[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 83 (Thursday, May 18, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6853-S6886]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now 
proceed to the consideration of Senate Concurrent Resolution 13, which 
the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 13) setting forth the 
     congressional budget for the United States Government for the 
     fiscal years 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002.

  The Senate proceeded to consider the concurrent resolution.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I have been authorized by the chairman 
to speak, and the time to come off the resolution.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Campbell). The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I feel somewhat privileged to be the first person to speak on this 
historic resolution that has just been laid down by the U.S. Senate. It 
is, in fact, a historic moment for this Chamber that we are going to 
finally come to grips and face and look straight in the eye the future 
of our country and the children of our country and say we are now 
prepared to act on your behalf. We are now prepared to take the tough 
stands and to weather the beatings that we will be getting from the 
press and from the other side to stand up for the future generations of 
Americans so we can, like my grandfather who came here as an immigrant 
and my father who came here as a immigrant, try to leave the country 
better off and with more opportunities than their generation had.
  We have stopped doing that in America, and this is a chance to start 
over, to start anew, to give us the opportunity right here on this 
Senate floor to move forward, to move this country forward into a new 
millennium with sound fiscal policy and with opportunity available to 
every American. That is what this is all about.
  This is not about the minutiae that you are going to hear on the 
floor of the Senate about, ``Oh, well, we're going to cut this program 
and as a result of the program''--listen, a Government program, a 
Government program which most people know, most Government programs, 
big administrative costs, do not necessarily target the way they are 
supposed to, but we are going to cut a Government program and there 
will be hundreds of them discussed in the next 50 hours.
  We are going to take a Government program and that program itself 
will jeopardize our future so greatly that it is more important to 
preserve this little bit more funding for this program than it is to 
balance the Federal budget and to preserve the long-term future of this 
country. That argument in itself just fails; it is ridiculous. There is 
nothing we do in Washington, DC--nothing--no individual program that 
stands above providing future generations the opportunity to succeed in 
America. Nothing.
  So when you look and you hear all the debate about all the minutiae 
that you are going to discuss, all the little programs that somebody 
likes to scare people with that we are going to abolish or cut or 
whatever, remember the big picture. The big picture is: We balance the 
budget in 7 years, we provide fiscal sanity for future generations and, 
frankly, for this generation with several programs, and that is what we 
have to focus on. That is what the issue is.
  You are going to hear a lot about, as I was hearing a few minutes 
ago, tax cuts for the rich paid for by cutting working middle-class 
programs, so we are going to take money away from working Americans, 
working American families for tax cuts for the rich. I do not know 
about you, but as far as I understand the Tax Code, you get taxed if 
you work, you get taxed if you make money. So if you are cutting taxes 
for people who work, I do not know how that is hurting working American 
families, particularly since the biggest item in the tax cut proposal 
that is being proposed is a tax cut of $500 for families, a credit of 
$500 per family.
  Now, how is that hurting families? The only families that could 
conceivably hurt are those that do not have children and those who do 
not make enough money to pay taxes. But to say that you are cutting 
programs for taxpaying families, yeah, OK, but then we are giving it 
back to them where they can spend the money where they want to spend 
it. They get all of it, not siphoned off from Washington with the 
administrative costs and the overhead and the direction of what we 
think is best to spend money, but they get the whole pot.
  I see the majority leader is here, so I will cease my comments 
because I know he is really the proper one to lead this off. But I am 
telling you, this is going to be a great day in the U.S. Senate. It is 
a day that we should be very, very proud, as all Members of the Senate, 
that we are having this discussion. It is unfortunate that the 
President of the United States has chosen not to participate in this 
discussion, that he has chosen to sit on the sidelines and throw either 
confetti or darts from the stands and not participate and get involved 
in solving the No. 1 problem of this Nation by presenting a budget that 
is balanced.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader, Senator Dole, is 
recognized.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania. I 
commend him for his forthright statement. This is going to be a very 
important debate, in effect, for everybody in America, I believe for 
the better if we can keep it on that plane. I certainly look forward to 
Senator Domenici's opening statement, and I will follow with my budget 
statement after Senator Domenici.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I assume we will follow the typical 
process and procedure that we have in the past. As the majority leader 
of the bill, I will have some opening remarks and I, obviously, will 
quickly yield to the Senator from Nebraska who will have his opening 
remarks. I would like the Senate to know that as we read the budget 
law, there is up to 4 hours for discussion of economics and the macro 
effect of the budget and the like. Some Senators on our side would like 
to speak during that period to what they consider to be a historic 
event, a redefining event for America. So we are going to let as many 
of them as possible do that without in any way violating our comity 
with the other side. As soon as we can, we will get into a rotation on 
amendments.
  The Senator from New Mexico will try sometime this evening to offer 
the first amendment. It should come as a shock to no one. It will be 
the President's budget. The President's press secretary suggested 
yesterday that it would be a much better starting point to start with 
the President. So we will accommodate and put that budget before the 
Senate and see what they think about it. Then we will go to the 
Democrat side for their amendment and we will move back and forth.
  I am permitted by the majority leader pursuant to his instructions to 
talk about the fact that we are going to be in next week late. If the 
full 50 hours is going to be used, obviously we are 
[[Page S6854]] going to have to take a couple days and work very long 
hours. The majority leader has indicated we are going to do that. We 
would like to finish Wednesday, as I understand it. And I am going to 
do my best to be accommodating. Everybody knows that there is a 
limitation on how long you can speak on amendments and how much you can 
speak on amendments to amendments, all of which is by law, not by 
recall. That is the way the budget law was written. We are going to 
work closely under that. With that, I will have a couple of procedural 
unanimous-consent requests, Mr. President.
  First, as I understand it, you have already read the budget 
resolution by title, is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.


                         PRIVILEGE OF THE FLOOR

  Mr. DOMENICI. I ask unanimous consent that the following staff of the 
Senate Budget Committee be permitted to remain on the Senate floor 
during the consideration of Senate Concurrent Resolution 13.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  The list of staff is as follows:
                             Majority Staff

       Bilton, Karen.
       Cieplak, Lisa.
       Hearn, Jim.
       Hennessey, Keith.
       Hoagland, William.
       McQuire, Carol.
       Miller, Anne.
       Phillips, Roy.
       Ramonas, Denise G.
       Reidy, Cheri.
       Rel, Ricardo.
       Riley, J. Brian.
       Ruffner, Mike.
       Selfridge, Barbara.
       Smith, Jennifer.
       Smythe, Austin.
       Stevenson, Bob.
       Taylor, Peter.
       Vuksich, Greg.

                             Minority Staff

       Abraham, Amy.
       Blocker, Annanias.
       Dauster, Bill.
       Dimock, Kelly.
       Dresden, Tony.
       Duncan, Meg.
       Grant, Jodi.
       Greenwald, Matt.
       Huffer, Joan.
       Klumpner, Jim.
       Mays, Daniela.
       Nelson, Sue.
       Slominski, Jerry.
       Strumpf, Barry.
       Williams, Dave.
                         PRIVILEGE OF THE FLOOR

  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Susan Ross, a 
Presidential management intern, and Nancy Harris, a J.J. Pickle Fellow, 
be granted floor privileges and be permitted to remain on the Senate 
floor during consideration of the budget resolution.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


              AUTHORITY TO USE CALCULATORS ON SENATE FLOOR

  Mr. DOMENICI. I ask unanimous consent that the presence and use of 
small electronic calculators be permitted on the floor of the Senate 
during the consideration of the 1996 fiscal budget.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I yield myself as much time as I need 
for some opening observations, and then I will yield to Senator Exon. 
And then I understand the Republican leader wants to speak immediately 
following that. I will be yielding as quickly as I can to him.
  Mr. President, today, we begin a discussion of great significance. As 
I see it, we are discussing today the future of the United States of 
America. Over the next few days, we will have the debate that so many 
of us have said we want--a debate to balance the budget of the United 
States. Earlier this year, we had another debate. That debate had to do 
with a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. At that time, 
many of my colleagues declared that we did not need a constitutional 
amendment, Mr. President. ``We do not need a constitutional 
amendment,'' many said, ``to balance the budget.'' All we needed was 
the courage to do it ourselves.
  While I wanted a balanced budget amendment because I wanted it there 
for the long-term future, I voted for it.
  Today, I am responding to all of the Senators from both sides of the 
aisle, which is an overwhelming number who have said the United States 
of America should balance the budget.
  Many Senators on the other side who did not vote for that balanced 
budget amendment--and I am not here arguing with them today--many of 
them stood up on the floor of the Senate and said, ``We do not need the 
balanced budget amendment. Just let us exercise courage, and we will 
get a balanced budget. We will do it ourselves.''
  This is a do-it-ourselves balanced budget. We have an opportunity to 
test that proposition of courage. Do we have the courage to do what is 
necessary to achieve a balanced budget?
  Just 55 session days ago, I say to our majority leader who was 
present at that time, on February 10, this same Chamber overwhelmingly, 
87-10, voted in favor of an amendment directing the Senate Budget 
Committee to report back to the Senate at the earliest possible date, 
how do we achieve a balanced budget without increasing or reducing the 
disbursements under the Social Security fund.
  In other words, the instructions were--87-10--bring the Senate a 
balanced budget, and the only thing that shall not be touched is Social 
Security.
  Today, Mr. President, fellow Senators, the Senate Budget Committee 
has reported back to the U.S. Senate. Senate Concurrent Resolution 13 
now before the Senate achieves that mandate and that directive from the 
U.S. Senate, 87-10. That is the number that said, ``Do it.''
  We will now have an opportunity to openly and fairly debate our 
vision of a brighter fiscal future, a better America for our children 
and our grandchildren, a brighter America where we pay our bills 
instead of asking our children to pay our bills.
  Today, my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, to all of them, this 
will be a very important debate. It will be heated from time to time. 
However, it is an essential debate. America's future, for the young and 
the old alike, will be shaped right here on the Senate floor during the 
next 5 to 6 days.
  Let Senators, throughout this debate, try to remain focused on what 
our ultimate goal is --a country unsaddled with debt on our children.
  Because the numbers do not lie, our deficit is out of control, and 
our current state of Federal expenditures versus receipts is 
unacceptable.
  In the 1960's, deficits were averaging $16 billion a year; in the 
1970's, they averaged $38 billion a year; in the 1980's they averaged 
$156 billion a year; and so far, Mr. President, in the 1990's they have 
averaged $259 billion a year.
  This year we will borrow 11 cents of every Federal dollar spent. Our 
budget deficit this year stands at $175 billion, and is growing 
relentlessly at the rate of $335,000 a minute, $20 million an hour, 
$482 million a day.
  All of this debt is, plain and simple, mortgaging our children's 
future. Experts estimate that a child born today will have to pay an 
additional $100,000 in added taxes to pay just the interest on the debt 
which will accumulate during the next 18 years.
  The burden is not just on future generations. Our gross Federal debt 
is so large--$4.9 trillion--that it is seriously harming our standard 
of living. Every American now owes $18,500. Every single, living, 
breathing American, from the smallest child to the most senior 
American, owes the staggering amount of $18,500.
  And by 1999, Mr. President, the President's proposed budget will 
change that number dramatically. I wish I could say it would come down. 
Each American will owe $23,700 as their share of our profligacy, of our 
inability as adult leaders to say we ought to pay for what we give to 
people by way of government.
  The New York Federal Reserve Bank estimates that the deficit spending 
between the years 1978 and 1990 reduced the gross domestic product by 5 
percent. That means that the sum total of all our acts in terms of 
growth and wealth is 5 percent less during that decade because of the 
deficit we have accumulated.
  The bipartisan Concord Coalition reveals that our debt and the 
deficit spending have lowered the income of 
[[Page S6855]] American families by $15,000 a year. As we see, it does 
matter how much we borrow, how much we owe, and how much interest we 
must pay to those who have lent and loaned and committed money to our 
Government to pay our bills.
  Yet, if this proposed budget is any barometer, the President is doing 
little to avert a fiscal train wreck for this country. If we pass his 
proposed budget, the problem will just get worse, because the 
President's proposed budget abandons deficit reduction and succumbs to 
the status quo, adding another $1.12 trillion to our national debt by 
the year 2000, bringing the growth deficit to $6.7 trillion.
  President Clinton's budget promises $200 to $300 billion deficits as 
far as the eye can see, a Medicare system that will go broke in 7 
years, and a crushing tax burden on America's young people just 
starting out in life. That is the promise of the President's budget. 
Even the Washington Post editorial on Tuesday labeled President 
Clinton's budget as ``weak and directionless.''
  The budget reported by the Senate Budget Committee--and I am very 
proud of the 12 members who voted to report this budget resolution last 
Thursday evening--that budget may be called many things, but one thing 
opponents cannot accuse it of is lacking direction. The Senate Budget 
Committee's resolution direction is straightforward. It is toward a 
balance.
  Frankly, I must comment that my good friend, former chairman of the 
House Budget Committee and currently Chief of Staff of the President, 
said we should let policy direct our budget, not our budget direct our 
policy.
  I disagree. I disagree. The policy that should direct our spending is 
a balanced budget. That, too, is a policy I say to the White House and 
to those who advocate the President's budget. Indeed, a balanced budget 
is a policy, and it is a policy with a future. It is a policy for the 
future.
  The budget reported by the Senate Budget Committee clearly has 
direction, has a purpose, and has a tremendously effective and much 
needed public policy of balance for the first time in almost three 
decades.
  Now, there is a chart up behind me here that I think ought to be the 
focus of the early, early hours of our debate. It is very, very simple.
  It is very, very simple. The President would have us believe that his 
budget is an attack on deficits, that he has even made enough of an 
attack on deficits that he can cut taxes. The Congressional Budget 
Office is, according to our President, the really official, honest 
disseminator of budget facts. This yellow line is the President's 
budget for the next 5 years according to the Congressional Budget 
Office. You see the bragging occurs here, at somewhere between 150 and 
200--176, that is where it is. But that is the lowest it ever gets. And 
look at the line and look at it climb.
  Now in just 5 years it is perilously close to $300 billion. I am 
positive, although we have not done the numbers, that one could now put 
the line like this, and by 2002 it would probably be up here. But the 
Senate Budget Committee changed the course of economic history for 
America and their budget line is this. It is more than symbolic that it 
is in black, because for the first time, in 2002 the Federal Government 
is in the black.
  Look at the difference. This is the difference. The President's 
budget goes on up, getting close to $300 billion when the Senate budget 
is less than $100 billion and then to zero while the President's 
skyrockets and goes on up to three-and-a-quarter, $350 billion. That is 
not complicated by any ideas about percentage of gross domestic product 
and the like. It is just plain dollar numbers.
  So the budget resolution before the Senate today has a vision. It has 
a vision of solvency of this country, and a American dollar that gets 
out of the doldrums and has a real chance of remaining the currency for 
the world.
  I know people do not quite understand, sometimes, what this low, low, 
low American dollar might mean. I will not even put the numbers down 
because the fact frightens me. But if the American dollar would become 
weak enough--what might happen to America if the Saudi Arabians decided 
they do not want to be paid in American dollars anymore? Has anybody 
thought of that? I say to Senator Dole, if the Saudis said we do not 
want American dollars, we want to be paid in yen, you would see the 
most significant, gigantic leap in inflation in the United States, 
exceeding even the 18, 19 and 20 percent inflation of the Carter days. 
Because oil prices would of necessity go up two or three times just 
because of the value of the currency that we would have to buy up and 
then pay out.
  So we have before us, not a blueprint as some have said, but an 
enforceable blueprint, for it tells the Congress of the future what 
they can and cannot do about spending for the next 7 years. It does not 
ignore the problem that everyone agrees exists. It recognizes a simple 
notion, that our Government simply cannot go on spending our children's 
money and that by balancing the budget we can ensure a brighter future 
for our country and our children.
  The budget resolution before the Senate today wants to change the way 
our Government works, to make it efficient, responsive, and less 
expensive. Like a family gathered around the kitchen table, the 
committee members who voted to report this resolution Thursday past 
have made difficult choices. But those are choices we needed to make to 
protect and strengthen the future. We have been thorough and we have 
been fair. This budget resolution is designed to return our Nation to 
reality in terms of the spending of the tax dollars of the American 
people. It is directed at preserving this country as a land of 
opportunity, for this and future generations, because opportunity comes 
when a society gives a citizen a real chance to accumulate wealth and 
earn good pay. The more we go in debt, the less the chance for 
opportunity.
  In short, it is a reflection of our commitment to responsibility, to 
generating economic growth, creating family-wage jobs, and protecting 
the American dream for our citizens, whether they are young or whether 
they are old. This is not just rhetoric. It is based on many studies 
and I will cite just an a couple.
  The economic forecasting firm of DRI/McGraw-Hill, that firm estimates 
that if we balance this budget America's yearly output will increase by 
an extra 2.5 percent over the next 10 years. Minimum, they say, 2.4 
million new jobs. So, in the debate that follows when we talk about 
less Government and what it might do, less debt and what it might do 
for those who would like to continue to borrow money, we have to also 
put into that calculation that we might get 2.5 million new jobs. Which 
has to be set up against some of the things that people will say have 
to be restrained, reformed and cut in the budget.
  Further, a recent GAO study suggests that the average family income 
will increase by as much as $11,200 over the next 30 years as a result 
of balancing the Federal budget. Interest rates will decline, say they, 
by as much as 1.7 percentage points by the time we are in balance. 
These are not my estimates. They are not hopes. They are not dreams. 
They are what the best people in America are estimating the positive 
effect of balance to be. There is a reward for balancing the budget. 
The reward is a better America, more jobs, more opportunity, lower 
interest rates, less debt for our children. Add them all up and every 
adult leader in America should be willing to stand up and say that is 
was we really ought to do.
  This resolution restores equilibrium, fiscal equilibrium. The 
blueprint, the enforceable blueprint in this resolution will for the 
first time in 3 decades result in a balanced Federal budget. I believe 
this because I truly believe it will be enforceable and it makes the 
very tough decision to address the fastest growing areas of Federal 
spending and the Federal Government's commitments. It is a budget which 
reflects the unequivocal goals expressed by the American people and a 
majority of the Members of Congress. It will balance the budget by 
2002. It will not touch Social Security. And it will do so by 
ratcheting down the deficit by slowing the growth of Government.
  Let me emphasize, Government spending will continue to grow over the 
next 7 years; but rather than having Government growing faster than 
wages and salaries, as has been the case for the last three decades, 
wages and salaries will grow faster than Government spending--something 
very important 
[[Page S6856]] for the working people of our country and those who will 
come along in the future to join that work force.
  This resolution before us envisions Federal Government growth at 3 
percent a year over the next 7 years. Wages and salaries are estimated 
to grow by 5 percent--marvelous. If we can keep that going, keep that 
going for two or three decades our standard of living would be back 
where it ought to be. It is as budget which will reverse the tide of 50 
years of power flowing from the rest of the country to Washington. We 
want to provide more freedom and opportunity to people at the local 
level so they might have more control over their own destinies, and 
their own decisions on programs that affect their lives, their 
communities and their children. Key changes are proposed to shrink the 
Federal bureaucracy. We assume the termination of over 100 programs, 
commissions, boards, including the gradual and orderly phaseout of the 
Department of Commerce. And we recommend the elimination of program 
duplications, consolidation of Federal programs to improve efficiency 
and prioritize the limited resources we have.
  This resolution begins deficit reduction right here in our own 
backyard. It establishes a freeze on congressional salaries and pay, as 
a suggestion to the appropriators, a $200 million cut in the 
legislative branch this year with more to come. It assumes a 12.5-
percent reduction in the Senate support staff, and a 15-percent 
reduction in committee staff, 25-percent reduction in the Government 
operations, GAO, and termination of the Office of Technology 
Assessment. We may do more. But Americans should know we want to start 
right here. Since we are asking for less government, we ought to have 
less money to spend on these institutions also.
  However, the budget recognizes that Government does provide needed 
services to our citizens, and we have been painstakingly careful to 
preserve a safety net for those in true need. Moreover, we support 
programs aimed at keeping the American people safe, safe in their 
homes, in their schools by funding needed crime programs fully.
  While this budget assumes a series of reforms of our welfare system 
that saves nearly $80 billion over the next 7 years, let no one say 
that we have ignored those basic human needs. It provides $192 billion 
for food stamp programs; AFDC, and child welfare programs, we funded 
over $130 billion; SSI will be funded over $230 billion. The earned-
income tax credit, which we will hear a lot about, will continue to 
grow, and will expend $155 billion.
  This resolution does not in its current form recommend school lunches 
be changed. The WIC Program would not decrease. It could go up. Section 
8 housing would continue, and expiring contracts could very well be 
funded.
  So the committee reported a resolution that does not cut funding for 
major education programs targeted at the disadvantaged, such as Head 
Start, chapter 1, special education, Pell grants, community service 
block grants. Check it. That is the way we put it down. That is the way 
we recommend it. It will all be up to the committees. But they will all 
be bound by a dollar number.
  On Medicare, first and foremost, we have taken heat for the April 3 
Medicare trustees report. Here it is. ``Status of Social Security and 
Medicare Programs,'' April 3. This was issued by six people, four of 
whom are appointed by the President, or work for him, and two private 
citizens. They state that this fund is in near collapse. The hospital 
fund for seniors in terms of money available to pay the bills will be 
bankrupt in 7 years. It will be unable to pay any bills. We cannot 
allow this to happen. And we have taken steps in this budget to ensure 
that it does not.
  Our budget will slow the growth of Medicare generating savings needed 
to put Medicare on a financially sound footing for the next 7 years 
while Congress and, hopefully, the President work together to develop a 
long-term solution to a serious crisis of the solvency gap for Medicare 
over time.
  Saving Medicare from insolvency is an issue of immediate importance. 
It will require all of us, Republicans and Democrats alike, to work 
toward a solution. Therefore, our budget calls upon our congressional 
leadership without delay to establish a bipartisan commission to 
develop recommendations on how to maintain the solvency of the Medicare 
system. This commission will be required to report back to Congress by 
July 10 so that these short-term recommendations can be considered by 
our appropriate committees before final passage of the laws changing 
the direction of our country.
  So let us also be clear about taxes in this budget. The budget 
resolution does not raise taxes. Later on, Mr. President, as we are 
told we should not balance the budget this way, that there ought to be 
another way--although I do not think we will see another way--but we 
will suggest that maybe there are some who would like to balance the 
budget by raising taxes. So we will give everybody an estimate of how 
many billions of dollars in taxes would have to be imposed on the 
American people to balance the budget by raising taxes. In fact, we 
will tell you for your Coloradans, Mr. President, how many billions 
they would have to pay in new taxes if we do not want to restrain 
growth and cut programs. If we do not want to do that, restrain growth 
in some of entitlements and change the way we spend money, if we do not 
want to do that, then we will tell you how much taxes the State will 
have to pay to the Federal Government to come into balance. Because I 
take those at their word who said they want a balanced budget. They may 
not want it our way. So we are trying to explore which way.
  Let me in closing say that it is my sincere hope that, as we move 
through this process, we can start working together. I wish that 
Republicans and Democrats could respond to the wishes of the American 
people in harmony and in unison and end this crisis of deficit 
spending. I understand full well, however, that this may not be 
possible. In the end, however, we must pass a budget and direct our 
policies toward balance.
  Last week the committee began its deliberation on the budget. We 
observed a great hallmark in American history, the 50th anniversary of 
V-E Day, or Victory in Europe Day. As I told the committee as we began 
that debate on V-E Day, it was a day we all proudly recall. We recall 
how Americans rallied together, persevered, and eventually conquered an 
extraordinary threat to the future. But 50 years later our Nation faces 
another threat. That threat is severe enough that we should declare war 
on it and defeat it. One crisis that is less obvious but is just as 
sinister--one of the great leaders from that great struggle 50 years 
ago, Winston Churchill, said and I quote:

       The price of greatness is responsibility.

  We in Government shoulder that responsibility, Mr. President. We 
actively seek it by running for public office. I believe the time has 
come to stop shrinking but to shoulder our responsibility and enact an 
honest Federal budget and stop squandering our economic future. As we 
begin this historic debate, I would ask that we all, especially those 
of us who are elected to lead, consider our service to this Nation. Let 
us not lose sight of the big picture, but let us focus on these 
policies that will carry this country into the next century strong and 
hopeful with an economic future for everyone.
  How will future generations view our efforts on behalf of America? 
Did we work to protect it, strengthen it, improve it, or did we consume 
its vitality and leave our children with fewer opportunities and a 
lower standard of living than their parents? I know what I want to do. 
I am very hopeful that a compelling majority of the Senate wants to do 
the same thing.
  So let us begin the debate. It is one that should be in full in the 
open to the American people, and we are very grateful that we live in a 
society that will permit both sides to be heard. I understand and 
respect those who may disagree as to particulars in this budget. But I 
am sure that whatever the outcome of this debate Members from both 
sides of the aisle must conclude that our country's future cannot be 
strong if we fail to control spiraling debt and continue into the next 
century with it unchecked. It will not work unless we make some 
fundamental changes today and early next week.
  So I think the time is now. The opportunity is before us today. Let 
us show the courage and do what is in the best interest of our country. 
[[Page S6857]] 
  I thank the Senate. I thank the Presiding Officer.
  I yield the floor at this time.
  Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kyl). The Senator from Nebraska [Mr. Exon] 
is recognized for his opening statement.
  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, to begin with, I first want to salute once 
again, as I have in the past, the distinguished chairman of the Budget 
Committee for all of the work that went into the production of this 
Republican budget.
 I commend him, too, for making the type of hard choices that are 
necessary if we are to balance the unified budget by the year 2002.

  Most of us on this side of the aisle share the goal of a balanced 
budget. It is an article of faith, I suggest, for this Senator. I have 
a long history of fighting for responsible budgets. Our dedication to 
fiscal responsibility, therefore, cuts across party lines. We are 
willing to work with the Republican majority to shape a budget that 
will reach balance on a unified basis by 2002. I hope we can come 
together to fashion out of the Domenici initiative a true bipartisan 
compromise. I will outline today, and during the budget debate to 
follow, some fundamental concerns that I feel must be addressed.
  Of course, none of this will be easy. To a Senator, we know the 
enormous challenges that lie ahead. All of us must recognize that we 
have to make some tough choices, and this Senate has demonstrated in 
the past I am willing to do that. But no person or party has all of the 
answers. We should seek to build a consensus on balancing the budget. 
Brute force is not the answer.
  We cannot be dictated to or ignored. Minority rights and views must 
be recognized and weighed. House Budget Committee Chairman Kasich 
recently said, and I quote, ``Democrats have no standing to say 
anything about what we are doing in the House and the Senate.'' This 
brash rhetoric does not serve the process well. Whatever they do in the 
House certainly has no place in the Senate.
  Earlier this year, I held out the hope for a bipartisan budget. 
However, we parted ways on key issues, such as tax cuts and the 
distribution of spending cuts. Soon after, the trench warfare really 
began. The Republican majority in the Budget Committee took a combative 
crouch during our markup. Their budget was carved in stone and we in 
the minority could not remove one period or comma. Not a single number 
could be changed, even in the smallest amount. That is not the approach 
to take if we truly desire to work together to produce a unified 
balanced budget.
  On numerous occasions, I have offered a hand of friendship and an 
invitation to reason on the budget. My purpose is not to thwart the 
Republican budget, but rather to recast some of its priorities to 
better reflect our Nation's needs. My purpose is to make 
recommendations and offer amendments which I believe will make the cuts 
fairer and evenly distributed. My purpose is to put some balance in 
this budget.
  During the next 50 hours, we will hear a lot about this budget. This 
budget, once shrouded in secrecy, has been in full view for a little 
more than a week. As it was unveiled, the budget was attended by the 
usual fanfare: the grand statements of vision, the quotes from Thomas 
Jefferson.
  That day, we heard a lot of promises, too. As we sat down to mark up 
the budget, those promises kept cropping up again and again and again. 
As we started to peel away layer after layer of the budget, many of the 
promises did not jibe with the numbers I saw.
  The Republicans promised to make dogged choices over and over again, 
but tax cuts are the tail that wags this budget. The Republicans 
promised to protect the elderly but asked for a king's ransom in 
Medicare cuts to foot the tax cuts. The Republicans promised a brighter 
future for our Nation but cast a bleak shadow upon rural America and 
our children.
  Although there have been protests to the contrary, there is a tax cut 
tucked away in this Republican budget. No one should be fooled by the 
mirrors that are used to hide this fact. It has been thinly disguised 
as a $170 billion contingent fund, but it is a tax cut nevertheless. In 
fact, this could be the mother
 lode of tax cuts for the wealthy. And what the Republicans do not tell 
the American people is that the $170 billion tax cut could balloon to 
$356 billion over 10 years.

