[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 83 (Thursday, May 18, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6887-S6906]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



[[Page S6887]]

                      UNANIMOUS CONSENT AGREEMENT

  Mr. DOLE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that prior to the 
close of business today, Senator Domenici be recognized to offer a 
substitute amendment, the text of which is President Clinton's budget; 
that no other amendments be in order during the pendency of the 
Domenici amendment; that a vote occur on the amendment at 10:45 a.m. on 
Friday, May 19, 1995, without any intervening action or debate; and 
that the time between 10:15 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. be under the control of 
Senator Exon, and 10:30 a.m. and 10:45 a.m. under the control of 
Senator Domenici.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. LEVIN. Reserving the right to object, Madam President, and I will 
not object, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator may state the inquiry.
  Mr. LEVIN. If the substitute offered by Senator Domenici is agreed 
to, is the resolution as amended by the substitute further amendable?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Only with the amendments that are 
mathematically consistent.
  Mr. LEVIN. So that the numbers may be changed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  Mr. LEVIN. I have no objection.
  Mr. DOLE. I add further, if the substitute is adopted, I will be out 
of work.
  Mr. LEVIN. Was that a parliamentary inquiry?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DOLE. Madam President, I further ask that following the 
disposition of the Domenici amendment, Senators Lautenberg and 
Rockefeller be recognized to offer an amendment relative to restoring 
the Medicare funds; that no amendments be in order to the amendment; 
that no amendments be in order to the language proposed to be stricken; 
and that a vote occur on the amendment at 3:15 p.m. Monday, May 22, 
without any intervening action or debate.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Reserving the right to object, and I will not, do I 
understand that neither of these consents waive any Senator's right to 
make a point of order?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is not correct. They would indeed waive 
the right to make a point of order.
  Mr. DOMENICI. On either?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On either.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I do not know whether there would be a point of order, 
but I usually make this proposal before every amendment, and I just 
forgot this evening. Nobody is waiving the right to the point of order. 
It is not that urgent, let it go.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DOLE. I thank the Senator from South Dakota for his cooperation.
  Let me just explain to my colleagues, then, the Senator will lay down 
the amendment tonight, and it is my understanding at the end of the day 
there will be 40 hours left in today's session.
  Then hopefully tomorrow we will be in long enough to take 10 more 
hours, and after tomorrow there will be 30 hours left. So we start 
Monday with 30 hours. We would like to complete action on this bill on 
Wednesday so we can take up the President's request on the 
antiterrorism bill and pass that before the recess.
  So there will be one vote tomorrow. And first vote on Monday will be 
at 3:15. There may be votes after that vote on Monday.
  So I urge my colleagues to not leave on the assumption that there 
will only be one vote on Monday. There could be several votes on 
Monday. I assume after the disposition of the Lautenberg-Rockefeller 
amendment, there will be an amendment offered on this side. I assume we 
are going to rotate back and forth.
  So there could be several amendments, because again we will be in 
session at least 10 hours on Monday, maybe longer.
  Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the minority leader.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, I share the understanding of the 
distinguished majority leader with regard to the schedule for the next 
couple of days. Even though there is only one rollcall vote tomorrow, 
we have a very important debate that will begin immediately after that 
vote. It will be on the issue of Medicare. And I urge my colleagues to 
use this time to the fullest benefit. That time will be lost, if we do 
not use it tomorrow. It is very important that all of our colleagues 
appreciate the time that we have available to us tomorrow and Monday to 
debate this important issue.
  So I encourage our participation, and certainly hope that you will 
take full advantage of the hours that are available to us following the 
disposition of the first vote at 10:45 in the morning.
  We will have another vote on Monday. It will be on the Medicare 
amendment, and between now and then I would hope that all of our 
colleagues will fully avail themselves of the opportunity that we now 
have to debate this amendment to the fullest extent possible.
  So I think this is a good agreement that gets us off to a good start. 
I would certainly hope that between Friday morning and Monday afternoon 
we have no quorum calls, and that we use every moment available to us 
to participate in the debate on the Medicare amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. EXON. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that following the 
conclusion of the remarks by the Senator from Pennsylvania that the 
Senator from Kentucky, Senator Ford, be recognized on this side for 20 
minutes, and then we will continue the usual process of going back and 
forth.
  I do not know who is scheduled. Senator Lott will be scheduled after 
that for 15 minutes. Following the conclusion of the remarks by the 
Senator from Kentucky, Senator Lott will be recognized for 15 minutes. 
Following that, Senator Bumpers on this side will be recognized for 20 
minutes. And then, if there is a speaker on that side, they will be 
next following Senator Bumpers on this side, and Senator Kerrey will be 
recognized after that for 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I wonder if the distinguished minority leader might 
just engage in a little discussion with me about amendments.
  We already are asking Senators on our side to submit amendments to me 
as floor manager to just see where we are. I know for many it seems 
early. But, frankly, time is going to be really moving. I think it 
would be helpful to all of us the sooner we knew. I am not asking for 
details. But the sooner we know, more or less, where we are, we will 
finish at a point certain, at a time certain. Everybody knows that. If 
there are amendments that we have debated, they will get a vote, if 
they want one. But there will be no discussion. The sooner we know 
maybe the sooner we might accommodate in some realistic way the 
Senators who desire to have a little time to speak.
  Mr. DASCHLE. If the Senator will yield, the Senator is correct. I 
think it would be very helpful for all Senators to share with us their 
intentions with regard to amendments as soon as possible. We already 
have a list we are compiling. We would be happy to share it with you. I 
think it is our intention following the amendment relating to Medicare 
to offer an amendment relating to education, and following that an 
amendment relating to the EIPC. There will be an amendment relating to 
Medicare, and EIPC, and education.
  So the order for our side will be that, and we will be able to give 
you more information as we go through the list.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Thank you very much.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania is recognized 
for 15 minutes.
  Mr. SANTORUM. I had the opportunity, Madam President, to be on the 
floor for just a few minutes when the resolution was laid down, and 
spoke about what a historic time this was for our country, and that a 
majority of Senators from the House and from the Senate--the House 
having passed their budget resolution earlier today--had the courage to 
come forward and present a budget resolution that brought our Federal 
budget into balance.
  That is not an easy thing to do. If it was an easy thing to do, it 
would have [[Page S6888]] been done at least 25 times over the last 25 
years, but it has not been done once.
  I give a lot of credit to the Senator from New Mexico for his 
tremendous work on crafting the legislation; the Congressman from Ohio, 
John Kasich, for the work he has done on the House side; and to all of 
the Republicans who are standing shoulder to shoulder to push this 
effort forward for the future of this country.
  This is a historic time. This is a great opportunity for America as a 
country to face the realities of the future, to stop the endless 
political games of promising what we cannot deliver on, and letting 
other generations of Americans pay for our political expediency.
  I am excited. I am excited to be here during this time. I think this 
will be one of the great debates in history. I think this will be one 
of the great defining moments of our time.
  It is just unfortunate, it is truly unfortunate, that at one of these 
defining moments where the country can really face the future, it is 
going to be done without the Chief Executive Officer of this country. 
He has decided that he is going to take absence without leadership, 
AWOL on this issue. He has decided that he does not want to participate 
in the process. He has decided in debates with himself that he is not 
relevant to this process, and that he is going to sit on the sidelines 
and throw whatever he can at those who are trying to move this country 
forward to balance the budget.
  It is a great disappointment to me and I know to many Americans that 
the Chief Executive Officer, the President, has decided to take this 
course.
  What I have decided to do is to remind everyone here of the 
President's action or inaction on this effort. Starting today, the 
first day in which the budget resolution was laid down here on the 
Senate floor, I am going to bring this chart to the floor every day 
between now and October 1 of this year, when the next fiscal year 
starts, and going to tell the American public how many days it has been 
since the Republicans laid down a balanced budget resolution to get 
this country to balance, and how many days it has been since Bill 
Clinton has decided to leave town when it came to this issue.
  The Senator from Massachusetts, in the last election for President 
had the rallying cry of ``Where's George?'' Well the question today is 
``Where's Bill?'' I guess on day one, the answer is, as the Senator 
from Kansas the majority leader has said, he is AWOL. Absent without 
leadership.
  Today is day one. I suspect, although I hope it is not the case, that 
over the next 135 days between now and the end of September, that I 
will be putting up day after day, numbers on this chart to show that 
the President truly is not serious about leading this country, about 
moving forward in a direction that will preserve this country's not 
just financial future but future as a society.
  I am actually fairly sad to have to come here and do this. I think it 
is in a time of great courage that we are seeing in the Congress, a 
very sad state of affairs that we have a President who has decided not 
to participate.
  By the way, this is the same President who in 1993 he and his budget 
directors and many on the other side of the aisle, were clamoring about 
how the Republicans were not putting up their plan.
  Where was their plan in 1993 to reduce the deficit? We are not 
talking about just reducing the deficit here. We are talking about 
getting to a balanced budget. Something which the President's plan does 
not do.
  I want to quote the President in February of 1993. The President's 
demand to the Republicans in Congress, ``Not hot air, show me where.''
  Well, Mr. President, ``Not hot air, show me where.'' If the President 
wants to lead, lead. That means the President has to propose, just for 
some instruction. The President has to propose something in order to 
lead somewhere.
  The situation is the President being absent from this debate is not 
unusual when it comes to the budget this year. We have a President who 
has refused to put forward a balanced budget resolution, has refused to 
put forward anything that is going to reduce the rate of growth in the 
deficit. In fact, according to the numbers of the President, modest 
numbers he wants us to use, his deficit goes up over the next 7 years 
up to $267 billion by the year 2002, according to the nonpartisan 
Congressional Budget Office of which the President said we should use 
in determining his numbers.
  And his first chance this year, his first chance this year to put a 
downpayment on the deficit, is a $16 billion rescissions bill, which 
yesterday in the Washington Post he said that he was going to veto; a 
$16 billion rescissions bill.
  There is a President who simply wants to preserve the status quo, and 
all you will hear over the next 5 days are people who created this 
Government here in the Congress and who want to defend every program, 
and if we touch a hair on one of them, the sky will fall, the Earth 
will erupt, and life will never be the same again here.
  Well, let me just suggest that, if we do not touch some of these 
programs, literally thousands and thousands of programs, if we do not 
start consolidating, eliminating, reducing the rate of growth of some 
of these programs, truly the sky will fall and the Earth will open up 
because we simply will not have a future for our children. We will 
leave nothing for them.
  So I would suggest that when you hear the gnashing of teeth that you 
will hear, you will hear about how hopeless things are in America--the 
previous speaker was talking about, the Senator from Washington, 
talking about how hopeless people are if not for some Government 
program that is going to help them through their hopelessness, or how 
fearful people are, if it was not for the Government to take care of 
them.
  I would just suggest that our job here in Washington is to provide 
opportunity and hope for people, to give them the chance to succeed.
  I will tell you the best way that I believe you can give people a 
chance to succeed is by letting them keep the fruits of their labors, 
but not taking all of it from them, and when I hear this debate, it 
absolutely blows my mind. I do not know what budget they are working 
on. I hear all of this debate all day long, and from the White House 
how we are cutting Medicare, cutting all of these programs to pay for 
``tax breaks for the rich.'' I know a lot of you heard this. A lot of 
you have heard this.
  Let me tell you what the budget resolution says. This budget 
resolution--I do not know what budget resolution they are talking 
about. It is not this budget resolution. It is not this budget 
resolution. In this budget resolution is a provision that 90 percent of 
all tax cuts must go to people under $100,000; 90 percent.
  I do not know. We may be redefining wealthy in America; and, that is, 
that people under $100,000 are wealthy. People who make under $100,000 
are wealthy. Those are wealthy. But when you have 90 percent of any tax 
cut provision in this budget as it appears on the floor of the Senate 
today, going to under $100,000, I do not know how you make that 
statement. I do not know how you make the statement the Senator from 
South Carolina made a few minutes ago that they are going to cut taxes 
now, and the spending cuts will not come until later. I do not know 
what budget he is looking at.
  This budget, almost all of the cuts in taxes that occur come the last 
3 or 4 years after we have shown that we can get on a glidepath, after 
we do cut spending first. Why does that come about? Why do we get this 
$170 billion? It is a very important point. Why is it that the 
Congressional Budget Office gives us a bonus of $170 billion? Let me 
explain why. It is very simple.
  Because they believe, as I am sure every economist in this country 
would believe, and you can see it by what is happening already to the 
dollar and how the dollar is rebounding since we have introduced this 
resolution, how interest rates are coming down since we have gotten 
serious about balancing the budget here in this Chamber--the 
Congressional Budget Office believes accurately that, if we have in 
place a mechanism to balance the budget over the next 7 years, interest 
rates will come down; therefore, the cost to refinance the debt will 
come down, inflation will come down, and the economy will grow faster.
  Those are all assumptions the Congressional Budget Office made in 
calculating this bonus of $170 billion of [[Page S6889]] which we were 
going to take that bonus and return it to the people who work very hard 
to pay those taxes.
  Think about this. Getting to a balanced budget will create more 
growth. That means more jobs. That means for opportunity, lower 
interest rates, which means lower payments on mortgages, more 
affordable housing, and other programs, lower debt costs which means 
lower deficits. This is what we are focused on, growth, low inflation, 
low interest rates. But that is a pretty good plan. That is how we get 
the deficit even further reduced.
  What we are saying is that once we have established the plan to get 
us to zero, if we do get that bonus, if we do get that savings, then we 
are going to give you the dividend. You, the taxpayer of America, boy, 
I will tell you. By the way, 90 percent of that will go to people under 
$100,000.
  I do not know, folks. I do not know what budget they are reading over 
there. But if that is cutting Medicare to pay for tax breaks for the 
rich, tell the Congressional Budget Office because that is getting it 
right, balancing the budget, causing positive effects on the economy 
and letting people who work their tails off in this country keep some 
of the money they worked hard for.
  You would think that the only people who care in this town are people 
who want to take your money and give it to somebody else to help them; 
that those of us who believe caring sometimes can mean letting you keep 
some of the money you worked hard for. No. That is not caring. That is 
tax breaks for these bad people who work; or these people who succeed.
  I happen to think that rewarding people for doing what we all, 
everyone in this Chamber, want people to do in this country--work --is 
a good thing. It is a good thing.
  So when you hear about these nasty things that we are going to do 
about, you know, helping the wealthy, substitute every time you hear 
``wealthy'', substitute ``taxpayer.'' If you are a taxpayer, you are 
the one they are after. They do not want to give you any relief up 
there. No, no, no. Those of you who pay taxes, you are bad. We have to 
make sure that you give us the money that you worked hard for so we can 
spend it, where we, of course, know best. That is just absurd. It is 
even an absurd statement here in Washington DC.
  This is a good budget plan. This is a fair budget plan. I will talk 
over the next few days about how we are doing. I went to town meeting 
after town meeting after town meeting in the last 4 or 5 years. I was 
in Congress before being in the Senate this year. And every place I 
went, the comment I got was whether you want to get to a balanced 
budget but do not single out anybody, do not single out any group, 
spread it around. You know. Make it fair. We are willing to take our 
share. We understand we have a problem. We are willing to pitch in. 
This is America. When we have a crisis in this country we are willing 
to step up to the plate. We are not going to run and hide. ``Oh, no 
don't hurt us. Don't touch us.''
  That is what the other side would have you believe. We have a bunch 
of people who are not willing to sacrifice or put forward their piece 
to solve the problem. Of course, they are. Of course, you will. Do not 
let these people appeal to your weaker side. Appeal to the better 
angels of your nature. Appeal to the side that says America is a great 
country, if we all pull together and we stand shoulder to shoulder to 
solve problems.
  That is what this budget does. It bridges us all in, everybody. It 
says let us all pull together. And we are not talking about radical 
stuff here folks. We are not talking about enormous pain here.
  We are not talking about enormous pain here. We are talking about 
Government growth at 3\1/2\ percent a year, increasing at 3\1/2\ 
percent a year. Under this budget resolution, spending goes up 3\1/2\ 
percent a year. Some pain. Three and a half percent a year, that is 
just draconian; it is horrible. Again, the sky is going to fall if the 
Government only goes up 3\1/2\ percent a year.
  This is the right medicine. It is absolutely crucial medicine. It is 
absolutely crucial that we pass this resolution and that we move 
forward to put this country back to where my grandfather, who came to 
this country back in the 1920's, before the Depression--he lived in a 
company town, in the hills of Appalachia, in Pennsylvania. He was a 
coal miner. And he came here not because he did not have a good job. He 
had a great job in Italy. That is where he came from. He had a great 
job. But he left there because he wanted freedom. He wanted to be able 
to collect the fruits of his labor, and most importantly he wanted to 
leave his sons and daughter better off than he was.
  That has been the dream of every American who came on our shores. 
They came here because they wanted to leave the next generation better 
off and with more opportunities than they had.
  We are sitting here and standing here as Members of the Senate, and 
we are looking at a future that will do just the opposite if we do 
nothing. If we fail, the next generation will not have what we have, 
will not have the opportunity to succeed. As I look around and see 
people in the gallery with their children, I know their one hope is 
that those children will be better off than them; that they love them 
so much.
  Well, folks, love them enough to do the right thing. Love them enough 
to set this country straight and balance this budget so they can have a 
better future.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Under the previous order, the Senator has 15 minutes.
  Mr. FORD. I think we are swapping back and forth. I have 20 minutes 
and then the Senator has 15 minutes. I think that is correct.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, by a unanimous-
consent agreement, the Senator from Kentucky is recognized for 20 
minutes, and then the Senator from Mississippi for 15 minutes.
  The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. FORD. Madam President, while the Senator from Pennsylvania is 
still in the Chamber, I would like to make a couple remarks.
  I have been in this Senate for 21 years now. In all of the hot 
debates, in all of the effort that is made here, I have never heard or 
seen the office of the President of the United States degraded like it 
has been here today. Never in 21 years have I heard Gerald Ford called 
Jerry, Jimmy Carter called Jimmy, Ronald Reagan called Ron, George Bush 
called George, and I have never heard a First Lady called by her first 
name. I think it is time we have some respect for the office if we do 
not have respect for the individual who holds it.
  Now, when the Senator says ``Bill'' here, we have never done that. 
The Senator can smile if he wants to, but there is some decorum by 
people who have been here for a long time. This is an institution that 
has respect for the office if not for the individual. I would hope that 
the Members on the other side would be a little careful about the 
remarks they make and how they put forward their effort in this debate.
  So I just call attention to the Senate that I hope from now on it 
would be ``the President.'' I have never heard the majority leader in 
the Chamber refer to his party's President by his first name. I never 
heard him refer to the Democratic Party's President by his first name. 
It has always been ``the President.'' So I would hope that we would 
refrain from using the First Lady's first name in the Chamber and that 
we be very careful about that.
  Madam President, I hope that I say this constructively because I do 
respect the office of the President, even though another party from my 
choosing would be the occupant. I felt it important that I say that.
  Madam President, what a difference 6 months has made. And I go back 
to November 6, 1994. ``President Clinton and Vice President Gore are 
resorting to scare tactics, falsely accusing the Republicans of secret 
plans to cut Medicare benefits.''
  That was from the majority leader of the U.S. Senate, quoted in the 
Washington Post of November 6.

