act was passed a quarter of a century 
ago, seriously proposes to put this Nation on the road to a balanced 
Federal budget.
  Mr. President, lip service has been promised to that goal by many of 
those who voted against a constitutional amendment to require a 
balanced budget, as well as by those who voted for that budget. Most of 
the former group, however, now find something wrong with this proposal, 
just as they have with any preceding attempts to balance the budget. In 
theory, they are in favor of reaching that goal, but in practice they 
have never actually seen the way in which it ought to be reached.
  Perhaps the best evidence of this proposition, Mr. President, is that 
while the minority party in this body is almost--I say almost, not 
quite--without exception opposed to the budget resolution that is 
before us, that same minority party in the House of Representatives is 
putting up as an alternative essentially the Senate budget resolution 
and praising it as much superior to the one that will actually pass the 
House of Representatives. I think they do that with full confidence 
that the proposal will not pass, that the alternative will not pass in 
the House, and it is therefore safe for them to praise it and, in some 
cases, to vote in favor of it.
  This balanced budget here in the Senate, together with the one in the 
House, will have tremendous positive impacts on the American people. It 
will result in a significantly greater increase in family income all 
across this country because of lower interest rates and greater job 
opportunities. And those positive impacts will vastly overshadow any 
temporary negative impacts of the loss of various Federal subsidies.
  Before we begin that formal debate, I want to make a few remarks 
about the downpayment on a balanced budget, the rescissions bill, which 
is about to go to the President of the United States and which the 
President announced yesterday that he intended to veto.
  This rescissions bill--this cancellation of some of the spending 
proposed by the last Congress--amounts to about 1 percent of the 
current year's budget. Yet, to reduce spending this year by 1 percent 
seems much too drastic a step for this administration to be willing to 
take. This bill started as a request by the President to spend more 
money, some for the Department of Defense, essentially to cover the 
costs of various, dubious peacekeeping missions around the world which 
was passed as part of a separate bill, and others to spend money on 
various natural disasters which the President improvidently had refused 
to include in the budget passed less than a year ago, in spite of the 
fact that these disasters are always with us, together with a few 
modest reductions in a handful of programs.
  The House of Representatives took the bit in its teeth and came up 
with a cancellation of something more than $17 billion in current 
spending, about 1 percent of the total budget, as I have already said. 
The President protested that as being too much and in the wrong places. 
This body, as the Presiding Officer knows, passed a somewhat more 
modest rescissions bill, still close to $15 billion or so, with a 
different mix of canceled or reduced programs. And about that Senate 
rescissions bill the President said:

       The bill passed 99 to 0 in the Senate and I will sign the 
     Senate bill if the House and Senate will send it to me. That 
     is how we should be doing the business of America.

  In the 4 weeks since then, Mr. President, the House and the Senate 
have met together in a conference committee to settle the differences 
between these two proposals, in the time-honored fashion under our 
rules. What was unprecedented during the course of this attempt to work 
out differences was the almost total absence of people representing the 
White House or the administration.
  Unlike the situation during the Bush administration, the Reagan 
administration, and previous administrations when I was not here, there 
was no guidance from the White House at all. No statement that, ``Here 
is our bottom line.'' No attempt to work out differences the way 
previous administrations did. Silence, except around the margins, until 
the day after the conference committee finished its work and submitted 
it to the two bodies.
  Then the President decided that it ended up reducing a handful of 
programs and job training and education by so great an amount of money 
that he had to veto it.
  I totaled up all of the items that I think could come under that veto 
threat and they amount to less than $1 billion of the $17 billions.
  Mr. President, I repeat, no statements of this sort, no bottom lines, 
were sent to the members of the conference committee while it was 
working out this situation.
  Yesterday, the President threatened to veto the bill. He also said 
that he still wanted to save money but too much money was being spent 
in this bill on courthouses and on highway projects. Curiously enough, 
Mr. President, all of these projects which the President now describes 
as pork were included in last year's appropriations bill that he signed 
and praised last year.
  Of course, if his veto stands and no other rescissions bill is 
passed, all will be built. His veto does not cancel a single one of 
them. Not a single one of them was criticized at the time which they 
were originally appropriated for and passed last year.
  One other curiosity, Mr. President, included in the Senate bill which 
the White House said would be approved, was certain timber language 
drafted by this Senator for the relief of timber communities not just 
in the Pacific Northwest but all across the country. That proposal 
simply authorized the administration to do what it said it wanted to 
do, to carry out the provisions of what is known as option 9, its own 
option in the Pacific Northwest, and to salvage burned and dead and 
dying timber in national forests all across the country, destroyed 
either by insects or by forest fires and rapidly becoming kindling for 
new forest fires.
  Nothing in the Senate provisions required the administration to do 
more than it wished to do, but it did enable them to do what they 
claimed they wanted to do without the interference of outside lawsuits.
  Not only was that apparently all right, as a result of the 
Presidential speech that I just read, it was expressly 
[[Page S6850]] approved just barely a week ago in a letter from the 
Secretary of Agriculture, whom as we know, is the supervisor of the 
Forest Service, expressly wrote to Senator Hatfield and said that the 
Senate version was much preferable than the House version.
  Yesterday, the result of the conference committee was described by 
the President of the United States in these words:

       There is another thing which is in this bill which I really 
     object to which would basically direct us to make timber 
     sales to large companies subsidized by the taxpayers, mostly 
     in the Pacific Northwest, and that will essentially throw out 
     all of our environmental laws and the protections that we 
     have that surround such timber sales. It would also put us 
     back into the courts.

  Now, Mr. President, the language to which the White House now 
objects, says is subject to a veto, was first, the language they 
approved when it passed the Senate in the first place, which was the 
subject of an explicit letter from the Secretary of Agriculture--a 
letter of approval, and which was changed only in ways proposed by 
Members of the President's own party as a result of suggestions from 
people in the administration themselves.
  It does not direct timber sales to large companies in any respect 
whatever. Most of the large companies in the Pacific Northwest are 
ineligible to bid on Forest Service timber. It is not subsidized by the 
taxpayers. The Congressional Budget Office told the Senate it will net 
the Treasury some $80 million.
  It is not mostly in the Pacific Northwest but includes every national 
forest around the country. It does not throw out the environmental laws 
at all. It allows the administration to continue to follow every one of 
them as presumably it has, in connection with its own plans. And it not 
only does not put them back into the courts, it takes them out.
  So every single description of this proposal by the President of the 
United States is in error. Every single element. This proposal merely 
allows the President to do what he has told the people of the Pacific 
Northwest and the country he intends to do anyway, and freeze up the 
lawsuits over that subject.
  I think the summary, Mr. President, is just this: The administration, 
and regrettably many of the Members on the other side of the aisle, 
whether it is in this rescissions bill or the budget resolution, favor 
the status quo. And $200 to $300 million deficits as far as the eye can 
see are fine. They have no other proposal, no other alternative.
  Cutting 1 percent of this year's budget is really too much, too 
drastic. Has to be vetoed. Allowing the President to keep his own 
promises to timber communities, too radical a proposal.
  Everything is just fine with all the laws and all the spending 
policies right now. That is the message we get. Just fine. We should 
not make any chains. We will object to everything that is proposed by 
the new majority party. We will prevent them from keeping their 
commitments, but we will not offer any alternatives at all.
  Mr. President, that is not a satisfactory way with which to conduct 
the Nation's business. It is not what the people of this country want. 
We have promised them change and a respect for our commitments. And we 
will continue to struggle, I trust, ultimately successfully, to just 
that end.
  I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Under the previous order, the Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid] is 
recognized to speak for up to 10 minutes.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that that be 
extended to 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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