  The budget before us does not dictate what tax cuts are forthcoming, 
but we know what is being discussed by the other side of the aisle. The 
news is not comforting. For example, more than half of the tax breaks 
in the House-passed Contract With America tax bill benefit those 
families with incomes of over $100,000. That is the top 12 percent of 
the income distribution, and even if we disregard Republican plans to 
increase taxes for those eligible to receive the earned income tax 
credit, families with incomes below $10,000 would get an average tax 
cut of $20. Compare that, if you will, with families with incomes over 
$200,000 stand to receive a $11,266 tax cut bonanza. That is wrong.
  True enough, the Senate Budget Committee adopted a nonbinding sense-
of-the Congress amendment sponsored by Senator Boxer that states that 
90 percent of any tax cut should go to the middle class.
  But no one should be fooled into believing that the plans of the 
majority have changed. Senate proponents of tax cuts have publicly 
stated their support of the House-passed tax provisions in the Contract 
With America. If ever there was a Contract on America, this is it. One 
Senator has vowed that he will offer a tax cut amendment on the Senate 
floor, and it will not be limited to the middle class.
  The tax cut centerpiece of the Republican budget is fueled by cuts in 
Medicare. The Medicare reductions in the Republican mark total $256 
billion over the next 7 years. That is the largest Medicare cut in 
history. This is the single most important part of the Republican plan. 
This is the key to the entire deal. This is the cornerstone of the 
Republican budget, and we intend to change it.
  Yet, it comes without a single specific proposal beyond the formation 
of a commission. On this point, there is no plan. On the largest, most 
significant part of the Republican budget, there is not plan--period.
  Although we have no details, it is clear that at least half the cuts 
will fall on beneficiaries. The only Medicare cut publicly supported by 
Chairman Domenici would increase the part B premium to 31.5 percent of 
program costs, adding nearly $500 a year to out-of-pocket payments by 
the year 2002.
  By the year 2002, the average beneficiary will pay $900 more a year 
in out-of-pocket health care expenses. These cuts will have a 
devastating impact on the most vulnerable citizens: our frail, our 
sick, our poor, our seniors.
  Republicans promised, too, that their budget would protect Social 
Security. But the GOP Medicare cuts will require the elderly on fixed 
incomes to use most, if not all, of their Social Security COLA to pay 
for health care. For the one-in-four who
 rely on Social Security for their entire income, this is an enormous 
hardship.

  Cuts in providers are often passed along to other payers, as we know 
from the past and as we know from the debate that we had last year in 
an attempt to revise the whole health care system.
  I would point out that if only one-third of these cuts were shifted 
to other payers, businesses, and families would be forced to pay a 
hidden tax of $40 to $50 billion between now and 2002.
  Provider cuts would have a particularly devastating impact on rural 
areas. Nearly one-quarter of all Medicare beneficiaries live in rural 
America where there may be a single hospital serving an entire country 
or more. Significant cuts in Medicare could increase the number of 
hospitals in rural areas that will be forced to close. Since rural 
hospitals are often the largest employer in their communities, pulling 
the plug on these hospitals will result in job loss and, most important 
and devastating, physicians leaving these communities.
  Cuts in Medicaid would also cause the elderly to suffer severe and 
needless pain. Nearly 67 percent of Medicaid spending is for the 
elderly and disabled. The Republicans cut Medicaid by $175 billion over 
7 years, or 30 percent by the seventh year.
  More than 800,000 elderly and disabled people are likely to lose 
coverage under this proposal. Between 5 and 7 million children could 
tumble through the safety net. And half of the children 
[[Page S6858]] served by Medicaid come from working families. Medicaid 
is also the only major Federal source of funding for long-term care, 
serving 1.6 million people in nursing homes in 1993, while 1.1 million 
people receive home health care.
  While the cuts in Medicare and Medicaid are onerous, I am also 
extremely troubled by the new 20-percent cut in mandatory agriculture 
spending contained in the Republican budget. It is a harvest of shame 
for rural America.
  Agriculture has become a scapegoat for our inability to
   balance the budget. You have heard all the fictions. Agriculture 
programs drive the deficit. Agriculture gets a free ride. Agriculture 
makes no contribution to balancing the budget. The truth is in shorter 
supply.

  The real deficit problem does not lie in agriculture. We should give 
credit where credit is due A hard look at the projected growth of 
entitlement spending from 1993 to 1999 demonstrates that agriculture 
spending shrinks while most of the other programs show substantial 
growth.
  In fact, after a peak in 1986, agriculture spending has declined 
substantially. The Congressional Budget Office projects that total 
costs for farm price support programs run by the Commodity Credit 
Corporation will decline from the $26 billion high-water mark in 1986 
to less than $8 billion by the year 2000. This is due primarily to 
program reforms, including those enacted as part of the 1993 deficit 
reduction package.
  Over the next 5 years, agriculture commodity program spending is 
projected to decline from $10.3 billion in 1996 to $7.8 billion in the 
year 2000. As a percentage of total Federal outlays, Commodity Credit 
Corporation outlays have declined from a peak 2.4 percent in the late 
1950's to a projected four-tenths of 1 percent by the late 1990's.
  In spite of this downward trend, this budget contains an additional 
20-percent hit on agriculture. Let me repeat that. In spite of this 
downward trend, this budget contains an additional 20 percent hit on 
agriculture. The effect of that cut is startling in its magnitude. It 
pulls the rug out from under rural America. To reach such a number, the 
Agriculture Committee will need to take draconian action, such as 
increasing unpaid base acreage from 15 percent to approximately 35 
percent.
  If that happens, I suggest that we are going to see a flight of our 
farmers in the United States of America.
  Moreover, these cuts will strangle our ability to craft a rational 
farm bill this year. When added to the deep Medicare cuts that will 
close rural hospitals, I am deeply concerned that this budget will 
sound the death knell for any semblance of quality existence for rural 
America. To partially address this, I offered an amendment to reduce by 
$8 billion the scheduled $12 billion cut in government agriculture 
programs during the budget markup. My amendment was defeated on 
straight-line, never-swerving, solid-Republican volley of noes--no to 
agriculture and no to rural America.
  The cuts in the Republican budget go deep and far afield to finance 
the tax cut. Funding for income security programs is cut $118 billion 
over 7 years. Food stamps and other nutrition programs are cut by $30 
billion over 7 years. Some 17 percent of households receiving food 
stamps have elderly members.
  The Republicans also take a chainsaw to the earned income tax credit. 
The earned income tax credit helps keep working families off of welfare 
and assists middle-class families who have sudden losses of income. If 
the chairman's mark, however, is enacted into law, the earned income 
tax credit will be cut by $21 billion over 7 years.
  The Republicans say they will shield the Veterans Administration's 
medical system from cuts. This is not a shield I would want to stand 
behind. The Republican budget increases the veterans' contribution for 
GI bill education benefits. It increases the copayment for prescription 
drugs for higher income individuals. Let us be clear. By funding the 
VA's medical system at the 1995 level for the next 7 years, the 
Republicans
 are dramatically cutting access to health care services for veterans 
all over this country.

  During markup, Democratic Senators on the committee made numerous 
attempts to soften the blow upon Medicare and other programs critical 
to working American families. We stated that any fiscal bonus that may 
accrue from balancing the budget should not be spent on tax cuts. 
Rather, this money could go a long way to alleviate some of the 
hardship that would be imposed by the cuts in the Republican budget, or 
to further reduce the deficit.
  Democratic Senator after Democratic Senator offered amendments to get 
our priorities straight and put this budget back on track. Let me 
stress--let me stress, Mr. President--that not a single Democratic 
amendment would have resulted in an unbalanced budget in 2002.
  I will go through the entire list of Democratic amendments. But let 
me give my colleagues a flavor of what the Republicans found so hard to 
swallow. We tried to get an agreement to use the tax cut bonus to ease 
the cuts on Medicare, Medicaid, education, agriculture, and the earned 
income tax credit. We tried to eliminate the millionaire expatriate tax 
loophole. That is the one that allows those who have benefited most 
from our country to avoid millions in taxes by renouncing their 
American citizenship. We would have used those revenues to hire more 
officers for community policing and to offset the cuts in veterans 
programs and the earned income tax credit. We stood up for impact aid 
educational
 programs. We tried to prevent children eligible for Medicaid from 
losing their coverage. Not a one of these amendments passed.
  It is a sad commentary on our times that during the markup of the 
Republican budget, we did not have a bipartisan approach toward a 
common goal. We recognize that doing so will take painful, but 
necessary cuts and we are willing to call for the sacrifices that will 
be necessary. They will hurt and they will be painful.
  It is not the goal, but the distribution of the cuts in this 
resolution that is so troubling to this Senator and those on this side 
of the aisle. At a time when so many Americans are being asked to 
sacrifice to balance the Federal budget, I cannot and will not condone 
a budget that contains a tax cut that is a sop to the wealthiest among 
us.
  I cannot support a budget that makes misguided cuts in Medicare and 
other programs that improve the lives of millions of American families 
merely to underwrite this extravagance.
  I cannot support a budget that would lay waste to rural America and 
its fragile economy.
  In closing, let me say that it is my hope that during the upcoming 
debate on the Senate floor, my Republican colleagues will give serious 
and due consideration to the amendments that will be offered to 
alleviate the unfair distribution of those cuts, and to reverse the 
course on the tax cut.
  Then, and only then, will we have a budget that can be supported, not 
only by Democrats and Republicans, but all of us here working together 
on the common problem that has been so well enunciated by the chairman 
of the Budget Committee: the ever-increasing deficit and the ever-
increasing national debt.
  We want the American people to know and understand that we want to 
cooperate and will cooperate in a means to the end, but it must be done 
in a different fashion than has been detailed in the Republican budget.
  If we can do that, then we will have a budget that is whole. We will 
have a budget that could lead to an eventual reconciliation bill that I 
could support and authorize an appropriations bill that would follow, 
that I could recommend to the President that he sign and not veto.
  Yes, Mr. President, the Republican majority should realize that they 
may have the 51 votes to pass their bills, but they do not have, nor 
will they ever muster, in my opinion, the 67 votes to override a veto. 
I respectfully suggest that this is the time to start on the road to 
compromise and the road to reason so that we can come out of this 
debate on a course of bipartisanship on the budget that we are going to 
pass.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, in the past few years, this Chamber has been 
the [[Page S6859]] scene of historic debates on major issues of our 
time. In January 1991, we spoke of war and peace as we gave our 
approval to the use of military force against Saddam Hussein.
  Last summer, over the course of several weeks, we conducted a 
nationwide seminar on health care as we discussed President Clinton's 
proposal to turn our health care system over to the Federal Government.
  In my view, both of these debates brought out the best in the Senate 
and both captured the attention of the country. It is my hope today 
that America is watching and listening very carefully because I believe 
that no debate is more important to our Nation's future than the one 
that began today in the Senate and the one that began yesterday in the 
House of Representatives.
  I believe that no votes we cast will make more of a difference to our 
children and our grandchildren than the ones coming and the ones we 
will make in the next few days.
  The Senate and our country is fortunate this debate will be led by 
the Senator from New Mexico. No Senator has spoken with more courage 
and more conviction on budgetary issues than Senator Domenici. All 
Senators can probably find something in the Senate Budget Committee's 
proposal that we would change. For example, I will say right up front I 
believe that while we balance the budget, we can also provide America's 
families with tax relief and our business communities with incentives 
to invest and create more jobs.
  But no Senator can disagree with the historic nature of the Budget 
Committee's proposal or with the fact that Senator Domenici's 
leadership has truly transformed this debate. To some, it may seem the 
debate is all about numbers. And some very big, almost unimaginable 
numbers will be thrown around in the week ahead. We will hear talk of 
$200 billion yearly deficits as far as the eye can see, which is what 
is contained in President Clinton's budget proposal. And we will hear 
the number $4 trillion again and again and again which is, of course, 
our national debt--$4 trillion. But I believe the most important number 
is the one everyone can understand and the one that Senator Domenici 
mentioned. That number is $18,500. The fact is that every American now 
owes $18,500 as their share of the national debt.
  How will Americans pay this bill? It will be paid through fewer jobs 
and lower wages. It will be paid through higher interest rates when 
they take out a loan to buy a car or buy a home, and it will be paid 
through higher taxes. In fact, the Joint Economic Committee estimates 
all children born this year will pay $187,000 each--every child born 
this year will pay $187,000 each--in taxes over their lifetime just to 
pay their share of interest on the debt--just to pay their share of 
interest on the debt. This is the future that faces our children and 
grandchildren, and it is a future that is within our power to change.
  In the final analysis, however, this debate is much, much more than a 
debate about numbers. It is a debate about people, people we know in 
our hometowns and our home States, people we know all across America. 
It is a debate about what kind of people live in America today, and it 
is a debate about what kind of America we will pass on to the people 
who live here tomorrow--again, our children and our grandchildren and 
their children and their grandchildren.
  In the coming days, America will hear two very distinct and 
dramatically different viewpoints on these questions. One viewpoint is 
that of President Clinton and the Clinton administration. Candidate 
Clinton pledged to balance the budget within 5 years, and President 
Clinton, in his inaugural address, spoke of ``cutting our massive 
debt.''
 And he also spoke about ``sacrifice.'' In fact, within hours of the 
President's inauguration, I said, ``I was pleased to hear the President 
use the word `sacrifice,' a word that strikes fear in the hearts of 
many in this Chamber. But President Clinton is absolutely right. If we 
are to put our economic house in order, if we are going to do right by 
our children and grandchildren, then we must deal with our national 
debt.''

  That is what I said shortly after his inauguration. That was January 
20, 1993. But, unfortunately, the President's actions have not matched 
his words of that day. The President is making no attempt to balance 
the budget. As we know, his proposed budget would give us $200 billion 
deficits, and more, as I said earlier, for as far as the eye could see.
  The President is making no effort to cut our debt. As we know, under 
his own proposed budget another trillion dollars will have been added 
to our Nation's debt by 1997, not a balanced budget but another 
trillion dollars in debt. The President is making no effort to preserve 
and protect Medicare for our children and grandchildren. He washed his 
hands of the report of the Medicare board of trustees, which included 
three members of his Cabinet. This was not Senator Domenici's, or 
Senator Kyl's, or Senator Grassley's report. This was the board of 
trustees' and the President's own Cabinet members' report. ``Medicare 
will be broke within 7 years,'' they said. If that happens, you cannot 
pay anybody's doctor or hospital bills. I believe we ought to fix it.
  Senator Domenici will recall that in 1983 we had the same problem 
with Social Security. That was 12 years ago. Then Ronald Reagan, the 
Republican President, Speaker O'Neill, a Democrat, and Howard Baker, 
the majority leader in the Senate, put together a commission. I was 
honored to be on that commission along with Senator Moynihan, Senator 
Heinz, and other Members of this body, Members of the House, members in 
the private sector, and members of organized labor. After weeks and 
weeks, we put together a rescue package for Social Security. That was 
in 1983. It was bipartisan. It passed by big margins. So Social 
Security, as far as I know, according to the trustees, will be in good 
shape until 2017. That was a 34-year fix. Not bad. We want to do the 
same in Medicare. That is what is proposed by the Senator from New 
Mexico.
  The President called it a gimmick. Well, Speaker O'Neill did not call 
it a gimmick, Ronald Reagan did not call it a gimmick, and we got the 
job done. We rescued Social Security from bankruptcy in 1983 in a 
bipartisan effort in this body and in the other body and in the White 
House, because the trustees said at the time that it was going to be 
broke in a very short time. They are saying the same thing today about 
Medicare. I do not recall then Ronald Reagan or any Democrat, as far as 
I know, getting up and railing about, ``We are going to destroy Social 
Security,'' as the Democrats are doing now about Medicare, saying we 
are going after seniors, because everybody understood what the trustees 
had told us. If we did not fix it, it was going to go broke. The same 
is true here.
  If we do not fix Medicare, it is going to go broke. That is all the 
Senator from New Mexico and that is all this budget proposes, to fix 
it. We are not using any Medicare savings for tax cuts for the rich, as 
I hear all my Democratic friends state. Some of them are rich, come to 
think of it. Now, the President's administration has apparently 
concluded Americans are nothing more than a series of special interests 
who focus on only living for today, uncaring of what will happen 
tomorrow. But the Senate Budget Committee resolution has a different 
view of what kind of people Americans are. I have a different view of 
what kind of people Americans are. Maybe it is because of what I have 
seen in my lifetime. I have seen Americans risk and lose their lives to 
protect freedom. I have seen them sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice 
to win the cold war. The words of Winston Churchill to the British 
people during the dark days of World War II can also be used to 
describe Americans:

       We have not journeyed all the way across the centuries, 
     across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies 
     because we are made of sugar candy.

  I do not believe the American people have come all this way only to 
allow their country to drown in a sea of red ink. That is what America 
is all about. That is what the American people are all about. Nobody 
wants to give up anything, unless we understand how critical it is. So 
the Budget Committee resolution offers America a liferaft. We offer the 
American people, regardless of party, regardless of background, 
wherever they are from, whatever State, a liferaft. It sets a course 
for a balanced budget by the year 2002. It reverses the tide of half a 
century of [[Page S6860]] power flowing from our citizens and States to 
Washington, DC. In effect, it dusts over the 10th amendment, which I 
carry in my pocket. It is only 28 words in length. It says that the 
power which is vested in the Federal Government ought to go to the 
States and to the people. That is what this budget does. That was a 
radical theory 200 years ago. That is how old the 10th amendment is. It 
is part of the Bill of Rights and is 28 words in length. You ought to 
read it.
  For the last 50 years, the power has been shifting to Washington, and 
we think it is time to shift it back. We trust our Governors--Democrats 
and Republicans--in any State of America. We trust our State 
legislatures. We believe that many times they can make better 
decisions, because they are closer to the people, than we can here. We 
do not suggest by that that the Government does not do a lot of good 
things. The Federal Government does a lot of good things and we 
understand that. We are going to preserve that.
  If the past few days are any indication, the President is going to do 
his level best in the coming weeks to scare the American people, 
particularly seniors who only have Medicare or Medicaid and Social 
Security. That may be all the income they have and all of the 
protection they have. The President is going to try to frighten these 
people. He is going to try to frighten people with children. He will 
accuse us of being heartless. He will say we are out to get Social 
Security and Medicare. But it is off the table here. He will say we are 
slashing programs that help seniors, the children, and the poor. The 
liberal media will, of course, report these accusations, and many 
Americans will be led to believe it. But in the end, I believe there is 
a weapon stronger than scare tactics, and that weapon is the truth.
  One thing about the Senator from New Mexico: You can expect the truth 
from Pete Domenici. He will tell it like it is, even when it hurts. The 
truth is that this budget does not slash Government spending. It simply 
slows its rate of growth. It does not slash Government spending. It 
simply slows the rate of growth.
  As Senator Domenici said, rather than having Government growing 
faster than wages and salaries, which has been the case for the last 
three decades, wages and salaries will now grow faster than Government 
spending.
  The truth is that this budget does not touch Social Security. It does 
not touch Social Security. But that does not mean the President will 
not say it does not touch Social Security. It does not mean it is not 
going to be reported that it does, but it does not touch Social 
Security. I assume the Senator from New Mexico would give a reward if 
one could find anything that touches Social Security in the budget.
  Mr. DOMENICI. We ought to put a new incentive in. That will be 
something we ought to give to people.
  Mr. DOLE. Right. If you find something about Social Security, there 
may be a reward for you.
  Mr. DOMENICI. With reference to Medicare, we even suggest that in any 
reform measure, people at the low end of Social Security are held 
harmless. That is figured into savings. They do not suffer a loss in 
their Social Security check. That is even built in, in addition to 
Social Security being off the table.
  Mr. DOLE. It is not a benefit or advantage to seniors.
  The truth is--and this should all be about the truth, not about what 
is reported--that this budget will shrink the Federal bureaucracy, 
beginning right here in Congress, with a 7-year freeze on congressional 
salaries and a $200 million cut in the legislative branch budget. This 
reaches out to Americans in need. For example, we will spend $534 
billion on Medicaid over the next 5 years, reflecting a 20-percent 
increase over that period.
  The truth is that this budget begins the process needed to preserve, 
improve, and protect Medicare. This budget acknowledges that we must 
take action to save Medicare by slowing its annual growth rate.
  But let there be no mistaking about what we are proposing. Let the 
Senate be very clear about it. Over the next 5 years, we will spend 
over $1 trillion on Medicare. That is an increase of $178 billion. Let 
me repeat: We will spend over $1 trillion on Medicare, an increase of 
$178 billion over what we would have spent if we froze Medicare 
expenditures at today's level.
  Despite the overheated rhetoric coming out of the White House, we are 
not talking about cutting Medicare. Later in the debate I think the 
Senator from New Mexico will have a very interesting chart that ought 
to make Senators' eyes pop out. The statement made by President Clinton 
not long ago.
  We are not even talking about freezing Medicare. We are simply 
suggesting we must find ways to slow the rate of growth. Slow the rate 
of growth. It is not about paying for tax cuts, it is about saving 
Medicare. This is a fact and that is the truth.
  I do not care how many people stand on the floor on the other side, 
and there will be a storm of rhetoric on the other side about cutting 
Medicare for taxes for the rich. Not true. It is not true. We are 
trying to save Medicare, just as we saved Social Security in 1983. We 
will do it.
  If they want to stand on the sidelines, and the President wants to be 
a.w.o.l., absent without leadership as he is almost every day, that is 
all right with us. The American people will remember who was carrying 
the heavy water up here. As my friend, Senator Gramm says, ``Who was 
pulling the wagon?'' They are not going to pull any wagons on the other 
side. We will have to pull the wagon. It will be uphill. It will not be 
easy.
  I might add here that the President's rhetoric about Medicare rings 
especially hollow given the fact that his own health care plan included 
a $180 billion reduction in Medicare and Medicaid spending. We do not 
hear much about that on the other side. We do not hear much about that 
in the White House.
  In last year's health care bill, it was there--$180 billion in 
Medicare and Medicaid spending reductions. Now, the President said at 
the time, that is not a reduction. Again, I will leave that up to the 
Senator from New Mexico to explain at a later time.
  The fact that Mrs. Clinton said in testimony before the Senate 
Finance Committee, ``We feel confident * * *. We can reduce the rate of 
increase in Medicare without undermining quality for Medicare 
recipients.'' That was not anybody speaking but Mrs. Clinton, who was 
in charge of the Government-run health care plan advocated by President 
Clinton. Fortunately, it failed. In her own testimony before the 
Finance Committee, ``we can reduce the rate of increase in Medicare 
without undermining quality for Medicare recipients.''
  Now, what has happened in a year? Nothing has happened. So if they 
were right then, and we are right now, I guess we are both right. And 
the President ought to go back and read his own statements and read 
statements others in the administration have made.
  I would take the President's budget rhetoric a little more seriously 
if he would offer the American people an alternative, besides his 
status quo proposal that Senator Domenici said even the Washington Post 
called ``weak and directionless.'' Believe me, that was in the 
Washington Post, and they do not often criticize Democrats for anything 
in this town. That was in the Washington Post, believe it or not.
  Mr. President, we can and must do much more than simply maintain the 
status quo as the President has proposed. We can and must set the 
course to a balanced budget. And we can and must reduce the tax burden 
on America's families.
  Mr. President, I believe that long after we are gone, future 
historians will look back at this moment, the rest of this week and 
part of next week, look back at this debate and say, ``Here's where the 
course was set. Here's where the dye was cast.''
  It is up to Congress to determine what their conclusion will be. Will 
they conclude that here were the people who blew the last chance to 
change the status quo? Is that what they will write in 30, 40, 50 
years? Or here were the people who ensured that the America of the 21st 
century would be one of low wages, high taxes, and fewer opportunities? 
Is that what they will write? Will they look back to 1995 and say, 
``Here's where the American dream died, right here, right in this 
Chamber. Right in this Chamber, because we did not have the courage to 
do what the American people want us to do, or have the courage to do 
what we know we should do.'' [[Page S6861]] 
  Are they going to say all those things? Are they going to look back 
in 10, 20, 30, 40 years and say, ``Here were the men and women of 
courage. Here were the people who made tough decisions and ensured that 
America's best days are yet to come. Here were the people who ensured 
nothing less than the survival of the American dream.'' The choice is 
ours, and the time is now.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I understand the distinguished Senator from Tennessee, 
Senator Frist, would like to speak.
  Senator Dole, I might say I greatly appreciate the remarks, and I 
think the American people would know what the majority leader said here 
today is very, very important, and part of our efforts to get this 
budget resolution passed. I am very appreciative of this help.
  The leader commented on the Senator from New Mexico, and he has been 
very supportive, as clearly indicated. We have a job to do and we want 
to get it done. I am most appreciative.
  Let me just say a couple of things very, very quickly. The budget 
resolution before the U.S. Senate does not have any tax cuts in it 
until the budget of the United States is balanced, and until it is 
certified to be balanced by the Congressional Budget Office.
  So, whatever the talk about cutting taxes versus how we balance the 
budget, the truth of the matter is we balance this budget and we do not 
cut taxes in doing that. We change programs. We alter and reform 
programs. We get to balance. Then there is a dividend, an economic 
dividend, that in this budget resolution is directed to be used by the 
appropriate committee for tax cuts, and tax cuts only.
  Then it is interesting, people are talking about tax cuts for the 
rich. Frankly, we passed overwhelmingly--but for one vote, everybody 
else voted aye--a Boxer-Brown resolution in that committee that said 90 
percent of any cuts that were forthcoming after we are in balance would 
go to people with $100,000 or less.
  We will hear a lot about other things, but the truth does not lie. 
The budget resolution is there to be looked at, and that is the way it 
is.
  I yield Senator Frist 15 minutes.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I have been in this body for a little over 
5 months now. It is very clear to me where the problem lies. As P.J. 
O'Rourke has said, ``Giving power and money to Congress is like giving 
the car keys and whiskey to teenage boys.''
  The problem is that this Federal debt, the cost of increased Federal 
spending, year after year, has grown out of control. The debt is 
approximately $4.9 to $5 trillion by the end of 1995, and it will grow 
to $6.8 trillion in the year 2000. If we do nothing, $8 trillion in the 
year 2010.
  They are big numbers. In individual terms, what do they mean? They 
are even more frightening. A family of four currently pays $440 per 
month just to pay the interest on the national debt. A child born this 
year will pay over $187,000 in interest alone on the national debt over 
his or her lifetime. By the year 2000, the debt will reach $6.8 
trillion, nearly $100,000 for a family of four.
  The reason for the problem is this excessive, wasteful spending. In 
Washington, unlike the private sector from whence I came just 6 months 
ago, people use this word ``cut,'' and when we reduce spending in the 
Federal Government from 5 percent to about 3 percent, people say this 
is a huge cut. The American people do not look at that as a cut. They 
know that it is slowing the increase in spending.
  It is almost as if a person went in and asked the boss for a raise of 
$500 per month, and he said I will only give $450, and then the 
employee would call that a cut in salary. The American people are too 
smart for that.
  Mr. President, while we must listen to the American people in working 
through the best way to structure arriving at a balanced budget and 
looking at this Nation's spending priorities, we must, over the next 5 
days, maintain our resolve to put the long-term interest of this 
country over the short-term special interests that will likely become 
prominent in this debate.
  I intend to vote for this budget because it and it alone will achieve 
balance by the year 2002. And what is the cost of doing nothing? The 
President of the United States has put forward a budget which we will 
be discussing which does nothing, which continues $200 billion deficits 
next year, the year after that, the year after that, the year after 
that, adding each of these years up to a huge additional $1 trillion to 
this debt. These are ballooning deficits. We cannot continue these 
endless mountains of debt again and again. It is not common sense. It 
is not what Tennesseans told me again and again as I traveled to the 95 
counties of Tennessee this past year.
  If you need further proof, look at the outside independent analysts. 
Look at the GAO, the CBO, the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and 
Tax Reform. Again and again they state the obvious, that present trends 
are clearly unsustainable. The General Accounting Office in ``The 
Deficit and the Economy,'' in April 1995 says, ``Continuing current 
spending and taxation policies unimpeded over the long term would have 
major consequences for economic growth.''
  And the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform says:

       Absent policy changes, entitlement spending and interest on 
     the national debt will consume almost all Federal revenues in 
     2010. In 2030, Federal revenues will not even cover 
     entitlement spending.