       The outrage, as far as I am concerned, is the Democrat's 
     big lie campaign that the Contract With America would require 
     huge Medicare cuts. It would not.

  Haley Barbour, Republican National Committee Chair, CNN's Late 
Edition, November 6, 1994.
  The GOP budget speaks for itself. The GOP Senate budget plan includes 
[[Page S6890]] $256 million in Medicare cuts. We go back to what the 
chairman of the Republican Party said, and he has been in the meetings 
here. He has attended the meetings when this budget was developed and 
the statements were planned. He said it is a big lie campaign. Six 
months later, it was the truth.
  The GOP House budget plan includes $286 billion in Medicare cuts, and 
the House budget includes and the Senate budget provides funds for GOP 
tax cuts that would give $20,000 a year to the wealthiest Americans.
  I heard the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania say that this 
will reduce interest rates; that things are going to get better.
  Well, in 1993, we struggled, and if I recall, after we passed that 
budget bill without a Republican vote, 50-50, in the Senate, and the 
Vice President broke the tie, the Fed had to increase interest rates 
six or seven times in order to cool off the economy because we reduced 
the deficit by $600 billion. We reduced or eliminated 300 programs. And 
how many Republican votes did we get? None. Zilch. Zip. None. And we 
did pretty well.
  When you say that we have not done the right thing, I think you have 
to go back and look at the 1993 votes. And if you also want to say 
something about 6 months later, there was a Congressman in the House 
that said it very well. ``If we had come out with this budget in our 
contract, they wouldn't have voted us in.'' You would not have been 
elected. At least, he was honest. He was honest in making his 
statement.
  Madam President, last year, the Census Bureau reported the widest 
rich-poor gap since the Bureau began keeping track in 1947. Business 
Week magazine suggested that ``If this trend persists, it could tarnish 
America's image as the land of opportunity.'' In fact, it was a 
Republican strategist who said, ``This stratifying starts to make us 
into a different country. It goes to the American notion of fairness.''
  And that is exactly why, when Democrats hammered out an economic plan 
last Congress, we made sure it not only dramatically cut the deficit, 
but also helped create an environment for strong growth, proven by the 
interest rates that we were called on to pay and increased by the Fed. 
We provided resources so all Americans--and I underscore ``all''--could 
obtain the skills necessary to compete in a global economy. We 
accomplished those goals amidst the first investment-led recovery with 
low inflation in 30 years.
  Today, Senate Republicans have put forth a budget that also looks to 
eliminate the deficit. But the similarities, Madam President, stop 
there. While Democrats sought to put in place an economic plan to 
further empower the hard-working families of this country and their 
children, the Republican plan appears to be driven almost entirely by 
the desire to cut taxes for America's most well off.
  Middle-class Americans understand that balancing the budget requires 
the Henry Clay tactic--compromise, mutual sacrifice, negotiated hurt, 
as Henry Clay would have said. But while they are being forced to 
accept the biggest rate hike in Medicare history, those Americans 
making $300,000 or more are walking off with a $20,000 a year tax cut, 
low-income Americans are being forced to pay more taxes.
  While low-income Americans are being forced to pay more taxes when 
the earned-income tax credit is slashed, those millionaire Benedict 
Arnolds spit on the flag, renounce their citizenship in the United 
States--we tried to prevent it and we could not because the votes on 
the other side would not let us--so they can get out of paying U.S. 
taxes. As we say down in western Kentucky, ``Something about that ain't 
right.''
  And while middle-class Americans are being forced to pay thousands 
more to send their children to college, loophole after loophole remains 
intact for America's richest.
  There is not a single Senator here who supports the status quo--not a 
single Senator. But on this side of the aisle, we do not want to see 
America's image as the land of opportunity tarnished. We want a budget 
that is balanced, not one that sends middle-class Americans home 
emptyhanded so that the richest Americans can pocket a $20,000 a year 
goody.
  While the 1 percent of Americans are trying to figure out how to 
spend their extra 20,000 bucks, middle-class Americans are trying to 
figure out how to care for their elderly, sick parents when Medicare is 
slashed by over $250 billion. While the 1 percent of Americans are 
trying to figure out how to spend their extra 20,000 bucks, middle-
class Americans will be trying to figure out if their dreams to send 
their children to college are impossible to obtain. And while the 1 
percent of Americans are trying to figure out how to spend their extra 
20,000 bucks, those hard-working families struggling to become middle 
class will try to figure out how to do so now that the earned-income 
tax credit that they enjoy is slashed and their taxes are raised.
  Medicare: What are the cuts really for?
  Madam President, there are 585,000 Medicare beneficiaries in my State 
of Kentucky. I hope many of them will follow this debate, follow it 
closely, so we can consider the Republican proposal to cut Medicare by 
$256 billion over the next 7 years. I hope many of them will try to 
figure out what those cuts are really for. Why are they in this budget? 
Why $256 billion?
  There are $170 billion in proposed tax cuts in this Republican 
budget, although they have tried to hide them in something called a tax 
reduction reserve fund. If these tax cuts are anything like we have 
seen from the House of Representatives, we know that they will 
primarily benefit well-off Americans with high incomes.
  Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle deny that Medicare cuts 
are being used to offset these tax cuts for upper income Americans. 
They have suggested that the Medicare trust fund is going broke and 
that we have a crisis. They have also suggested they do not know what 
specific steps should be taken to make the trust fund solvent, and that 
we should set up a commission--a commission--to recommend changes in 
the Medicare program to make it solvent.
  I hope Republicans are prepared to answer the questions the 585,000 
Medicare beneficiaries in my State have for them.
  First, if we cut Medicare by $256 billion, how much longer will the 
trust fund be healthy? Answer that. We have yet to hear the answer. If 
we are truly reacting to a crisis, then what will $256 billion in cuts 
do to affect the crisis? If the proponents of these $256 billion in 
cuts do not know the answer, this would appear to be further evidence 
Medicare cuts are being made to offset tax cuts for upper income 
Americans.
  Second, and more puzzling, if Republicans are cutting Medicare to 
avoid a crisis in the trust fund, and if Republicans do not know yet 
what specific steps to take until a commission tells us, then how do 
they already know the specific amount to cut? If we need a commission 
to tell us how to make the trust fund solvent, do we not need to add up 
the changes they recommend before we know the total amount of cuts?
  How can we know that $256 billion in cuts are needed to make Medicare 
programs solvent? It sounds suspicious to me and a lot of Americans. 
Either Republicans already know what Medicare changes they will make 
and they will not tell us, or $256 billion is simply the number they 
needed to offset the tax cuts.
  I hope the 585,000 Medicare beneficiaries in my State will hear 
answers to some of these questions. Madam President, we have a Medicare 
crisis today and we had an even greater Medicare crisis in 1993 and 
1994. The Medicare beneficiaries in my State want to know where the 
Republicans were then.
  In 1993, the Medicare part A trust fund was projected to go broke in 
1999, only 6 years out. Let us not forget how tough some of those 
decisions in the 1993 deficit reduction package were. More than $1 out 
of every $5 in deficit reduction in 1993 went to shore up Medicare. We 
cut $56 billion in spending for Medicare over 5 years in the 1993 
deficit reduction package. These cuts included $23.3 billion in 
payments to hospitals, $15.7 billion in payments to doctors, $9.1 
billion in payments involving both hospitals and doctors. These were 
tough cuts, and we did not get a vote from the other side of the aisle 
to make those cuts.
  We also lifted the cap on wages subject to the payroll tax which 
funds [[Page S6891]] Medicare part A, and increased the amount of 
Social Security benefits subject to taxes on those making over $44,000 
a year. A tough choice, but we dedicated every penny of increase of 
revenues to Medicare. They went to Medicare. These were painful 
changes, hard votes. We made them; they did not.
  Consider together they shored up the Medicare Program by more than 
$100 billion over 5 years, and how many Republican votes did we get to 
help shore up Medicare? Not one. Zilch. Zero.
  In 1993, when Medicare was projected to run out of money by 1999, how 
many Republicans said, ``There's a Medicare crisis?'' Not one. Zilch. 
Zero.
  In 1994, when health care reform was being considered and Medicare 
was projected to run out of money by 2001, how many Republicans said 
there was a crisis in Medicare? None.
  In fact, last year, many went out of their way to stress that there 
was no crisis--no crisis--in health care. More than $1 out of every $6 
spent in this country in health care comes from Medicare. In fact, over 
40 percent of health care expenditures nationwide comes from the public 
sector, and this is primarily Medicare and Medicaid.
  When the Medicare trustees' report came out earlier this year, it 
actually extended by 1 year the projections of when the Medicare trust 
fund would run out of money.
  Yet, my Republican colleagues, none of whom recognized the Medicare 
crisis in 1993 and many of whom denied the existence of any health care 
crisis last year, seized upon the trustees' report to justify now a 
crisis, a crisis worthy of $256 billion in Medicare cuts.
  I have 585,000 Medicare beneficiaries in my State. They should look 
behind these numbers. There are a lot of unanswered questions. How do 
we know from reading the trustees' report that $256 billion in cuts are 
needed?
  Let us take a look at what the report says. Part A pays for inpatient 
hospital care, skilled nursing facility care, home health care, and 
hospice care. Most Americans 65 or older are automatically entitled to 
part A protection. There are over 36 million beneficiaries nationwide, 
and Medicare part A is financed by the Federal hospital insurance trust 
fund. According to the trustees' report, at the end of 1995, the part A 
trust fund will have an all-time record balance of $134 billion, which 
will grow slightly in 1996. However, the balance will decline, 
thereafter, to the point where the fund becomes dangerously close to 
being insolvent by the year 2002.
  The trustees also reported on Medicare part B. Part B of Medicare is 
voluntary. It pays for doctors' services, other medical and health 
services, like laboratory and outpatient services, and some home health 
care services not covered by part A. Part B is financed by the 
supplemental medical insurance trust fund.
  According to the trustees' report, this part B trust fund will have a 
balance of $26 billion in the year 2002, even larger than the balance 
today and an all-time record. So if there is a trust fund crisis, it is 
in part A.
  Yet, we do not know where the $256 billion in Medicare cuts in the 
Republican budget will come from. Do our Republican colleagues view a 
crisis in part B, as well? How will the $256 billion in cuts be 
allocated among part A and part B?
  Madam President, I do not know what we need a commission for, but if 
we are to have one, this raises even more questions:
  What will the instructions to the commission be? Could the Medicare 
crisis commission recommend tax increases, raising the current payroll 
tax used to fund part A? If so, are our Republican colleagues saying 
they will support those tax increases? What if the commission 
recommends less than $256 billion in Medicare cuts? Will Congress be 
required to cut $256 billion from Medicare anyway to offset the tax 
cuts for the very rich and the Benedict Arnolds in the Republican plan? 
Madam President, how do our Republican colleagues know that $256 
billion in Medicare cuts are needed?
  They are very precise in this budget. They are very precise. Our 
Republican colleagues tell us Medicare is in a crisis. They tell us it 
needs to grow by 7.1 percent per year--not 7 percent, not 8 percent, 
but 7.1 percent per year.
  They tell us we need to cut Medicare exactly $12 billion next year, 
then $22 billion, then $27 billion, then $36 billion, then $44 billion, 
then $53 billion and, finally, $62 billion in the year 2002.
  These are very precise levels of Medicare cuts year by year, yet we 
need a commission to tell us what to do about Medicare.
  Let me talk a minute, if I have any time left, about education.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has just expired.
  Mr. FORD. I was pretty close to it then, was I not, Madam President? 
I will have another day and another time, and I want to talk about 
education and the cuts in that. I hope I will be able to have maybe 10 
minutes then just to talk about what the Senator from Pennsylvania was 
talking about, our children. We want our children to be educated, and 
if they are not educated, they will never make the middle class.
  So I yield the floor, and I thank the Chair for her patience.
  Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi. Under the 
previous order, the Senator is recognized for 15 minutes.
  Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I am very pleased to rise in support of 
the concurrent resolution on the budget for 1996, and I would like to 
begin by congratulating the distinguished chairman of the Senate Budget 
Committee, Senator Domenici, of New Mexico, for all the hard work he 
has done and all of his staff work that has been involved in putting 
this package together.
  It is large, it is complex, and it is a very complete document. Also, 
I want to commend the Budget Committee members because there were a lot 
of meetings, a lot of discussion, a lot of give and take. But in the 
end, we came together, worked together, and produced a budget 
resolution that, in my opinion, is a very critical document.
  It will take the Federal Government to a balanced budget by the year 
2002. Frankly, I had my doubts that we would ever bring a budget 
resolution to the floor of the Senate that would do what we said we 
would do, and that would be to get us to a balanced budget. But this 
document does it.
  Is it perfect? Probably not. There never will be such a thing. 
Obviously, I would like to add some additional tax relief for the 
American people into this budget resolution. But this budget resolution 
does take us to a balanced budget in the next 7 years.
  Let me respond just a little bit to some of the comments we have 
heard in the last few moments.
  First, I think we should emphasize that it does not matter which 
party presents a balanced-budget plan, as long as it is done. The 
American people want us to get on with the job of controlling deficit 
spending and, some day, some day maybe even deal with the debt of this 
country. They want us to think about the future of our children and the 
future of our country. They understand that we cannot continue to have 
this profligate spending forever, without somebody paying the price, 
and they know that somebody is going to be our children.
  Now, we have tried it other ways. I have been in Congress for 22 
years. I have seen Republican Presidents, Democrat Presidents, Democrat 
Congresses, lots of those, and a Republican Congress, finally. Well, 
both parties have failed in allowing these deficits to go up year after 
year after year. But it is time for us to bring that to a stop.
  (Mr. FRIST assumed the chair.)
  Mr. LOTT. The American people do not want the status quo. They want 
us to get the budget under control. I will say this: This budget 
resolution shows the fundamental differences between the two parties. 
Oh, yes, we had a budget resolution in 1993 that not a single 
Republican voted for that the Democrats passed. Do you know what that 
budget resolution was? It was little more than monstrous tax increases.
  This is a budget resolution that gets us to a balanced budget by 
cutting spending and by controlling the growth of programs throughout 
the Government. Surely, that is the preferred way to do it. The 
American people do not want us to raise taxes on them anymore. They 
want us to control the growth of Government, control spending--and, by 
the way, even let them keep a little bit of their hard earned tax 
money--their money. In Washington, when the people are allowed to keep 
their money, it is called a tax expenditure. The Government is giving 
it [[Page S6892]] away. Well, to the people that is their money that is 
being taken away by the Government.
  One of the things that happened in that 1993 budget that I still have 
not gotten over--and the distinguished Senator from Kentucky mentioned 
it a while ago--was that it had a provision that raised taxes on Social 
Security recipients, and not just the wealthy. At one point, I think it 
was all the way down to $19,000. We forced it back up to a little 
higher level. It raised the Social Security earnings threshold on 
people who are not wealthy, middle-income retirees, and moved the money 
over into other programs. The explanation was that this would help fund 
the inadequacies of Medicare.
  Well, my colleagues, we all know that Social Security and Medicare 
are not the same. They are two different programs. When you raise the 
taxes on Social Security, it ought to go for Social Security if it is 
taxes are to be raised--and they should not be raised at all. At least 
the money should not be moved over and put into other programs.
  The point was made in the past few minutes here about this terrible 
rich-poor gap. Well, why has something not been done about it? The 
party of the Senator who was speaking has been in control of the Senate 
for all but 6 of the last 40 years. Their party has been in control of 
the Congress. Obviously, their programs have not worked. They have 
failed. The rich-poor gap is there, it is bad, and we need to do 
something about it. But what we have been doing has not worked. It has 
failed. It is time for change. That is what this budget resolution will 
help move us toward.
  One final thing. Gripe, gripe, gripe. Not this, not that, not mine, 
not yours, nobody's, do not cut this or that. I have heard everything 
about this budget resolution. You cannot cut this, you cannot touch 
that. We do not like your budget. I have been through that Kabuki dance 
before. We have been guilty on occasion where we have said, ``We are 
not going to offer our budget resolution; we will just attack yours and 
offer amendments.'' And we were made fun of by the other side. 
Sometimes, though--and last year we did it--we were challenged and 
asked, ``Where is yours?'' Even while in the minority we said, ``Here 
is what we will do.'' And it was a tough, good budget.
  Here is what I have to say now to those that are whining about what 
is or is not in this: Where is yours? Put it up. Let us see what your 
approach is. Well, we know. It is just to raise taxes. Well, we tried 
that and it does not work. It just makes the gap between rich and poor 
worse.
  Now, Mr. President, what I really wanted to address today--except I 
got so fired up from what I heard from the previous speakers that I got 
a little off my plan--was why we need to do this resolution, hopefully 
in a bipartisan way. Why are we making these tough choices? I think it 
is because we really need to do it. We need to do it for our country, 
for our economy, and we do need to do it for our children. We have 
serious problems hanging out there that we cannot ignore.
  Now, we have come up with a plan here to balance the budget, without 
touching Social Security or raising taxes. We limit growth in spending 
and cut needless Government waste.
  We limit growth in spending. I keep emphasizing that. We have found a 
tough, but fair, course that takes us toward zero deficit. When I go 
home, people say, ``When are you guys going to get that deficit under 
control,'' or ``When are you going to do anything about the debt?'' 
Well, this does it.
  If you look at this chart that I have here, spending versus revenues, 
1974 through the year 2004, as a percent of gross domestic product, you 