  Yes, in just 15 years, spending on Medicare, Medicaid and Social 
Security, on Federal pensions and on interest on the Federal debt, will 
make no money available for Government, for roads, for education, for 
defense. Now is the time to balance the budget.
  The Congressional Budget Office says:

       Current fiscal policies literally cannot remain unchanged 
     indefinitely: At some time, action will have to be taken to 
     bring Government borrowing under control or servicing the 
     Federal debt will require unsustainable tax rates in future 
     years. Prompt action would limit the damage that occurs when 
     Federal debt crowds out capital investment, putting upward 
     pressures on interest rates. It would also limit the size of 
     the needed changes in fiscal policy.

  Let us talk a minute about what all these statistics mean to the 
average American in this country. Americans are currently paying almost 
2 percent more in interest rates than they would if we had a balanced 
budget. What does that mean to the typical American? It is as extra 
$1,248 per year on a $75,000 mortgage at an interest rate of 8.75 
percent. It means an extra $900 per year on a car loan of $15,000 at an 
interest rate of 9.75 percent. Again, with my background as a 
physician, coming to the U.S. Senate from the private sector, what 
amazes me most is that Medicare will be bankrupt in the year 2002 
unless we act; bankrupt--part A, hospital expenditures for our senior 
citizens and individuals with disabilities. We will talk a lot about 
Medicare over the next several days but the bottom line is that in just 
7 years, unless we act, seniors will not have hospital insurance in the 
United States.
  We are going to continue to lose the war on poverty unless we act, 
and this budget does act. The Federal Government currently runs over 75 
interrelated and overlapping means-tested welfare programs. Between 
1964 and 1994, welfare cost the taxpayers $5 trillion in 1993 dollars. 
Yet the official poverty rate is 15 percent, nearly 4 percent higher 
than the all-time low experienced in 1973, a low of 11.1 percent.
  If we do nothing, we will continue to have a Government that is too 
big, and the American people want a smaller, less intrusive Government. 
Our Government is too intrusive in our daily lives. It is a Government 
that strangles economic growth and innovation. If we look at spending 
on regulatory agencies, Federal regulatory agencies, it totaled $14.4 
billion in 1993. Increased spending on the Federal bureaucracy in 
recent years has allowed the Federal Government to regulate nearly 
every aspect of our daily lives.
  There are numerous other examples. The Food and Drug Administration 
has grown from 4,400 employees in 1970 to over 9,000 employees, yet we 
still hear again and again that pharmaceutical agents and drugs that 
are finally approved in this country had been approved on the average 
about 6 years earlier in other countries.
  The President himself, in speaking to the AARP last week, said, ``I 
cannot support the status quo and neither can you.'' And that is what 
this balanced budget is all about. Yet that is what he has done, 
support the status quo. He has offered no budget to speak of. And I 
look forward on this floor to hearing [[Page S6862]] the debate on the 
proposed budget, the budget as proposed by the President. He has made 
no effort to balance the budget, yet the American people call every day 
for a balanced budget. The American people recognize that only by a 
balanced budget can we restore the American dream.
  You can see if the Democrats, the other side, cannot see fit to cut 
spending sufficiently, the only answer will be a tax increase.
  So what is our solution? It is the budget laid before you today, the 
Republican budget. And Republicans will tell the truth. Yes, there will 
be some restructuring and there will be adjustments associated with 
this budget. But they are nowhere near--nowhere near--the distortions 
that others are spewing forth. Let us examine some of the claims and 
then tell what the facts are.
  Bureaucracy. Some say the Government bureaucrats will lose jobs and 
the economy as a whole will suffer because of reduced Government 
spending. People say we cannot go that fast.
  The budget proposal today put forward shrinks the Federal 
bureaucracy, eliminates more than 100 Federal departments, agencies and 
programs. The budget put forward today abolishes unnecessary 
bureaucracy, eradicates, gets rid of, Government waste, terminates 
duplication, and consolidates Federal programs to improve efficiency 
and priorities. And that is what the American people want. They 
recognize we need to pull back. But they want us to prioritize 
appropriately.
  Not only will this be good for the Federal budget but it will be good 
for the recipients of Federal benefits today, who are out there trying 
to do their best to make sense of the maze of regulations before them. 
There is no doubt this budget will result in greater economic growth.
  On Medicare, some people say Medicare cuts are going to devastate our 
seniors and our entire health care spending. It is not true. As pointed 
out by the majority leader, we will be spending over $100 billion more 
in Medicare in the year 2002 than we do today.
  And with regard to the social safety net, Social Security is put on 
the side. It is outside of this budget. We do nothing to attack Social 
Security. But then some people come forward and say we will leave 
children homeless and starving in the streets. In truth, our budget 
provides a safety net for those truly in need. It provides transforming 
new programs to empower the underserved, the poor, the indigent. This 
budget moves power and money out of Washington back to people, and that 
is what the American people are calling for. It does it by working 
toward block grants for Medicaid, block grants for welfare, child care, 
and other social services. The bottom line is that we empower 
communities, empower citizens to make decisions over their lives. The 
cruelest thing we can do to the poor, to the underserved, is to 
continue to fund certain assistance programs today without serious 
reform. Over half of the AFDC families today remain on welfare for 10 
years or more.
  One in three children today in the United States is born out of 
wedlock. In some low-income neighborhoods it is 8 out of 10 children, 
and those children are three times more likely to end up on welfare.
  In 1960, nearly two-thirds of households in the lowest income group 
were headed by people who worked. By 1991 that figure had plummeted 
from two-thirds to only about one-third, and only 11 percent of welfare 
household heads were working full time year round.
  Yes. The collapse of work and family has spawned crime, drug use, 
violence in schools, and other social ills. The people who suffer the 
most today are our children.
  So we all know that the rhetoric we will hear over the next several 
days will be about hurting children. In truth that is just a 
smokescreen, a smokescreen to hide the fact that our big Government 
solutions have failed. I am confident by turning over our welfare 
assistance programs in large part to the States will result in 
innovation, creation of new ideas which can be adopted similar to those 
of Governor Thompson of Wisconsin, Governor Engler of Michigan, and 
Governor Weld. No longer will welfare be a way of life with regard to 
dependence on others.
  In closing, the Republican budget has its benefits. We will hear 
about those again over the next several hours.
  Lower interest rates: Lower interest rates which will affect nearly 
every American, allowing him or her to participate in the purchase of a 
new home or a new car for less money. Lower interest rates to make it 
easier to start a business, to keep a family farm in business, or for 
existing businesses to make new investments. And new investments result 
in more workers, and more workers mean more jobs.
  Yes. We will see greater economic growth, greater economic growth 
that will result from a greater amount of capital available for 
borrowing. Right now, the Government is using our Nation's capital, 
capital that businesses and individuals could be using to invest in new 
ventures. New ventures mean more jobs with higher incomes.
  And in closing, a balanced budget by the year 2002 will result in a 
stronger America today, and a stronger America tomorrow means that all 
Americans will benefit.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, before I yield, let me thank Senator 
Frist for his marvelous remarks.
  Let me suggest that the Senate is very, very well served in the 
decision that this eminent surgeon made to get into politics. From my 
standpoint, I kind of wondered why because he does heart transplants 
for little children, an expert in the field. It made him very renowned. 
But I am very pleased he made the decision. He adds a lot of 
credibility, sincerity, and knowledge to our debate on health care. And 
we look forward to using him in the debate when Medicare comes up with 
some additional time. I am very appreciative of his remarks.
  We understand Senator Grassley was going next because there were no 
Democrats here. If they would let us do that, then we will yield to two 
Senators on that side for two consecutive ones.
  How much time does Senator Grassley desire?
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Twenty-five minutes.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I yield 30 minutes to Senator Grassley.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I want to first commend the 
distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee for his leadership in 
putting this budget together. But in addition to saying those few 
words, I want to say to the American people that a lot of times an 
individual wonders whether one person can make a difference. As far as 
this budget debate is concerned, the person of Senator Domenici and his 
leadership as chairman, and the responsibility that goes with that, 
demonstrates clearly what we all know in America. If an individual puts 
their mind to it, that one person can make a difference.
  So I thank the distinguished chairman.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Might I, without interrupting after this, just say I 
thank Senator Grassley very much. I very much appreciate that.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. I thank the chairman for his leadership again.
  Because their budget represents a vision, it also represents a plan 
on how to get there to carry out that vision. This budget is 
conspicuous in that it is the only plan before this body that will have 
a real vision, and will have credibility in the process. The hallmark 
of this budget is that it balances present-day needs with long-term 
needs. That is quite a balancing act. But it does it well because it 
does it for children, it does it for senior citizens, it does it for 
the needy, and it does it for the forgotten taxpayers of America. This 
does not forget the taxpayers. It is not just a bottom line in the year 
2002 that we are talking about, because that is balanced. But it also 
is balanced between our long- and our short-term needs of society.
  I do not think that any Republican who voted for this in committee, 
including the chairman himself, however, thinks that or makes a claim 
that this is a perfect document. There are elements in here that each 
one of us dislike. I will mention a couple for myself 
[[Page S6863]] because I am not going to speak on the negative aspects 
of this. But I do think that we ought to make it clear that there might 
be some things we would rather have differently.
  For me, representing an agriculture State, I suppose I could say I am 
not satisfied with the agriculture numbers. However, I had a chance to 
address this in committee, and I did it with a sense-of-the-Senate 
amendment to limit the savings from commodity programs. We farmers know 
agriculture must contribute toward deficit reduction because we know 
that people in agriculture, including the family farmers, will benefit 
greatly from the lower interest rates that result when you have a 
balanced budget.
  I also do not like Medicare numbers. But the issue there is to take 
important steps to keep this bankrupt program solvent, and of course 
viable both in the short term as well as the long term. The point, Mr. 
President, is balance, and this budget has balance.
  It also contains some very important national goals, and I want to 
begin my remarks by pointing out some of them. It provides a vision. 
That vision is to preserve opportunity and the American dream for 
future generations. We intend with this budget to stop the practice of 
allowing their generation to live high on the hog and have the next 
generation pay for it. That, Mr. President, is a moral issue.
  Next, this budget is balanced. This is a goal shared, as you may 
know, by more than 80 percent of the American people. Yet, however, 
there is only one party that has delivered a plan to balance the 
budget; that is, this side, the Republican side, of the aisle. It is 
very clear that the Democrats cannot put one together because that 
party it seems happens to be the party of the status quo. It is the 
party of business as usual. I have no doubts in my mind that they do 
not propose a balanced budget because they are the party that was 
roundly rejected by the voters in the November election last. Those 
voters, those very same voters by an 80 percent majority, want our 
budget to be balanced and the sooner the better.
  Next, our budget confronts in a very responsible way the Medicare 
crisis. The other side of the aisle is running away from the challenge 
of shoring up the Medicare program, running away from the fact that the 
Medicare program is bankrupt. They happen to be doing it on Medicare 
just like they are running away from the challenge of the deficit. 
Instead of being responsible, and instead of offering constructive 
solutions to ensure the viability of Medicare, not only for this 
generation but for future generations, they are engaging in a campaign 
to scare the senior citizens of America and to scare the wits out of 
them.
  It is somehow like a campaign staff has taken over the policy staff. 
This is a completely irresponsible posture on their part.
  I just stated the broad goals of our budget, Mr. President. But there 
are others that are reflected in this plan. I want to state them but 
more briefly. It moves money and power out of Washington and back to 
the States, the citizens, and our communities. It substantially reduces 
corporate welfare spending. It provides for maximum crime control to 
keep Americans safe by protecting funding for the Drug Enforcement 
Administration and the FBI. It provides a safety net for the truly 
needy with emphasis upon children.
  It protects Social Security. It protects our national security. It 
protects the school lunch and school breakfast programs. And it adds $2 
billion for supplemental food programs for WIC. It eliminates over 140 
agencies, programs, and commissions in the downsizing of government, 
including the Cabinet-level Department of Commerce. It eliminates 
bureaucracy, waste, duplication, and overhead, and it consolidates many 
Government functions, privatizes many others, and improves Government 
efficiency.
  Now, Mr. President, it does all this while allowing spending to grow 
by 3 percent per year instead of the projected 5 percent. Government 
spending will still grow by 3 percent.
  Now, there are a lot of people listening who are going to be 
irritated because Government spending is going to grow by 3 percent. I 
run into this when I meet with Iowans in town meetings because I 
overhear concerns that 3 percent growth is irresponsible when you have 
a $4.7 trillion deficit. These responsible constituents are greatly 
concerned about the future of their children and grandchildren 
because--do not forget--the most important thing that we can do for 
today's children, the most important thing we can do for today's 
children is to not leave them trillions and trillions of dollars of 
debt to pay off.
  If you are really concerned about children, we must denounce policies 
that are based upon a philosophy of materialism today and to heck with 
tomorrow. We cannot go on borrowing money today at the expense of 
tomorrow's needs. We must find a balance, and that is what this budget 
does--a balance between today's needs and our responsibilities for 
tomorrow.
  Mr. President, that is the good news about this budget. But all of 
these positive elements seem to get lost in the rhetorical barbs 
launched by the other party and in the news coverage of this budget 
reported to the American people. I think I know why. That is because, 
as we have been reading recently, the media have a penchant for 
delivering the most negative of news. And the other party, quite 
frankly, knows this and plays to it. And it makes very great TV. But 
how responsible is it?
  There is one other important aspect of this budget that has not been 
talked about much, and it should be. And that is this. There is no pay 
raise in this budget for Members of Congress. There is no pay raise for 
Members of Congress for the next 7 years until this budget is balanced, 
until we have earned a pay raise.
  There are also changes in the Members' retirement system to bring it 
more in line with private sector retirement systems. This pay freeze is 
important for two reasons. First, it ties Members' pay to our 
performance in attacking the deficit. It says, ``Don't even think about 
a pay raise until you get the budget balanced.''
  The second reason is even more important, and I wish to commend again 
our distinguished chairman for the implicit leadership in what this pay 
freeze states. It says, in effect, we are leading by example. We are 
leading the way toward a balanced budget by denying ourselves any more 
pay over the next 7 years. And as a result we are not asking Americans 
then to do what we are not willing to do for ourselves. When people 
come into my office and ask why we are slowing the growth of their 
benefits, I can look them in the eye and say we are denying ourselves 
any growth as well. As a result, this Republican budget, in my view, 
earns the moral authority to ask everyone, to ask everyone to pitch in 
and to help balance the Federal budget.
  So, Mr. President, the Republican balanced budget contains a positive 
vision for present-day America but also for future generations of young 
Americans. We balance present-day needs with the need to preserve 
future opportunity. Meanwhile, there is no alternative vision proposed 
by the other side. All they seem to offer is business as usual.
  By definition, the absence of a bold vision is the continuation of 
business as usual. If Americans ever wondered which party is a party of 
the status quo, let there be no doubt now.
  I wish to describe this symptom, the symptoms of defenders of 
business as usual. They use half their ingenuity to get us into debt 
and the other half they use to avoid pain--paying it off. Their 
philosophy is live within your income even if you have to borrow to do 
it. They simply refuse to reconcile their gross habits with their net 
income.
  What does a budget look like that subscribes to this philosophy? I 
think, Mr. President, that we have a very good example of this budget. 
If you look at this budget, you see the President's numbers here. You 
see a budget that is never balanced into the future--not only not 
balanced but the deficits go up and up and up.
  Now, Mr. President, you look at the Senate budget that we are 
debating right now and you see it gradually going down and by the year 
2002 it is in balance. This zero here represents no more accumulation 
of debt. But if you look at the difference between this budget and this 
budget, the space in between, you see the accumulation of $1.5 trillion 
of debt. That is on top of the $4.9 trillion debt we have this very 
day. [[Page S6864]] 
  This chart shows it very simply. It shows two directions into the 
future. That top line is business as usual, and it spells disaster for 
our children. The bottom line, the Domenici budget, the one that is 
balanced, that is the only alternative. It presents only vision for the 
future. That happens to be our plan, the Republican plan, the plan that 
was approved last week by the Senate Budget Committee.
  You see from the chart the President abdicated his leadership this 
year in the budget process. My Democrat colleagues in this body now 
have to decide a simple question. Do they follow their leader in 
abdication and risk being the party of abdication or do they offer the 
country their vision in the form of an alternative? That is the 
question. It is easy to say what you are against, but what are you for? 
The American people want to know. The American people have a right to 
know.
  During deliberations in the committee, I read a number of quotes from 
the Congressional Record that were uttered by Democrats on the Budget 
Committee. They spoke those words on the Senate floor during debate on 
the constitutional amendment to balance the budget.
  I am not going to read those quotes today because I do not intend to 
embarrass anybody, but I have those quotes right here if anybody wants 
to know what they are. In sum, they said this during February: ``We 
don't need a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. We should 
do it in the Budget Committee.''
  So, they implied, let us just roll up our sleeves and get to work on 
a balanced budget by the year 2002. But when it came to the Democrats 
voting on a motion by the chairman expressing the desire for a balanced 
budget by the year 2002, all but one brave soul from the other side of 
the aisle retreated, sounded retreat and voted against it.
  Again, Mr. President, that begs a very important question: What is 
their plan? What is their vision?
  This is then an issue of credibility. You cannot talk the talk until 
you walk the walk. And all we hear is sniping and wailing about what 
they are against. It is real easy to pick out a program in isolation 
and attack the whole Republican plan for a balanced budget. But until 
you put it in the context of your own balanced budget alternative, your 
concerns ring hollow and there is no credibility. If you want to snipe 
about the Republican budget and if you want to have credibility in 
doing so, you have to have an alternative balanced budget plan.
  You might ask: Why do they have to have a balanced budget? Well, it 
is simple. The public is demanding one, and because it is our duty and 
obligation to this country's future and, of course, to the future 
generations of Americans. And not the least reason of which is that the 
other side said during the February debate that they wanted a balanced 
budget. They said that during the debate on the constitutional 
amendment.
  Or, of course, they can choose the President's path, and they can put 
business as usual on automatic pilot.
  So I say to them: Show us your vision. Show us how you get us there. 
Show us how you get there in 7 years, just like you said on the floor 
in February. If you do not do that, you will be all talk and no action. 
You will be following your leader in the White House in abdication of 
responsibility and then you risk becoming the party of abdication.
  Now, I think I can claim for myself, this Senator from Iowa, that I 
have worked closely with the other side over the years for more deficit 
reduction than the leadership of their party or even our party maybe 
wanted.
  Last year was just one of the latest examples. I happened to join my 
good friend, Senator Exon from Nebraska, the Democratic leader of the 
Budget Committee, in sponsoring the Exon-Grassley amendment. That saved 
the taxpayers $13 billion. I am the only Republican on the Budget 
Committee who can claim to have voted for a Democratic budget 
resolution in getting a budget to the floor.
  I joined the other side those times because they were responsible, 
fair, and tough on the deficit. I did so even when it meant criticizing 
the President of my own party.
  My colleagues on this side know full well that I have been willing to 
criticize past Republican Presidents. And I now make this same charge 
against this President for the budget that he submitted this year. It 
had no credibility regarding deficit reduction. He punted to the 
Congress. He took a vacation on reducing the deficit.
  What I am saying now is--and I believe I have sufficient credibility 
to say it--if you do not offer a credible balanced budget alternative 
to Chairman Domenici's mark, you Democrats risk becoming the party of 
abdication as far as the public's desire for a balanced budget is 
concerned.
  You might even come up with a plan that I could support, as I have 
done in the past. That is, if it were balanced. I want it balanced in 
the year 2002 if you want me to vote with you Democrats. But until you 
walk the walk, the credibility will not be there.
  Mr. President, these are new times. These are times that require a 
vision. These are times that require a plan to get where you are 
viewing. You have to find a way to balance your present day priorities 
with long-term needs to preserve the future for coming generations.
  Mr. President, we--not just the Members of the Senate--we--not just 
people inside the beltway--we--you, all the people of America, this 
generation--cannot live just for today. We have to live for today and 
we have to live for tomorrow.
  We on this side of the aisle have presented a vision and we have 
presented a plan to get there. The question now, Mr. President, is: 
``Where's theirs?'' I want to repeat: ``Where's theirs?"
  I yield back the remainder of my time and reserve it for the 
Republicans.
  Mr. EXON addressed the chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Abraham). The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, in answer to my good friend and colleague 
from the State of Iowa, ``Where's theirs? Where's theirs?''--I assume 
we are going to be hearing that over and over again--``Where's 
theirs?'' was enunciated by this Senator in the remarks I made in 
opening this debate.
  What we are trying to do, I advise my friend and colleague and 
oftentimes associate, is to simply say that we are offering a series of 
amendments to the Republican budget that has been offered, frankly, in 
a spirit of cooperation.
  We will be doing here essentially the same thing that we did in the 
budget markup. And that is simply to reach out the hand of friendship 
and understanding and hopefully reach some kind of a bipartisan 
compromise by not rejecting the budget offered by the chairman of the 
Budget Committee. But, as I said in my opening remarks, I salute the 
hard work that had been done.
  ``Where's theirs,'' it should be understood very clearly by the 
Senator from Iowa and everyone else, that ``Where's theirs?'' is simply 
the situation that we are trying to recognize that in some instances 
you have done a good job. And ``Where's theirs?'' is that in good faith 
we are trying to get you on that side of the aisle to quit knocking 
down and rejecting every suggestion that we have made.
  And I think that anyone who looked at the amendments that we offered 
would have had to say that at least they were in good faith and 
debatable. Basically what we did, time after time on a whole series of 
amendments, was to say, we believe that there are some good, overall 
parameters offered by Senator Domenici, the chairman of the Budget 
Committee, in his mark. But we happen to feel that some of the cuts on 
veterans programs, on Medicare, on Medicaid, and others that we have 
announced and enumerated--and I talked about most of them in my opening 
remarks--simply take money out of the money that is reserved for the 
tax cut that is clearly indicated in the budget in the House of 
Representatives and the $170 billion that is in the Domenici mark and 
reserved only for tax cuts.
  What we are saying is, why can we not reason together? Why can you 
not give up on the tax cut, that you want to help out and cut down to 
some extent, a considerable extent, the hit that we think is being 
unfairly taken by Medicare, Medicaid, by farm programs, by taking away 
earned-income tax credit, by the cuts in education and others?
  We just say, give us a little bit. Maybe we can go along. 
[[Page S6865]] 
  I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from California.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank the good Senator from Nebraska for 
yielding. I want to, before I begin my formal remarks, identify myself 
with his statements to the Senator from Iowa. The Senator from Iowa 
made a very strong speech. ``Where's theirs?'' Well, that is a lovely 
slogan. The fact of the matter is you are going to have a chance to see 
what we have in mind, just as you did in the Budget Committee, where I 
proudly serve with my friend from Iowa.
  The fact of the matter is, we are going to be offering a series of 
amendments that take that Republican budget that we think, frankly, is 
a retreat from the American dream and try to fix it and try to fix it 
the way we think the vast majority of Americans would fix it.
  So my friend from Iowa will have a chance to find out what the 
Democrats think is important. He is going to find out, and if he acts 
true to course, he will vote against everything because those 
Republicans do not want to touch the $170 billion they have reserved to 
give tax cuts to the wealthiest. Those over $350,000 will get $20,000 
back each and every year, while the drastic cuts in programs that my 
friend from Iowa says, ``We're doing it for the children,'' cause 
nothing but pain for the children.
  As we offer up our amendments, they will not change the date in which 
this budget is in balance. It will be kept at 2002. That will not 
change by one 1 minute or 1 day. But what will change--what will 
change--are the priorities of this Nation, and that is why I so relish 
this debate on the budget and why I was so honored to go on the Budget 
Committee of the U.S. Senate. I served on the House Budget Committee as 
well, because what could be more important than what we spend 
taxpayers' money on? What could be more important than that? When you 
read the preamble of the Constitution--and I recommend that you do it 
as often as possible--you will find out that we do have to establish a 
system of justice, that we do have to provide for the common defense, 
that we do have to promote the general welfare and make sure that the 
blessings of this great country are endowed on future generations. That 
is the function of the U.S. Government.
  Now, we can argue around the edges, but it is our responsibility to 
fulfill that very solemn pledge we take when we raise our right hand 
and we swear to God that we will, in fact, uphold this Constitution 
from enemies both foreign and domestic. I take that oath very 
seriously. I think that the budget of the United States of America is 
where we lay out for the American people how we hope to do that.
  Mr. President, I believe this budget resolution, this Republican 
budget resolution is a cruel retreat from the American dream because 
it, among other things, will take money out of the pockets of working 
people, college students, senior citizens and place it in the pockets 
of the wealthy. It is Robin Hood in reverse. It is just what we should 
not be doing.
  When I listen to some of the debate and I hear my colleague, Senator 
Gramm from Texas, and I have heard him say it many times, he says, 
``What I want to do as a Republican is take the money out of the 
pockets of the Government and put it in the pockets of the people.'' 
Well, if he believes that, he will not support this Republican budget, 
because this Republican budget takes money out of the pockets of the 
seniors, out of the pockets of the students, out of the pockets of 
those who work so hard and earn $28,000 a year or less, and what does 
it do? It puts it in the pockets of the wealthy. That is wrong. That is 
wrong, and that is what has been hidden in this debate and that is why 
I relish this debate.
  When I say that this budget is a cruel retreat from the American 
dream, I know what I am talking about because I am a product of the 
American dream. I am a first generation American. My mother never 
graduated from high school. Both sides of the family escaped from 
oppression, and it was America that gave us the dream. If there is 
anything that I am going to do--anything that I am going to do in the 
Senate--it is to make sure future generations of Americans have the 
same chance that I had as a little girl growing up in a tiny little 
apartment.
  In this great Nation, my father could get an education, the first 
child in a family of nine to go to college, and he went at night and 
worked hard, and he worked by day. Then later, when he had a couple of 
children, he worked hard and he went to law school at night and became 
a professional. He did it because of America. They were able to save 
and send their children to college. One is a professor and another is a 
U.S. Senator. That is the American dream, and this budget is a cruel 
retreat from the American dream.
  What really riles me is that Republican after Republican will get up 
and say, ``We're doing this for our children. This is a gift to our 
children.''
  I will tell you what kind of gift it is. Imagine you are a little kid 
and you get a big box for your birthday and it is wrapped in a 
beautiful ribbon and you open it up and nothing is in it. There is 
nothing in this budget for children--nothing.
  Children are attacked in this budget. Education is slashed in this 
budget, and I am looking forward to working with my colleague from 
Illinois, who you will hear from soon, and with Senator Kennedy, and 
with Senator Harkin to restore those cuts in education and, yes, I say 
to my friend from Iowa, we will make that amendment revenue neutral. It 
will not change your balanced budget one bit. But you will have to walk 
the line and send a message to the children. Do you really care about 
their education? Do you care about the fact that in your budget there 
will be 550,000 fewer children in Head Start; that the average college 
student will have to pay nearly $5,000 more for a loan, and if they are 
a graduate student, between $3,000 and $6,000 more for a loan.
  We are going to fix that in the context of your budget. If you want 
to vote against it, that is fine, but do not tell us that we are not 
acting responsibly, because we are going to give you amendment after 
amendment. We are going to give you one on Medicare. We are going to 
soften the hit.
  In California, we have over 3 million people on Medicare. Let me give 
you a portrait. The average woman of Medicare age today has an income 
of $8,500 a year. Think about that. In the Republican budget, that 
elderly woman, that grandma or great-grandma will have to pay $900 more 
a year out of her pocket for medical care, and the care will be worse 
and her choices will be taken away. So do not tell her that she is 
getting a gift in this budget. She is getting hit.
  When I was growing up, my mother and father taught me to respect the 
elderly. That is not respecting the elderly, to take that money out of 
her pocket and put it in the pocket of someone who earns $350,000 a 
year. Forget it from this Senator. I will fight that as long as I have 
life in me. That is disrespect. And we talk about V-E Day. I heard the 
chairman of the Budget Committee talk about V-E Day. I want to talk 
about V-E Day, because I had uncles who went to war, World War II.
 And I have friends who fought in Vietnam and in Korea. What is the 
gift to them in this budget? We cut out veterans benefits, and for 
those men who fought, we cut their Medicare. Oh, that is a great gift 
for our elders to celebrate V-E Day. This is a cruel budget, and it 
does not have to be. As my friend from Nebraska said, you just take 
that money that you squirreled away in your little lock box there very 
cleverly--but it is there--and you back off that, and let us talk 
business. Let us ease the burden on our veterans. Let us ease the 
burden on our children. Let us ease the burden on our seniors, and we 
can do it in a fiscally responsible way.

  I want to talk a little bit about some of the investments that we are 
walking away from in this budget. And before I do, I want to make one 
more point about how this budget hurts those making $28,000 a year or 
less--families making $28,000 a year or less, working.
  Under Ronald Reagan we started the earned income tax credit. He said 
it was the best antipoverty program he had ever seen. What does it do? 
It says to those hard-working Americans who earn under $28,000 a year, 
we are going to ease the burden of your payroll taxes and we are going 
to allow you to [[Page S6866]] pay fewer taxes. What does this 
Republican budget do? It pulls back on that program, and it will mean 
$1,600 more over seven years to those hard-working families--$1,600 
more in taxes for those people. I cannot understand it. We are raising 
the taxes of people who earn under $28,000 a year, who work mightily 
hard for that money, and we are lowering the taxes of those who make 
over $350,000 a year.
  There must be some symmetry here. I told you before how we are 
hurting those students who have student loans. It is going to cost them 
much more over their lifetime. Do you know what it costs to go to a 
private college today? It is $15,000 to $20,000 a year. After the 
Republicans get through with this budget, only the wealthy will be able 
to go. They are getting $20,000 a year back. So if they have a student 
in their family, Uncle Sam just paid the way. But if you are middle 
class, look out, it is going to cost you almost $5,000 more a year, 
middle-class students for undergraduate, and between $3,000 and $6,000 
more for graduate school, at a time when we know we must be the best 
educated in order to compete in the world. This Republican budget is an 
embarrassment to the values of America.
  I want to talk about another shortsighted area. National Institutes 
of Health. These are the scientists that get grants, who do the science 
to find the cures to diseases. You think about the disease in your 
family that you have seen, or among your friends, be it heart disease, 
high blood pressure, AIDS, cancer, or be it Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, 
cystic fibrosis, you can name them. Everyone has been touched by 
something in their lives. The NIH, National Institutes of Health, gives 
out grants to scientists, and we have created Nobel Prize winners and 
they are finding the cures for disease. I had a meeting with Dr. Varmus 
who heads NIH in my office yesterday, and this budget is even worse 
than I thought.
  Under current funding, for every four grants that are approved--in 
other words, if scientists come forward with a good possibility of 
finding a cure for a disease, one in four of those applications is 
approved. I wish we could approve and fund all four. We can fund one in 
four. Under this Republican budget, we will be lucky to fund 1 in 100 
new applications--1 in 100. Now, you do not have to be too smart to 
know that this is shortsighted. We are one plane ride away from 
disaster. You have read about this ebola virus. We are one plane ride 
away from disaster, and we are unilaterally disarming our scientists in 
this country.
  Now, I have to say this. I believe if I went up to one of my 
constituents who earned $350,000 a year and I said, ``What would you 
rather have, a tax break, or you could take that money and you could 
bring home a cure for cancer?'' I honest-to-God believe they would say, 
``My goodness, Senator, if you could promise me that, certainly I would 
give that tax break up.''
  So what are we doing in this budget? We are retreating from the 
American dream, we are walking away from science, we are giving up in 
the face of international global competition. And what for? My friends 
will say that it is all worth it. It is all worth it--hurting the 
seniors--although they will say to you, ``We are not cutting Medicare, 
we are just lessening the increase.''
  Let me tell you about that myth. When more people turn 65 and older, 
it is going to take more money to cover those people. And, guess what, 
we are living longer and do we not like to have our grandmas and 
grandpas around? With better technology, it costs more for the Medicare 
Program. I do not think we want to deny our grandmas and grandpas the 
best technology. I know I do not.
  So they are going to tell you that the Democrats are exaggerating the 
pain of this budget. We are not exaggerating the pain of this budget; 
we are telling you the truth, and we are telling you the only reason 
you are being asked to take this pain--the children, seniors, veterans, 
the scientists, education, and the rest--is to give big tax breaks to 
the wealthiest among us. I say this budget should be defeated. We 
should argue the facts. We should bring the facts to the American 
people, and I hope they wake up and participate in this debate and 
engage in this debate and let their leaders know this budget is not a 
blueprint for the future, it is a blueprint for disaster.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. EXON. I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from Illinois.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized.
  Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for yielding and I 
thank him for his leadership. It is not easy leading a group of 
Democrats who wander all over the place on these issues. Senator Exon 
has done an admirable job. I also commend Senator Domenici for moving 
toward a balanced budget here. I think he has shown courage and the 
kind of leadership that is needed. I heard Senator Grassley say, ``What 
can one person do?'' I think Senator Domenici has contributed.
  I am concerned. I wish this were backed up with a balanced budget 
amendment for two reasons. One is that the reality from all of the 
econometric studies is that interest rates would really come down if we 
had this backed up with a balanced budget amendment. The financial 
markets do not know whether this is going to stick even if it stopped 
it. And I think there is good reason to believe it may not stick.
  Our history--and I see the Senator from Washington on the floor, who 
was here when we voted for Gramm-Rudman--is that we keep legislative 
solutions for a balanced budget about 2 years, and then they become too 
politically awkward and we give them up. If we had a constitutional 
amendment, we would have, at a minimum, another $170 billion that could 
be available for education and Medicare and other things.
  One of the ironies is that the AARP, which understandably is 
concerned with what is happening in Medicare, was opposed to the 
balanced budget amendment which could, today, make more money available 
for Medicare.
  I am also concerned, and I mentioned this in the Budget Committee, 
that our atmosphere has become more partisan than it should be. We 
really ought to be working together on these things.
  I am not blaming either party. This thing has just kind of grown over 
the years. I do not think it is helpful to either party or to the 
Nation.
  I voted for Senator Domenici's resolution to have a balanced budget 
by the year 2002. I voted against the final package because I believe 
the priorities are wrong. I think they are wrong for the reasons I will 
spell out here.
  First of all, they assume that there will be a tax cut if we have 
some interest savings. This is not the time we should have a tax cut. I 
face a choice of giving myself a little bit of a bonus--I do not like 
paying taxes any more than the Senator from Michigan or the Senator 
from Nebraska or anyplace else--giving myself a little bit of a bonus, 
or giving my three grandchildren a bonus and making life better for 
them.
  I do not think Americans have any hesitancy in saying, ``Let's get 
that deficit down. Let's not give ourselves a tax cut.'' The tax-cut 
premise is wrong. I know Senator Domenici had to fashion a compromise 
here. Our colleague from Texas is going to offer an amendment to 
specify more clearly a tax cut. I hope his amendment is resoundingly 
defeated.
  Second, I am concerned what is happening to education. My friend, 
Senator Grassley, mentioned this is a choice between their budget and 
the status quo. Well, in the field of education, status quo would be 
appreciably better than cuts in the field of education.
  Every study--I do not care whether it is by a conservative think tank 
or a liberal think tank--every study that questions how we build a 
better America says we will have to invest more in education. Yet this 
budget goes in the opposite direction.
  Title I, which helps poor kids, and has done some real solid things, 
the reality is that if this is adopted, young people in Chicago, East 
St. Louis, Detroit, Omaha, Seattle, and other places represented in 
this body, will see some cuts. Head Start is going to be cut back. The 
student loan--part of this bill is that there will be rescissions that 
the Labor and Human Resources Committee has to make. The Presiding 
Officer sits on that committee. That committee will have to make $14.7 
billion worth of savings on student loans. [[Page S6867]] 
  Now, the document talks about cutting back on graduate education. If 
we totally eliminate assistance for graduate education, we save $2 
billion. That in itself, I think, is wrong. But that leaves $12.7 
billion that we still have to get. That means, clearly, we will have to 
charge interest while students are in college. That will make it 
tougher for them when they get out of school, and I also think will 
discourage some from going to school.
  I think it moves the country in the wrong direction. This is the kind 
of issue where, frankly, instead of devising a partisan document, I 
have enough confidence in the Senator from New Mexico, the Senator from 
Washington, and the Senator from Michigan, that if we could have been 
able to sit down in a bull session and say what really are the national 
priorities and forget whether the Democratic or the Republican Party 
can benefit from it, I do not think we would have been cutting back on 
education.
  I heard Senator Boxer talk about cutting back on NIH, the National 
Institutes of Health, in the research area. I remember Senator Harkin 
speaking on this floor, mentioning that we have spent as much in the 
last 7 years on military research as we have spent on health care 
research since the beginning of the century. I have never checked out 
that figure, but it was a startling figure. It is probably close to 
accurate, if it is not completely accurate.
  I saw my father die of leukemia. So I have been interested in what 
has happened in leukemia research. I have seen great progress. My 
father died in 1969. Today he would have a real chance of living. I see 
the progress that is being made, and I want to continue that progress 
so that humanity can benefit. I think that is what people want.
  Just today in the town meeting every Thursday that Senator Carol 
Moseley-Braun and I have for our Illinois constituents, the multiple 
sclerosis Father of the Year was there with three fine young boys and 
his wife. Just a marvelous family. He is a lawyer by background, 
struggling just to walk. How I would love to see some kind of a 
breakthrough that could help him and his family. But it will take 
dollars to do it. When we cut back on dollars for research, we are 
preventing breakthroughs that we need.
  Now Medicare and Medicaid. I do not suggest that they do not have to 
take some hit. The growth is clearly excessive. But the kind of hit we 
are talking about is going to hurt a lot of people. While we have 
talked primarily about Medicare, I am concerned on Medicaid, too. Half 
the people on Medicaid are children--poor children. I do not think the 
American people want to cut back on health care for poor children. Yet 
that is what happens.
  Then I heard Senator Grassley say in the Budget Committee, 
accurately, he said there is only one sacred cow in this--I am not 
talking about agriculture here, Senator Exon--there is only one sacred 
cow in this budget. That is defense.
  I do not think there is any question that that is accurate. Yes, we 
have cut back defense spending some. But relative to what other nations 
have done, we have not done it much. We are spending more than the next 
eight nations combined are spending on defense.
  We are continuing to spend money on B-2 bombers. What is the purpose 
of a B-2 bomber? To penetrate Soviet radar. There are only two 
problems. There is not any Soviet Union and there is not any Soviet 
radar. They are useless. We could not use them in Desert Storm. We do 
not use them in Haiti. We do not use them in the practical problems 
that we face. We are spending money for yesterday's war. We can cut 
back and do better.
  There are a number of other things that I think are wrong in this 
budget, including one small one. I was pleased to have Senator Bond 
from your side of the Budget Committee vote with me to restore this. 
This is the antifraud compliance group that will save $5 for every $1 
we put into it. The estimate is if we have this antifraud compliance 
group in, the IRS, we will save $9.2 billion over a 5-year-period, I 
believe the estimate was. And we are talking about a 7-year budget.
 So it would be significantly more than that.

  I understand when people say we should not have any tax increases, 
though frankly I think we should be more candid with the American 
public that, of the 224 industrial nations, we are 224th in the 
percentage of our income that goes for taxation. We have the lowest 
taxes on gasoline, for example, of any country outside of Saudi Arabia. 
You go through a whole series of things like that.
  But for people who say we do not want any tax increases, I 
understand. I do not understand why, when so many of us pay taxes and 
comply with the law, we do not want to go after those who are cheating. 
That is what that amendment does. Senator Glenn and I will have an 
amendment on the floor to deal with that.
  Finally, I would like to deal with Senator Grassley's question, What 
are we for? First of all, you will see in a series of amendments that 
we will be proposing what we are for in terms of shifts. Senator Exon 
will have at least one amendment. Senator Kennedy will have an 
amendment. Others will have amendments. But there will also be an 
amendment that some of us will offer, a more comprehensive amendment. I 
do not know how many votes we are going to get. I hope there will be 
people on the other side of the aisle who will look at this carefully. 
I think the priorities are wrong here.
  That we should move toward a balanced budget, absolutely. Pete 
Domenici is to be commended for moving us in that direction. But that 
we should have priorities that hurt the most vulnerable in our society, 
I do not think that makes sense. I do not think that is what the 
American people are for.
  Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time back to Senator Exon.
  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Illinois and my 
colleague from California, who spoke before him, for their excellent 
presentations and the direct way that they tell what we are trying to 
do to be constructive on this side of the aisle. I very much 
appreciated the dedicated work of both of them on the Budget Committee. 
They have been extremely helpful, very helpful in the markup process. I 
thank them for their excellent remarks to set the record straight about 
the constructive posture we are trying to take on this side of the 
aisle.
  I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from the great State of Wisconsin.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I thank the ranking member. As the 
Senate begins its debate on the concurrent budget resolution, I would 
like to offer a few comments also on the work of the Budget Committee, 
and especially on a subject about which I have had a particular 
concern, and that is the subject of the tax cut; whether it makes sense 
to have tax cuts at this time part of the budget resolution.
  The first thing I want to do is praise the Senator from Nebraska, not 
only for his work on the Budget Committee but for the fact that he was 
one of the very first Members of this body to point out--and to join me 
in my efforts to say--we really cannot consistently say we are trying 
to reduce the deficit and have tax cuts. So I appreciate his leadership 
on that. He has done that consistently throughout the Budget Committee 
process.
  I also want to commend the whole Budget Committee and its chairman, 
the Senator from New Mexico, for the work that was done on the 
concurrent budget resolution. As the debate unfolds on the concurrent 
resolution, there will be a lot of opportunities to criticize the 
particulars of the document and proposed changes to it. I expect to do 
both of those things. That is the nature of the legislative body and 
the consequence of the diverse priorities that are represented here. 
Before that debate, though, Chairman Domenici should be lauded for his 
effort. I was especially pleased with his ability to keep the budget 
deliberations in committee clearly focused on the issue of reducing the 
deficit.
  We have different approaches to how we get there, but there has to be 
a unified, bipartisan commitment that at the end of this budget 
resolution we will have a resolution that calls for a date certain--and 
I think it should be the year 2002 or earlier--for a balanced budget to 
be achieved.
  Those who are serious about deficit reduction have to make tough 
choices about where and how much to cut, and I think we have to make 
those choices right now. When I ran for the Senate, I 
[[Page S6868]] proposed a specific plan that would have provided for a 
balanced budget by the year 1998. I still think that would work. But at 
this point, given the realities, if we can get this done by the year 
2002, I think it would be a very significant achievement.
  But as chairman of the Budget Committee, the Senator from New Mexico, 
faced not only the same tough choices the rest of us had to face, his 
choices had to achieve a consensus out of the committee so he could get 
a majority. I will add that the ability of the Budget Committee to 
craft a document that at least the majority party argues achieves a 
balanced budget by the year 2002 does underscore my belief that we do 
not need, and did not need, a constitutional amendment to balance the 
budget.
  How can this process even be unfolding if we need a balanced budget 
amendment? The line was they simply will never get down to business if 
we do not change the Constitution. But the product of the Senate Budget 
Committee proves that we did not have to mess around with the 
Constitution, we just had to get together in committee and on the floor 
and do the job now.
  I think that is very important because people lose sight of the fact 
that we devoted a month out here to discussing the balanced budget 
amendment. I think we did the right thing when we defeated it.
  But now we have the opportunity to show not only that it was not 
necessary, but that we did not have to wait for the States to ratify it 
and sort of get started on the project late in this decade, but that we 
can do it right now. We can do it this very year through the budget 
process. I know it is tough. I know some Budget Committee members are 
on record supporting significant tax cuts. Obviously every Member of 
the Senate would love to be able to vote for tax cuts.
  But the chairman of the Budget Committee rightly decided that the 
first priority of the committee is not tax cuts but deficit reduction. 
The Senator from New Mexico is absolutely right and, given the 
political pressures he faced in this regard, I think he deserves credit 
for his efforts. He tried. He tried very hard. He came up short, but he 
improved the House version, the version of the other body, which 
provides for even more enormous tax cuts.
  So that was progress. I wish I could say, though, that those efforts 
spelled the end of the push for tax cuts. I regret that even the Senate 
budget resolution itself leaves the door wide open for tax cuts. Do not 
let anyone tell you the Senate budget resolution does not contemplate 
tax cuts within this 7-year period. It does and they would be very 
large; to the tune of, apparently, at least $170 billion.
  That document creates a special budget surplus allowance dedicated 
solely for tax cuts. Although I certainly think an excellent job was 
done in many respects, that special fund is an invitation for trouble 
if we are going to reduce the Federal deficit and eliminate it. The 
$170 billion tax cut fund is a cookie jar. It is a special fund put 
away that could be used for deficit reduction, or to restore the 
Medicare cuts and the student loan cuts and the agriculture cuts that 
are a part of this document.
  I have to reiterate, we could get more deficit reduction or we could 
still have a completely balanced budget by the year 2002 and not do 
those very harsh cuts to the tune of $256 billion to Medicare. We need 
to eliminate this kitty, this cookie jar for the tax cut. Not only is 
it $170 billion but the special fund will almost certainly lure 
proposals to enact even more significant tax cuts. I do not think that 
is the chairman's intent. In fact, I think it is just the opposite. But 
I think that is what will happen. And once the focus of our work is 
shifted from deficit reduction to tax cuts, I think it will be a very 
short route to another tax-cut bidding war.
  If we have that war it will undo the progress we made in the 103d 
Congress and the further progress I think the Budget Committee is 
trying to make with regard to reducing the deficit. In fact, it was 
just that kind of tax-cut bidding war in the 1980's that got us into 
this terrible mess in the first place.
  A major tax cut is not only fiscally imprudent; it may undermine the 
public confidence we have to have to pursue the painful cuts necessary 
to balance the Federal budget. The tax cut may be the crown jewel of 
the Republican contract, but it is really a lump of coal for the 
children and grandchildren of our future who get stuck with the debt 
and paying interest on the debt because we did not have the guts to 
eliminate the tax cut today.
  If the American people believe we are playing it straight with them, 
that the cuts we enact are fair and honest, then they will support the 
work product and make the sacrifices needed for a balanced budget 
willingly. If, however, they believe that this process is nothing more 
than politics as usual, that we are enacting a fiscally irresponsible 
tax cut for the sake of a political agenda, then they will rightly 
question the sincerity and fairness and prudence of the cuts in the 
budget package, and any hope for progress on this will be dashed.
  Inclusion of any type of a major tax-cut measure in this year's 
budget resolution sends us in the wrong direction. Deficit reduction 
has to be our highest priority, not tax cuts. Enacting tax cuts at a 
time when we are still fighting the deficit could well hurt those 
families whom the tax cut is supposed to help.
  It is the middle class who will bear the brunt of the higher interest 
rates that could be triggered by a tax cut, and their children who will 
bear much of the burden of the continually escalating national debt.
  Mr. President, this should not be, and I do not think this really is 
a partisan issue.
  For my own part, I have opposed the tax cut proposals that Members of 
both parties have offered.
  Last November, I opposed the tax cuts included in the Contract With 
America. But I also opposed my own President's tax cut plan on the day 
he announced it.
  Since then, some of both parties have advanced tax cut proposals. But 
I am happy to say that Members of both parties have joined me in 
challenging the wisdom of these proposals. The momentum in this body is 
against a tax cut. The momentum was begun by the good work of the 
Budget Committee which at least relegated the tax cuts to this cookie 
jar. That was the first step. The whole Senate should finish it off. 
Let us get it off the table, and make this budget about one thing and 
one thing only; and, that is, getting rid of the Federal deficit once 
and for all so the people in this country can get rid of that sick 
feeling in their stomachs that the people out here in Washington are 
not responsible with their tax dollars, so that kind of bipartisanship 
is encouraging, not only the issue of tax cuts, but also on the issue 
of deficit reduction in general.
  The growing bipartisan opposition to the tax cut stems from a belief 
that deficit reduction is the higher priority, that the savings 
generated by these very, very tough spending cuts have to be used for 
deficit reduction and not tax cuts. In that common belief we ought to 
be able to find the common ground that can be the basis of a truly 
bipartisan budget resolution.
  Mr. President, as I said, before, I stand ready to participate in 
such an effort, and I am sure that many of the people on our side of 
the aisle share that view.
  Because the actual work of reducing the deficit requires hard 
choices, it is so very easy to stray away from that chore.
  It becomes even more tempting to avoid that responsibility when 
something as highly charged and politically appealing as cutting taxes 
competes for our attention.
  For this reason, the chairman of the Budget Committee again should be 
commended for keeping the primary focus of his work and his committee's 
work on deficit reduction instead of reckless tax cuts.
  So, though I have a number of significant differences with the 
chairman's proposal, and especially a tax-cut cookie jar, I did want to 
take this opportunity to thank him for his work.
  At the end of the day let me conclude by saying that you cannot have 
it both ways. You cannot say we absolutely must make big cuts in 
Medicare and farm programs, student loan programs, you cannot say that 
you have to get this done by the year 2002, or we will have a terrible 
fiscal mess, and then turn right around and say we have 
[[Page S6869]] plenty of money for $170 billion or $300 billion of tax 
cuts. You cannot have it both ways. As we say back home, you cannot 
have your cake and eat it too. Mr. President, I would suggest you 
cannot have your deficit reduction and eat it, too.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thompson). The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I am going to yield to Senator Gorton as 
much time as he desires. I wonder before he speaks if he would yield me 
1 minute.
  Mr. President, I want to make it clear once and for all. The budget 
that we put before the Senate is a deficit reduction budget. It is a 
zero deficit in the year 2002, no games, no smoke, no mirrors. The 
first actions of the U.S. Senate when they implement this will be to 
get to a balanced budget. For anyone talking about tax cuts prior to 
balancing the budget, just get hold of the budget resolution and read 
it. If there is anywhere in there that you can find that, then 
obviously I will not only come here and apologize but clearly, clearly 
it will be a budget that I did not produce. So somebody put words in 
that I do not understand, that I did not know were there. That is point 
No. 1.
  Point No. 2: The way this budget is structured, you will get to 
balance. You will have all the laws changed that get you to balance. 
That is frequently called a reconciliation bill, a big bill that will 
change the entitlements permanently.
  You will then ask the Congressional Budget Office. Is it balanced? 
When they say yes, and only then is the 170, perhaps 170. It might be a 
different number, depending upon the Congressional Budget Office 
evaluation of our path. There will be an economic bonus.
  The American people are entitled to an economic bonus, and we say 
give it to them in tax cuts. But only then, and we also pass the 
resolution that the tax cuts, 90 percent of them, have to be for people 
earning $100,000 and less. All of the rest of the talk about tax cuts, 
I would hope everyone understands you are talking about something that 
is not before the Senate. And I am not suggesting you cannot talk about 
it or you should not. But I hope everybody knows that is not the case 
in this budget. Balancing the budget is the primary responsibility.
  For anyone who wants to balance the budget, and then turn around and 
say now that you have it balanced, start spending again, it is 
balanced, you have it in balance, there is an economic dividend, start 
spending it again--have at it.
  I just do not believe the American people believe that, for they will 
say that is just the same old thing. That is spending again. We say 
when you get to balance give the American people a break.
  I now yield to Senator Gorton, and he will manage the floor for a 
while.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Will the Senator yield for one unanimous-consent 
request?
  Mr. GORTON. Certainly.