can see that we have had a chronic problem of what we spend exceeding 
what we take in. This cannot continue. Yet, it will unless we do 
something. The gap between what we are taking in and what we are 
spending is going to continue to grow. Every businessman, every 
individual, rich, poor, middle class, you cannot live like this--not 
even the Federal Government. This is the problem and this is what we 
are trying to address.
  We must balance our books. It is that simple. This should be at the 
top of our agenda, along with returning resources and power back to the 
States, communities and families, ending useless programs, and fixing 
those important programs that need fixing.
  Now, I know you are going to hear, ``You could have cut some of these 
programs out in the past.'' Yes, maybe we could have or should have, 
but we did not. Now we have another chance. This is a time we should 
come together and make the difference. The problem is overspending that 
saps our country's strength and harms our families. If we do not stop 
spending, the problem will get worse. This budget resolution is the way 
to fix the problem. It will stop the Nation's slide into insolvency and 
preserve the American dream for us and our children.
  We are in the last generation--and maybe this is the last Congress 
for a while--that can really make the changes we need to make. It has 
been a generation since this country has had a balanced budget. In the 
1960's, deficits averaged about $6 billion a year. In 1969, I think 
almost by accident, we had a balanced budget. In the 1970's, deficits 
averaged $38 billion a year. Now, in the 1990's, deficits are averaging 
$259 billion a year. Again, we have gone from zero balance to hundreds 
of billions of dollars in the red within a generation.
  Why do we have this problem of deficits? What is the Government 
spending all this money on? It is not defense. We are going to have a 
tremendous debate on that. ``Cut defense more; that is the solution.'' 
No, defense has been cut. Defense spending has been halved--cut in 
half--over the last 30 years and has been going down every year for the 
last 10 years. Domestic discretionary spending has declined, too. It is 
not foreign aid. A lot of people think we can cut some of the foreign 
aid and solve the problem. There is not enough there. We do need to cut 
back on it even more, but it is a minuscule part of the budget.
  The culprit--the culprit--is the Great Society programs--overblown, 
costly programs and bureaucracies that too long have been resistant to 
helpful change. These are well-meaning programs. They were at the time, 
and many of them still are. They are just not well-run. Many have 
outlived their usefulness and are bloated, inefficient, and they do not 
serve the people as well as they could or should and, without change, 
they will destroy our future. It is uncontrolled bureaucracy. I am 
talking about spending frivolously. These programs, combined with 
interest rates on the national debt, are a major part of our budget. 
This part is getting bigger, while everything else is shrinking.
  In 1963, entitlements and interest were just 24 percent of the 
budget. Now they comprise over 56 percent of the budget.
  If we do not slow the rate of growth of these programs and interest 
payments, Great Society spending and interest on the debt will take up 
69 percent of the budget by the year 2003. And it gets worse.
  Around the year 2011, all Government revenues will be taken up by 
just five things: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Federal 
retirement benefits, and interest on the debt. All the revenue would go 
for just those programs.
  That means no money for anything else. Our borders would be 
unprotected, our children untaught, our roads unrepaired, there would 
be no school lunches, food stamps, or farm programs. We have to get 
this under control. Even these five programs I mentioned will be in 
trouble if we continue to run deficits.
  Clearly, we are heading down the wrong road. So we face the 
possibility if we do not change of only having enough money to pay 
interest on a huge national debt. We will not have enough money for 
much of anything else.
  This might seem far-fetched. It might seem like we are using scare 
tactics, and I know we will hear a lot of scare tactics in the next few 
days. We do not need to make up stories to frighten parents and working 
people. The facts are scary enough.
  We want to get the facts out to show the American people that we must 
change. The people said they wanted it last year. The President of the 
United States ran on that, and was elected in 1992--change. Now, we 
have a chance to really get it.
  This budget resolution begins the change. If we look at this next 
chart, Federal budget deficits, President Clinton's budget versus 
Republican budget, [[Page S6893]] we see that the budget resolution I 
am discussing will get to a balanced budget in 7 years, while the 
President's budget runs up deficits in the range of $200 billion as far 
as the eye can see.
  Here is President Clinton's budget proposal for the year. It goes out 
to the year 2001. And here is the budget we are talking about here on a 
steady decline down to a balanced budget by the year 2002.
  Now, the administration paints too rosy a picture. As we see in the 
next chart, Federal budget deficits, Clinton budget versus Republican 
budget, the purple line shows the Clinton budget actual, and then here 
is what he is claiming, and here is what the budget we are talking 
about here does.
  The Congressional Budget Office revealed that the Clinton budget will 
actually lead to annual deficits of almost $300 billion. This, of 
course will lead to bankruptcy, and I mean soon.
  Now, that is gloom and doom talk, I admit. But deficits do have an 
effect on our lives today, too, not just in the future. Some people 
will say, what do they really mean? These billions and billions of 
dollars seem unreal. Deficits seem like something in Washington that 
those guys talk about and worry about.
  Here is what it does: The Nation's debt hurts personal living 
standards now. Each American's share of our $4.9 trillion debt is 
$18,500. That is what it means for each one of the American people. 
According to the President's budget, this debt will rise by 1999 to 
$6.4 trillion or $23,700 a person. That is what every American will owe 
if we go with the President's budgets.
  Deficits have lowered family incomes. A Concord Coalition study 
revealed that if the United States did not have deficits or a large 
national debt, average family income would be $50,000 instead of 
$35,000. Let me say that again. If we did not have these big debts, the 
average American family would be making $50,000 instead of $35,000.
  That is what it means to individuals. I am trying to bring this down 
to numbers that we deal with on an everyday basis, not the big $1 
trillion debts. Because we have not controlled spending, each family in 
this country has lost $15,000 smokes.
  Deficits raise interest rates, too, making buying a home or a car 
more expensive for all Americans. If we balance the budget, the 
prestigious Wharton School of Economics says interest rates would drop 
4 percent. The average homeowner would save $500 per month on their 
mortgage payments. So we are talking about savings on interest.
  Deficits cost Americans jobs. Maybe this is the cruelest part of all. 
We have lost 3 million jobs due to deficit spending over the last 10 
years. Not putting that on either party, it is just a fact.
  Most importantly, deficits put a penalty on our children. Our 
children are another reason and the main reason for reducing this 
deficits. The National Taxpayers Union found that a child born today 
will have to pay over $100,000 in extra taxes.
  Mr. President, if my time is expiring could I ask for an additional 5 
minutes of time?
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to Senator Lott.
  Mr. LOTT. That is $100,000 in extra taxes over the course of his or 
her life, just to pay the interest on the debt.
  Also, every new $200 billion in deficit spending, and President 
Clinton has that or more every year, in the budget a child has to pay 
an additional $5,000 in taxes to pay the interest costs. Children would 
have to pay 90- to 100-percent tax rates to pay this kind of deficit 
spending.
  We cannot do it. It is not right for our children to face these 
deficits for what we have not done. So, now it is time for us to really 
do something. What we are talking about is slowing the rate of Federal 
growth. This is how it really works. We do this, by the way, by 2002, 
without touching Social Security. We ratchet down the deficit by $30 
billion a year by slowing spending to 3 percent overall from 5 percent.
  Spending will actually grow 3 percent a year. We just slow it down 2 
percentage points. Spending will actually increase $1.9 trillion in the 
year 2002. I have had people ask me why do we not do it sooner? Why are 
we waiting so long? Why do we allow all the spending to go up? The 
point is spending will continue to go up even though we are controlling 
the rate of growth.
  In this budget, we shrink bureaucracy, over 100 departments, 
programs, and agencies are prudently eliminated. We consolidate, 
terminate, and improve efficiency, and we do protect our senior 
citizens by preserving the Social Security COLA and saving Medicare.
  I would like to allow senior citizens between 65 and 75, who would 
like to continue to work if they make under $30,000 a year, without 
having the earnings test kick in and take part of the money away from 
them.
  This budget returns America to fiscal reality and will bring back 
prosperity and embolden, I think, the American people.
  Let me digress by saying I think that the most egregious fear tactic 
I have heard employed so far on this was the suggestion that 
Republicans want to do damage to Medicare. Actually, the reverse is 
true. We want to preserve and improve and protect it. I have heard 
speeches on the floor that sound like speeches of a captain on a 
sinking ship, begging the passengers stay on just a little while 
longer, saying nothing is going wrong, knowing all the time Medicare 
has problems we have to deal with. There is a lot of hot rhetoric in 
this particular area.
  Medicare will be bankrupt in 7 years if we do not do something about 
it. The President's own Medicare board of trustees have said this. And 
on that board are Cabinet Secretaries Reich, Rubin, and Shalala. The 
President's own people say that Medicare cannot sustain its spending 
growth of over 10 percent a year. It is growing at 10 percent a year or 
more.
  The care that senior citizens count on will not be there in 7 years 
unless we do something. Workers will have higher taxes, providers will 
be reimbursed less, seniors have to pay higher premiums and they get 
fewer benefits.
  This will happen if we listen to the other side and do nothing. Do 
nothing. We want to preserve Medicare. What we will do is to call for 
reforms, and we would slow the growth to 7-percent a year. Still, more 
than twice the rate of inflation.
  So instead of growing at 10 percent a year, through honest reforms 
that would make the program better, I think, and give some more options 
to our senior citizens, they would still have a 7-percent growth. And 
we can save Medicare by doing that.
  We have identified the problem. Deficit spending and debt. We know 
what will happen if we do not change--bigger debts, less prosperity, 
and national bankruptcy. We have identified a solution. Slowing the 
spending growth starting with this budget resolution.
  It does not matter which party does it as long as we do. We should 
fix it without so much finger pointing. We should balance our budget. 
We have a chance to do it. Many people then will be the beneficiaries 
if we will get away from the status quo.
  So, Mr. President, I want to conclude by saying that I urge my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to look seriously at this budget 
resolution. Let us come together and support it. We have a unique 
opportunity, one that I have not seen in 20 years or more. If we let 
this opportunity go by, we will not have another one probably for 10 or 
20 years, and the damage will be devastating. This is about our future. 
It is about our children. I worry about my own mother, 82 years old. 
She depends on Social Security and Medicare. I care about her. But I 
worry more about my 27-year-old son and my 24-year-old daughter. Will 
these programs be there when they need them? If we do not pass this 
budget resolution, if we do not know what to do, what needs to be done 
today, then the answer is no. These programs will not be there.
  We have this golden opportunity, and we should seize it.
  I yield the floor, Mr. President.
  Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, first I want to pay tribute to my good 
friend from New Mexico, Senator Domenici, chairman of the Budget 
Committee, who has indeed made a monumental effort to bring a balanced 
budget to the floor of the Senate. I consider Pete Domenici a good 
friend. We seldom vote together, but we banter back and forth in a 
friendly way. And what he did in bringing this budget to the floor was 
not easy. [[Page S6894]] 
  If you ask the American people, ``Do you understand this budgeting 
process?''--the answer would be no. It is a very arcane procedure. 
People in the U.S. Senate do not understand it, let alone the 260 
million people in America. But if you would also ask the people of 
America, ``What do you want more than anything else?''--they would say, 
``We would like to hear a lot less partisan bickering between Democrats 
and Republicans. We would like to see those two parties hold hands for 
a change and provide a final budget.'' That is a nonnegotiable demand 
by the people of this country, and it is a legitimate demand.
  But we have two parties. The reason we have two parties is because we 
do not agree.
  I consider this budget to be a virtual assault on the most 
vulnerable, exposed people in America. It is an assault on education. 
It is an assault on working people. And above all, it is an assault on 
the elderly people who depend on Medicare, and who are terrified. When 
they hear us continue to talk about it, they wonder: Do they have a 
future? Is their health care going to be provided for, or is it not?
  Before I go any further, Mr. President, I want to also say something 
to my friend, the junior Senator from Pennsylvania. I have never, in 
the 20 years I have been in the Senate, heard a Member of the U.S. 
Senate say, ``Where is Bill?'' ``Where is George?'' ``Where is Ron?'' I 
consider that to be the exemplification of the growing incivility of 
the people in this country towards each other, the lack of respect that 
people have for each other. Nobody could have disagreed with Ronald 
Reagan more than I did, and I stood right here in this spot. But you 
never heard me say, ``Where is Ron?'' The President of the United 
States deserves the respect of everybody. The office and the man who 
holds it deserve our respect. And, above all, he deserves not to be 
called in a denigrating way by his first name on the floor of the U.S. 
Senate.
  He has been a good friend of mine for 20 years, and I might 
occasionally say ``Bill Clinton.''
  But it would benefit all of us to show more respect for the 
Presidency of the United States.
  Mr. President, I might also say to the Senator from Pennsylvania, who 
was saying, ``Where is Bill?''--Where was the Senator from Pennsylvania 
when he was a Member of the House of Representatives in 1993, when 
President Clinton was cajoling, begging, pleading with both Houses of 
Congress to cut the deficit by $500 billion which, incidentally, turned 
out to be a $600 billion cut? Where was the Senator from Pennsylvania? 
Where was every single Republican in the House of Representatives and 
every single Republican in the United States Senate? Well, to coin a 
phrase, AWOL. You could not find them with a search warrant.
  They said, ``You are raising taxes.'' Everybody jumped under their 
desk on that side. And the Vice President had to come and cast the 
deciding vote. Every single one of the 44 Republican Senators voted no.
  Do you think I enjoyed voting for a tax increase? I did not even 
enjoy voting for the budget cuts. But had it not been for the courage 
of President Clinton and the Democrats in this body and the House of 
Representatives, we would be here not debating a $1 trillion cut 
between now and the year 2002; we would be debating a $2 trillion cut.
  Where were they?
  Here we have this draconian budget which, as I say, is an assault on 
the most vulnerable people in America: Our youngsters who want to be 
educated, lower-class working people, and the elderly. Even Medicaid. 
Of the roughly 25 million people in this country who are eligible for 
Medicaid, 10 million to 12 million of them are blind, disabled, and 
elderly.
  Oh, yes, and the Republicans are lining up the votes to cut those 
programs. Why? To preserve the Contract With America, in the House, 
which would cut taxes by $371 billion by the year 2002, and in the 
Senate bill, $170 billion very carefully set aside for a tax cut for 
the wealthiest, not for the people we are assaulting, but for the 
wealthiest in America, those who do not need our help.
  We are always hearing what the American people want. Here is a poll 
by USA Today taken December 20, 1994: ``If Congress is able to cut 
spending, where should it go?'' Seventy percent say deficit reduction, 
3 times more people than say they want a tax cut. It just shows you the 
American people are not selfish. They want a balanced budget. They 
would like a tax cut, of course. But given an option between the two 
they will take a balanced budget every time.
  I heard the same arguments in 1981 that I have heard here all day 
today. In 1981, they said we will balance the budget by cutting 
spending, cutting taxes, and raising defense spending. And I said about 
an hour before we voted on that, ``You pass this and you will create 
deficits big enough to choke a mule.'' And I was wrong. They were big 
enough to choke an elephant.
  Senator Bradley of New Jersey, Senator Hollings of South Carolina, 
and yours truly were 3 of only 11 Senators who voted for the spending 
cuts and against the tax cuts.
  Mr. President, we would be sitting here tonight enjoying not only a 
surplus but drawing interest on it if 51 people in the Senate had voted 
that way. The herd instinct was flowing through this body like I have 
never seen it before. And so what happened? We voted to double defense 
spending. We voted to cut all other spending. We voted a massive tax 
cut, most of which again went to the wealthiest people in America. And 
here is what happened, the deficit exploded.
  At the time we debated the 1981 resolution, the deficit was $65 
billion. And the Republicans said that if we would just adopt their 
resolution, in 1983, no later than 1984 or 1985, we will balance the 
budget.
  That was the promise. That was $3.5 trillion of indebtedness ago. The 
deficit went completely out of sight. And so today we have a $4.6 
trillion debt because that siren song was irresistible.
  The Democrats have been criticized, and with some legitimacy, for not 
offering an alternative. We could offer an alternative. It would not 
pass. It would be defeated. But we have four important amendments. I 
will make an offer to that side of the aisle. You adopt our four 
amendments, which will still give us a balanced budget by 2002, and I 
will vote for your budget resolution. I will vote for that resolution. 
Put that $170 billion that is very carefully set aside for a tax cut, 
and put it back in Medicare, Medicaid, student loans, and the earned 
income tax credit, and I will vote for it. And I will worry about 
reforming everything else later on. Now, if that is not a fair 
proposition, I do not know what is.
  I heard a Congressman the other day say we are going to give welfare 
recipients a chance to become productive citizens by cutting them off. 
You tell me how you make productive citizens out of the 20 percent of 
the people in this country who are on welfare and who are 
dysfunctional, unemployable. You think you have a lot of homeless 
people in Washington, DC, right now? Wait until you pass this budget. 
Wait until you pass welfare reform as it is being proposed here. It is 
a death sentence for a lot of people.
  These Medicare cuts, what do they do? They fall on the people who are 
totally dependent on Medicare. They fall on the rural hospitals in my 
State, which are totally dependent on being at least adequately 
reimbursed. And they fall, Mr. President, on the doctors who are also 
going to have to assume a good piece of the hit.
  We all know Medicare reform is necessary. Everybody knows Medicare is 
going to have to face up to reform. But to cut Medicare to make room 