                         Privilege of the Floor

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that staff 
people, two fellows, Danielle Rose and Lauren Ewers be granted 
privileges of the floor during the debate on the budget resolution.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mr. GORTON. Would the President notify me when I use 15 minutes?
  Mr. President, I must start by saying that perhaps some of the 
criticisms of the position of the Democratic Party that have been 
levied in the last few days, and even here this afternoon, may be a 
little bit overstated. It has been our position that the opposition to 
this budget resolution are totally defenders of the status quo, that 
they do not wish to make any changes whatsoever, that they do not care 
about a balanced budget. But several of them have already told us that 
is not true, that everything they propose will continue the balance and 
the resolution produced by my distinguished friend and colleague from 
New Mexico. Mr. President, if that is the case, the Domenici budget is 
already a landmark of progress for this country. And I fervently hope 
that those statements do turn out to be true, though I may be a skeptic 
until I see it proven.
  Under those circumstances, the accusation of the defenders of the 
status quo will be appropriately directed only at the White House and 
at the administration.
  My friend from Iowa earlier this afternoon pointed out that this 
yellow line describes the budget deficit for the next 5 years under 
figures provided by our Congressional Budget Office if we are to pass 
the President's proposed budget. This is what happens under the 
President's budget, and the proposal that was presented by Members on 
the other side when they offered us a huge tax increase 2 years ago to 
lower the budget deficit. Well, in all 5 of those years we will have 
that huge tax increase in place. But the budget deficit will go up each 
and every year.
  That, Mr. President, is the status quo. That was what the 
administration proposed to us. That is what was defended for at least a 
couple of months by Members on the other side of the aisle while we 
strove mightily to come up with something that would put this country 
on this line, a line ending in a balanced budget in 7 years, exactly as 
promised in the constitutional amendment defeated by only a single 
vote.
  So perhaps we have made a huge degree of progress. We have the other 
party repudiating this line and accepting this line.
  My colleague from New Mexico has invited any Member of the other 
party during the course of the day to propose the President's budget, 
so that we all may vote on it and determine whether or not there is 
anyone in this body who wants to do this. And I hope and I believe that 
if no one from the other side of the aisle makes such a proposition, we 
will put it out here for debate and for a vote ourselves because its 
repudiation will show that great progress has been made in agreeing at 
least on the desirability of balancing the budget.
  But, Mr. President, my skepticism remains because at the same time we 
are told that all of the amendments will do nothing but redistribute 
various functions but will continue this line, we are told, no, no, we 
do not have an alternative budget--not here. Now, that political party 
in the House of Represenatives has an alternative budget to what is 
proposed in the House. Do you know what it is, Mr. President? It is 
essentially the Domenici budget. It looks good over on the other side 
of the Capitol but not here. No, they say, what we will do is propose 
individual amendments, each of which will maintain this balance.
  Now, what, Mr. President, is the difference between going at it that 
way and making an overall budget proposal which continues us on this 
line? Well, it is very simple. You can use the same money over and over 
and over again. Each time an amendment is defeated that would cut the 
defense budget in order more generously to fund one of their favorite 
programs or would go into the reserve fund to fund one of their 
favorite programs, each time such an amendment is lost, you can do it 
over again. You can use the same money for a different spending 
program.
  Between the first two Senators who spoke on that side, there were 
eloquent demands for more money for education, for veterans, for health 
care, for the National Institutes of Health, less of a slowdown in the 
outrageous growth in the earned income tax credit, and more money for 
agriculture.
  Now, Mr. President, there is no possibility that they could produce a 
budget that did all of those things in half the amounts outlined by the 
Senator from California without a huge tax increase. But if they do it 
one amendment at a time and lose one amendment at a time, they can use 
the same money over and over again. And perhaps, Mr. President, my 
skepticism is fed a little bit by the fact that that is exactly what 
they did in the Budget Committee. I kept notes as a member of that 
committee, and 14 amendments from that side proposed increased 
spending; 6 of them proposed actual tax increases over the present 
level; 5 used the reserve fund, there for the possibility of tax cuts 
if we do our job right; 2 others 
[[Page S6870]] reduced those proposed tax cuts, and 3 reduced 
expenditures for defense below the President's proposals which 
themselves already call for reductions, real reductions in every year 
covered by his budget.
  That is what we will get here, Mr. President. The one uniting factor 
over there is a total anathema with respect to the remote possibility 
that someone's taxes somewhere in the United States might be reduced.
  Now, as the Senator from New Mexico said, we do not propose a tax cut 
directly in this budget. We propose to get to this zero figure on the 
deficit, and we are told that if we do so, not just in a budget 
resolution but by passing actual binding laws which change spending 
policy so that we can get to this point, the economy will react. 
Interest rates will be lower. We will find 170 billion more dollars 
because of a better economy over the course of the next 5 years.
  And incidentally, Mr. President, those reductions in interest rates 
will knock into a cocked hat all the statements about student loans 
made by the Senator from California. They are based on what interest 
rates are going to be if you adopt the President's budget. That is the 
set of circumstances under which interest rates like that will be 
charged someone, young people or others.
  So we say that if we go through this exercise, if we balance the 
budget, if we improve the economy, if we lower interest rates, perhaps 
the American people ought to get a dividend.
  Now, why is it difficult to come to a compromise in cases like this? 
Because of the way that it is characterized. The Senator from 
California and others, when they talk about tax cuts, say a tax cut is 
taking money out of the pockets of the poor and putting it in the hands 
of the rich. That stems from an attitude that all the money in the 
United States of America belongs to the Government, and if we are good 
little children, maybe it will give us back something that we earned 
ourselves.
  Our position is that the American people, when we have done our job, 
ought to be allowed to keep and determine the spending habits of a 
little bit more of the money they have earned and have less of it taken 
away from them and handed to someone else, and that is a very, very 
profound difference.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, will the Senator from Washington yield for 
a question?
  Mr. GORTON. I certainly will.
  Mr. GREGG. To the Senator from Washington, is it not my understanding 
that this budget resolution brought forward by the Republican Senate 
Members on the Budget Committee, for which no Democrats voted, has in 
it language which says that to the extent there is this tax cut as a 
result of the bonus that would occur to the American people by getting 
to a balanced budget, the dividend occurs as a result of interest rates 
coming down, this $170 billion tax cut--and as the Senator points out 
the actual bonus to the American people would be lower interest rates 
on everything, and it would represent billions and billions of dollars 
in savings to the American people. But if that happens, does this 
resolution state that 90 percent of this tax cut, to the extent it is 
instituted, should go to people with incomes under $100,000? And is 
that the new definition of wealthy from the other side of the aisle, 
people with incomes over $100,000?
  Mr. GORTON. The Senator from New Hampshire is 100 percent correct. It 
is interesting that in its initial form that proposal was made by one 
of the Senators on the other side who already this afternoon in the 
Chamber has talked about these huge tax cuts for the wealthy. Yet, it 
was that Senator who, with our help, earmarked any reduction that we do 
get for middle-class working Americans. We felt that was a good 
amendment, and we felt that those middle-class, hard-working Americans 
ought to be allowed to keep a little bit more of what they earn and 
determine how to spend it themselves.
  The Senator from New Hampshire's comments lead me to another point. 
When we speak about $170 billion in this period in savings in interest 
on the national debt, which we then can return to the people in the 
form of lower taxes, but which the other side wants to spend before we 
have even earned it--they are spending this dividend, and in every one 
of the amendments we get they will be spending this dividend before it 
is ever earned.
  But that is only the savings on the interest on the national debt, on 
the Government's debt. There are hundreds of billions of dollars more 
that will be in the pockets of individuals because they will have paid 
lower interest rates on their mortgages, on their installment credit, 
on the money they use to begin new small businesses and the like. That 
is the purpose of the budget which we seek.
  And I want to return to my first comments. I think we have already 
had a tremendous triumph. I suspect we are not going to get anyone on 
the other side coming in and giving us an amendment to pass this 
budget, and I suspect when they vote on it, they are going to end up 
voting against that budget. But we have already triumphed. We have 
already come to an agreement that we ought to be on this road here, the 
road to a balanced budget.
  The differences will be that, with all of these huge amounts of 
spending, trillions of dollars in this period of time, we hope that 1 
or 1.5 percent of it, if we do do our job, might be left in the pockets 
of middle-class working American citizens at the end of this entire 
debate. We think they can do a better job of spending it than can the 
Government of the United States.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I need to 
make my presentation. I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to do 
that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, with this resolution, we begin a new 
phase in the debate over the Federal budget.
  I am sorry that the distinguished Senator from New Mexico, the 
chairman of the Budget Committee, is not on the floor, because I want 
the Record to reflect not only my admiration but my respect for that 
leadership that he has provided in the Budget Committee and, in fact, 
though we may disagree with several parts of the budget resolution that 
was produced, it was the intention of the Budget Committee chairman to 
do as efficient a job as he could, and I commend him for it.
  The debate about whether we should move toward a balanced budget is 
over. There is a consensus that we should do just that. It crosses the 
aisle that divides us. We Democrats are committed to a deficit-reduced 
balanced budget in the interest of the financial stability of our 
country. And we have no less credentials to do that than our friends on 
the other side of the aisle. I hope that, during my comments, we will 
be able to make a clear distinction about how we get to that point.
  There are differences about whether we balance the operating budget 
or whether we include Social Security in the budget calculation, which, 
astoundingly, on the Republican side it has been part of a structure to 
include the balances from Social Security, the surplus--and I talk to 
senior citizens across this country--to use their trust funds, 
sacrosanct, committed, reserved for the time they need it. No, we are 
going to do some funny accounting to get to the point that we want to.
  I come from the corporate side of the business world, as do many of 
my colleagues. I know one thing: If I were to project sales and 
earnings for my company over the next 5 to 7 years and I said, ``We are 
going to make lots of money and here is how much we are going to make, 
we are doing this in revenues and here is how much we are going to 
do,'' and I failed to tell the public that I am going to include the 
employees' pension fund that my company does not own--it is the 
employees'--in the figures--and I said this in the Budget Committee--
you would be led out with a raincoat over your head and hands tied 
behind your back, escorted by U.S. marshals.
  So, first of all, we get to a balanced budget using some smoke, some 
mirrors, and some significant gimmicks. We try to remove the Social 
Security balance and say, let us fight for a balanced budget without 
that. Oh, no, [[Page S6871]] that could not happen. So there are some 
differences.
  Americans, however, want to reduce wasteful spending in both parties, 
Democrat and Republican, have got the message.
  So, as we work on this resolution, the budget issue has changed. Now 
the issue is not whether we reduce spending and move toward a balanced 
budget. The issue is: How do we do it? Whose benefits will be cut? Who 
will win? Who will lose? Because this is somewhat of a seesaw. As long 
as we stay within the parameters of balance, when one side goes down, 
the other side goes up. And, most fundamentally--and I put this board 
up--the question is: Whose side are we on? Whose side is the Government 
on?
  This is the issue that, unfortunately, continues to divide our two 
parties. We Democrats believe that Government must stand on the side of 
ordinary, middle-class families, on the side of senior citizens who 
worked to build this country, who presented us with perhaps the best 
half century or four decades that this country has ever seen, not by 
just their participation in World War II, Korea, the other wars that 
have come by, but at the same time building this country's fundamental 
structure.
  The other part is children. Two sides: One is to take care of the 
future, invest with and in our children, but at the same time not 
forgetting our obligations to the senior citizens; and on the side of 
those who really must struggle to survive.
  But the new majority has a very different philosophy, and a different 
constituency. The Contract With America, as it is commonly called, is a 
contract with the most powerful, wealthy members of our society. It 
would provide huge benefits to millionaires and special interests, and 
it would force the ordinary American to foot the bill.
  Perhaps nothing illustrates the differences between our two parties 
more than the Republican proposal for massive Medicare reductions to 
pay for tax cuts for the rich. I think it is outrageous. And I intend 
to fight it as hard as I can, just as I did during the Budget 
Committee's deliberations.
  Mr. President, the average Medicare beneficiary has a rather modest 
income and, conversely, at that stage in life, typically, they have 
very high medical expenses. Seventy-five percent of those folks have 
incomes under $25,000--75 percent, incomes under $25,000. Not much to 
live on, especially if you live in higher cost areas. Thirty-five 
percent have incomes under $10,000.
  These folks cannot afford massive cost increases. And they should not 
be forced to give up their own doctor or to sacrifice the quality of 
their care.
  Over the past 2 weeks, Republican leaders have tried desperately to 
justify huge Medicare cuts by pointing to projected shortfalls in the 
HI trust fund. But the argument is bogus. If we need to shore up the 
trust fund, that does not mean that we need to take a whack at Medicare 
recipients.
  There are other places in the budget to find savings. It is only a 
question of priorities.
  These are my priorities.
   Before we burden more of our struggling seniors, we ought to go 
after special interest tax breaks, we ought to eliminate funding for 
the space station, we ought to terminate unnecessary weapons systems, 
we ought to abolish special subsidies for the timber industry, the oil 
industry and the gas industry and the ranching interests, and we ought 
to eliminate an array of other wasteful or low-priority spending.

  Of course, Mr. President, there can be debate about the specifics, 
but there should be no disagreement about this priority, this 
principle. I enunciate, we should not be cutting Medicare just to fund 
tax cuts for the rich.
  In the Budget Committee, I offered an amendment to shift funds from 
tax cuts for the wealthy to restore funding for Medicare and Medicaid. 
My amendment was defeated when every Republican opposed it, without 
exception. We just heard from our distinguished colleague from 
Washington who said that there was not a Democrat that joined the 
Republican majority when the Budget Committee denied amendments and 
passed this budget resolution. But I ask, if the same speech that is 
made on the floor of this Senate would be made in a town meeting back 
home in whatever the town and whatever the State, and look in the faces 
of the senior citizens and say, ``Listen, we're going to make it easy 
for you by adding more expense to your already burdened budgets in 
hopes that if we give a tax cut to the rich, if we give a guy earning 
$350,000 a year a $20,000 tax reduction that he is going to invest it 
in some way that will stimulate our economy.'' We just have to hope he 
does not put it in some dormant tax-exempt bonds, or something like 
that, because that is not going to help.
  To justify their opposition to some of these things, the Republicans, 
once again, said, ``Oh, no, not us, that's not what we want to do.''
  So I pointed out that the Republican leadership in both the House and 
the Senate did support such cuts and did support the House bill that 
essentially was in the works. This was no secret. The House had passed 
the bill giving a $20,000 tax break to those earning $350,000 in a 
year.
  I went a step further. I said, ``OK, if you're really not going to 
cut Medicare to pay for tax cuts for the rich, let's put it in writing 
and make it enforceable.'' So I offered an amendment that would have 
made it out of order to consider any bill that cut Medicare or Medicaid 
to pay for tax cuts for the rich.
  Under the amendment, I suggested it would have taken a supermajority, 
60 votes, to take up that kind of a proposal. Simple enough to say that 
if you wanted to offer tax cuts and decided to cut Medicare or 
Medicaid, that it would take this supermajority 60 votes to do so. What 
do you think? Every Republican on the committee voted against that, 
too. Why? I do not know. Obviously, they think tax cuts for the rich 
are more important than other priorities, the thing we were discussing 
on the floor here.
  Mr. President, it should be obvious to everyone that the Republican 
Party really does plan to cut Medicare, to cut Medicaid to pay for tax 
cuts for the rich. But they go out of their way to obscure what is 
really going on. So we have developed a nomenclature for the reserve 
that CBO is likely to put up once this budget is believed to be 
balanced. It is called an economic dividend. It is called a fiscal 
dividend. They do not say that it is for tax cuts. Just a wink of the 
eye. Everybody knows it.
  We have heard some of our colleagues from the Republican side who 
have declared their intention to run for President demand that tax cuts 
be included. One suggested that a filibuster would be in order on the 
floor of the Senate to make sure that tax cuts are in place. Our 
distinguished majority leader did say in a speech that he made that tax 
cuts are in order in terms of a budget resolution. So we ought to call 
it like it is. Make no mistake, the fiscal dividend is really 
disguised, but down deep it is simply a tax cut for the rich.
  There should be little confusion about this. We know that CBO will 
score the indirect benefits to the Government of reconciliation. We 
know that these benefits can only be used under this resolution for a 
tax cut, and we know that the House already has passed a bill giving a 
$20,000 tax break for wealthy individuals in a year.
  This is what it looks like. The Republican budget. The winners: The 
rich--$20,000 tax break, corporate subsidies protected and tax 
loopholes saved. The fix is in. There is a tax cut for the rich in this 
resolution. It is a huge tax cut financed by drastic reductions in 
Medicare, or increases in Medicare costs and Medicaid subsidies. Do not 
let anybody fool us.
  Mr. President, I go back now to the larger question posed by this 
budget resolution. This debate, like few others, is about to force each 
of us to make a very fundamental decision, a decision about what we 
stand for, a decision about whose side we are on.
  I want to take a look for a minute at who wins and who loses under 
the Republican proposed budget. The winners: The rich--$20,000 tax 
break, corporate subsidies are protected, tax loopholes are saved. The 
winners are clear: Rich, corporate interests and their lobbyists.
  Meanwhile, let us see who loses under this resolution. First, there 
are the Medicare cuts. It will cost an average couple over the 7 years 
proposed to get us to a balanced budget $6,400, and in the last year of 
the 7-year cycle, we are looking at an $1,800 cost for that couple. 
These, by the way, are people who [[Page S6872]] already pay a 
substantial out-of-pocket sum for health care. It is estimated that it 
runs about 21 percent. So if the average beneficiary is getting $16,000 
a year, it costs them $3,000 more for medical care, for health care.
  On top of that, there are education cuts proposed. On top of that, 
there are tax increases scheduled for hard-working American families. 
That is a substantial one, too. By eliminating the earned income tax 
credit, the Republicans not only will increase taxes on working 
Americans, but they will reduce needed incentives for people to move 
from welfare to work. It does not make sense. It really makes one 
wonder, Mr. President, how can the Republicans cut taxes for the rich, 
on one hand, and with the other hand turn around and increase taxes for 
working Americans, people making $28,000 or less?
  That may be the Republicans' perspective of fairness, but it is not 
mine. It is just plain wrong.
  But one thing is becoming quite clear, and that is the sharp 
difference between the two parties' perspectives. The Republican Party 
is willing to lay down for high-income special interests, while we 
stand up for the working people in this country.
  So, yes, Mr. President, we are going to do a lot of fighting about 
this budget resolution.
 In most of these fights, we Democrats are going to be joined together 
in the fight, because while we disagree with each other about a lot of 
things, there is one thing that unites us; that is, our commitment to 
serving ordinary people, middle-class families who work hard, who 
struggle to keep their homes together, who struggle to keep opportunity 
available for their children, who struggle to take care of the elderly 
and the disabled--the people without lobbyists, the people without the 
big bank accounts and without the connections.

  Most of us came to the Democratic Party because we believe that 
Government should stand with these people. I point out, Mr. President, 
immodestly perhaps, that I came out of the business sector and helped 
create an industry as well as a company. I am one of the people who was 
fortunate to be perhaps in some of the higher income brackets. But I 
believe that my security as a citizen, that my family's security, my 
daughters', my son's, my grandchildren's, that my security depends on 
the stability of our country, not on how much more money I give or 
leave my children. It depends on whether or not we have a society that 
believes we are all together and does not feel like the largest part is 
left out of the loop. So I would rather invest in our people, invest in 
the children who are going to lead this country tomorrow, provide the 
skilled work force that we need to have in order to complete; that is 
why I came to the U.S. Senate.
  Perhaps our party has lost its way in recent years, and we can admit 
that up front. We were reminded about that very sharply last November. 
But now the chips are down. We know where the public stands. We know 
what people are concerned about. We know they are worried. The battle 
is now beginning in earnest. And there is no question--I said it 
earlier--about whose side we are on. That is what this debate is really 
about. I wish it were not so. But when you get right down to it, this 
budget is designed to decide who is going to be on the side of the 
working people and who is going to take care of those who already have 
a lot. It is a direct assault on ordinary Americans and a sop to the 
most wealthy and powerful interests in our Nation.
  That is not what I stand for, it is not what the Democratic Party 
stands for, and it is not what America needs now.
  In conclusion, we Democrats may not have the votes to win in this 
battle. We probably do not. But we are going to try and we are going to 
insist that the votes that take place here will reflect how each one of 
our friends on the other side, as well as on our side, feels about 
whose side they are on, and whether it is the veterans, or the 
disabled, or the women concerned about breast cancer, about research 
for Alzheimer's, or AIDS, we are going to be deciding now whether or 
not those funds that are freed up as a result of the schedule to 
balance the budget go to tax cuts for the rich, or whether we continue 
to serve the interests of the ordinary people. At least since the 
debate will be conducted here, the American people will have a chance 
to see us discuss it, to look at the Record after the votes are cast, 
to be able to say to their Senators and their Congress people when they 
go back home, ``What did you vote for?'' ``Why did you do it?'' and 
``Whose side were you on?"
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I think we have been moving along quite well 
in total cooperation. I believe Senator Abraham would be next under the 
usual ruling. I have several Senators on this side who have been 
waiting and are not asking for any other consideration other than some 
time.
  I ask unanimous consent that we would now go to Senator Abraham, and 
following him, we would go to Senator Rockefeller, who wants 12 
minutes, followed by Senator Kennedy, who wants 15 minutes. Is that 
agreeable so that we could have everybody know the flow?
  Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, we would agree to that if we can then 
have Senator Hatfield, who would like 15 minutes, and Senator Gramm who 
would like 10 minutes.
  Mr. EXON. That would be satisfactory.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may need.
  Earlier this year, the Senate failed by one vote to support a 
constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. At the time, 
opponents told the Senate that balancing the budget did not require 
amending the Constitution. All we needed, we were told, was to make the 
tough choices and cast the hard votes.
  Mr. President, the hard choices are here. The budget resolution 
before us makes those choices and balances the budget by the year 
2002--without raising taxes and without gutting national security. It 
accomplishes this task by slowing the growth of Federal spending from 5 
percent per year to a more reasonable 3 percent per year. In dollars, 
that means Federal spending, under this budget, will increase from $1.6 
trillion next year to $1.9 trillion in the year 2002.
  Let me repeat that. Federal spending will increase from $1.6 trillion 
to $1.9 trillion over 7 years.
  Only in Washington would a $300 billion increase in spending be 
called a cut. Clearly, while the budget presents us with tough choices, 
allowing spending to increase 19 percent is not an impossible or even 
unreasonable goal. Nevertheless, some do not agree with this objective. 
As Labor Secretary Robert Reich said on Meet the Press earlier this 
year, balancing the budget is not a priority of the Clinton 
administration. The subsequent budget proposal only serves to reinforce 
that admission. According to CBO, deficits will rise under Clinton's 
budget from $177 billion to $276 billion in the year 2000. Under the 
Clinton budget the national debt will grow by $1.2 trillion over the 
next 5 years.
  Mr. President, what does this neglect mean to future generations? 
Consider the consequences of adopting President Clinton's budget for 
fiscal year 1996. Under that budget, by the year 1999, the total debt 
will hit $6.4 trillion, or $27,700 of debt for every man, woman, and 
child in America.
  In the year 2000, interest payments on the debt will be $305 
billion--more than we spend on defense, more than we spend on all other 
discretionary programs combined, and more than we will spend on 
Medicare.
  In the year 2010, entitlements plus interest will consume all Federal 
tax revenues, which means we must either slash spending, print more 
money, borrow more money, or enact draconian tax increases. In my 
judgment, they are all bad options.
  In the year 2030, spending for entitlements will consume the entire 
Federal budget. That means nothing will be left for defense or any 
other discretionary program, including those targeted at children and 
the poor, and it means we would not even be able to finance the 
interest payments on the debt.
  On the other hand, balancing the budget is not just an exercise in 
good government. Eliminating the deficit will pay big dividends to 
Americans in the form of lower taxes, lower interest rates, higher 
economic growth, and the bottom line, a higher standard of living. Here 
are some of the projections: [[Page S6873]] 
  Most economists agree that balancing the budget will result in 
significantly lower interest rates, thereby saving the average 
homeowner up to $500 per month on their mortgage payments.
  According to the CBO, these lower interest rates will result in a so-
called fiscal dividend to the Treasury of around $170 billion between 
now and 2002. I believe that this dividend should be returned to the 
American people in the form of tax cuts. I will support efforts on the 
floor to do so.
  Finally, according to the GAO, if we balance the budget by 2002, the 
average American will enjoy a real growth in their incomes of 36 
percent by the year 2020.
  Given the costs of doing nothing and the benefits of taking action, I 
believe it is obvious that balancing the budget is in everyone's 
interest. That leaves the question of how we get there. The budget 
before us shows the way.
  At the beginning of the budget process, I set out five priorities 
that I hoped would be embraced by the Senate budget resolution:
  First, privatize; second, eliminate waste and duplication; third, 
return the operation of various Government functions to the States with 
block grants; fourth, eliminate outdated programs; finally, fifth, 
reduce Government bureaucratic overhead. I am pleased to say this 
resolution includes all five.
  First, it assumes we will privatize those areas of Government that 
are better left to the private sector, including the naval petroleum 
reserve, the Uranium Enrichment Corporation, and the Alaska Power 
Marketing Administration.
  The naval petroleum reserve is a good example of why we need to 
privatize. The reserve was created to ensure that we had sufficient 
supplies of oil in the event of a crisis. As President Clinton recently 
acknowledged, however, that is no longer the case. As the President 
stated, the reserve's function of producing and selling this oil is a 
commercial, not a governmental, activity.
  Mr. President, there are many other naval petroleum reserves out 
there. This budget identifies them and moves them out of the Federal 
Government.
  Second, the budget consolidates Federal departments and agencies that 
are duplicative and wasteful. The GAO reports that the Department of 
Commerce alone shares its mission with at least 71 other Federal 
departments, agencies, and offices. In other functions, the Federal 
Government operates 163 separate job training programs and has at least 
10 agencies devoted to promoting international trade.
  Obviously, there are savings to be made by ending this wasteful 
duplication and focusing these efforts. This budget takes advantage of 
those savings.
  Third, we need to return government to the States. We need to revive 
the 10th amendment which says ``the powers not delegated to the United 
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States are 
reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.''
  In my own State of Michigan, Governor Engler is out in front on 
important issues like welfare, Medicaid, and education reform. I know 
Governors from other States are equally as innovative.
  This budget takes advantage of the tremendous talents outside the 
beltway by utilizing block grants, to replace the hundreds of Federal 
welfare, housing, and education programs.
  These block grants will provide Governors with the resources and the 
freedom they need to carry out these reforms. Returning these programs 
to the States is both an exercise in good government and a means of 
reducing costs and increasing efficiency.
  Fourth, this budget eliminates outdated programs. Programs like the 
Interstate Commerce Commission, the honey program, even the Department 
of Commerce are targeted. All told, 59 programs, 25 statutory boards 
and commissions, and 63 agencies are soon to be terminated under this 
budget.
  Let me just cite some more of the program terminations assumed in 
this budget: The Small Business Administration tree planting program; 
the Swine Health Advisory Committee; the Board of Tea Experts; the 
Technical Panel on Magnetic Fusion; the Dance Advisory Panel; the honey 
program; the Fastener Advisory Committee.
  Mr. President, some of these programs might be useful, but we simply 
cannot afford them, given our exploding national debt.
  Finally, we have reduced overhead. The President stated that over 
100,000 Federal jobs have been eliminated toward the goal of trimming 
the Federal bureaucracy by 250,000 positions. A vast majority of the 
personnel reductions come out of the Department of Defense. Other areas 
of the Federal bureaucracy have barely been touched. This budget 
addresses this imbalance by reducing Federal overhead accounts by 15 
percent, eliminating hundreds of political patronage jobs, and 
expanding the ability of Federal departments to work with less 
expensive private contractors.
  Having focused on what this budget does, it is just as important to 
focus on what it does not. First, this budget does not abandon 
Medicare. In their 1995 annual report, the Medicare trustees announced 
that the Medicare trust fund will be insolvent 7 years from now. The 
trustees conclude that the ``HI program is severely out of financial 
balance and that the trustees believe that the Congress must take 
timely action to establish long-term financial stability for the 
program.''
  This budget embraces the call of the trustees to action by addressing 
both the short- and the long-term insolvency of the Medicare program. 
First, it allows Medicare to continue to grow at a 7-percent rate per 
year. This reform enables Medicare to pass the trustees' short-term 
solvency test while still growing at twice the rate of inflation.
  Second, the resolution includes a call for a special commission to 
address the long-term stability questions facing Medicare and to advise 
Congress on how to keep Medicare's promise for future generations.
  Another group this amendment does not abandon is the American 
taxpayers. As I previously mentioned, balancing the budget by 2002 
will, according to the CBO, provide $170 billion ``fiscal dividend" 
from lower interest costs.
  Senator Domenici has stated that this dividend will be used to pay 
for tax cuts. I believe that we should enact tax relief for the middle-
class working families of this country and tax incentives for savings 
and investment. We can and should balance the budget and provide 
American families with real tax relief.
  Mr. President, if we look at Federal outlays of the span of this 
budget, the Federal Government will spend in excess of $12 billion 
between now and 2002. A significant portion of that amount constitutes 
a redistribution of dollars from those who work and pay the taxes, to 
those who are elderly, sick, homeless, and have low incomes. Federal 
programs targeted at the poor and the needy are the result of a truly 
compassionate society, and we should continue to support them.
  I resent the implication that is often made here on the floor, and 
made occasionally during our committee hearings, that somehow we are 
not a compassionate Nation. This budget will spend $12 trillion largely 
for the purpose of helping people who are less fortunate in our 
society. That is 2\1/2\ times the average GDP of America. I think that 
is an important investment, and hardly one to be described as lacking 
in compassion.
  Now, based on that, it is my opinion that if, after we go through 
this process of bringing the budget into balance, and if, after we go 
through the process of spending $12 trillion over 7 years on so many 
important programs, that any fiscal surplus created by this budget 
should go to those who have made the surplus and our compassionate 
programs possible--the hard-working taxpayers.
  Moreover, the surplus or dividend only constitutes 1\1/2\ percent of 
the $12 trillion we will spend over the next 7 years. To me, it only 
seems fair to allow those who pay the taxes to keep this tiny surplus 
or dividend so that they can invest it in their families and in our 
Nation's economic future.
  Finally, this budget also avoids the ever-present temptation to gut 
defense. Real defense spending has declined by [[Page S6874]] 37 
percent since 1985, and while I believe there are many money-saving 
reforms possible within the DOD, I believe the savings should stay 
within defense to provide for our substantial security. No other 
responsibility of Government is as important.
  This budget recognizes the importance of our national security by 
maintaining the current level of spending and establishing protections 
against using defense cuts for other spending proposals.
  In conclusion, Mr. President, I should point out that without the 
assistance of the minority, Republicans have stepped forward and 
proposed the changes necessary to cap out-of-control Federal spending. 
In successfully reporting this budget resolution, the Senate Budget 
Committee has taken a historic step toward reducing the deficit and 
balancing the budget.
  Before the Senate today is a resolution that makes the tough choices, 
slows Federal spending and brings the Federal budget into balance by 
the year 2002.
  Many people doubted it could be done, and it is a credit to Senator 
Domenici that he set this goal and stuck with it. If we are successful 
in moving this budget through the entire budget process, I believe 
there is no better present we can give the future generations than a 
debt-free Government.
  The benefits of balancing the budget far outweigh temporary effects 
caused by reducing the growth of Federal spending. This is truly a 
long-term approach to fiscal sanity, and I thank Chairman Domenici for 
giving me the opportunity to make my first budget a balanced one.
  Mr. President, we will hear much talk during this debate and the 
hours remaining over the winners and the losers and so on when we 
debate this budget resolution. But it is my strong belief, and as I 
have traveled through my State during both the campaign last year and 
in the days since the content of our revolution has become a matter of 
public debate, I find that people from one end of my State to the other 
believe strongly that what we have to do here in the Senate is finally 
step up to the plate and accept responsibility and handle this budget 
deficit now.
  They understand that if we continue to wait, if we continue to say 
that every program must continue to grow at the speed and the pace that 
has America $4.5 trillion into debt, we are not just saddling our 
children with even more debt and indebtedness, we are setting the 
country on a course that absolutely will lead to a crisis we cannot 
reverse in just a few years--15 years to be specific, according to the 
Entitlements Commission.
  For that, only, I look forward to working, certainly, with Senator 
Domenici and with anyone else who is committed to the notion that we 
should bring the spending giant in Washington under control. I believe 
it is the most important thing I can do for my small children, for the 
children of Michigan and the children of this country.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gorton). Under the previous order, the 
Senator from West Virginia is recognized for 10 minutes. Is that the 
amount for which the Senator from West Virginia asked?
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, under the order I believe it was 12 
minutes. I was trying hoping to slip it up to 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized for 12 minutes, and 
if he is in control of the floor he can yield himself additional time.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I cannot help but note for the 
Presiding Officer in the chair, in the last week even, the 
bipartisanship which has reigned on this floor. The Presiding Officer, 
the distinguished Senator from Washington, and this Senator and other 
Senators from both sides of the aisle worked together to craft a 
product liability tort reform bill which was slim, disciplined, and 
effective. People said it could not be done. It was done.
  Last night the Senator from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, this 
Senator, Senator Chafee from Rhode Island, Senator Dole, and Senator 
Packwood--there was quite a flap about a very important but not 
necessarily attention-grabbing subject called Medicare Select; whether 
it was to be expanded from the present 14 States to 50, for how long, 
and who would decide and all of this. And this Senator objected to its 
being taken further, so there was a climate of momentary controversy. 
But then both sides came together and worked out a bipartisan 
compromise which was passed. And that was very heartening. It was 
important; heartening.
  Now we are at a very different stage and it is saddening to me, but 
it is terribly real because I do think it has come to where we define 
what these two different parties that sit in this Chamber stand for.
  Mr. President, I will be offering tomorrow, an amendment on Medicare 
and long-term care to the Republican-sponsored Senate budget 
resolution. The amendment will take $100 billion in funds reserved for 
tax cuts for the wealthy and put that money back into vital health care 
programs.
  The Senate Republicans have proposed the single largest Medicare cut 
in the history of the program, $256 billion over 7 years. The House 
Republicans have proposed an even larger cut, $288 billion over 7 
years. House Republicans need to cut Medicare more because they have an 
even larger tax break for the wealthy that they have to pay for. The 
House tax cut totals $345 billion. Money reserved for the Senate tax 
break totals $170 billion.
  These Medicare cuts would not be necessary--would not be necessary--
if Republicans did not need to pay for their tax cuts. The Contract 
With America tax cut would provide a $20,000 tax break to the 
wealthiest 1 percent of the population.
   The amendment I will offer tomorrow, along with my colleague from 
New Jersey, who will join me in that, and the Senator from 
Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, will take $100 billion out of the $170 
billion the Republicans have reserved for tax cuts for upper-income 
Americans and shift it to Medicare and Medicaid--very simple. It is a 
simple amendment. What is it about? It is about setting priorities. It 
says we are not going to balance the budget by whacking health benefits 
that seniors depend upon. It says we are not going to increase what 
seniors have to pay out of their own pockets ad nauseam for health care 
so we can put more money into the pockets of the rich. It is simple--
clear. The difference between the two parties.
  The Republicans have argued--will argue that the $170 billion they 
have reserved for tax cuts is their special dividend, their own pot of 
gold. I find that a particularly offensive statement. It is not their 
money to spend. It is the money of the taxpayers. They want to spend 
taxpayer money on more breaks for the rich.
  Democrats, through this amendment and other Democratic amendments 
that will be offered later on in the process, say let us keep our 
priorities straight. We have already committed those dollars to the 
Medicare Program.
  Instead of worrying about the effects of such tremendous Medicare 
cuts on seniors, I was significantly struck by what Bill Kristol, who 
speaks for the Republican Party, had to say earlier this week. And what 
he basically said was that since--not what he ``basically said,'' what 
he said--that since the elderly tend to vote for Democrats, it just was 
not a constituency that the Republicans needed to worry about.
  Again, straightforward and simple. And, again, the difference between 
the two parties. Frankly, I find that statement cynical and dangerous 
but not surprising from the same person who advised the Republicans 
last year to oppose, sight unseen, any health care proposal that came 
from this side of the aisle.
  We have heard a lot of talk over the past few months from the 
Republicans about the solvency of the Medicare trust fund. Republicans 
are desperately, in this Senator's judgment, trying to disguise their 
huge Medicare cuts as a way to save the Medicare Program from 
bankruptcy. We have heard a lot about that. They plan to cut $256 
billion, by hiking Medicare premiums and beneficiary cost sharing and 
cutting reimbursement rates to hospitals and doctors.
  It is a very interesting phenomenon. I just got off two radio talk 
shows this morning where people were phoning in questions to me. I had 
five hospital administrators from two States call me. I only represent 
one State. They were all [[Page S6875]] scared to death about what was 
being proposed here because they said the only way to do that would be 
to shut down services. In some cases they talked about increasing 
prices, which of course would exclude some, laying off people and the 
rest. All of them talked about closing the emergency room.
  The Republicans say they are going to improve trust fund solvency. 
Yet there is nothing in this Senate budget resolution that would 
guarantee even one more additional year of solvency.
  Over the past 2 weeks we have heard health experts, health 
economists, physicians, and hospital representatives testify before the 
Finance Committee about the consequences of putting the Medicare 
Program in a budget straitjacket.
  Dr. June O'Neill, the new Republican-appointed head of the 
Congressional Budget Office--why do I say that? Traditionally it has 
been a bipartisan appointment. This year it was not a bipartisan 
appointment, it was a Republican appointment. I resent that. I think it 
is dangerous for the country, not because she is a Republican but 
because it is not bipartisan. Anyway, Dr. June O'Neill, the new 
Republican-appointed head of the Congressional Budget Office said that 
quality will suffer. That is what Bob Reischauer also said before her: 
Quality will suffer.
  She said seniors will have to pay more to maintain the current 
quality of their health care.
  Dr. Reischauer disputed Republican promises headlined in the New York 
Times a few weeks ago that, cuts in Medicare ``will be huge but 
painless.'' He testified that cutting Medicare in the short run is not 
painless and improvements in quality will be slowed down.
  The president of the American Hospital Association testified that 
``Americans believe deeply that Medicare is Social Security. That 
sentiment cuts across all age, income, geographic and gender 
boundaries.'' He is right. Medicare is part of the Social Security law.
       Those proposed spending reductions may in fact be 
     reductions in the rate of growth and not cuts in the 
     spending, but let us be very clear. To people who rely on 
     Medicare for their care and for people who provide their 
     care, the spending proposals being considered are very likely 
     to translate into cuts, cuts in services, cuts in personnel, 
     cuts in quality. To the people to whom we provide care, these 
     slowdowns in the rate of spending translates into real cuts.