for tax cuts is absolutely heartless. Look at the capital gains tax 
cuts that have been passed in the House; 76 percent of the cuts go to 
people who make over $100,000 a year. Is that what we believe as a 
people in this country, that 76 percent of a tax cut should go to 
people who make over $100,000 a year?
  Look at this chart. Here is the average tax cut per household by 
income category. If you make between zero and $30,000 a year in a 
family of four, you get a whopping $124 a year. That is a pizza every 
third Friday night. If you make over $200,000 a year, you get a tidy 
little sum of $11,266. Who here believes that is what America is all 
about?
  Somebody once said that a progressive tax was something Karl Marx 
dreamed of. Unhappily, they did not [[Page S6895]] know about Teddy 
Roosevelt. He was the person who gave us a progressive tax system. You 
want me to vote for a bill that provides that kind of relief to people 
who make over $100,000 a year and $124 a year to people who make 
$30,000 a year and in the process take away the earned income tax 
credit from them?
  I am not going to embarrass anybody by reading quotes, but the last 
two Republican Presidents and the majority leader of the Senate today 
have all said the earned income tax credit is the best program ever 
invented to keep people off welfare.
  Do you want to save the Government $21 billion? Raise the minimum 
wage to $5.15 and you can cut a lot of that investment tax credit out. 
But this is a tax increase on people who are making $28,000 a year or 
less, while we give a cushy $11,266 a year to people who make $100,000 
a year or more. It is heartless.
  Education will take the biggest cut in its history. I would not be 
standing here, Mr. President, if I had not put in 3 years in World War 
II and gone to school on the GI bill. My father could not have afforded 
to send my brother to Harvard Law School, a classmate of the 
distinguished Senator from Rhode Island, who is standing in the Chamber 
tonight. He could not have sent me to a prestigious law school where 
the tuition would have been totally out of the question. So I am a 
champion of student loans and Pell grants.
  The managers of the bill say, well, this does not cut student loans; 
this does not cut Pell grants. What does it say? You will cut a certain 
amount of money in these functional areas. And when you analyze that 
requirement, student loans and Pell grants are the only places you can 
find that amount of money within a particular functional area. CBO has 
said if you borrow the maximum of $17,000 for undergraduate studies on 
student loans, your fees and interest rates will probably cost you an 
additional $5,000. Mr. President, kids who have borrowed money to go to 
school are so saddled with debt they cannot breathe. Now we are going 
to sock another $5,000 on them.
  What else does this bill not do? This bill says you may not touch 
defense. There is $255 billion next year that is off limits. It does 
not make any difference how much of it is squandered. Every person in 
the Senate read the lengthy article last week saying that for the past 
15 years the Defense Department has spent billions and billions without 
knowing where it went and cannot until this day be traced--overpaid 
contractors without knowing what they were paying for. One of the 
saddest things I ever read in my life. We are not talking about $700 
coffee pots and toilet seats. We are talking about checks written that 
should never have been written, people being overpaid, nobody knows 
what for.
  So what will this budget do? It will cut school lunches. It is going 
to cut AFDC payments for the poorest of the poor, eliminate the 
investment tax credit which is an effective tax increase on the lowest 
income people in America, and there is a firewall around defense. You 
cannot take a penny. No matter how lousy a weapons system may be, you 
cannot kill it and put that money into student loans. You cannot put it 
in school lunches. Of course, if you want to put it in some other 
weapons system, that is just Jakey.
  A House Member last week was quoted as saying he was not going to 
vote for any more foreign aid. You want to hear applause? Just say you 
are opposed to foreign aid and you will have people applauding. Most 
people just think if we eliminated foreign aid and welfare, we could 
balance the budget. Foreign aid is less than 1 percent of the budget. 
But the House Member said we give this money to Third World countries 
and they buy weapons and starve their own people. What are we doing, 
focusing attention on foreign aid when it is less than 1 percent of the 
budget?
  What else did we not touch in this budget? Why, the space station. 
The biggest single boondoggle in the history of the world. We have 
spent over $11 billion on the space station as of this moment, headed 
for $100 billion--yes, $100 billion--while we cut student loans, 
student lunches, AFDC, investment income, raise the taxes for people 
who make $30,000 or less by reducing the earned income credit, and we 
leave the space station fully intact. The senior Senator from Texas was 
quoted in the paper the other day as saying, ``Yes, I am going to go 
for a tax cut. I am going to offer an amendment to cut taxes in the 
Chamber.''
  We have not even begun to cut as much as we need to.
  The other day I said to the junior Senator from Texas that I am not 
going to offer an amendment to kill the Space Station on this bill. But 
do not get too comfortable, because I am going to offer it later.
  Mr. President I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes.
  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I yield an additional 5 minutes to the 
Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator could keep it to a 
couple of minutes.
  Mr. BUMPERS. I say to the Senator, he has not waited nearly as long 
to take the floor as I did.
  Mr. CHAFEE. You go ahead.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BUMPERS. So the space station, which costs $160,000 per job, is 
safe and secure. It is only the most vulnerable, the elderly, the 
blind, the disabled, and the children, they are the only ones who bear 
the brunt of this.
  What else was not touched? Why, mining laws. In 1988, I started 
trying to revise the mining laws of this country to keep the U.S. 
Government from selling billions of dollars worth of gold for $2.50 an 
acre and here it is 1995 and they are still selling America's land for 
$2.50 an acre that has billions of dollars worth of gold and platinum 
under it. And what do the taxpayers of America get out it? Zip. Not a 
penny.
  Whoever is tuned into C-SPAN in America tonight would not believe 
that. It is a fact.
  The Secretary of the Interior as recently as 6 months ago was forced 
by the courts to deed $11 billion worth of gold to the Barrick Mining 
Co. for the princely sum of $9,000. It is not mentioned in this budget. 
You talk about corporate welfare.
  I can remember 3 years ago when the mining companies would say, ``We 
might be able to afford a 2 or 3 percent net royalty,'' even though to 
private land owners that they mine on they pay 18 percent. They might 
find it in their heart to voluntarily pay 2 to 3 percent on Federal 
lands. That was when gold was $333 an ounce. That was when platinum was 
$354 an ounce.
  And in this day, 1995, gold is $384, $51 an ounce more than it was 
then. Platinum is $427, almost $75 an ounce more than it was when they 
said they would pay 2 to 3 percent.
  Today, guess what the argument is? They will still go broke if you 
impose a royalty on them.
  Mr. President, that is the worst, egregious form of corporate welfare 
I have ever seen in my life. And yet I never get more than six 
Republicans to vote with me to stop the most outrageous practice going 
on in America.
  The people who are assaulted by this budget cannot afford $1,500 for 
a ticket to Washington, DC fundraisers. Do you know who they depend on 
because they cannot afford the 1,500 bucks? They depend on me. They 
depend on you. They expect you to be concerned about them. They expect 
you to see that they are treated fairly.
  Why do we not drop this $170 billion nonsense called the tax cut for 
the middle class which goes to the wealthiest people of America and 
keep faith with the people who sent us here to do their business?
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under a previous order, a Republican Senator 
was to be recognized next.
  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I ask for 1 minute.
  I just wanted to take a minute's time to compliment the excellent 
remarks, right on the point, by two of my best friends in the U.S. 
Senate with whom I have had the opportunity to serve with as a former 
Governor of Arkansas and a former Governor of the State of Kentucky. 
Governors, who have been through these difficult decisions of balancing 
budgets, should be listened to more than they are sometimes.
  I just want to say to my friend from Arkansas and my friend from 
Kentucky, well done, well stated, and I hope that the American people 
are listening. [[Page S6896]] 
  I thank you, Senator, and I thank you, Senator Ford, who will be back 
on the floor in a very short period of time.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. SIMPSON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes of my time to the 
distinguished Senator from Rhode Island, Senator Chafee.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from 
Wyoming for yielding me 3 minutes.
  Mr. President, the challenge facing the Senate over the next few days 
is whether we will be able to muster the courage--there has been a lot 
of talk about courage out here tonight--but the question is whether we 
will have the courage to pass a budget resolution that, for the first 
time in three decades, 30 years, will bring the Federal budget into 
balance. It is a monumental debate involving the single most important 
step we can take this year to markedly improve this Nation's future.
  We cannot continue on the path we are currently on, which is spending 
more money than we take in and sending the bill to our children.
  Think of it. Of every dollar the Federal Government spends, 13 cents 
is borrowed. That is what is going on right now in this Nation of ours. 
Our current deficit, what we are budgeted for this year, is $200 
billion more--$200 billion more--spending than we are going to take in. 
And this debt, this deficit, unless we take dramatic steps, will not 
stay at $200 billion a year. It will grow to $400 billion a year 10 
years from now.
  Because of the horrendous $5 trillion debt our Nation has, 15 percent 
of our budget is solely devoted to paying the interest on the debt. 
Fifteen percent of all the expenditures, taxes, that are raised in this 
Nation go to pay the interest on the debt. Not a penny of that for 
principal, all of this for interest.
  Interest currently constitutes the third largest expenditure in our 
budget. First is Social Security, second is defense, and third is 
interest on the debt. And that last item, interest on the debt, is 
going up steeply.
  The resolution before us represents a fundamental shift in the manner 
in which the Federal Government is going to run its finances. Seven 
years from now, as a result of this budget, if it is adopted, we will 
end the practice of pushing the cost of today's Federal spending onto 
the backs of our children and our grandchildren. They are the ones that 
are going to have to pick up the tab.
  I commend the chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Domenici, for 
what he has done and for his excellent work. This budget does what he 
said he was going to do. It balances the budget by the year 2002, in 7 
years. There is nothing dramatic about steep declines. We have 7 years 
in order to bring this thing into balance. Senator Domenici has done 
this without resorting to any tricks or gimmicks. The Senate and the 
whole country owe Senator Domenici a deep debt of gratitude.
  And I want to congratulate him for standing firm against any tax 
cuts.
  There has been a lot of talk, the Senator from Arkansas was talking 
about the cuts, tax cuts that we are providing.
  In this resolution, there are no tax cuts. This budget provides a 
mechanism which allows us to consider tax cuts only after we have 
enacted a viable and enforceable balanced budget.
  I personally believe we are in too deep a hole to even think about 
embarking on any sizable tax cuts. If we do realize an economic benefit 
that comes from balancing this budget--in other words, there is going 
to be lower interest rates in the future; if, and most economists 
agree, this budget is adopted, that will occur--then we ought to use 
that to pay back our debt. Why use it for a tax cut, in my judgment, of 
any sizable nature? Instead, use it to reduce the debt.
  Mr. President, I support the resolution that is on the floor that the 
Budget Committee has brought to us. Do I agree with every aspect of it? 
No, I do not. No one does, but it is very, very good in its totality. I 
obviously have grave concerns about the level of the Medicaid cuts that 
might have to occur if we adopt the rules, the duties that are imposed 
upon the Finance Committee. I am concerned about the cuts in Amtrak, 
for example.
  But for those on the other side of the aisle who criticize what we 
are doing, come up with a better proposal. Do not just criticize what 
we are suggesting. Do something better.
  When we debated and voted on the constitutional amendment on the 
balanced budget, they all said: ``We do not need it; the true test of 
deficit reduction is our resolve. All we need to do is balance the 
budget if we have the courage.''
  Well, this side is showing the courage to do it, Mr. President. Here 
we are. We are taking these steps that are long overdue, and I am just 
happy to be part of this effort. I hope when all is said and done that 
this budget, or something very close to it, will be adopted by this 
Senate.
  I want to thank the distinguished Senator from Wyoming for letting me 
proceed.
  Mr. SIMPSON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith). The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Rhode Island. 
At the end of this very first day of debate on the budget resolution, I 
come to the floor to offer a few observations. I do not think any one 
of us on either side of the aisle exaggerate when we say that we have 
the deepest respect for Senator Pete Domenici. I have heard my good 
friends on the other side say just that. We have a great mutual respect 
for him.
  I go on to say that the budget resolution crafted by my respected 
friend could well turn out, in my mind, to be one of the most historic 
and important and statesmanlike measures voted on during my 16-year 
tenure here in the U.S. Senate.
  The chairman of the Budget Committee is one remarkable legislator. We 
here have long known him for his expertise, his integrity, and his 
dedication to lessening the burden on posterity--our children and 
grandchildren. So it is a pleasure to see so many here and out in the 
land giving a long overdue to this man and his work, and he is one of 
the most hard-working men I have ever met in my time in this place.
  So the measure he presents to us would bring the annual deficit of 
the United States down to zero by the year 2002. People say, why 2002? 
I answer, because we may never, ever have another chance to do this.
  In the future, we could see a war, God spare us, or a recession, and 
then the retirement of the baby boom generation. That is where the hit 
comes, the identifiable hit. If we cannot balance the books during this 
fleeting window of opportunity, I feel very deeply that it will never 
be done again. We would simply be consigning our children--``kids'' is 
the phrase used here all day, those kids everybody is always talking 
about on the other side and our side all day long, the kids--the kids 
will receive nothing. We will not have to worry about cuts. There will 
not be anything. We will be consigning those kids to mounting deficits, 
crushing interest rates, and payments of fiscatory tax rates, payroll 
taxes. You talk about balancing something on the backs of someone, 
their backs will break from the tax load that comes if we cannot get 
this done.
  Earlier this year, we voted on a balanced budget amendment, a very 
exciting debate, vigorous, spirited. Over and over in this Chamber, I 
heard the opponents of that amendment say, some in high-pitched 
endeavor, that we did not need an amendment to the Constitution of the 
United States; all we need is some political courage, some guts to do 
the job. Oh, magnificent speeches, they ring in my head.
  And guess what? Now it is time to do the job, and now we shall see 
who has the political courage. Oh, indeed, we shall. I cannot wait for 
the debate.
  I am very proud that the majority party in this body is coming 
forward and proposing a solution to this growing crisis. If you want a 
good definition of business as usual in Washington, DC, I would say it 
was the practice of assuming that the public will punish us if we did 
what was right and then pulling our punches accordingly.
  The strategy on the other side seems to be to assume that business as 
usual will still prevail, to sit on the sidelines, chuckle, do high-
fives, and criticize and whoop it up and hope, and, more 
[[Page S6897]] importantly, pray that our earnest effort to solve this 
problem will be punished by a furious and angry electorate.
  That is a depressing and cynical view of the American citizenry, I 
believe, and I, for one, do not ascribe to it. We Republicans are, 
indeed, making a historic gamble. We are betting that if we do what is 
right, unheard of in itself in this city, if we, indeed, move toward a 
balanced budget, that the shrieking, and wailing and howling of the 
various special interests will be drowned out by the chorus of praise--
yes, praise--from the vast majority of at least thoughtful Americans 
who are sick and tired of seeing the burdens of debt pile higher and 
higher and higher on them and on their children.
  And who did it? We did it; we in Congress did it. Do not blame it on 
Ronald Reagan. Do not blame it on George Bush. Do not blame it on Jimmy 
Carter. Do not blame it on Bill Clinton. Blame it on us. We have 
performed superbly for the last 50 years. We have acted like pack 
horses in dragging the money back to our districts and preening our 
feathers to tell our constituents: ``What did you want? We heard you 
and we went and got it for you, even though now it is 5 trillion bucks 
worth of debt.''
  Columnist George Will, a very bright and articulate man, made a 
rather telling observation, I think it was Sunday before last, on a 
national television performance. He noted there seems to be a key in 
the word processors in the Democratic offices on the Hill that 
automatically types: ``We will not balance the budget on the backs 
of,'' and then you just leave the blank. ``We will not balance the 
budget on the backs of,'' and then you fill in the blank: Senior 
citizens, the children, veterans, farmers, teachers, welfare 
recipients, ``Masterpiece Theater.'' You name it, if it is affected by 
serious deficit reduction, and every form of spending must be, then the 
Democratic Party will oppose it. Guess what, folks; that is exactly why 
we have $5 trillion in debt.
  I am one who is going to balance the budget to get the debt off the 
backs of the children and the grandchildren. Curious adventure. I think 
that is what we should do when we are talking about what is on or off 
the backs. The debt will crush them. Washington must really be the last 
place in the world where it is realized if you want to get out of debt, 
you simply can keep spending more and more and more. Washington is also 
the only town in the world where you cut spending and it gets bigger.
  I come from Wyoming. We must simply use a different language out 
there. We call it English. In that language, a reduction means 
something gets smaller, not bigger. So anyone who is watching this 
debate needs to remember that when we are attacked for savage cuts, we 
are indeed talking about increases in spending only. Only increases, 
however, that are not as big and as demanding of your hard-earned money 
as those or some of those in the other party would like.
  Earlier today, I saw a chart brought out by the Senator from 
Massachusetts, my old friend, Senator Ted Kennedy. He and I do a little 
facing off every day. We do not get paid for that. It is purely a 
nonprofit activity.
 We do not agree on all things, but I enjoy him very much. He brought 
out a chart--a powerful chart--that said ``working families pay for tax 
cuts for the wealthy''--a sinister preparation. Very interesting, and 
especially so, since there are no tax cuts in this budget resolution 
submitted by our colleague. There is not a tax cut in a car load, 
nowhere. The President, however, still wants $63 billion in tax cuts, 
and we do not hear too much about that.

  So all that we have done is said that if we succeed in balancing the 
budget, and if this produces a dividend perhaps in the form of 
declining interest rates, then that money should go to the taxpayers 
and not for us to spend.
  Now, I have personally come out very strongly to say ``no tax cuts'' 
until the budget is balanced. But I find it extremely odd that 
Democratic detractors believe that tax cuts are irresponsible even if 
the budget remains balanced. That is the most curious view of budgetary 
responsibility that I know. But it is historically so with some of 
them. But here are the facts about the budget before us. With this 
budget, we achieve a balanced budget by the year 2002. In which 
category in this budget does spending grow the fastest? In Medicare. In 
the budget Senator Domenici is presenting to this Senate, the largest 
growing item of spending in this budget is Medicare; 7.1 percent per 
year, going from $178 to $283 billion. No other program in the entire 
budget is dealt with more generously than Medicare.
  It is astonishing that even this huge rate of growth is greeted as 
``not enough'' by the detractors. This is a measure of how serious and 
debilitating the addiction to spending has become. Under this budget, 
we are the toughest on the appropriated spending matters. Shrinking it 
not just relative to inflation, but shrinking it outright--$548 billion 
in 1995 and $518 billion by 2002. This is the kind of budget discipline 
that America seems to have been crying for.
  On the other hand, huge increases could still occur and will still 
occur in Social Security--$334 billion in Social Security going to $480 
billion; and in Medicare, $178 to $283 billion. And in Medicaid, from 
$89 to $125 billion, and all other mandatory spending which includes 
Federal retirement, welfare, agricultural subsidies, and all the rest 
grows, continually grows from $146 to $197 billion. And remember, we 
all took Social Security off the table. I did not. The Senator who is 
standing across in the Chamber did not either. The two of us have 
presented to the American public seven bills to bring solvency to the 
Social Security system, and we will present that and we will have 
hearings on that, and we will proceed with that. It is very difficult 
to do what we really have to do, and it would be so much simpler. Yet, 
we did it out of political terrorism, that we not touch the item of the 
budget which is $383 billion a year revenue. I am going to leave the 
details of that. I do not know what my colleague from Nebraska is going 
to say. But I can tell you this: Senator Bob Kerrey is a very 
courageous person, and he has faced up to these problems before by 
being chairman of the Entitlements Commission, the bipartisan 
Entitlements Commission. That is why it is a great privilege and an 
honor for me to join him in a bipartisan approach to bring some 
eventual sanity to a system which goes into terminal decline in the 
year 2013 and then goes bankrupt in the year 2031, and that is the 
Social Security system. I do not want my remarks on that tied with this 
budget resolution or any part of it. Sever that. But I, as a Member of 
the Senate, will be proceeding to do something about that system.
  So we cannot do better than to repeat this over and over and over 
again. The rapid detractors succeed in portraying these as cuts. If the 
American public really swallows that, maybe the detractors are right. 
Maybe then the public deserves exactly what it gets--permanent deficits 
and poverty for our descendants, all out of political terrorism, or, as 
my old friend Gary Hart used to say, ``mow-mow politics.''
  I join Senator Domenici and the distinguished majority leader, Bob 
Dole, in thinking better of the American public. I believe that though 
the special interests will cry out, the keening wail will sound like 
wolves in the Yellowstone with a full Moon--the keening wail of the 
special interests. But I think the vast majority of Americans want this 
job done and now--or at least for us to start. They want everyone who 
is benefiting from Federal largess to take a hit. It will not be easy, 
and there will undoubtedly be sacrifices that will be called for from 
every sector of society. I also believe they have grown tired of 
Washington telling them that no sacrifices are necessary. We do not 
have to touch senior citizens or the children or anyone else to get 
this job done. When you take that approach, spending never slows. 
Always up.
  (Mrs. HUTCHISON assumed the chair.)
  Mr. SIMPSON. It is incredible to me that our President and some on 
the other side of the aisle have chosen to ignore all responsibility in 
this challenge. AWOL--absent without leadership.
  I certainly do not intend to include some others on the other side of 
the aisle. As I have mentioned, Senator Kerrey has faced these problems 
alone and in an election year before. That takes real guts. But it 
astounds me, and I am sure my colleague, that given 
[[Page S6898]] everything we know with absolute certainty through the 
work of this commission and from the trustees of Social Security 
telling us about these things and the future of Federal spending, that 
the President would submit a budget that makes not even the slightest 
attempt to approach or deal with the problem, or to accept one word of 
the recommendations of the commission that he appointed, and then drop 
all reference to generational struggles that are coming in this country 
in the years very soon ahead.
  Earlier this week, the President announced plans to veto a 
rescissions package of $16 billion. That is less than 1 percent of the 
budget, and it was too much for the President to end. How in the world 
are we going to make the tough decisions on entitlements and other 
sensitive spending if we cannot even cut 1 percent of the budget?
  That rescissions package contained various unauthorized 
appropriations, various GSA construction projects--true pork--and we 
all played that one. Certainly, there must have been spending in there 
the President favored, but I find it impossible to believe that this 
spending is so important that he would delete even the headway we would 
make on 1 percent of the budget.
  It is a terribly strange way to take a stand, to defend every last 
bit, even that last 1 percent of pork-ridden discretionary spending. 
And we were all in that one. But that is not my idea of leadership.
  There are many examples of what have been presented and what will 
happen. Let me tell you one exaggerated one, and I am going to wind up. 
Others are here, too. I was thinking how someone maybe in this 
administration might have conducted themselves in a cabinet meeting or 
something at various previous periods in our history--
 perhaps if in office at the time of the secession of the Southern 
States in 1861, can almost hear advisors turning to the President and 
saying, ``Now, Americans might get upset if we ask for sacrifices, so 
better let the Congress institute a military draft and then we will 
criticize them for it because that would be better politically.'' That 
is obviously a little exaggerated example, to be sure, but I think some 
appropriateness there.