  Over the past year, during debate on the balanced budget amendment, 
and now on the Senate budget resolution, I have tried to get my 
colleagues to focus on the consequences of budget cuts. I really do 
believe in that. I think budget cuts simply are not done for numerical 
reasons. They are done for the condition of the country as a whole, and 
within that condition of the country of the whole are many factors to 
consider, and some of those are the effects on people. I come from the 
State of West Virginia, and I cannot do anything--nor will I ever do 
anything--without considering the effects on the people that I 
represent.
  To think about the people that will be directly and immediately 
affected by these budget actions, we need to move beyond the strictly 
mathematical. But for those people who like math, I have a simple 
addition problem for them.
  Millie Wolfe lives in Preston County, WV. She is 83 years old, and 
she lives alone. She still drives a car. She lives on her monthly 
Social Security check of $593 a month. She spends $175 a month on rent, 
$93 on her medigap policy, $8.30 cents on her heart medicine. That 
leaves her with a little over $300 a month to pay her phone bill, her 
heating bill, her electric bill, gas and maintenance for her car, to 
buy groceries, and any and all other living expenses.
  She is worried she may no longer be able to drive herself to the 
grocery store and to the doctor's office and might soon need help with 
transportation. And at 83 she has a right to begin to worry about that. 
But she is very, very worried and very upset about having to pay $700 
to $900 more per year in Medicare costs as she would under the proposal 
that lies before us. She is already, Mr. President, paying $1,200 a 
year out of pocket for her medigap coverage and her heart medicine, not 
counting the $46 that is automatically deducted each month from her 
Social Security check for her Medicare part B premium.
  People who live on fixed incomes like Millie Wolfe will have to 
subtract what they can spend on other essential living expenses in 
order to pay for the increased costs of health care that will be 
required under this budget resolution.
  Millie Wolfe lives alone, but she is not alone in West Virginia. She 
is not alone in this country. There are 9 million seniors who live 
alone in this country. A lot of seniors in West Virginia live on fixed 
incomes. Rarely does one run into a senior in West Virginia, as the 
Senator from Massachusetts would know, with an income that might be 
more than $10,000, $12,000, $13,000 or $14,000 a year.
  Asking those folks to pay more than they already are paying for 
health care in order to save the Medicare trust fund is, frankly, 
offensive to me. Why? Because it directly hurts them. When you say 
everybody should pay more, I take you back to Millie.
  Mr. President, over half of the seniors in West Virginia live in 
rural areas. That makes them even more vulnerable to the severe 
consequences of the Republican budget that is before us. Rural seniors 
will not only have to pay more under the budget resolution, but they 
may wind up losing their access to health care altogether. Medicare 
cuts of this magnitude will severely threaten the solvency of many 
rural hospitals, as I have indicated, forcing many of them to close 
their emergency rooms, if they have them, cut back on other services, 
and, yes, as has happened before in West Virginia, some will shut their 
doors.
  We will hear protests by the Republicans that if we do not act right 
away, there will not be a Medicare Program. Mr. President, I can 
guarantee you that if they implement their budget plan, there really 
will not be a Medicare program. Benefits will disappear, quality will 
deteriorate, and access will be hard to obtain, or will become 
nonexistent for people in my State, who I will fight for.
  One word about Medicaid and I am finished. They are going to cut $160 
billion to $190 billion out of Medicaid. You see, people do not care as 
much about Medicaid because they say that is for the poor, and, 
therefore, it does not get the attention. Well, it gets the attention 
from this Senator. The likely impact of the budget resolution cuts on 
Medicaid, will mean that 5 to 7 million kids will lose health coverage, 
800,000 to 1 million elderly and disabled beneficiaries will lose 
coverage, and tens of millions will lose benefits. For example, all 
preventive and diagnostic screening services for children, home health 
care, and hospice services would be eliminated as well as dental care 
if the $190 billion were cut.
  There is a difference between the two parties. There was not last 
night. There was not within the past week as we worked out our 
differences. On this one, our differences are going to be very hard to 
work out because there are fundamental priorities and principles at 
stake here.
  I do not intend to be shy in defense of the people I represent from 
the State of West Virginia. They work hard. They have had few breaks, 
and they need help where help is justified.
  I, along, I suspect, with many colleagues from this side of the 
aisle, and I expect none from the other side of the aisle, are going to 
do everything we can to help them. I regard this as a moral issue.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Massachusetts is recognized for 15 minutes.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask before the Senator starts his 
comments if I could make one observation. It will take me 1 minute.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I withhold, Mr. President.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator.
  I note that about 4 years ago, for insurance policies for Americans 
working for various companies the premiums were going up 14 percent a 
year. Then they went to 11. And, lo and behold, today they are down to 
something like 3.5 percent. I would just ask, for all the people whose 
premiums have gone down because there is competition and modernized 
delivery system, I wonder [[Page S6876]] if they are all out in the 
streets without health care. I wonder if the hospitals which treat them 
are closing up because there is no money to treat them. I think quite 
to the contrary. They are getting the same kind of services they got 
before. It is just costing people less for the same kind of services.
  I do not know that is impossible for seniors in America. I hope it is 
possible. For otherwise we cannot afford the insurance, and we cannot 
afford to cover them in the future. I just lay that on the record.
  We will have a lot more to say about Medicare. We choose now to let 
everybody speak, and we are delighted there are so many on our side. 
There are more. We have three listed. If there are more Senators, start 
giving us your names.
  I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for yielding.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, my response to my friend from New Mexico 
is the premiums are going down, but what he is not saying is what is 
happening in terms of the copayments and the deductibles, because the 
copayments and the deductibles are going up, and the Senator has not 
commented about the coverage, about whether there has been a reduction 
in coverage.
  These are the kinds of issues that we ought to be talking about, not 
just these massive figures, about how many billions of dollars more we 
are going to spend on people. That is the question, that premiums can 
go down if your copayments and deductibles go up, if you are reducing 
the kinds of coverage and the range of services.
  So if we are going into full debate about what is going to happen in 
terms of real health care costs, we would welcome that debate and how 
we are going to get a handle on it. I would agree with my good friends 
from West Virginia and Minnesota, and others that the only way we are 
ever going to get a handle on health care costs is within the totality 
of the health care system rather than just a quarter of the health care 
system.
  I wish to commend the Senator from West Virginia and also the Senator 
from New Jersey on an excellent presentation on the importance of 
trying to preserve the Medicare system in our country. It is a part of 
Social Security, make no mistake about it.
  We will have more chances to talk about it. The direct payments under 
part B of Medicare are right under the Social Security system. When you 
see a reduction in terms of the Consumer Price Index, reduced as in the 
formula of the budget, you are going to see further reductions in terms 
of the recipients of Social Security. We will come to that at another 
time.
  I commend the Senator from West Virginia, talking about Medicaid 
affecting children. Eighteen million children in this country are 
covered under Medicaid. Medicaid is primarily for seniors, long-term 
care, and people with disabilities, but there are also 18 million 
children covered under Medicaid. And as the Senator points out, 5 to 7 
million of those will lose under the proposal of the budget resolution. 
The fact is, of the 18 million, half are children of working families. 
We have heard all about trying to have a system that is going to be 
fair and equitable. But here you are, saying to the sons and daughters, 
the children, we are going to be cutting back on that program--there is 
no protection for them in this program.
  The Senator was quite correct in stating the terms of what is 
happening. Never mind the millions of other children, the 14 or 15 
million other children who do not have health insurance. And the 
increase, as a Carnegie report has shown, in the last 15 months of an 
additional million poor children not covered by health insurance. Those 
numbers are going up. They are increasing dramatically.
  I wish to ask my friend, just taking a few minutes here this 
afternoon, because there are many others waiting, as we are talking 
about the whole issue of Medicare, to review with me exactly where we 
are as an institution and where are our senior citizens. I have a chart 
here. We hear the question of fairness. I am talking now about the 
health care for Members of Congress versus the health care for senior 
citizens.
  The Senator from West Virginia has pointed out that over the next 7 
years, Medicare couples will pay out $6,400 more, and then that will go 
up at $900 a year.
  Let us look at where we are as a base as Members of Congress, as the 
Senator pointed out. The average senior citizen is making $17,700. The 
average Member of Congress, $133,000. The monthly Medicare part B 
premium per individual: here it is $46.10; Member of Congress: $44.05. 
So senior citizens are paying more under Medicare on the part B. The 
deductibles: Members of Congress, $350. That includes the doctors and 
hospitalization, $350. Theirs is $816--more than double. These are the 
people who are making $17,000 a year. Their deductible is more than 
double ours. Hospital care: Member of Congress, unlimited. Theirs, the 
senior citizens, is limited. Prescription drugs: We are covered, small 
deductible, about $50. They are not covered. The program does not even 
apply to prescription drugs. Any Member of Congress who goes into any 
senior citizen home and asks: How many of you are paying $50 a month or 
more for prescription drugs? Sixty percent of the hands will go in the 
air. You ask them how many of you are paying $25 a month for 
prescription drugs. They all laugh. They are amazed. They wonder why 
you do not know that 85 or 90 percent of them are paying more than $25 
for prescription drugs.
  We are covered, Members of Congress are covered. But they are not 
covered.
  On the dental care, effectively, we are covered; they are not 
covered.
  On the preventive services, screenings for cervical and prostate 
cancer, some benefits are covered.
  And look, out-of-pocket limits: $3,700 for Members of Congress, none 
for senior citizens.
  Does the Senator from West Virginia and the Senator from Minnesota 
remember all those wonderful speeches we heard at the start of this 
Congress: We are going to have equity, fairness; the laws that apply to 
the country are going to apply to Members of Congress. We all lined up 
and we all said yes. That was something that was initiated by the 
Democrats in the previous Congress, blocked by the Republicans in the 
other Congress. We all supported it. We heard speeches about that.
  What we did not hear from our Republican colleagues, all our newer 
Members that came to the Senate, ``We are getting a good benefit 
package for health care and we want to make that available to the 
American people.'' We have not heard that.
  We ought to be debating that issue, but, no, we are talking about 
making what our senior citizens pay more equitable, make them more 
equitable with the Members of Congress. We are undermining and making 
their benefits cost more, $6,400 for a couple--more. And $900 a year 
annually after that--more.
  What is the answer that we will hear for that? Well, Senators, we 
will hear it in the course of debate, I expect. Do you know what we are 
doing? We are capping the Members of Congress now, to go up at the 
Consumer Price Index rate. I remember when we were talking about a cap 
last year. That was price fixing. That was the heavy hand of Government 
fixing prices and costs.
  The Senators from West Virginia, Minnesota, and Washington remember: 
We will never tolerate that; we will not go along with that.
  Nonetheless, that is going to be the answer. And they are fixing it 
to benefit us, to protect us. We are basically putting billions and 
billions of dollars, in additional out-of-pocket expenses on our 
elderly. For what? For the tax cut. For the tax cut.
  It was going to be difficult enough to try to bring about some 
changes in the Medicare system, to try to encourage preventive health 
care, to try to provide prescription services for our senior citizens, 
to try to provide home care, to try to provide community care for our 
seniors, and to try to strengthen the quality of health care. We 
proposed some changes and adjustments in the Medicare system last year. 
And after the seniors had a chance to review it, they basically 
supported it with its expanded choices.
  Not under this program. Not under this program. And the Members of 
Congress ought to be ashamed of themselves, to come out here and say we 
are [[Page S6877]] saving the Medicare program by all of these cuts and 
at the same time providing and utilizing those savings, or $170 billion 
of those, in order to provide tax cuts for other individuals. At the 
same time they are not even addressing the kind of inequity and 
unfairness that exists. All of these statements are being made here by 
Members of Congress who have their benefit package all set; we have 
ours. And we are back in a regrettable situation where we are going to 
administer to people who are not in this body, the senior citizens of 
this country. That is basically wrong and unfair and unjust.
  Mr. President, I would like to be notified when I have 3 minutes left 
of my 15, if I could, please.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. One of the things, I would say to my good friend 
from the State of Massachusetts, we heard this constantly during the 
health care debate was, ``You can lose your right to pick out your own 
doctor.'' But now what is it that the budget resolution and the whole 
course of events is doing for senior citizens in Medicare? We are 
talking about managed care, more and more managed care for Medicare.
  And so all of the sudden my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
are saying, this terrible fee-for-service system which we have for 
Medicare, and it is only for Medicare, only they have a fee-for-service 
system, so we have to move to managed care. And what happens then, of 
course, is they do not have the chance to choose their own doctor. But 
if they want to choose their own doctor, then let them pay more.
  Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator is exactly correct. They will say we are 
enhancing choices but effectively, given the financial burden, there 
will be none and seniors will be forced into managed care. The cost for 
the fee for service will be so expensive it will be out of reach. It 
will not even be there as a possible choice.
  And yet, I am sure, in the course of the debate, we are going to 
hear, ``Oh, well, we are providing these range of services.'' It is 
going to be very important for the American people to listen and listen 
carefully about this.
  So, Mr. President, it is important, as we are going to hear all of 
these speeches about how we are really doing our senior citizens a 
favor, people ought to be asking--I hope our senior citizens are going 
to ask--``Well, just do for us what you have done for yourself. Don't 
do us any other favors.'' That is a pretty good question.
  It always troubles me, when we try to do that, that our colleagues 
vote it down and then take advantage of their existing coverage. And 
this coverage, which is for Members of Congress, and available to 10 
million of our Federal employees, but is not available to the senior 
citizens, our Medicare recipients. And they are the ones that are going 
to get shortchanged.
  Mr. President, just this final thought. As we are addressing this 
budget, I think it is appropriate for American people to understand 
that working families are paying for the GOP tax cuts for the wealthy. 
What we are going to see, as I mentioned, under this budget, is some 
$6,400 more that they are going to pay over the period of the next 7 
years. That is, effectively, as has been pointed out, a tax. The 
working families, will pay some $1,400. That is the increase with 
elimination of the earned income tax credit. Out there, for men and 
women who are playing by the rules every day, going to work, trying to 
provide for their families, they will get an increase in their tax. 
That is included in this budget. They get a tax.
  And then there are the students of America. Those are the sons and 
daughters of working families that are going to our schools and 
colleges. They are the hope of our future. The way that program has 
been reported out of the Budget Committee will mean anywhere from a 28- 
to 45-percent increase in the amount of the interest that they pay. 
That is the equivalent of about $3,000 for those who are going to 
college. It will be more if they go to graduate school. They are going 
be paying.
  And that does not even get into the costs of the reductions in Head 
Start, the title I programs, or the cutback in the help and the 
assistance to local schools in the area of technology, as we are going 
to an information age. It does not even include those kinds of programs 
which are going to be further attacked.
  Mr. President, the first amendment that will be offered is an 
amendment by Senator Lautenberg from New Jersey and Senator Rockefeller 
dealing with Medicare that just cries out for support.
  We hope that the American people will pay attention to this debate 
and to this discussion, and let us know how they feel. I believe we are 
on their side. We need to hear from them and I hope they will let us 
know what their good judgment is on this issue.
  Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Twenty-four seconds.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I see my friend from Minnesota. I yield 
him whatever time I have left.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, might I inquire--I am not trying to get 
the floor--are we rotating, I ask my friend from New Mexico?
  Mr. DOMENICI. We are rotating, but not one on one. Your side has had 
a number of speakers in succession and the unanimous consent was--Mr. 
President, maybe you can say it--I think it was Senators Hatfield and 
Bond on our side and then back to you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous informal order, the next 
person who would be recognized who is now on the floor is the Senator 
from Missouri.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Do we have only two Republicans, or three in a row?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There was no order for how many.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Might I inquire, do you have any other names listed on 
that unanimous consent?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are no other names listed at this point.
  Does the Senator from New Mexico yield to the Senator from Missouri?
  Mr. DOMENICI. How much time would the Senator desire?
  Mr. BOND. Twenty minutes.
  Mr. President, I am happy to yield to Senator Hatfield.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, as I understand it, our informal 
agreement was actually that Senator Hatfield would proceed if he were 
on the floor and then Senator Bond and then back to the Democrats.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from New Mexico yield to the 
Senator from Oregon?
  Mr. DOMENICI. I yield 15 minutes to the Senator Hatfield.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon is recognized.
  Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the Senate 
Budget Committee for yielding for a few moments of presentation.
  I would like to begin today by reiterating some of the remarks that I 
made during the debate on the balanced budget amendment. I think the 
American people elected the Republican Congress with the expectation 
that we would show leadership and a willingness to make difficult 
decisions. In my view, the public shares the point of view that 
Government has grown bloated, ponderous, and too expensive. The 
programs of the New Deal and the Great Society put safety nets in place 
for those who are in the greatest need, but those nets now strangle the 
Federal Government by tying up precious funding in a knot of 
regulations and poor management.
  I believe that a balanced budget can come only through leadership and 
compromise. This compromise must come from each one of us. More 
importantly, it must come from those we represent. In the end, there is 
no easy answer. If there is a political will to create a balanced 
budget, we will create one, and if there is will to avoid one, we will 
avoid it.
  Senator Domenici, the chairman, and the Senate Budget Committee 
members have proven that this Congress is willing to make difficult 
decisions and that there is a political will to balance our Federal 
budget. It was an enormous task to construct this budget resolution and 
I congratulate the Senator from New Mexico and the committee for its 
work, and the work of the extraordinarily competent staff that they 
have assisting them.
  Like others, I think that the budget resolution cuts in the wrong 
places, targeting programs which are an investment in our future, such 
as medical research and educational assistance 
[[Page S6878]] to our college students. When we look at the data 
related to the National Institutes of Health, particularly, we have 
convincing evidence that every Federal dollar invested in biomedical 
research yields $13 in cost savings and productivity to society. Few 
other Federal programs can claim a similar track record.
  Mr. President, at the same time that we see substantial cuts in 
investment programs, we continue to see other portions of the budget 
continue to grow at alarming rates. In comparing spending in 1995 with 
the proposed spending in 2002, we see that nondefense discretionary 
spending will decrease almost 11 percent, defense spending will remain 
flat--and I will believe that when it happens--and entitlement spending 
will grow 45 percent. These numbers show that Congress must continue to 
review the entitlement programs of this country to ensure the long-term 
solvency of the Federal Government.
  Let me spend just a moment on the issue of our national investments. 
This budget presents us with a tragedy in the making regarding our 
ability to provide a high quality of life to all Americans. The Senate 
budget resolution represents the worst of three terrible options for 
the future of the National Institutes of Health.
  Option No. 1--the President's budget request calls for reduction in 
the NIH funding by 10 percent, beginning in the year 2000. I call this 
death by water torture.
  Option No. 2-- the House budget resolution calls for an immediate 5 
percent reduction from 1995 levels for the NIH for the next year and 
then level funding for the next 5 years. This is death by the hangman's 
noose.
  Finally, option No. 3--the Senate budget resolution calls for a 10 
percent reduction in 1995 levels for NIH for the next 7 years, a total 
reduction of nearly $8 billion, $1 billion in 1996 to begin with.
  In addition, the Senate resolution protects certain agencies from 
budget cuts. In other words, they have seen to it to exempt within NIH 
certain programs, the Centers for Disease Control, the Indian Health 
Service, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration, 
and all AIDS-related programs.
  These exemptions mean the actual cuts to all other NIH programs will 
be around 16 to 20 percent, not 10 percent. This is death by the firing 
squad, and it means the end of our growing medical research enterprise 
as we know it.
  Let me give you a couple of examples. We are now halfway through on 
the decade of the brain. Mr. President, we have in the first 5 years of 
that commitment spent a proportion of that time necessary to bring 
together over 130 great and tested scientists in this common, 
integrated, and united effort. It did not happen overnight. And as a 
consequence, if you start taking a 15- to 16- or 20-percent reduction 
in that kind of neurological and brain-related disease, you are not 
only reducing the funding levels, you are destroying the 
infrastructure. Let me analyze that.
  The Presiding Officer at this moment is my colleague from the State 
of Washington. We both have a very major timber economy in our States. 
You take a small sawmill, or any sawmill, and if there is an interim of 
no supply of timber resource, that sawmill closes. You lose the chief 
sawer, you lose the greenchain people, you lose all these technological 
people necessary to make a sawmill function, and then you get a supply 
a month later. It will take an inordinate amount of time to reconfigure 
that team of technology that is required to operate a sawmill.
  Now look at what it means in terms of high technology, the high 
specialization of a brain strategy to conquer the diseases of the 
brain. You lose that team, you lose that kind of an infrastructure and 
you do not rebuild it 6 months later or the next budget period.
  Bear in mind, I believe that every dollar we have appropriated for 
AIDS is fundamentally required, but we cannot afford to get into this 
business of playing one disease against another disease and which one 
has the greatest political clout gets the most money. And that is what 
we are embarked upon.
  Why exempt AIDS? What about cancer? What about heart disease? What 
about Alzheimer's? What about all the other diseases that we are 
concerned about in our overall strategy of war on disease? It is a 
dangerous precedent to make that exemption and start playing these 
advocate groups one against the other.
  I think as we move to balance the budget, we should not randomly cut 
programs in our midst. We must cut judiciously, but at the same time 
safeguard our long-term investment programs. Through the promise of 
medical research we will find the treatments and cures we need to 
eradicate disease and disability.
  Let me take another example. I think it is very interesting that 
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has been 
exempt. These are the services coming out of the mental health programs 
and commitments. Mr. President, at the same time that we are going to 
continue these services at presently $2.1 billion, we are cutting $630 
million of fiscal year 1995 out of mental research. Now how can you 
sustain a service program delivering the best quality of mental health 
services if you have cut off the research part of it or you have 
crippled it or you have brought it to such a place where they lose 
their personnel, and so forth?
  I think we know that only through the promise of medical research 
will we find the treatments and cures to eradicate disease and 
disability and reduce our health care costs. Medical research is a 
central mechanism for controlling the costs of health care in this 
country. That is, a cure and better treatment. After all, a cure is the 
ultimate in cost control.
  We found that fluoridation saves the country approximately $4.5 
billion each year in preventing dental cavities; psychoactive drugs 
which actively reduce hospitalization for mental illness saves us $7 
billion a year and allows patients to return to productive lives; a $20 
million investment in influenza B vaccine resulted in a savings of over 
$400 million a year by preventing cases of childhood meningitis.
  In other words, Mr. President, all of these things concern me so much 
that I intend to offer an amendment during the course of debate on the 
budget resolution to restore the cuts, at least in major part, for the 
National Institutes of Health.
  I expect to be joined by a bipartisan group of colleagues, all of 
whom believe that severe cuts in this area are shortsighted at best. We 
are not alone in this task. Public opinion polls have shown massive 
public support for making health research the No. 1 Federal science 
priority.
  At the same time, I think it is interesting that we have frozen at 
current levels the research in the energy budget, and that has a major 
focus on nuclear matters of research.
  Mr. President, this gets us down to a priorities problem again, and a 
value problem. I believe it is more important to protect people from 
disease by finding the solutions and the preventive actions to take 
rather than to protect our bombs. That may not be the value system that 
others hold but, in my view, I would hate to go home and explain to my 
constituents how we are going to cripple the research for spinal 
meningitis or for Parkinson's disease or for many of the other diseases 
that everybody, agewise, will face one way or the other and say, ``Oh, 
but we have sustained our commitment to the research requirements to 
protect our bombs.''
  I want to make sure that I add this point: That any type of 
restoration of $1 to this budget resolution has to be offset, and we 
are working on a bipartisan level now, working with the chairman of the 
authorization committee, the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Labor-
HHS of the Appropriations Committee, we are working with our Democratic 
colleagues to try to come up with the offsets to deal with the 
restoration that we seek for the NIH budget.
  I wanted to also say, I know of no person in this body who has a 
greater commitment to medical and health problems that we face in this 
country than Senator Domenici, the chairman of the Budget Committee. I 
imagine that he has probably lost more sleep than any of us at this 
point in crafting this budget resolution. So lest anybody attempt to 
make a personal matter out of this disagreement, I want to certainly 
disabuse them of that. We want to work with Senator Domenici's staff, 
[[Page S6879]] we want to work with the Budget Committee in proposing 
this amendment, but I have to say, we are determined--we are 
determined--to save the future of this Nation's medical research and 
its infrastructure that is required to find the solutions to these 
diseases.
  As we continue with this debate, it is important that we remember 
that long-term fiscal responsibility should not only depend upon cuts 
in spending. It demands a radical transformation in the way we do 
business as a government. I know as an appropriator I will focus on how 
the American people can get more out of fewer federal dollars. That is 
the goal of the private sector of our society, and it should be the 
same of the Federal Government as well. I hope that the authorizers 
will also look to the innovators at the State and local level to see 
how they are making limited resources go further. I think each one of 
us can look to the local governments and advocates to glean ideas of 
how to make success government's goal, as opposed to an obsession with 
paperwork and feeding the bureaucracy. I hope this Congress takes the 
fact of fewer Federal dollars and turns it into an impetus to allow the 
innovators to rise to the top as shining examples of Government at its 
finest.
  I would also like to take this opportunity to ask my colleagues from 
the other side of the aisle to join in this effort in eliminating the 
budget deficit. We have all come to the floor time after time to 
discuss the impact that continuing budget deficits have on the economy 
and the allocation of Federal revenue. In 1995, 15 percent of all 
Federal revenue will go to paying the interest on the debt, and that 
amount will continue to grow if this problem is not addressed. I think 
many Americans will be surprised that even if we balance the budget in 
the year 2002, the Federal Government will still spend $279 billion in 
that year to pay interest on the debt. Imagine what that amount will be 
if we do not make those tough decisions now.
  As a Member of the Senate that believes that the Federal Government 
can still play a vital role in addressing societies' needs, I can think 
of a number of ways to allocate that $279 billion in the year 2002, 
rather than simply paying interest on the national debt. Our Federal 
budget deficit is a national problem which deserves bipartisan 
attention. Bipartisan negotiation, leadership and compromise have been 
the cornerstones upon which we have built all effective decisions on 
tough issues since the formation of our government. I hope the Congress 
does not miss this opportunity to address the real issue of balancing 
the budget, and that is the issue which is before us in this Budget 
Resolution.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, the Senator asked if he might propound a 
unanimous-consent request. I will be pleased to listen to it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask my colleague from New Mexico, 
might I first congratulate, if you will, sing praise of my colleague 
from Oregon. First of all, I very much appreciate his remarks and want 
to be a part of this effort.
  I know last night my colleague from Oregon was given recognition that 
he richly deserves from the Parkinson's community for his work in 
introducing the Morris Udall legislation, and as the son of two parents 
who had Parkinson's disease, I would like to thank my colleague from 
Oregon for his work and also for, I think, a very eloquent statement. 
We want to make sure one group of people struggling with a disease is 
not pitted against another group.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that after my colleague from 
Missouri is finished with his remarks, that I then be able to speak for 
15 minutes, followed by my colleague from South Carolina, Senator 
Hollings, for 15 minutes as well, and then I understand we will rotate 
back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. DOMENICI. How much is the Senator going to use?
  Mr. BOND. I will need 20 minutes.
  Mr. DOMENICI. So that will be 20 minutes, to be followed by 15 and 
15.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Missouri is recognized for 20 minutes.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from New Mexico who has 
presided over a very difficult, but a very, very important effort in 
the Senate Budget Committee. I think the tremendous effort he made 
deserves a great deal of praise and thanks not only by us, but by 
future generations and a lot of people who may not really understand 
the full impact of what Senator Domenici has led us to achieve for the 
health of our economy and for future generations.
  In the next few days, we are going to have the historic opportunity 
to move through Congress a budget plan which will actually get this 
Government's books to balance. How many times have we talked about it? 
Everybody decided that it was the ``holy grail,'' that we could never 
get there. Well, through Senator Domenici's leadership, we have come up 
with a plan. Nobody said it would be easy. With his leadership and the 
willingness of Members to stand up and vote for action instead of just 
talking a good game, this Senate can take that first step.
  Make no mistake, the step is a big one. For the first time in 25 
years, the Congress has an opportunity to pass a budget which will get 
us into a surplus rather than keep adding to our debt. The budget is 
tough. It sets priorities and recognizes that Government cannot do it 
all. It makes a statement that the time has come for leaders of today 
to start paying attention to the economic devastation that is being 
created for tomorrow's generations because we cannot live within our 
means. We have heard many speeches about the need to cut spending, 
reduce the deficit, and get our Nation's books into balance. Everyone 
who looks at our nearly $5 trillion debt recognizes the need to do 
something so that we do not keep piling on that debt for our children 
and grandchildren.
  Over the next few days, the American people will have a rare 
opportunity to see exactly what the political leadership's visions for 
our country's future are. I have a chart, and you have seen it before 
in different colors, with the same message. The vision of this Domenici 
budget shown here in blue is that by taking us from $176 billion on a 
glidepath to 2002, we can reach a surplus by 2002. It is a bold plan. 
It scrutinizes every program in the Federal budget from agriculture to 
welfare, and already the dollar has strengthened because we did 
something.
  The Washington Times reported last Friday that on Thursday, May 11, 
the dollar jumped in its biggest 1-day advance in 4 years. That was the 
same day that the House and Senate Budget Committees approved our plans 
for reducing the deficit to zero by 2002. It is no coincidence that the 
dollar strengthened the same day we made an effort to restore fiscal 
sanity to the Federal books.
  Earlier this year, by contrast, when the Senate failed, by one vote, 
to pass the balanced budget amendment, we showed that some were willing 
to sacrifice U.S. global competitiveness for short-term political gain. 
The message was heard loud and clear in the global markets, and the 
dollar fell to record lows against the Japanese yen and the German 
mark.
  Why is that important? Well, Mr. President, it is important because 
the international monetary markets can tell a country when it is sick. 
They told Mexico it was sick because the peso started declining and 
nothing was done. Mexico got in big trouble. The international markets 
were taking a look at our fiscal policy, our inability to control our 
spending and saying that the United States is sick. And when we failed 
to pass the balanced budget amendment, they recorded their votes in the 
way that is most effective. They placed their convictions with money 
behind their views. They said we are in danger of going downhill.
  The dollar devaluation does not just impact big banks and big 
industry. It has an affect on each and every American. The dollar's low 
value means that U.S. assets are less valuable, imports are more 
expensive, and that the threat of foreign competition and lost jobs is 
greater than ever.
  Passage of this budget resolution, which would get us to balance by 
2002, [[Page S6880]] is critical to the health of the dollar and to the 
American economy. Bold changes are in store. We have proposed 
dramatically to restructure several Cabinet agencies and the programs 
under their jurisdiction. We propose the elimination of programs, new 
and old, which will outlive their purpose or are too expensive for the 
supposed good they do.
  We have heard very passionate speeches, sincere speeches, on this 
floor, about how we need to be spending more in all of these areas. 
That is precisely how we got into this fix. We did not get into this 
fix spending too much money because we were spending it on things that 
were low priorities. We wanted to spend more on everything. That is 
what has led us to the fix that we are in today.
  What we are seeing, in essence, in this budget is that we cannot 
spend more on everything. We have to make some choices and we have to 
slow the growth. We have told agencies they have to buy smarter, travel 
more cheaply, and squeeze out the last nickel in their operating 
budgets.
  Let me deal with one particular charge, or one particular allegation, 
that I am afraid was based on misinformation. One of my colleagues, 
earlier today, was told by NIH that if funding was cut by 16 percent, 
the researchers would not get any new grants. There was talk of the 
success rate. Currently, the success rate for health research is one in 
four. That means one out of four new applications for research gets 
granted. The NIH apparently told my colleague that under this plan only 
1 out of 100 new grant applications would get NIH funds. Our staff 
looked into it and we found out that that was totally unsupportable.
  First, NIH got the numbers wrong. The budget resolution assumes a 10 
percent cut in NIH; NIH assumed a 16 percent cut. They came up with 
some figures that were not the figures we used and took totally 
different assumptions. So, No. 1, their overall figure was wrong.
  No. 2, NIH decided, in that classic of all Washington moves, to 
``close the Washington Monument.'' They were going to hit the thing 
with all of the cuts that are most important, and that is the research 
dollars. The ``Washington Monument syndrome'' is when any agency's 
budget is cut, they shut down the most visible thing that they do. They 
said, ``That cheap Congress would not give us the money to keep it 
operating.'' So NIH said that 70 percent of the cut would come from 
research grants. If I were a researcher out looking for grants, I would 
ask the folks at NIH: How come you do not want to cut money out of the 
overhead, the bureaucracy, the buildings, the Washington, DC, efforts? 
I think that is a pretty good question. In any event, they gave us that 
assumption.
  Finally, NIH assumed they would take all the money from new grants. 
NIH gets 34,000 requests for new grants each year, and they assume they 
would cut all the money designated for new grants. In fact, this 
resolution would cut NIH funding by $1.1 billion. The Senate Budget 
Committee staff asked the NIH if they distributed that 10 percent cut 
equally among the bureaucrats, Washington researchers, new grants and 
existing grants, what would they get? First of all, NIH had two 
responses. They said they would do it differently. That is cause for us 
to worry. They said, ``If the cuts were distributed equally, one in six 
researchers would get new grant money''--in other words, one out of six 
instead of the current one out of four. Not one out of 100. This, I 
think, is important to set the record straight. This budget plan is not 
going to gut NIH.
  In addition, this budget is going to say that we are going to save 
Medicare. Medicare is broke; it must be fixed. The public trustees are 
right. The people who were appointed as public representatives and the 
President's Cabinet members said that Medicare, part A, is on the verge 
of collapse. It will go into the red in 1997 and start spending more 
money than it takes in and, by 2002, the trust fund will be broke.
  If the trust fund is broke, then under the terms of the law, no more 
money can be paid.
 In other words, the system shuts down. I do not think it is 
responsible to walk away from that.