  This is a historic tune for this President to be the President who 
led the Nation out of debt and on the path of responsibility and 
solvency, again. He has a Congress also, even eager to do the job, but 
the best he can do is to hope that there will be a political cost, a 
deep political cost associated with the effort.
  Let me say to the detractors, there is still the opportunity to 
contribute to this effort and to be part of the solution instead of 
part of the problem. I have heard criticism from some Democrats that 
this budget does not really balance the budget by 2002 because it only 
balances the unified budget, the one that includes Social Security.
  Very well, then. Democrats wish to offer an alternative budget, 
balances the budget without counting Social Security, I would consider 
giving my support to that. While we have yet to see such a budget 
presented, criticism from the other side is about several million cubic 
feet of hot air.
  We Republicans took a lot of guff last session because we did not 
vote for the President's budget. Of course, events since then have 
vindicated Republicans because the President's own budget forecast $200 
billion deficits as far as the eye can see. Clearly, that budget did 
not do the job, just as we said it would not.
  At least at the time we proposed our own alternative budget to do the 
same job, that alternative reflected our differences with the 
President. We would have done it via spending cuts instead of tax 
increases but we did present an alternative.
  Those of the other faith appear to have forgotten that. They have no 
alternative to offer that does the job as thoroughly as our own budget. 
The President's budget does not even try. It just allows deficits to 
climb and the debt to pile up ad infinitum.
  I do not believe that that is good politics for the minority party. 
But do not take that advice from me. Undoubtedly, there will be 
political opposition to the measures we have to take to balance the 
budget, but once we do, I think Americans will see, once we do it they 
will see that the benefits will be coming to them. Declining interest 
rates, they will see the benefits of restored confidence in the market, 
in the investment in our economy, in the dollar itself. They will come 
to congratulate Members for the work we have done.
  Perhaps even more importantly, we will then have a fighting chance to 
deal with the retirement of the baby boom generation when it does 
begin. There is absolutely no way we will be ready for that if we are 
still running the deficits in the hundreds of billions that those on 
the other side seem to advocate.
  So we have a moral obligation to pass a form of this balanced budget 
this week. Future generations will not look kindly on Members if they 
fail. We should reach together on reaching a consensus on the best form 
of a balanced budget resolution. I pledge to do that.
  I know my colleague from Illinois is here on the floor. I am yielding 
the floor in just a moment, but will say that I thoroughly enjoyed 
working with her, Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, on the Entitlements 
Commission. It was a great eye opener for all Members.
  I wish, in many ways, I had not been on it because it reminded me of 
that old movie, ``The Man Who Knew Too Much,'' because we learned too 
much. We learned where we are headed. Had a lot of good people from 
both sides of the aisle helping. If we can get through this necessary 
political posturing, which I am doing a good bit of myself, and we all 
have to do this. This is very therapeutic. Then we will settle down and 
get something, because we all know what the stakes are, and we all know 
what the numbers are.
  That has never happened before. It has happened because the 
Entitlements Commission and the great work of Senator Kerrey and 
Senator Danforth. It has happened because the Social Security trustees 
have said exactly what is going to happen to the systems of Medicare, 
which will go broke. That is not something that floated in from the 
west coast. That is the Social Security trustees saying it. The Social 
Security trustees are Donna Shalala, Robert Rubin, Robert Reich, the 
Commissioner, and Democrat and Republican citizens of America saying it 
will go broke.
  In the year 2016, the disability insurance fund will go broke. In 
2031, the Social Security system will go broke. That doomsday date used 
to be 2063. It is now 2031. It moves up 3 to 5 years every year.
  There it is. Fun and games all we want. I am ready to play it. I love 
it. So does the senior Senator from Nebraska who came here with me, and 
in who there is no more spirited and engaging men than Senator Jim 
Exon, and the Senator in the chair, and the Senator from New Hampshire.
  We will do this, and then we should sit down after the shot and the 
shell and the smoke, because there is no smoke and mirrors in this 
budget. Everyone who has been here as long as I, 16 years, 10 years, 15 
years, now know, no smoke, no mirrors. All hard tough votes. I cannot 
wait for the debate. We never needed a balanced budget amendment. Just 
need to cast those tough votes.
  Well, hop in and get wet all over.
  Mr. SMITH. Madam President, I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. Smith pertaining to the introduction of S.J. Res. 
34 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. KERREY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith). Under the previous order, the 
Senator from Nebraska is recognized to speak for up to 15 minutes.
  Mr. KERREY. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, first of all, let me begin this by saying that I 
believe that the Senator from New Mexico, Senator Domenici, chairman of 
the Budget Committee, has made a good-faith effort to produce a budget 
resolution that frankly few predicted was likely to occur. It reduces 
the deficit over the next seven years by $961 billion, reduces 
spending, and at the end of that 7-year period, if you exclude Social 
Security, you have a balanced budget.
  It results in a significantly smaller Government. It gives us the 
potential of having lower taxes as well. I must say, Mr. President, 
again, I believe this is a solid and a good-faith effort. I regret, as 
I have listened to the debate [[Page S6899]] today, that it has been 
considerably less than the sort of civil debate that I would have 
thought was possible given some discussions that are going on right now 
between a number of us on the Democratic side that would like to 
participate in supporting this budget resolution.
  And I say that because what has happened is the dynamic has really 
changed. We are engaged in looking at an alternative that we I hope can 
get consideration to, I suspect sometime next week by the time it is 
all done. And we begin with somewhere in the neighborhood of $700 
billion of cuts over a 7-year period. That is a substantial shift. The 
President's budget, as has been commented on several times, contains no 
significant deficit reduction. Suddenly, you have under the leadership 
of the distinguished Senator from New Mexico and the distinguished 
Senator from Nebraska, the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee, a 
big shift in the Senate and I think large numbers, well in excess of 
60, who would vote for a budget resolution that got us to a point 7 
years from now where the deficit would be zero.
  I have come here this evening to identify a couple of problems, and I 
hope I identify the problems in a constructive fashion because, as I 
said, I would like very much and hope very much that the Republican 
chairman and Republican leadership will favorably view, as I said, a 
significant number of us who would like to participate in voting for a 
resolution that does approximately what the distinguished Senator from 
New Mexico is attempting to accomplish.
  Let me say for those who doubt the power of deficit reduction, the 
most impressive number in all of the 7-year forecast is that net 
interest stays the same. Net interest has been the most rapidly growing 
line in our entire budget, and under the budget resolution before us 
net interest would flatten out. As an expenditure, Mr. President, it 
certainly benefits bond holders, but it does not benefit American 
taxpayers at all. It is a payment that goes out, that buys us nothing 
other than the capacity to service these bonds. It is the most 
impressive number and one that I think we should pay attention to as we 
look to try to develop some alternatives.
  I begin in describing some concerns that I have about this sort of 
evaluating its impact upon me. Earlier today, I heard the distinguished 
senior Senator from Iowa talking about the fact that this budget 
resolution freezes congressional salary over, I believe, a 7-year life 
of the budget. I am impressed that that is in this budget resolution, 
but, Mr. President, I do not really feel for someone in the $136,000 or 
whatever it is plus salary that is a comparable shared sacrifice. I am 
not one who comes to this floor and says that the problem in America is 
that rich people are somehow manipulating and abusing poor Americans.
  I do not believe that at all. But I do believe if we are going to 
have $1 trillion worth of deficit reduction over a 7-year period, it 
should be shared sacrifice, and it is reasonable to look at some 
alternatives, whether it is capping the deductions at 28 percent, which 
the Entitlement Commission recommended would get $80 billion or $90 
billion over a 7-year period, or have me and others with incomes over 
$100,000 having to pay a little bit as a consequence. Some would come 
up and say, oh, gee, that is a big tax increase. I do not view it that 
way at all. It is just an attempt to say we ought to pay a little bit 
in order to get this thing to go away.
  It is not, Mr. President, just because there is a need for shared 
sacrifice, at least from my standpoint. It is also a consequence of 
coming and saying I am a little bit troubled, looking at some of the 
things that we are asking Americans to do because it seems to me, at 
least from my standpoint, I as one individual American am saying, well, 
gosh, now that I have mine, I want everybody else to do things that I 
did not have to do when I was in trouble or needed help. I have perhaps 
more than most kind of a schizophrenic attitude toward government. I 
have had it save my life. I have had it save my business. I have had it 
almost take my life and almost take my business. It can do both, Mr. 
President, but I have to say in the main, if I look at the 51 years of 
my lifetime the Government of the United States of America, though it 
can be a menace from time to time, has enable me to do an enormous 
amount.
  Yes, individual initiative is important and my family has been 
important and my friends have been important, but there are many key 
points along my lifetime, Mr. President, where I have been given a 
great deal of help and I have been given opportunity in education, been 
given opportunity in health care, been given opportunity in my own 
business, and I cannot in good conscience come to the floor and say 
that as a consequence of my own experience I feel that I am 
participating very much in the shared sacrifice needed, that we are all 
conscious of what is needed in order to get this deficit eliminated.
  So I begin with that, Mr. President. I hope again that the Republican 
leadership and the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee will 
look to those of us who intend, if we can, to reach agreement, which is 
not easy to do. If we get an alternative, I hope it is given good, 
solid consideration. I hope the chairman of the Budget Committee will 
say that this is a big victory; we started off the year, nobody 
believing we could get much in the way of deficit reduction, Democrats 
really not very enthusiastic about it, according to at least what you 
would read, and now all of a sudden we have Democrats moving a long 
ways in our direction willing to accept--I think we will end up with 
close to $700 billion over 7 years in real cuts, asking only that we 
look to ways for all of us to share a little bit in this thing over the 
course of the budget.
  There is a second problem, Mr. President. I do not know if it can be 
done in this budget resolution. I recognize the constraints of the 
Budget Committee and the Budget Enforcement Act really does not perhaps 
allow the Budget Committee to deal with these issues and maybe it has 
to be dealt with later on in the year. Earlier, the senior Senator from 
Wyoming [Mr. Simpson] commented upon it. But the Entitlement 
Commission--and I have heard a number of people talk about it--has 
identified what I think is a serious problem.
  I am actually borrowing a chart from Senator Bennett, the Senator 
from Utah, who had this chart up. But this really does describe the 
problem that the Entitlement Commission identified which is that 
mandatory spending and net interest are growing so rapidly that 
sometime around the year 2012, something like that, it is consuming all 
revenue that the Government of the United States is taking in. That 
revenue has stayed relatively flat. It is about the only thing that has 
stayed constant. We have collected about 19 percent of the GDP except 
in World War II and Vietnam; during those times it went higher. Most of 
the time it stayed about 19 percent. And unless we change that pattern 
of growth what happens is domestic discretionary continues to get 
squeezed down.
  I appreciate the fact that Social Security was not addressed or 
retirement not really addressed in this budget resolution. I think it 
needs to be, not because there is a short-term budget problem. I am not 
arguing that we ought to look at retirement because it contributes to 
deficit reduction in the short term. But it unquestionably contributes 
to deficit reduction in the long term.
  That is the problem we have. Some may say, gee, that will be good 
news, if we can get rid of all Government functions and turn the 
Federal Government into an ATM machine. I do not think that is good 
news. I believe not just in defense but as I hope I indicated earlier 
all of those things that have helped me have been in the domestic 
discretionary account. Everything I have received from the Government 
has come from domestic discretionary, unless you count the U.S. Navy, 
which was an enormous benefit to me as well. I leave out the world's 
largest and most powerful Navy. That was a wonderful experience, too.
  All of the rest I have benefited from have come from this domestic 
account. I am troubled by the budget resolution because it allows that 
mandatory account to continue to grow. It slows it down somewhat, but 
the mandatory accounts continue to grow and continue to take larger and 
larger percentages of domestic discretionary. It must be understood the 
budget resolution improves the current trend, makes it somewhat better, 
but I do not believe-- [[Page S6900]] and I must say honestly I have 
not extended it out beyond the 7 years, so I do not know exactly what 
it looks like out there 10, 15, 20, 30 years from now but looking at 
the 1996 and 2002 trend line, that appears to be the case. For 
emphasis, the one big change that has occurred is that net interest has 
flattened out, and that is a huge benefit to us.
  So to solve this problem of mandatory spending, we have to look at 
the long-term situation, not the short term.
  That is why I say it maybe that the Budget Committee, in looking at a 
budget resolution that deals with a 7-year period of time, may not have 
been able to address this mandatory problem.
  Senator Simpson and I today introduced a piece of legislation that 
would complement the Budget Committees work. Maybe it cannot be 
considered as a part of this resolution, but it certainly, I hope, gets 
consideration. And I suspect, whether it is 54 Republican votes or 
whether the Republicans accept the alternative and we end up with 
Republican and Democratic votes, I do not know, one way or the other, 
we are going to get a resolution that requires committees to do a lot 
of reconciliation.
  There are two things that I hope get considered. The first is one 
that Senator Simpson and I introduced today. What we say with Social 
Security, again, is that we have a long-term problem. The Social 
Security trust fund builds to 2012, then it goes down to about 2029 
when it is completely depleted.
  You may say, what is the big deal? Well, the big deal is our 
generation, the baby boomer generation, starts to retire around 2008, 
the largest generation in the history of the country, reducing the 
number of workers per retiree from about five down to about three. And 
we have big problems out there. The adjustments we would have to make 
are rather substantial if we postpone it, unlike what would have 
happened in 1983.
  What Senator Simpson and I do is we change, for the most part, future 
benefits. We make some adjustments to CPI minus 5. I think the budget 
resolution is CPI minus 2. In the House resolution, we adjust it by .6 
on the House side. We make the COLA more progressive with the cap 
reduction. We do some other things in our proposal that are short term. 
But most of them, including the extension of the normal eligibility age 
and the early eligibility age, most of those are pushed off into 
approximately the year 2030.
  Those changes strengthen Social Security, Mr. President, because what 
it does, it says to all generations, every living American--every 
living American is a Social Security beneficiary at some time; they may 
not be eligible today, but they will be at some time.
  So you have a 20-year-old and they look at the current situation. 
They scratch their head and say, ``Gee, I don't think there is going to 
be anything there for me.'' Under the legislation Senator Simpson and I 
introduced today, they would look at the thing and say, ``There will be 
something there for me,'' because we bring the Social Security balance 
up to 350 percent of the annual payment and stabilize it there for 75 
years. So every generation, every American would say, ``OK, we now know 
that Social Security is going to be there for us.''
  The second thing that we do--and it has a big impact, I think, on 
this whole debate. One of the things we very often forget is that the 
deficit reduction action, one of the most powerful things about it is 
that it increases national savings. Deficit financing is an act of 
dissavings. Deficit reduction is an act of savings.
  It is a fair argument to make that the distribution of it may not be 
terribly equitable. That is one of the reasons I am concerned about, as 
I said, what I am having to pay in this budget resolution and what I am 
required to contribute, because there is great inequity when you do 
deficit reduction. It does not necessarily benefit all Americans 
equally. You have to understand that.
  If I own stocks and bonds, the deficit reduction looks pretty good to 
me. But if you do not own stocks and bonds, you may say, ``Gosh, in the 
sort short term, there is not a lot of good there for me.''
  The second part of the Social Security proposal that we made today 
would also increase national savings, as does the Deficit Reduction 
Act, by establishing a 2-percent account for all Americans. It reduces 
the employee payroll tax by 2 percent, a $40 billion a year tax cut, 
Mr. President. But not just a tax cut, a tax cut with the purpose of 
establishing for all 137 million American workers a real personal 
investment plan, similar to what we have in the thrift savings plan for 
Federal employees. It would increase saving over a 9-year period in 
excess of $1 trillion, matching this deficit reduction.
  This Deficit Reduction Act increases savings by almost $1 trillion 
over 7 years. Our proposal would add another trillion to that, but not 
just add a trillion, it would add a trillion in savings spread across 
100 million American households.
  So the next thing that must be done, in addition to addressing 
retirement, if you want to control the cost of mandatory spending, if 
you are not troubled by the fact that we are squeezing domestic 
discretionary--Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 5 
additional minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KERREY. The next thing you have got to do--and this gets, I know, 
right back into last year's argument --you have to reform health care.
  Now the budget resolution addresses Medicare and attempts to begin 
the process of health care reform but, Mr. President, I do not believe 
it does enough. In particular, it does not get at that long-term 
structural problem that will continue to plague us even if we were to 
bite the--I would not call it a bullet. I would call it more of a 
howitzer round of this budget reduction. But even if you bite this 
howitzer round, you are still going to be left with pretty substantial 
increases in health care costs when the baby boomers retire. So there 
is still going to be a need for us, if you want to control the cost of 
entitlements and stop this rapid increase, there is still going to be a 
need to get at health care reform and do more than this budget 
resolution would allow.
  Again, I hope very much that it is possible for those of us on the 
Democratic side that would like to vote for a budget resolution to get 
full consideration by Republicans to have shifted the argument of full 
consideration to two facts. One, we are not really sharing the burden. 
It really is not an equitable sharing of the burden.
  All you have to do is ask yourself, as a Member of Congress at 
$136,500, or whatever the number is, ``Gee, what is it going to do to 
me over the next 7 years?'' The only thing you can really say is it has 
frozen your salary for 7 years. And I do not think you would really get 
an audience out there paying more for Medicare, getting less for 
Medicaid, having college loan restrictions, and many other things going 
in this budget, I do not think you will get a lot of sympathy from 
Americans saying, ``That's right. You guys have really put your 
shoulder to the wheel here and shared the burden of sacrifice.''
  That is No. 1. I think that there are ways for us to make it much 
more equitable, much more fair, if you do not mind using that word.
  And, second, Mr. President, I believe whether we do it in this budget 
resolution or we do it after the budget resolution, we still have a 
problem of mandating spending. We still have a problem of mandating 
spending, that if you do not want to convert the Federal Government 
into an ATM machine, you have to address retirement and you have to 
address health care and you have to do more than just reduce the size 
of the deficit and increase national savings, as a consequence.
  Mr. President, as I indicated, I watched the early part of this 
debate and it seemed to me to be going in the wrong direction. It was 
very uncivil and very partisan and very unfortunate. I do not mean that 
about the distinguished Senator from New Mexico or the distinguished 
Senator from Nebraska. I thought their opening comments were, you know, 
quite calm and quite reasoned. But it deteriorated in a hurry into 
accusations from that side of the aisle, from some who say, ``Gee, you 
Democrats don't want to do anything.''
  Not true. There are a lot of us who are willing to do an awful lot. 
[[Page S6901]] 
  And I heard on this side, as well, some accusations that Republicans 
are heartless and they are trying to cut the heart out of the American 
family, on and on and on. I think, in fact, our rhetoric was in excess 
as well.
  I do not know, Mr. President, if we are going to be able to reach a 
point where we have a Republican and a Democratic resolution here. I 
sincerely hope that we are able to do it, because I will predict to my 
Republican friends on the other side of the aisle, once we get to the 
tough task of reconciling these numbers, you are going to say, ``Oh, my 
gosh, will you guys help us? Will you stand with us and lead this 
country in the right direction?''
  Because it will not just be a vote, Mr. President. We have got a lot 
of leadership to exert if we are going to take this country in a 
different direction than the one that it is currently headed.
  So, again, I thank both the Senator from New Mexico and the Senator 
from Nebraska, who I think have made a good-faith effort. Both of them 
I know are deeply troubled by the deficit financing this country is 
doing. I sincerely hope that between now and Wednesday or whenever it 
is that we vote on final passage that we are able to reconcile the 
obvious differences that we have between our two parties and put 
together a bipartisan budget resolution.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. FRIST addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. JEFFORDS). Who yields time?
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I yield 5 minutes to Senator Frist.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee is recognized.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, my message is a brief one. If we are to 
restore the American dream, we must change the way Washington does 
business, and we can change the way Washington does business by passing 
the first balanced budget plan in almost 30 years.
  The plan has been laid out over the course of today, and it is before 
us here. This chart shows Federal budget deficits by year--1995, 1996, 
out to the year 2002. In red is the Clinton budget, approximately $200 
billion in 1995, increasing every year to the year 2000 to over $250 
billion. Yet we have a choice, and that choice is the Domenici balanced 
budget plan put before us today. That balanced budget plan results in a 
decrease in the deficit every year, 1995 to 1996, 1997, down to the 
year 2002, where the budget will be balanced; we will have zero 
deficit.
  We heard a lot about children today. Mr. President, I want to talk 
just a minute about why the Republican budget, the Domenici balanced 
budget, is the most compassionate thing we can do for our Nation's 
children. It is the most morally responsible thing that we can do for 
our Nation's children.
  Today, we are asking impossible things of our children. I am the 
father of three young boys, Harrison, 12; Jonathan, 9; and Bryan, 8. 
Many people--even today--ask me why would you run for the U.S. Senate? 
And my answer is very clearly, I ran to now serve in the U.S. Senate 
because I was concerned about the future of their generation, a future 
in jeopardy because of the projected Clinton budget deficits to 
increase year after year.
  But today, we have a choice. We expect today's young people to 
finance Federal deficits of staggering proportions. A young child born 
today is born into this world and given a bill of $19,000, a bill that 
he or she did not ask for. We give that young child--and it could be 
your child or my child or a grandchild or a neighbor's child--we give 
that child a lifetime tax rate today, unless we act, of 82 percent. We 
give that child today an obligation to pay over $187,000 in taxes over 
that young child's lifetime just to pay interest on the Federal debt, 
and that child did not ask for this Federal debt. We have given it to 
him or her.
  At 7 years of age, when that child would start elementary school, 
Medicare is going to be bankrupt unless we act, and act today. When 
that young child is 17 years of age, when he or she graduates from high 
school, spending on Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, Federal and 
military pensions, and interest on the debt will consume the entire 
budget, leaving no money for defense, education, roads, or any other 
purpose.
  We are asking that young child today to pay for a health care system 
in the future whose projected costs are running out of control. But the 
Domenici balanced budget plan will reverse that trend. We are trying 
hard to stop the repeating and ongoing flow of Government red ink, and 
like a family gathered around the kitchen table, Republicans have made 
difficult choices needed to protect our future.
  Mr. President, this budget plan will benefit our children by building 
a more prosperous tomorrow, a tomorrow of greater opportunity. The 
Congressional Budget Office reports that each percentage point of 
growth will result in 600,000 new jobs, and that same budget office has 
said that balancing the budget will result in additional growth of 2 to 
3 percent a year. This means greater opportunity for our children, 
greater possibilities. They will be able to find better jobs and they 
will be able to work, and someday they will be able to support their 
own children.
  Lower interest rates will help them in everything that they do. The 
CBO has told us that interest rates will come down by as much as 2 
percent, and this means that they will have to pay less to buy their 
first home. It will cost them less to finance their cars, to finance 
their education, to be able to start--even start--their own small 
businesses if they want to. Lower interest rates will have a ripple 
effect throughout their lives.
  Mr. President, the Concord Coalition has told us that the average 
family income would be not $35,000 but $50,000 if that family was not 
burdened by the massive Federal debt.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 5 minutes have expired.
  Mr. FRIST. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 3 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is time yielded?
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Yes, I yield an additional 3 minutes to the Senator 
from Tennessee.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
  Mr. FRIST. The GAO predicts that if we balance the budget by the year 
2002, the average American will have a real growth in income of 36 
percent by the year 2020.
  Mr. President, the best thing we can do for our children is to 
increase productivity. That will bring higher incomes. The American 
dream is fading for the generation of my young sons unless we act. 
During their lifetime, incomes for our young people, those under 24, 
have fallen by more than 15 percent. A balanced budget will reverse 
those trends. It will restore the American dream.
  So I close by saying that we, indeed, have a moral obligation to do 
this for our children. We must leave them a world of expanding 
opportunities, a world where they can achieve their American dreams. 
Enacting the Republican balanced budget proposal is the responsible 
thing to do. Now is the time to do it.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. EXON. I yield whatever time is needed to the Senator from 
Illinois.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Mr. President, thank you very much. I thank the 
Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. President, according to some of my colleagues, this debate is 
about whether this Congress should set out a framework for balancing 
the budget over the next 7 years. They argue with great fervor that the 
choice before the Senate is a choice between a budget submitted by the 
President of the United States that does not balance the budget anytime 
in the foreseeable future, or the resolution now before us. That, 
however, is a false choice. The real issue is not whether to begin the 
task of restoring fiscal discipline. The real issue is how. The real 
issue is whether this budget resolution, in its current form, is a 
blueprint that this country can and should follow.
  The first step toward answering that question involves asking 
another; is it fair? Unfortunately, the answer to that question is no.
  This resolution is not fair to the working poor. American families 
with incomes of under $28,000 would see an [[Page S6902]] effective 
increase in their taxes of $1,400 over the next 7 years under the 
changes in the earned income tax credit [EITC] this resolution 
proposes.
  It is not fair to seniors. It will likely cost retired Americans 
about $900 per year in higher premiums, copayments, and deductibles--
$3,200 over 7 years. For a senior couple, that totals an extra $6,400 
in out-of-pocket costs. And yet, there is nothing in the resolution 
that will do anything about the inflation in medical costs that is one 
of the principle factors driving the increases in Medicare spending.
  It is not fair to students. Four million college students could see 
their costs go up by as much as $4,920. Perhaps as many as half a 
million or more children would be denied access to preschool education, 
and two million more elementary and secondary school students would see 
their math and reading funding cut.
  It is not fair to maintain sacred cows like defense, which seem 
immune from reexamination even though we have won the cold war and the 
Soviet Union is no more.
  And it is not fair to the American people to propose cutting taxes by 
$170 billion in a budget that shreds the social safety net and 
decimates needed investments in our future.
  This budget resolution cannot be fair--and it can not work--because 
it does not accurately portray the Federal budget, and because it does 
not accurately reflect the interests of the American people. This 
budget resolution is all about numbers--$256 billion in Medicare cuts, 
$14 billion cut from the EITC, $190 billion cut from welfare, 
nutrition, retirement programs, and other mandatory spending--and on 
and on and on. But the numbers do not add up--and they are not 
guideposts to the future we can count on--because they reflect an 
abstract accountancy approach to the Federal Government, with little or 
no understanding of what the numbers really represent. One number 
represents the opportunity for young children to participate in 
Headstart, so that they can enhance their chances to succeed in school, 
and, therefore, to succeed in life. Another number represents access to 
health care. Yet another represents retirement security for older 
Americans. Yet another protects the ability of family farmers to stay 
on their farms. And others are about opening the doors of economic 
opportunity by creating incentives to work and to save.
  What is behind the numbers are the American people--their lives, 
their opportunities, and their hopes for the future. People are not 
economic abstractions, and we cannot afford any budget that treats 
people as mere numbers. Instead, we need to think about budgets the way 
American families think about them.
  When a family decides to cut its budget because they owe the bank or 
the credit card company or the car dealership, they sit down at the 
kitchen table with a calculator and talk numbers. They also talk about 
what is important to them, what their actions will mean for their 
children, for their parents, for them when the retire. That family at 
the kitchen table decides to spend money on some things and not others. 
They decide to pay off their debts a little more slowly so that they 
can continue to pay for what is essential to their well-being.
  They may talk about why it is important to cut spending in the first 
place, so that everyone in the family understands their situation, and 
why they have to act, so they can all agree that it is a priority. They 
try to have all the facts about how their money is actually spent, so 
that each person understands where the money is going. They discuss 
priorities, talking about expenses they need to continue to meet, and 
activities they can afford to cut back. They think and talk about how 
the proposed changes in family spending will affect each member of the 
family. And they budget with the future in mind, so that they can meet 
critically important long-range goals, like ensuring that the children 
in the family are educated, that there is money for things like braces, 
and that they have the cash they need to make a downpayment on a home. 
They look at how their choices will affect them and their grandchildren 
on down in the future.
  Establishing family budget priorities often involves some very tough 
decisions. Families could decide to risk their future to support 
vacations or a new car, or a big-screen TV. The family could stop 
paying medical insurance premiums. The family could take their kid out 
of college. They could even sell their house. The family could decide 
to divest themselves of all of their savings and net worth.
  But the American family realizes that keeping their daughter in 
college is important to her achieving the American Dream. And they want 
to be sure that grandmother has adequate healthcare and that she can 
enjoy her retirement years. They know that not having health care 
coverage means risking a catastrophe. Having a car to go to work and a 
house to live in are also critically important to families. After all, 
without a car, there are no jobs to support the family, and without a 
home, they are out on the street. The American family, therefore, would 
not make cuts that would endanger their ability to secure what is 
really important to them, their own piece of the American Dream: Health 
care, transportation, education, jobs, housing--these are the 
essentials.
  To deal with the Federal budget, the American family--all of us, 
together-- must sit down and decide what is important. What it is we 
need to save, and what it is that can be cut. As a nation, we must do 
what any sensible family would do to get themselves back on their feet 
financially. We must come together; we must look at the numbers, and 
most importantly, we must consider what each of the numbers means for 
people, and for our individual and collective futures.