  The President has decided to sit back and make a political game out 
of Medicare. Worse, he is talking out of both sides of his mouth and 
saying, ``You cannot claim to protect Medicare when it is cut.'' But he 
has no plan for saving it.
  The fact that Medicare part A is on the death spiral was revealed by 
the President's own Cabinet members. The President knew back in 
February when he said there would not be one penny cut out of Medicare, 
that Medicare was on the path to first insolvency and then bankruptcy. 
He set up a status quo budget with no changes, no plans for saving 
Medicare.
  We stepped to the plate to fix the crisis, and he says that we are 
trying to kill Medicare.
  Second, the President conveniently forgets that he proposed similar 
cuts in Medicare himself. When the President, in 1993, needed to 
finance his Government-controlled, top-down health care plan, he 
proposed spending reductions in Medicare and Medicaid to pay for them.
  He said Medicare and Medicaid are going up three times the rate of 
inflation, and all we propose to do is let it go up two times the rate 
of inflation, and he said that is not a cut. When he said specifically 
that is not a cut, how come it gets to be a cut now when we propose to 
save Medicare by doing about what he proposed to do in 1993?
  Mrs. Clinton, the First Lady, has said that she is confident we can 
reduce the rate of increase in Medicare spending without undermining 
the quality of Medicare recipients. We know we can get savings. That is 
what she said. Perhaps the best evidence of the political game that is 
being played here comes from the architect of the Clinton health care 
plan, Mr. Magaziner, who said, ``Slowing the rate of growth actually 
benefits beneficiaries considerably because it slows the rate of growth 
of the premiums they have to pay.''
  It seems to me that those great arguments of a couple years ago 
cannot be ignored when they come out and try to attack our efforts to 
save Medicare now.
  Under the Senate budget resolution, Medicare will still be the 
fastest growing part of the Federal budget. Solvency would be 
guaranteed for 10 years. Medicare spending will continue to grow at 
more than twice the rate of inflation well into the next century. That 
is just the first step.
  Let me move now, Mr. President, to one other example of the kinds of 
reforms that this budget tackles. That is, reforming the Department of 
Housing and Urban Development. I happen to be the chairman of the 
subcommittee that handles the HUD appropriations. We are responsible 
for trying to stop the train wreck.
  This year, we began holding hearings to get at the funding crisis at 
HUD. This is a crisis that not only threatens the programs which 
millions of people depend on for the very roof over their head, but 
threatens to squeeze out needed dollars for other important programs.
  We have found in our hearings and in our investigations that HUD is a 
dysfunctional agency that requires a complete reevaluation of its 
mission and a major reform of its program and program operations.
  The Department has grown from an agency responsible for about 50 
programs in 1980 to well over 200 programs now. It has neither the 
capacity nor the political will to administer all these programs.
  Frankly, we have got to make some serious changes. It is this crisis 
that led me to advocate and propose a dramatic restructuring of HUD, 
which is to be incorporated in this budget plan. That is why I argued 
so strongly for the passage of the rescission package which begins the 
major surgery HUD so desperately needs.
  In particular, the budget anticipates the creation of block grants 
for public housing. It assumes that the actual projected costs of 
section 8 contract renewals, that some of this assistance should be 
given in block grants to the States. The States would get broad 
latitude to redesign their programs so that they could use State 
housing finance agencies to manage their program to contract out the 
responsibilities and to get that program under control.
  Unfortunately, when the President indicated he would veto the 
disaster relief supplemental bill with the rescissions in it, he not 
only took the money away from the California earthquake 
[[Page S6881]] and the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing, it also 
took over $6 billion in cuts for future year spending from HUD.
  Let me make this point again. The bill that we passed out of the 
conference committee the President said he would veto provides vitally 
needed funding for disaster relief. The House and the Senate also 
passed and we passed by an overwhelming majority in this body, a 
measure to cut spending in HUD so that we will face not quite as 
serious a problem next year.
  We still have a funding problem for HUD that is unbelievable. The 
President's budget asks for $20 billion in budget authority and $14 
billion in outlay increases for HUD over the next 5 years. Even those 
first are suspect. We have to have the rescission bill to cut off the 
authority now or we will add more commitments to HUD that they will 
have even greater trouble funding in the future.
  Now, to me, that effort for fiscal responsibility is one of the first 
and most important steps we can take. The President has come out with 
some kind of gobbledygook, saying that this bill that we pass contains 
pork.
  Does he want more cuts or does he want less cuts? Items that he 
objected to in the rescissions bill were items that had been passed by 
Congress and signed by the President in past years. Now he objects 
because we have not cut the right things? What does he want Congress to 
cut?
  We stepped up to the plate and gave him some cuts that were carefully 
worked out in this body and in conference with the House. He wants to 
veto that rescission bill.
  Two things happen if that veto goes through and it is upheld: No. 1, 
we do not have the money for the emergencies; No. 2, the money that is 
not rescinded, the budget authority that is not rescinded, will go into 
effect. We will be on an even steeper incline in our rate of spending, 
and it will be more difficult.
  The President told us back in 1993 he wanted to see us end the 
deficit. What happened? Did he forget what he said in 1993? He raised 
taxes to start what he said was the process. He said the second step is 
cutting spending. Where has he gone?
  Frankly, after the President raised taxes and cut defense, he has 
decided that that was enough. So what if the deficit goes up every year 
on his budget reaching $276 billion by the year 2000. So what if 
another $1.2 trillion are added to the debt?
  Well, I think there are some serious consequences. No. 1, it will 
hurt our economy right now. It is going to be a real problem for those 
who are making a living in our economy today. We are going to see the 
potential of inflation coming back much more strongly. That is what 
happens when the value of our dollar falls. We are going to see our 
costs of goods go up. Most of all, we are going to see debt added to 
the credit cards of our children and our grandchildren.
  Can we afford to say that we are for our children, we are concerned 
about children, when we want to walk away from fiscal responsibility 
and add another $1.2 trillion to the $5 trillion we have already put on 
their backs? Mr. President, I do not think so.
  Mr. President, we have heard a lot of fancy speeches and we will hear 
a lot of fancy speeches, but when it comes right down to it, this is 
what we say back in Missouri: ``Show me'' time.
  Are we for cutting spending? Do we want to balance the budget? Or do 
we want to leave that spending machine going full throttle? I think we 
will get a fairly clear indication, because when the votes start, we 
will find out who really is serious about the financial stability of 
our economy today and the total economic security of our future 
generations.
  Do we have the political will? Are we willing to stand up to face the 
music and to vote for a tough budget? I believe we will. I will urge my 
colleagues to support the effort to get the budget deficit to zero and 
move it into surplus in the year 2002, because it is essential for our 
economy now. It is essential for the well-being of future generations.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Grams). Under the previous order, the 
Senator from Minnesota is recognized.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I wonder if the Senator will yield for 1 minute to the 
Senator from New Mexico?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I would be pleased to.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President and fellow Senators, I do not want anyone 
to think that we already have ruled out a vote for tonight. Senators 
asked, are we going to vote tonight?
  Frankly, we have to use 10 hours of this budget resolution up 
tonight. We started at 12 clock and we are working to see if we cannot 
accomplish that, but clearly we would like to enter into an arrangement 
where we would vote tomorrow, at least on a Domenici amendment and on a 
Democrat amendment. But I have no agreement, nor does the majority 
leader, that we are not to move one of those up to tonight unless we 
can arrange somehow to get 10 hours out of today's work. Because we 
still have 30, and that would be 30 for the days of Monday, Tuesday, 
and Wednesday, and our leader has said we are going to be finished on 
Wednesday, which will mean very long hours next week.
  I want to compliment Senator Bond, not only for his remarks today, 
which I think were right on point, but actually you cannot get a budget 
resolution out on the floor without a lot of Senators helping you and a 
lot of Senators voting for it.
  The Senator has been a staunch supporter and formidable proponent of 
the balanced budget. I want to thank him here in front of all the 
Senate.
  I yield the floor and thank the Senator for yielding.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, when I come to the floor sometimes I 
just like to respond to what my colleagues have said. Sometimes that 
ends up being debate. And then sometimes we come back to it later on.
  My colleague from Missouri is a friend. I think I enjoy working on 
the Small Business Committee about as much as I enjoy working on any 
committee. But when my colleague said the attitude in Missouri is, 
``Show me,'' and he talked about children, I would remind him and I 
would remind my good friend from New Mexico that we have not had a lot 
of discussion about children yet. I am going to have several amendments 
on the floor eventually. But in talking about the health care cuts, 
there has been more of a focus on Medicare and less of a focus on 
Medicaid.
  My understanding--and maybe these numbers are a little bit off--but 
my understanding is that with the proposed Medicaid cuts, we would be 
capping the per capita growth rate for expenditures under that program 
at about 1.4 percent. That is compared to a growth rate of about 7 
percent projected for private expenditures? Am I wrong about these 
figures?
  Mr. DOMENICI. I do not know what the 1.7 is. I do not know what that 
is.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. The per capita growth rate for Medicaid expenditures--
after the proposed cuts--would be about 1.4 percent.
  Mr. DOMENICI. For Medicaid? I would not know that. I have not figured 
it that way.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. OK. I ask my colleague, at some point in time during 
the debate it would be helpful to get those numbers.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Fine.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. The reason I mention that is that there are, I think, 
today in our country about 11 million children who have no health care 
coverage whatsoever, I say to both of my colleagues. And, every year 
since 1987, employment-based health insurance coverage has been 
dropping.
  Do you know what has filled the gap? Medicaid. That is what has 
filled the gap. I think in Minnesota--I say to my other colleague who 
is presiding--there are about 200,000 children or thereabouts who are 
covered by Medicaid. I have to say, as long as we are talking about 
children, when I see these kinds of dramatic, I think draconian, 
reductions in reimbursement I have to wonder what the effect will be on 
those children. That is my first point.
  My second point, and we can come back to it in debate, but I think it 
is a point well worth making because these statistics all mean 
something. My colleagues know this. I am not intending to be self-
righteous. I am just saying we need to understand the faces behind the 
statistics.
  The second point about Medicaid is that I have heard some discussion 
[[Page S6882]] about the power of the senior citizen lobby. The 
majority of Medicaid expenditures in Minnesota, and I am sure other 
States as well, go toward nursing homes, covering nursing home expenses 
for elderly people who by definition are in nursing homes because they 
are frail. Many of them are struggling with diseases and illness. They 
are hardly powerful. I would say to my colleagues, I do not quite know 
what we intend to do with the dramatic, draconian cuts in 
reimbursement, Medicaid-wise.
  I met with a good number of people from southeast Minnesota last 
Saturday and there was one man who runs a hospital nursing home in one 
of our smaller towns in southeast Minnesota. He almost had tears in his 
eyes. Maybe this is melodramatic. His question was, ``What is going to 
happen to these people? Will the State pick up the costs? What is going 
to happen to them?'' That is just a question that I raise.
  As long as my colleague from Missouri was talking about children, let 
me make another point, and I would like to commend Senator Moynihan 
from New York for his powerful voice dealing with the issues of race, 
poverty, gender, and children in America. As I understand it, in this 
budget proposal we are talking about something like $20 billion in 
reduction for food stamps. I would not want any of my colleagues to 
believe, if they do believe so, that by going after fraud--and there 
are some, I am sure, abuses that take place--that is how you get a $20 
billion reduction.
  I ask my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans alike, not to be 
ahistorical and to understand that we had a lot of exposes, a lot of 
studies on these issues. There was a Field Foundation study. There was 
a CBS ``Hunger USA'' documentary. And what did those studies point out? 
What did we see on television? What we saw was that in the United 
States of America there were children who were suffering from scurvy 
and rickets, distended bellies, malnutrition, and hunger. As a matter 
of fact, the expansion of the Food Stamp Program, which is one of the 
really true safety net programs, led to a dramatic reduction in that 
malnutrition and hunger among children in America. Are we now going to 
turn the clock back? I would like to know where the evidence is that 
says that we can have those kinds of cuts in a major food assistance 
program without having a serious effect on children, the poorest of the 
poor in America.
  So many of my colleagues keep talking about, ``for the sake of 
children in the future.'' How about the children now? Every 30 seconds 
a child is born into poverty in America. One out of every four 
children--poor; one out of every two children of color--poor. What 
about those children now?
  I just mentioned two programs with dramatic reductions, draconian 
reductions. I know we will have time for debate. I have not seen 
anybody stand up yet. I know that we will have this debate and it 
should be substantive debate. We respect one another. Tell me how we 
are going to do that without harmful consequences to those citizens; in 
this particular case I am talking about children.
  We ought not to be doing deficit reduction based upon the path of 
least political resistance, that is to say targeting those with the 
least amount of political clout.
  Second, and maybe last point, because I only have 15 minutes today. 
When I heard my colleague from Missouri--and I am sorry he is not here 
now for purposes of debate--talk about some of the comments that the 
First Lady made and Ira Magaziner made about how we could reduce 
Medicare costs, that is true. But that was in the context of overall 
health care reform and cost containment systemwide.
  I say to my colleagues, there are not only consequences to the words 
that we utter, the words that we speak, there are also consequences to 
the proposals that we lay out here on the floor of the Senate.
  I can explain very briefly why in fact the Medicare Program, which is 
a benefits program passed in 1965, which has made the United States of 
America a better country, and not just for the senior citizens but for 
all of their children and their grandchildren, has had increasing 
costs. I can explain why.
  We have to invest a significant amount of resources into financing 
Medicare because a larger and larger percentage of our population are 
over 65, and a larger and larger percentage of the over-65 population 
are in their eighties. With that comes more illness and higher health 
care costs. That's why it is important to look at per capita numbers 
when we are talking about cuts. We finance it as a nation because it 
says a lot about who we are.
  That is what Senator Humphrey from Minnesota meant when he said the 
test of our country and our society and our Government is how we treat 
people in the dawn of their lives, the children; the twilight of their 
lives, the elderly; and those in the shadow of their lives, disabled 
people struggling with illness, and of course the poor people. I do not 
think this budget meets that standard laid out by the late, great 
Senator from Minnesota, Hubert Humphrey.
  Mr. President, I heard some reference to comments of the President 
and others about health care reform. But the first thing I would say to 
my colleagues is this will not work. If you single out one sector, one 
group of people, you can talk to any of your providers and they will 
tell you out front and up front that they will shift the cost. They 
have to. It is a shell game.
  We should have learned this in the debate on health care last time. 
And by the way, I say to my colleague who is now presiding, that in 
Kings County, NY, Medicare pays $646 per month per enrollee to an HMO, 
whereas in Hennepin County, MN, HMO's get $362 per month per enrollee.
  What will happen is, if our reimbursement is already rock bottom low, 
especially for those States that have done a good job of keeping the 
costs down, then the providers have no other choice but to shift the 
cost. They then shift the cost to the employers and the private 
insurance companies that then raise the costs, and then it gets shifted 
back to the employees, and more people are forced to drop their 
coverage because it's unaffordable.
  Mr. President, it will not work if we just shift costs. Talk to 
people in rural America, not just senior citizens. Talk to the care 
providers, talk to the nurses, talk to the doctors, talk to the public 
health people. It will not work.
  Mr. President, the essential problem with some of these proposals is, 
A, they do not meet the standard of fairness; B, I do not believe that 
they are fair just in terms of where the most vulnerable citizens fit 
in or do not fit in to this equation, and on the Medicare front and the 
Medicaid front, as public policy, they do not work. Welcome to health 
care reform.
  Tomorrow, when we have our amendment out on Medicare, we will have an 
opportunity to really debate this at great length.
  Finally, Mr. President, as a former teacher, I really do believe it 
is extremely shortsighted to make a lot of these cuts. As a matter of 
fact, I think what I might do in the course of the debate is bring out 
the Kasich budget which was passed by the House of Representatives so 
we could have a vote on that on the floor of the Senate since I think 
it does an even more draconian job when it comes to cutting higher 
education. But I would just argue today that it is myopic, it is 
shortsighted not to invest in young people and not to invest in their 
education.
  I could boil it down to the following kind of analysis in less than 2 
minutes, I hope. If you want to have real welfare reform: A good 
education, a good job, and decent health care. If you want to reduce 
poverty: A good education, a good job, and decent health care. If you 
want to reduce violence: A good education, a good job, and decent 
health care. If you want to have a stable middle class: A good 
education, a good job, and decent health care. If you want to compete 
in the international economic arena: A good education, a good job, and 
decent health care. And if you want to have a representative democracy 
with men and women who can think on their own two feet and understand 
the world, the country, and the community that they live in, what they 
can do to make it a better world and a better country and a better 
community, keep your focus on a good education, a good job, and decent 
health care.
  This budget moves us precisely in the opposite direction. It is 
profoundly mistaken for our Nation.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. HOLLINGS addressed the Chair.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I wonder if the Senator will yield for 30 seconds. 
[[Page S6883]] 
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Thank you very much. Could I ask unanimous consent that 
following Senator Hollings, Senator Bennett be in order for 15 minutes?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. EXON. I certainly agree to that. I ask after Senator Bennett, 
could we have Senator Murray recognized for 15 minutes?
  Mr. DOMENICI. Could we have Senator Santorum immediately following 
Senator Murray? That would give us five.
  Mr. President, I so request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Senator Bennett, 15 minutes; Senator Murray 
for 15 minutes; and Senator Santorum for 15 minutes, following the 
Senator from South Carolina.
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished chairman.
  Mr. President, in the brief moment that I have, I would like to voice 
a note of sobriety with respect to this debate, and to agree for 
starters about the bigness of Government.
  I have played this budget game for 35 years. As Governor 35 years 
ago, I balanced the budget in the State of South Carolina, and earned a 
triple-A credit rating. Some 27 years ago, in 1968, I worked with 
George Mahon, then chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and we 
balanced the budget.
  Mr. President, when we hear the hue and cry to get rid of big 
Government, we ought to focus on what it is about government that is 
really big. In 1968 when President Lyndon Johnson balanced the budget, 
he faced gross interest costs on the national debt of $14.6 billion. 
That is after almost 200 years of history. Through 36 Presidents, 
Republican and Democrat, the Revolutionary War of 1812, the Civil War, 
the Spanish-American War, Mexican, all the wars, World Wars I and II, 
and Korea, a good part of the war in Vietnam, the mandatory spending of 
interest costs was only $14.6 billion.
  If my colleagues listen to nothing else, let them listen to this 
fact. According to the Congressional Budget Office in February of this 
year, the mandatory spending of gross interest costs is estimated at 
$340 billion.
  Oh, boy, has the size of Government increased. How did it grow? Let 
me go right to the heart of the matter and quote none other than the 
chairman of President Reagan's Office of Management and Budget, David 
Stockman. I quote:

       The root problem goes back to the July 1981 frenzy of 
     excessive and imprudent tax cutting that shattered the 
     Nation's fiscal stability. A noisy faction of Republicans 
     have willfully denied the giant mistake of fiscal governance, 
     and their culpability in it ever since. Instead, they have 
     incessantly poisoned the political debate with a mindless 
     stream of antitax venom while pretending that economic growth 
     and spending cuts alone could contain the deficit.