              I. Impact of Budget Deficit on All Americans

  We all know that the budget deficit has an impact on all Americans. 
The national debt has quadrupled since 1980, growing from $1 trillion 
to over $4.7 trillion, as it is increasing as a share of our overall 
economy as well. These debts are crippling our ability to meet 
important national priorities, like education. They are jeopardizing 
future economic opportunity for our children, and the generations that 
will follow.
  The budget deficit put pressure on interest rates. Higher interest 
rates make it more costly for Americans to buy homes and cars, and to 
educate their children. Consider what a change in interest rates can 
mean to the ability of Americans to buy their own homes. If a family 
buys a house for $100,000 and the interest rate is 9 percent, that 
family is paying $9,000 per year in interest alone. If we balance the 
budget interest rates should fall. If interest rates drop even 1 
percent, that would put an extra $1,000 in the pockets of the family 
that bought the house. On the other hand, if we do not act, and 
interest rates go up, that takes money right out of that family's 
pockets--or makes it impossible for them to buy the home at all.
  Persistent deficits not only affect the costs of homes, it also 
creates inflation pressure. And inflation disproportionately affects 
moderate and low-income Americans. Since 1980, for example the average 
price of a home has tripled in the Midwest. But the incomes of 
Illinoisans did not even double. What that means is that more and more 
Illinoisans--and their counterparts in every other state in the union--
are being priced out of the American Dream.


           II. We Need to Know What We Are Spending Money On

  Americans know that, for all too many of them, the American Dream 
seems to be slipping out of reach. And years of discussions of big 
government have convinced many of them that the Federal Government's 
profligacy is a big part of the reason why. Seemingly endless debates 
on ``pork barrel'', waste, fraud, and abuse, and foreign aid have many 
Americans convinced that is where the Government spends its money. The 
truth, however, is that foreign aid is less than 1 percent of the 
budget, and that appropriated spending, whether ``pork barrel'' or 
essential, is shrinking both as a percentage of the Federal budget and 
as a percentage of the economy. The truth is that the major increases 
in Federal spending are not due to ``pork barreling,'' but to increases 
in what is called entitlement or mandatory spending.
  By the year 2012, unless appropriate policy changes are made, 
spending for the major entitlement programs--Medicare, Medicaid Social 
Security, and [[Page S6903]] Federal retirement, together with interest 
on the national debt--will consume every single dollar of Federal 
revenue.
  By the year 2002, unless there is change, the Medicare trust fund 
will go broke, and by the year 2029, Social Security will not be able 
to meet its obligations.


               III. Resolution Must be Carefully Crafted

  With problems like this looming in the not too distant future, it is 
clear that we must balance the budget. The thing is, we must keep the 
interests of all American families in mind when we craft a deficit 
reduction package. How we make the cuts is as important as the numbers 
that we are cutting.


                              IV. Medicare

  The Republican plan seeks a $256 billion cut in Medicare funding. If 
this cut is implemented, all States will suffer. In Illinois for 
example, over 1.6 million Illinoisans who are covered by Medicare would 
have to pay an additional $2,770 over 7 years, and an additional $784 
in 2002 alone in out-of-pocket expenses. On an overall basis, Illinois 
would lose $9.3 billion in Medicare funds over the next 7 years, $2.6 
billion in 2002 alone. Other States face similar cuts.
  Now, changes need to be made so that the Medicare trust fund will not 
go bankrupt by 2002. But the changes should not be made at the expense 
of healthcare access. And changes that do not focus on the real 
Medicare problem--health care inflation--make no sense at all. The 
costs of obtaining quality health care are on the rise. Cutting the 
Medicare budget by an arbitrarily chosen $256 billion is not the answer 
to this problem. It does nothing to deal with the overall inflation of 
health prices or the fact that many more people are becoming eligible 
for benefits each year.
  The budget resolution does not really propose anything to reduce 
health care inflation. Rather, all it does is raise the cost of health 
care to older Americans--83 percent of Medicare users have an annual 
income of under $25,000--or reduce their access to health care. Last 
year's health care debate was all about improving access to health 
care. This year's budget resolution is all about decreasing access to 
health care. Seniors will have to pay more or go without healthcare. 
This is not right. We cannot retreat from our commitment to ensuring 
that elderly Americans have access to high-quality, affordable health 
care.
  Cutting Medicare does not only impact on elderly Americans, these 
cuts will have direct impacts on all American families. Families will 
have to shoulder increasing costs for insuring that their loved ones 
receive proper care if Medicare does not cover the expenses. Cutting 
Medicare by such a record setting amount is essentially equivalent to a 
tax increase since families will have to pay more for adequate health 
coverage.


                              V. Education

  As we work to ensure that all Americans have access to adequate 
health care, we also have to work to ensure that all Americans have 
opportunities to pursue the American Dream. We have an obligation to 
our youth to provide them with the education to attain the American 
Dream. The budget resolution, however, seeks to stifle that dream, with 
changes such as more costly student loans. In Illinois, for example, 
almost 200,000 students would see their monthly student loan payments 
increase by 18 percent. If the goal of balancing the budget it to 
reduce the debt burden on future generations, what sense does it make 
to increase the debt burden on future college graduates?
  In fact in a study cited in Sunday's New York Times, the Census 
Bureau for the Federal Department of Education found that increases in 
workers' education levels produce twice the gain in workplace 
efficiency as comparable increases in the value of tools and machinery. 
The findings are based on interviews with about 3,000 businesses owners 
and managers. It found that a 8.6 percent increase in productivity 
could be had from a 10 percent increase in educational attainment. 
These kinds of statistics demonstrate once again how important 
education is to our economy's productivity, and overall success. Making 
it more difficult for our children to obtain proper training and 
education will only hurt our nation in the long-run.


                                VI. EITC

  Not only does this budget resolution seek to increase the debt burden 
on our future college graduates, it also scales back the earned income 
tax credit for working families. The EITC is a refundable tax credit 
for working families with low incomes. The goals of the EITC are first, 
to encourage families to move from welfare to work by making work pay 
and second, to reward work for working families so parents who work 
full-time do not have to raise their children in poverty--and families 
with modest means do not suffer from eroding incomes. By providing an 
offset against other Federal taxes, the EITC increases disposable 
income for workers and their families.
  The EITC has long enjoyed bipartisan support; it has been viewed as a 
nonbureaucratic way to make work pay better than welfare. President 
Reagan called the EITC ``The best antipoverty, the best pro-family, the 
best job creation measure to come out of the Congress.'' So why is it 
being cut?
  The Senate Budget Committee would reduce EITC by $13 billion between 
fiscal years 1996 and 2000 and by $21 billion between fiscal years 1996 
and 2002. About 7.8 million EITC recipients--nearly half of the EITC 
recipients with children--would be affected by this proposal. On 
average their EITC would be cut by $270. Families with two or more 
children would be hit hardest by this proposal. In Illinois 500,000 
working families' taxes will be essentially increased by $1,520 over 
the next 7 years due to the EITC cut.
  Our goal should be to encourage families to move from welfare to 
work, not the opposite. As the minimum wage has not kept pace with 
inflation, low-income families need all the help they can get to make 
ends meet. From every added dollar a low income worker earns, payroll 
taxes take 15.3 cents while food stamp benefits decline by 24 cents. 
For a low-wage family with two children, the EITC fully offsets these 
effects by providing a 40-cent credit for every dollar earned.
  American families are the key to our country's success. It is our 
duty to especially help those families that are working hard yet have 
trouble making ends meet. By helping them succeed we make them stronger 
and in turn our country stronger.


                             VII. Tax Cuts

  If the budget resolution's goal is to reduce the deficit to make our 
country stronger, it does not seem fiscally responsible to be 
discussing cutting taxes. This is the wrong time for cuts. Right now 
our priority should be deficit reduction. Tax cuts now would only 
hinder our ability to reach a balanced budget. If a family was facing 
financial problems, they would not voluntarily give up a part-time job 
or turn down overtime just when they desperately need the extra income. 
Providing a tax cut now just when our country needs to address our 
financial problems is the wrong thing to do.


                     VIII. Obligation to Our Future

  The budget debate is really about our obligation to the future. We 
need to open the door of economic opportunity for all Americans. We 
need to invest now in areas like education on which our future success 
will ultimately depend, and we have an obligation to be honest.
  AFDC for example, cost $4 billion in 1970 and served 7.4 million 
people. In 1993, it cost $22 billion and served 14.1 million people. 
That sounds like a big increase, does it not? When you adjust for 
inflation, however, benefits are not higher than they were in 1970, 
they are actually 47 percent lower. So when we talk about reducing the 
rate of growth of Medicare from 10 percent to 7 percent, we must 
acknowledge that the result of that kind of change may mean significant 
increases in out-of-pocket costs for Medicare beneficiaries, 83 percent 
of whom have incomes of $25,000 or less. We cannot pretend that is not 
so.
  We also have an obligation to try to open the door to economic 
opportunity to Americans who are now locked out. It is the right thing 
to do, and it is the smart thing to do. If we can use all of the 
talents of all of our people, we are all better off. That means we need 
welfare reform designed to bring welfare recipients into the mainstream 
of our economy, not just welfare reform designed to cut spending in the 
short run. That means we need job training, and housing, and nutrition 
reforms that [[Page S6904]] make sense, and that we need incentives to 
boost jobs and investment in communities that continue to suffer 
unemployment levels above those last seen nationwide in the Great 
Depression.


                IX. Timeframe to Achieve Balanced Budget

  As we go forward, it is worth keeping in mind that there is no magic 
associated with the idea of balancing the budget in 7 years. We could 
balance it in 9 or 10 years if we are really committed to change. If we 
are honest and we give up gamesmanship and tell the truth to the 
American people, adding a couple of years to the timeframe will not 
undermine our ability to achieve the objective.
 What is important is maintaining our priorities and not retreating 
from our obligations to American families.