  Mr. President, we are watching history repeat itself as Republicans 
today make the same mistake of insisting that the deficit can be 
conquered through spending cuts alone.
  Lord knows, I have tried. I have worked in a bipartisan way for a 
balanced budget. As chairman of the Budget Committee 15 years ago, I 
worked closely with Henry Bellmon, then the ranking Republican.
  In 1980, contrary to what some of the weekly magazines would have you 
believe, Senator Bellmon and I presented a balanced budget. In 1985, 
Senator Gramm, Senator Rudman, and Senator Hollings presented a 
balanced budget, planned over 5 years rather than 7 years. We were 
supposed to have balanced the budget by 1990, but then Congress pushed 
back the goalposts and eventually repealed the fixed deficit targets.
  I worked with Republican Senators Boschwitz and Danforth on a value-
added tax, 5 years ago. In the Budget Committee, some eight members 
voted for a value-added tax. Why? Because we needed it. But 
unfortunately today, the charade continues.
  The truth of the matter is that cutting taxes as they say by some 
$350 billion over 10 years, actually increases the interest costs or 
taxes on the gross debt. It has been said that there are two things in 
life that you cannot avoid, death and taxes. Actually, there are three 
things, death, taxes, and interest taxes on the national debt.
  So when they talk in a blasphemous fashion about cutting taxes, it 
comes time for the sober truth. They can try to get away with this 
charade, but the fact is that they are increasing taxes.
  Now, there are two-ways, Mr. President, to approach this problem. One 
is a balanced plan of freezing spending, cutting spending, closing tax 
loopholes, and increasing revenues.
  But the other way, of course, is the Vietnam approach--destroy the 
Government in order to save it. It gives you the image, it gives you 
the headline, it gives you what they are talking about, a balanced 
budget.
  But I ask the Members to turn to page 7 of the Senate budget 
resolution. There it plainly says that in the year 2002 we will have a 
deficit of $113.5 billion. That is just the real deficit. If we turn to 
page 9 where the annual increases in the public debt are listed, in 
fiscal year 2002 the debt increases $177.7 billion. The distinguished 
occupant of the chair on the other side is a very successful 
businessman. He knows. Look at page 9. Fiscal year 2002, the debt 
increases $177.7 billion.
  So, yes, President Clinton has a budget where the deficits go up as 
far as the eye can see. The Republican budget now that we have before 
us, unfortunately, has deficits of $177.7 billion as far as the eye can 
see. That is the truth. Those are the facts.
  We hear a lot of talk about reducing the deficit, but if we want to 
fathom the true depths of their sincerity, we ought to turn to page 74 
of the resolution.
  I am reminded of the story about the days when we had the literacy 
test. Poor black men would come to the polls to vote and would be given 
the Chinese newspaper. They would be told, ``Boy, read that.'' The 
black man would take the paper, look at it one way then turn the paper 
around and around. When he would finally be asked what it said, the man 
would reply, ``It says ain't no black gonna vote in South Carolina 
today.''
  Now, I read this one on page 74, five little words: ``For legislation 
that reduces revenues.'' Do you know what that means? It means we are 
going to allow for a $350 billion tax cut, just like they are doing 
over on the House side.
  You have to know the tricks of the trade. The real problem is that 
those tax cuts are going to be written in stone. The spending cuts will 
never occur. Part of them will occur. But the bottom line will be we 
will be up, up and away with deficits and increased spending for 
interest costs.
  We need to cut out this total fraud that you can do it with spending 
cuts alone. We have to get serious. You could eliminate all of the 
nondefense discretionary programs--all $275 billion of them--and we 
would still be in the red because of the $340 billion that we have to 
spend on interest costs. It is Alice in Wonderland: To stay where you 
are, you have to run as fast as you can. To get ahead, you have to run 
even faster.
  The ox is in the ditch. We have to get to work seriously here and cut 
out the monkeyshines with Social Security, as they did during debate on 
the constitutional amendment, and as they do now. The provision that 
John Heinz and I put in the law, section 13301 of the Budget 
Enforcement Act, says: `` Thou shalt not use Social Security trust 
funds for the deficit.'' We asked them to obey it in the Budget 
Committee and, to my shock, 12 Republican Senators voted against that 
law in the Budget Committee.
  Now, if I had Hollings Enterprises as a business and I went to file 
my annual statement to the Securities and Exchange section, and I was 
using my pension fund to mask the size of my deficit, I would be in 
jail. They would haul me off to the hoosegow.
  We need to stop, look, and listen and get away from this 
gamesmanship. Republicans talk now as if they are the only ones 
interested in the deficit. Perhaps they have forgotten that President 
Clinton came to town and cut it $500 billion through a balanced 
approach of spending cuts and tax increases. He followed that up with 
an effort to reform Medicare and Medicaid that fell upon deaf ears as 
Republicans claimed that there was no health care crisis. Now, all of a 
sudden they are sounding the alarm and citing the need for decisive 
action to save the HI trust fund from bankruptcy. How ironic that 
[[Page S6884]] the Contract With America calls for taking $25 billion 
out of the Medicare trust fund.
   Mr. President, they are playing games with you. They talk as if they 
are so interested in this year's report from the Medicare trustees 
showing that the fund would be in the red by 2002, but last year the 
very same report showed that Medicare would be bankrupt by 2001.
   And now they say, ``We never knew this. We have to go to work.'' 
Last year, they said there was not any trouble with health care; 
Medicare was fine.
  Can you imagine, $256 billion out of Medicare? We cut $56 billion the 
year before last. The President offered another $125 billion last year 
which you called fantasy. And now you come along with $256 billion and 
say you need a commission to find it? That is what I call passing the 
buck. That is punting.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. BENNETT addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Senator Bennett, under a previous order, is 
recognized for 15 minutes.
  The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I am interested in the various references 
that are made from time to time on this floor about business practices; 
comments such as, ``Why, if we did this in a business the way we are 
doing it in Government, we would go to jail. We can't do that on a 
filing for the SEC.''
  Mr. President, as you may know, I have run a business, run several. I 
have filled out forms for the SEC. I have signed 10 Q's, I have signed 
10 K's. I understand the requirements of honest accounting. And I 
assure the Chair and this Senate that what I am about to say is honest 
accounting. I am not trying to mislead anybody as to what we are facing 
as a Nation. I am not trying to make rhetorical points on fine shavings 
of definitions within committee language. I am trying to be as direct 
and straightforward as I know how.
  I will start out with a chart that we have seen before and we will no 
doubt see again but which we need to keep in front of us throughout 
this whole debate.
  The information, Mr. President, on this chart comes from the 
Entitlements Commission which shows that if we listen to all of the 
rhetoric that says, ``Why, you can't do this. This will hurt this 
group. You can't do that. It will hurt this group,'' which ends up 
being ``You can't do anything,'' the present trends are simply not 
sustainable.
  I remind the Chair and the Chamber, once again, that if we do 
nothing, we let things go as they are going, within 10 years, by the 
year 2006, we will be in a circumstance where the cash outlays and the 
cash revenues of the Government comes to the condition that everything 
we spend as a Government will have to be borrowed.
  That which we do not have control over in the budget, which is in the 
red bar--entitlement spending and interest--we have no control over 
that. We are contractually obligated to that. The entitlements, by law, 
have to go out. The interest, by law, has to be paid. That means 
everything else--which includes the Defense Department, includes 
building highways, includes everything else the Government does--will 
have to be borrowed. This is the reality with which we live. It is 
real.
  I see the distinguished chairman of the Entitlements Commission on 
the floor. I thank him for his work and his courage.
  This is the situation in which we find ourselves. Let us not kid 
ourselves by saying, ``Oh, this particular phrase of the budget 
document does not apply here and we will look at this.'' This is cash 
outlays.
  I have managed a business. I will tell you the most important way to 
manage a business is on cash flow. You may have a balance sheet that 
says you have a whole lot of money, but if that money is all tied in 
inventory and receivables and you do not have the cash with which to 
pay your bills, you are in trouble. And you can go to the SEC all you 
want and say, ``Oh, this is the way I keep my books.'' You pay taxes, 
you pay wages, in cash. And this is the cash picture of what happens if 
we do not do anything.
  Now, we are told, ``Oh, we can't hurt this group. We can't hurt that 
group. Look at these terrible cuts.''
  I give you the second chart prepared by the Budget Committee on the 
terrible cuts that we are talking about in this budget.
  What are the terrible cuts we are going to inflict on Medicare? Well, 
actually, you know, Medicare is going to go up by $105 billion.
  I am a businessman. In my vocabulary a $105 billion increase is not a 
cut. I had to come to Washington to learn the definition of ``cut.'' It 
means you spend more this year than you spent last year, but you just 
spend less than somebody else promised you would in some previous year. 
That is the Washington definition of ``cut.''
  All this reference to business; I am a businessman. This, to me, is 
an increase. Put it on a per capita basis right now, Mr. President, and 
we are spending per Medicare recipient per year just under $5,000. That 
is today's figure, 4,900 and-some-odd dollars.
  Under the budget proposed by the Budget Committee, by the time we get 
to 2002, that number will be $6,450. So we are going to punish the 
Medicare population by raising their per capita expenditures from 
$4,900 to $6,400. That is how we are going to punish them. To me, that 
is not a cut.
  Now, we talk about trends. ``Oh, but the Medicare population is 
growing. The Medicare population is so big we have to spend more than 
that. That will not work.''
  As I say, that is a per capita number, Mr. President, from $4,900 to 
$6,400 per capita.
  But what is the overall number?
  Here is the chart I used in a previous statement I made on this 
subject. Medical expenditures, where the distinguished minority leader 
had said, ``You know, our problem is that public funds are growing at 
the same rate as private funds,'' and I said, ``No, that is not true.''
  I got the information from the Congressional Reference Service of the 
Library of Congress. Here are the trends. The dark figures are the 
percentage of increase in public expenditures for medical activity. 
This is combined Medicare and Medicaid. The light figures are for the 
private rate of increase.
  Here we are, the worst year, 1990, public expenditures in health care 
went up 13.2 percent that year. The private rate of increase was 10.6. 
Still unsustainable. In the private sector, they went to work on that, 
brought it down, cut it in half the next year, in 1991. Public 
expenditures came down from 13.2 to 12.6.
  The following year, they could not hold it down on the private side. 
It came up to 9.9, then 7.2, and then last year, 1994, brought it down 
to 5.3. The public expenditures came down from 12.6 to 10.8 to 8.5, and 
last year, 7.8.
  That is the level, Mr. President, at which this budget calls for it 
to stay--a 7-percent annual rate of increase in Medicare is what this 
budget is talking about.
 We have done it in 1994. Can we not do it for the next 5, 7 years?

  I will say, this combines both Medicare and Medicaid and, therefore, 
that overall figure is misleading and it is not proper for me--I said I 
am going to be honest in my accounting--it is not proper for me to say 
that applies directly to Medicare because Medicare at the moment is 
closer to 10 percent and Medicaid is the lower figure, and that is why 
the average is there.
  But that is the target we have to have, that is the target we do have 
in this budget and that is the target I believe we can meet.
  The Senator from Wisconsin says, you cannot do it to our older 
population, you cannot balance this by attacking one segment of the 
population, you cannot single out one sector. And then he talks about 
education, you cannot single out education. And pretty soon, if you 
follow that logic, you end up with no sector at all that can be cut.
  I go back to the other chart. I referenced this before strictly on 
the Medicare side pointing out that we are talking about a $105 billion 
increase in Medicare. We are also talking about $146 billion increase 
in Social Security, a $36 billion increase in Medicaid, a $51 billion 
increase in other mandatory programs. The only thing that gets cut is 
domestic discretionary spending. Defense remains the same in this 
budget. Interest has to go up because the debt is coming up. 
[[Page S6885]] 
  But what is the total? Nearly $1.9 trillion. I am reminded of the 
cartoon that appeared in the paper where the Republican was writing on 
the board the budget for 2002, $1.9 trillion, and the other person 
said: ``Is that all?"
  Mr. President, I have been involved personally in the challenge of 
downsizing a company. I grant immediately this challenge is vastly 
greater, but the principles are the same. Time and again, I would say, 
``We have to take something out of the overhead of this company.''
  People would come in to me and say, ``I agree, we have to take 
something out of the overhead, but don't cut my department'' for this 
reason or that reason and how vital it was.
  Finally, I had to get their attention, and I said: All right, I won't 
cut your department, I won't cut anybody's department. I'll let 
everybody walk out of here feeling comfortable, happy and wonderful 
right up to the point where you file for unemployment, because the 
company is going broke.
  Oh. Well, now, you explained it to me. Maybe I can find something in 
my department to cut.
  That was the company equivalent, Mr. President, of this chart. This 
is the chart I began with, this is the chart I come back to. This is 
the situation we are facing. Do we have the courage to recognize this 
is the situation we are facing and do what has to be done?
  Mr. President, we celebrated this year a number of anniversaries 
relating to the Second World War. I am one who is old enough to 
remember the Second World War. I did not fight in it. I was just a 
little kid. My brother went over in the Second World War. He was in 
Okinawa when President Truman decided to drop the bomb.
  Mr. President, may I inquire, how much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 7 minutes 30 seconds 
remaining.
  Mr. BENNETT. Thank you. The President of the United States came to 
the American people and said, ``This is the situation we are facing. If 
we do not do something about it, we are in serious trouble,'' and he 
demanded sacrifices from the American people. He was up front with 
them. He made no bones about the difficulties that we face.
  How disrupting was that experience in the lives of Americans? 
Hundreds of thousands of them lost their lives. Millions had their 
lives disrupted. They did it because they recognized that there was a 
purpose for doing it and that their Government was being honest with 
them.
  For far too long in this Chamber, our Government has not been honest 
with our people and, therefore, of course, they do not want to 
sacrifice, of course, they do not want to have their lives disrupted. I 
do not want to have my life disrupted. I want everything to go on as 
good as it has been going, but the time has come to recognize that we 
are facing a long-term crisis as severe as any we have faced, and we 
have to be as honest as we have ever been.
  So I say, all right, you do not want to do this by restraining the 
growth of Medicare, even though the rate of growth of Medicare is not 
sustainable either in this circumstance or, frankly, by comparison to 
what is going on in health care in the private sector with this 
circumstance. All right, you do not want to do it with that one? What 
do you want to do it with?
  This budget says we do it with everybody. This budget says we do not 
single out a single sector to balance the budget on the backs of any 
particular group. We say to everybody, the time has come to recognize 
the crisis with which we are dealing and deal with it evenhandedly.
  I would say to those who are complaining about this budget, then give 
us your alternative that is equally evenhanded that deals with all 
political groups with the same courage with which this deals with 
political groups and let us get forward. But do not tell us we cannot 
adopt this budget because it disturbs this or that or the other sector 
in terms of their status quo because that kind of circumstance, Mr. 
President, is simply not being honest with the American people, and the 
time for honesty is here.
  Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I was here and listened to all of the remarks. I want 
to congratulate Senator Bennett. I believe he made an eloquent 
statement. I am sorry that he did not have more time tonight to talk 
about the realities of what we can afford as a people versus the 
wishful thinking and exaggerated promises that we have been used to 
making to the public of America, to our people.
  I compliment him for it and thank him for his excellence, both in 
understanding and hard work and knowledge of matters such as this.
  Mrs. MURRAY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under a previous unanimous consent order, 
Senator Murray is recognized to speak for 15 minutes, followed by 
Senator Santorum, of Pennsylvania, for 15 minutes.
  The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, when I first came here, the Federal 
budget deficit stood at nearly $300 billion, and for 3 years in a row, 
we worked with common sense and clear purpose to reduce that deficit. I 
was not here when this deficit was run up, but I was not elected to 
bring home the bacon, and I know that politics as usual will not sell 
anymore. We must reduce the deficit. But I say to my friends, there is 
a right way to cut spending, to streamline Government and to reduce the 
deficit. I think the correct path was the one we started down in 1993.
  On the other hand, there are radical approaches which might be 
effective at slashing spending and cutting programs, but we have to ask 
the question, at what cost?
  The American people deserve a sound budget. They deserve proposals 
that meet their urgent needs and reflect their spending priorities. 
They deserve investments in our future. They deserve security for 
themselves and for their families, and I firmly believe that taxpayers 
deserve to get something back from the system that they are paying 
into.
  I look carefully and critically at this Nation's budget to make sure 
that it adequately deals with investments in our basic American quality 
of life. Our children must be prepared for tomorrow. The health of our 
citizens must be secure and our neighborhoods and towns must be safe.
  That is how I begin this process every year, Mr. President. I start 
from the premise that as Americans we have special rights and 
responsibilities, and this body must acknowledge them both. I believe 
in personal responsibility. I believe we must take charge of our own 
lives and live up to the obligations that citizenship in this country 
brings with it. But some Americans, some members of our society cannot 
make it on their own. There is a great deal of insecurity and a bitter 
loss of self-confidence out there. I saw it in the faces of my friends 
and neighbors when I was home in the State of Washington. I would hear 
it around my kitchen table every night: The middle class, average 
Americans feel that they are not in control of their own destiny. 
Machinists at the Boeing Co. tell me they feel their jobs are not 
secure in these days of corporate downsizing, and they feel there is 
nothing they can do about it.
  Parents tell me they are worried about their kids' safety and 
violence in the streets, and they feel powerless. My own two teenagers 
and their friends, the so-called generation X, our future leaders, talk 
with me about poor job prospects, about never receiving Social 
Security, not being able to afford to go to college, and the sad and 
unyielding spread of AIDS. They feel they cannot make the future 
brighter.
  Today, information flows through our society at such a rapid pace, 
technological innovations seem to be outpacing daily life. Average 
Americans feel overtaken by it. Bankers and economists warn me that in 
our interdependent world the dollar falls to record lows and derivative 
investments threaten our financial security and soundness. They feel 
the economic solution is beyond their control. Doctors and nurses and 
administrators in hospitals and community-based clinics tell me that 
entitlement programs do need reform. But so does the entire health care 
system.
  If the severe Medicare and Medicaid cuts are kept in this budget, 
they will not be able to deal with the growing caseload of those who 
need help and have no means to pay for their own medical care. 
[[Page S6886]] 
  Mr. President, imagine the hopelessness of a young family with a 
newborn baby diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. First, one parent has to 
quit their job to care for that child and their income drops 
dramatically; insurance runs out, and the young family is forced to 
spend down in order to get health care--Medicaid--for their child. That 
is the family I speak for in this budget process. That is the family I 
think of when I remember the simple truth our parents taught us: 
``There, but for the grace of God, go I.''
  That family could easily be mine or yours, Mr. President. I am 
raising two kids at home. I have elderly parents who are not always in 
the best of health. Like so many Americans, I am squeezed between my 
kids and my own parents. That is why I share with many Americans the 
grave concern about the Medicare cuts. How will the program be 
reformed? Many people have come to me recently and have told me they 
are afraid that these cuts will result in higher out-of-pocket payments 
for seniors who are already struggling. They believe cuts will result 
in limiting choices for seniors.
  My parents have had the same doctor for years in Washington State; 
they do not want to lose their doctor because of a budget plan imposed 
on them from Washington, DC. From the rural eastern part of my State, I 
hear the rumbling of concern. Many Medicare beneficiaries live in these 
communities which often share a single hospital.
  These cuts to the Medicare program have the potential to cause some 
of the hospitals to close--or to shift--a great amount of their costs 
to local taxpayers.
  Mr. President, this brings me to a major concern. By simply cutting 
funds to Medicare, we are passing on the cost of care for our seniors--
our parents--to the hospitals around the country, and those hospitals 
will pass on the costs to working families across this Nation.
  I refuse to stand here on the floor of the U.S. Senate and talk about 
the budget as if it is just a bunch of numbers. There is a senior 
citizen and a child and an American family behind every number in this 
budget. I am afraid that in this time of great uncertainty, in this 
time of anxiety, we will be telling average American families, ``You 
are on your own.''
  We in the Senate have a choice. We can build self-confidence, we can 
inspire hope, and we can restore trust in our Government and its 
ability to work for average Americans. And we can do this at the same 
time we reduce the deficit, if we do it with common sense. That is the 
right way.
  (Ms. SNOWE assumed the chair.)
  Mrs. MURRAY. Or, Madam President, we can feed into the Social 
Darwinist thinking of survival of the fittest. Serving the special 
interests who are up here writing legislation. Giving Goliath an 
advantage. And that is the wrong way.
  I am hopeful that we will be able to work on a budget over the coming 
days, which keeps us on the right path.
  I look across the aisle to Members of your party, and I see true 
champions of certain causes, and I have been pleased to support many of 
them in their efforts.
  The distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee, the Senator from 
New Mexico, has always been a forceful advocate for funding mental 
health programs, and he has always looked out for Federal workers.
  Madam President, I am proud to serve on his committee with Senators 
who have provided real leadership and hope to the American people on 
many issues.
  I know that my friend from Maine, who is presiding over the Senate at 
this moment, has been stalwart on women's health issues. Senator 
Grassley from Iowa has spent years defending the family farmer. My 
friend from Missouri, Senator Bond, has displayed real leadership by 
keeping programs like HOPWA from the rescissions axe. These are my 
Republican colleagues on the Budget Committee, and I am proud to serve 
with them. I have supported all of these efforts in the past, and I 
will continue to do so in this Congress.
  So I hope that some of our colleagues on your side of the aisle, 
Madam President, will look with favor on programs that are important to 
me, especially the education of our children, both in their early years 
and in gaining access to college and vocational programs.
  For my State, there are other important budget issues before us: The 
cleanup of Hanford Nuclear Reservation and the funding of the Eximbank; 
impact aid for educating the children of our men and women in uniform; 
help for fishers and timber workers who have been dislocated, and all 
programs that ease anxiety and restore hope.
  Madam President, I know firsthand how much hope is needed out there. 
I know firsthand how much harm this budget will do to average 
Americans.
  I am one of the millions of ordinary Americans who is worried about 
her elderly parents. I am one of the millions of average people who 
wants her children to be able to go to college. I am one of the people 
out there driving to work every day and just trying to juggle the 
pressures of everyday life for myself and my family.
  But, Madam President, this budget adds to the pressure. It does so 
much harm to working people--I find it incredible that it cuts the 
earned income tax credit so severely. I find it incredible that this 
budget raises the taxes on our working families. Let average Americans 
make no mistake about it--Republicans are increasing taxes on working 
families.
  In Washington State alone, this budget means an average tax increase 
of $1,400 over 7 years on nearly 180,000 working families.
  I am a product of the Western United States. I was born in Washington 
State. I grew up there. I am one of seven children who learned from our 
parents that we should always pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. 
But this budget steals our shoelaces.
  So I plan to offer amendments on the floor, Madam President, that 
move this budget in restoring some common sense.
  I will offer one amendment on impact aid, and I will offer another 
one to protect children from drastic cuts in Medicaid.
  And, Madam President, let me make this clear, these are not frivolous 
amendments. They have been drafted carefully and I hope that they do 
pass. It is not my intention to embarrass anybody. My amendments are 
sincere attempts to improve this budget, and they reflect my highest 
priorities, for I believe we have the chance today to outline clearly 
our priorities for this Nation.
  Each of us was sent to the Senate to serve the country and to 
articulate the specific concerns of our friends and neighbors at home.
  So let me conclude here with just a few words of caution. No one 
doubts the need to put our fiscal house in order. But what I fear the 
most is that it will be done with an eye only toward today, without 
considering the consequences for tomorrow.
  Deficit reduction is not an economic policy in and of itself. And 
under today's cut, cut, cut mantra, I cannot allow us to forget the 
word ``compassion.''
  I worry that slash and burn politics will override common sense and 
fairness, especially for our children.
  We are looking here today at the Wizard of Oz budget: No heart, no 
brain, no courage, and no home. And there is too much at stake.
  At a fast and furious pace these days, polls tell us what Americans 
believe about an issue before they have even had time to really make up 
their minds about it.
  I caution my friends--before you impose draconian Medicare and 
Medicaid cuts on the most vulnerable members of our society--do not be 
too hasty to legislate based on the shifting sands of current political 
popularity.
  Let us keep things in perspective, Madam President, and let us 
remember the little guy.
  Let us talk about priorities and plans, not just cuts and contracts. 
Let us use this budget process to restore hope, to ease anxiety, and to 
make the future brighter for average Americans. I look forward to this 
debate.
  Thank you, Madam President.
  Mr. EXON. Madam President, I would like to take a moment on my time 
to congratulate my friend and colleague from the State of Washington. 
Here is a teacher, a mother, someone that is really dedicated to the 
cause that we are trying to espouse on this side of the aisle. I thank 
her for her excellent remarks.
  I yield the floor.
  

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