                             X. Conclusion

  We have to keep in mind that what is at stake is our future. We are 
all in this together. We need to make our decisions together, like an 
American family would. We need to base our decisions on the truth and 
the fiscal realities that we face. When we sit down at the kitchen 
table and begin to look at what needs to be done, we need to consider 
our core priorities --education, housing, and quality health care for 
all and we ought to make certain that in any event the balance is 
achieved in the burden sharing, and that the shared sacrifice is fair 
to everyone.
  We can only make those decisions if we keep in mind our core 
priorities. That is what common sense dictates and that is what I hope 
this budget debate will give us an opportunity to do.
  That is what any sensible family would do to get themselves back on 
their feet financially. And that is what we need to do.
  I hope that we can come together in the spirit of bipartisan 
cooperation to do what Americans expect of us. Both parties need to 
tell the truth about what is actually in the budget and what the 
changes will mean for the American people. We need to use honest 
numbers and economic assumptions and put everything on the table. 
Unfortunately this budget resolution looks only at the numbers, and not 
at the people. For that reason I can not support it in its current 
form.
  But we have to always be mindful that in the final analysis these 
abstract numbers and the figures that get thrown around in the millions 
and billions of dollars really have very real realities for very real 
people. And we will not rest easy if the result of the work of this 
body is to encourage the pain or to put the burden on small groups of 
Americans at the expense of to the benefit of everybody else.
  A balanced budget based on an unbalanced burden is a disservice to 
the American family.
  Mr. President, I thank you very much.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I might need.
  I wish to first thank my friend from Nebraska for his comments on the 
budget, and also the excellent comments just made by my friend and 
colleague from the State of Illinois for keeping these things in proper 
perspective, which we are trying to do. I appreciate very much the 
constructive, thoughtful remarks by my colleague from Illinois and my 
colleague from Nesbraska. I hope that we can continue to move forward.
  As I said when I started out the debate this noon, I think possibly 
we could still work out a bipartisanship approach to this. I certainly 
hope and encourage all to keep an open mind as best we can.
  I would just like to finish up the first day of debate, which I think 
generally has been an informative one, by emphasizing once again the 
very hard hit that the Medicare cuts proposed in the budget that I 
think must be alleviated as we have maintained all day long.
  I would like to read a letter into the record from the Nebraska 
Association of Hospitals and Health Systems. This letter was written to 
me by a man that I have known for a long time, Mr. Harlan Heald. Harlan 
is the President of the organization known as the Nebraska Association 
of Hospitals and Health Systems. I think his letter, which is not a 
very long one, really sets up the major concerns that all of us who 
have, and rural areas in our States should be particularly concerned 
about.
  The letter is dated May 10. It is addressed to me. He said:
       On behalf of the 94 acute care hospitals in Nebraska, I 
     wish to call your attention to a serious potential problem.
       Clearly, the United States must work its way out of debt. 
     To do that, Federal spending must be cut. It is my 
     understanding that the Senate Budget Committee Chairman's 
     mark is set at an overall reduction of $1.5 trillion by the 
     year 2002. I further understand that in order to achieve a 
     savings of that magnitude, Medicare is targeted for $256 
     billion reduction in spending over the same seven-year 
     period.
       Here's the problem. For fiscal year 1993 (FY '93) (the most 
     current completed year), Nebraska hospitals had a net 
     operating margin of -7.5 percent for care rendered to 
     Medicare recipients. Based upon the Chairman's mark for 
     Medicare spending, in the year 2000 Nebraska hospitals would 
     have a net operating margin of -23 percent for Medicare 
     patients. This figure is expected to improve by the year 2002 
     to a net operating margin loss of only 14.5 percent, because 
     the reductions are ``front loaded.''
       Putting this into financial terms, in FY '93 Nebraska 
     hospitals lost $383 per case caring for Medicare patients. 
     Based upon the Chairman's mark, in the year 2000 they would 
     lose on average $1,339 per case and in 2002 they would lose 
     $983 per case caring for Medicare patients. This is all 
     compounded by the fact that Nebraska is a state with a higher 
     proportion of elderly citizens in its population.
       How can hospitals respond to the cuts of this magnitude? 
     Hospitals are caught in a catch-22. They can: (1) shift more 
     costs to the private sector--this is no longer a viable 
     option in today's managed care environment; (2) slash wages 
     and lay-off employees; (3) cut back on the scope of services 
     provided--all of which threatens the quality of care, will 
     close rural hospitals and restrict access. It is a lose-lose 
     situation for community hospitals. Reimbursement reductions 
     of this magnitude in a state with a disproportionate share of 
     the elderly population, a state in which Medicare patients 
     account for 60 to 70 percent of hospital admissions, clearly 
     threatens the health care system upon which all of us depend.
       Medicare needs to be fixed. There is an opportunity for 
     Congress to change Medicare, but the change must be driven by 
     sound health care policy, not budgetary or political 
     imperatives. The Senate Budget Committee's proposed Medicare 
     reductions would crush Nebraska hospitals.
       As always, Nebraska's hospitals look to your leadership.

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                           Nebraska Association of


                                 Hospitals and Health Systems,

                                                     May 10, 1995.
     Hon. J. James Exon,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Exon: On behalf of the 94 acute care hospitals 
     in Nebraska, I wish to call your attention to a serious 
     potential problem.
       Clearly, the United States must work its way out of debt. 
     To do that, Federal spending must be cut. It is my 
     understanding that the Senate Budget Committee Chairman's 
     mark is set at an overall reduction of $1.5 trillion by the 
     year 2002. I further understand that in order to achieve a 
     savings of that magnitude, Medicare is targeted for $256 
     billion reduction in spending over the same seven-year 
     period.
       Here's the problem. For fiscal year 1993 (FY '93) (the most 
     current completed year), Nebraska hospitals had a net 
     operating margin of -7.5 percent for care rendered to 
     Medicare recipients. Based upon the Chairman's mark for 
     Medicare spending, in the year 2000 Nebraska hospitals would 
     have a net operating margin of -23 percent for Medicare 
     patients. This figure is expected to improve by the year 2002 
     to a net operating margin loss of only 14.5 percent, because 
     the reductions are ``front loaded.''
       Putting this into financial terms, in FY '93 Nebraska 
     hospitals lost $383 per case caring for Medicare patients. 
     Based upon the Chairman's mark, in the year 2000 they would 
     lose on average $1,339 per case and in 2002 they would lose 
     $983 per case caring for Medicare patients. This is all 
     compounded by the fact that Nebraska is a state with a higher 
     proportion of elderly citizens in its population.
       How can hospitals respond to the cuts of this magnitude? 
     Hospitals are caught in a catch-22. They can: (1) shift more 
     costs to the private sector--this is no longer a viable 
     option in today's managed care environment; (2) slash wages 
     and lay-off employees; (3) cut back on the scope of services 
     provided--all of which threatens the quality of care, will 
     close rural hospitals and restrict access. It is a lose-lose 
     situation for community hospitals. Reimbursement reductions 
     of this magnitude in a state with a disproportionate share of 
     the elderly population, a state in which Medicare patients 
     account for 60 to 70 percent of hospital admissions, clearly 
     threatens the health care system upon which all of us 
     depend. [[Page S6905]] 
       Medicare needs to be fixed. There is an opportunity for 
     Congress to change Medicare, but the change must be driven by 
     sound health care policy, not budgetary or political 
     imperatives. The Senate Budget Committee's proposed Medicare 
     reductions would crush Nebraska hospitals.
       As always, Nebraska's hospitals look to your leadership.
           Sincerely,
                                                  Harlan M. Heald,
                                                        President.

  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, we are going to be finishing I believe 
debate very shortly. The distinguished Senator from Texas I know has 
some remarks. I know of no other speakers seeking recognition on this 
side. I have been advised likewise by the Senator from Texas.
  Mr. President, I thank the Chair.
  I yield the floor.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, this is the end of a long day. It is the end of a very 
important day for this country. We have heard so many arguments. The 
numbers are running in people's heads. They are conflicting. One person 
says there are cuts. The next person comes in, and says they are not 
cuts, they are just fewer increases. But in fact, it really comes down 
to the basic commonsense arguments that the people of America 
understand.
  The debate today is for the soul of America. It is for the future of 
our children. And what we do over the next 50 hours is going to 
determine whether our children and grandchildren in fact will have the 
right to inherit the same kind of America that we have been able to 
grow up in and for which we have known such great advantages.
  The House of Representatives tonight has taken the first bold step. 
They have passed a budget resolution that will balance the budget by 
the year 2002. The Senate is starting on the road that will have the 
same result.
  I was talking to a group of leaders from all over the world today. 
They really had one basic question. Does America have the guts to 
balance the budget? Will they really do it? Do they really have the 
guts to set a course over the next 7 years that will be very tough but 
will make the difference in the economy for our country, and for the 
whole world? And I said emphatically the answer is yes. We do have the 
guts. We do have the courage. We do have the will. And we will set on 
the course.
  Will it be easy? No. But we are going to do it because the people of 
this country made a statement in November 1994. They asked for courage, 
and we are going to give them the courage that they had in the vote 
they made last November, and that they deserve from the people they 
elected and put their faith in.
  We have heard so many statements on this floor that I think we must 
try to correct, as best we can, some of the misstatements that were 
made.
  First of all, it was said that this budget resolution has tax cuts 
for those making $200,000 a year. Well, the fact of the matter is this 
resolution does not have tax cuts at all. This budget resolution does 
not speak to tax cuts. But it does have a sense of the Senate that, if 
there are tax cuts that result from cutting spending, they will be 
targeted and focused to people making under $100,000.
 There are no tax cuts for the rich in this resolution. That is a 
smokescreen. That is put out by people who do not want us to pass a 
balanced budget. Then there was the talk about defense spending. There 
was ranting about the firewall put up for defense spending so that we 
would have domestic spending and defense spending. Well, in fact, there 
is a firewall, Mr. President. Thank goodness there is a firewall. 
People talk as if, when the cold war was over, the world was a safe 
place.

  I am on the Armed Services Committee, and I am on the Senate Select 
Committee on Intelligence. I am scared to death about the proliferation 
of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons all over the world right 
now. We have as much danger in the world today as we did when Russia 
was at the height of its strength.
  It is a different kind of problem. It is a different kind of terror 
we are seeing in the world today, but nevertheless the greatest 
superpower in the world is not going to let down.
  We are going to have to understand what happens when sarin gas is let 
out in a subway killing people before our very eyes, and when you can 
make bombs from fertilizer and fuel oil, and we see the loss of over 
100 lives in our own country, and when we see the capability to produce 
missiles that could take these gases, the biological and chemical 
weapons and the nuclear weapons anywhere in the world. You bet we have 
a firewall in this budget resolution. Thank goodness we do for the 
defense spending, because I think the defense cuts are too much in this 
resolution, and I hope we can fix it because I wish to be on the 
leading edge of technology.
  When our young men and women give their lives to protect our freedom 
in our armed services, you bet I want them to have the tanks and the 
fighters and the bombers they need to make sure that they do it as 
safely as possible for themselves and with the strength they need to 
protect us.
  So, yes, there is a firewall. Thank goodness there is. And I hope 
that we can correct even right now in this budget resolution what, I 
think, is a woefully inadequate amount for defense. But we are not 
going to pass a resolution saying we increase defense spending without 
looking at the priorities and saying where is it going to come from and 
making those priority judgments. That is what we are here to do.
  Does this resolution cut school lunch? No, it does not cut school 
lunches at all. That is an absolute smokescreen.
  Does it cut the earned income tax credit? No. In fact, the earned 
income tax credit will remain. That is a good program. It is a program 
for the working poor. For someone making $20,000 or $18,000 a year, 
that has one or two children, they do get a tax rebate in this budget 
resolution just as they do today, and in fact that amount increases by 
the year 2002 because we want to encourage people who are helping 
themselves. So there is no cut in the earned income tax credit. There 
are only increases. It is important that we set the record straight on 
that.
  Now, it has been said that Medicare is going to be cut. Once again, 
Mr. President, that is not true. Medicare spending will increase 7 
percent a year in this budget. Does that mean Medicare is going to be 
the same as it has always been? I hope not. I hope we can get 
efficiencies that make Medicare more cost conscience because it has 
been increasing at a much greater rate than 7 percent per year.
  We are not cutting Medicare. We are going to try to put some 
innovative solutions in Medicare so that our seniors who need Medicare 
will have it available, and they will have other options, and there 
will be incentives for them to save money, incentives that they will 
earn for themselves and for the taxpayers of America. We are going to 
have some innovative solutions, but we are not going to cut Medicare. 
We are going to try to save Medicare. That is going to be one of the 
key missions of this budget resolution, to save Medicare, so that when 
our future generations grow old it will be there for them.
  The President's own cabinet officers who sit on the Medicare trust 
fund board have said it is going bankrupt, and it will be bankrupt by 
the year 2002 if we do not take steps right now to save it. And that is 
one of the key purposes of this budget resolution.
  Now, it has been said that the space station has not been cut. I wish 
it had not been cut, because I do think the space station is one of the 
technologies that is going to provide jobs for our future, but it is 
cut. It takes its fair share. It is cut $3.5 billion over the next 5 
years. It is taking its fair share of cuts. It is going to be more 
efficient, just like everything else in Government, and hopefully we 
will have a space station that will provide the new technologies and 
the new industries and the new jobs for our future. But everything is 
going to have to be more efficient, and it is going to have to meet a 
number of tests to make sure that it is right for the taxpayers and for 
our future generations.
  There is a test that I have, and I am going to use it on everything 
that we vote on when we come to appropriations bills in the next few 
months. It is going to be the $100 test. If you take $100 and you put 
it on the kitchen table [[Page S6906]] and you say, now, would you like 
to have this wonderful program that is going to cost $100 for your 
family? Most people would probably say, yes, I would like to do good 
things. Sure, I would like to have that program. But if the choice is 
for you to keep the $100 on your kitchen table and spend that money for 
what you want to spend it for for your family, what is going to be your 
choice? Are you going to send the $100 to Washington to spend on a 
program that sounds very good or are you going to want to keep that 
$100 to make the decisions for your family yourself. We are going to 
try to keep that $100 on the table for your family, so that you can 
decide what your priorities are rather than letting someone in 
Washington, DC, you have never met make those decisions for you.
  Two economists developed a model for the future called generational 
accounting. This model calculates how much short-term budget policies 
will cost future generations. It looks beyond 5-year budget projections 
and was developed from the help of the President's Office of Management 
and Budget.
  These two prominent economists have produced some shocking forecasts. 
On the day a child is born, that child owes $19,000 in Federal debt. 
When that child's sibling is born in 4 years, the baby brother or 
sister will be $24,000 in debt. There will be fewer jobs available for 
that child. And when it comes time to take out a personal loan to buy a 
new car or to own a home, our children that are being born today will 
find that Federal deficits have driven the interest rates up 2 percent. 
But borrowing money for a home will be just a dream for those children. 
If we continue at the rate we are going right now, what we are really 
going to give our children is not the ability to buy a home at all. 
They will not be able to buy a home because their tax rate will be 82 
percent--82 percent is what we will be giving to our children and 
grandchildren if we do not take steps right now to correct the runaway 
spending that this Congress has had for the last 40 years.
  And yet, this administration has refused to abandon the practices of 
Congresses for the last 40 years. In fact, this administration has 
dealt itself out of this debate. The President submitted a budget but 
it does not balance. It does not balance in the year 2000 or the year 
2002. The President abdicated that responsibility and has left it to 
Congress.
  Now we are going to get a chance to vote on the President's budget 
that does not balance. In fact, the President's press secretary said on 
Tuesday that that will be a good place for us to begin.
  In fact, Senator Domenici has decided that that is indeed a good 
place to begin. So, when I finish my remarks, on behalf of Senator 
Domenici, I am going to submit the President's budget. That will be the 
first vote of this budget debate and we will get a chance to see if 
people want to vote for a budget that may have fewer decreases than 
increases, but does not balance at the end. We will see who is willing 
to cross the line that will be drawn in the sand to say, we will take 
the responsible course for this country and we will do what the people 
asked us to do last November.
  In fact, we are in the toughest debate that we may ever have. No one, 
probably even Senator Domenici, agrees with everything in this budget 
resolution. I do not agree with everything in it. Not one person in 
this country probably agrees 100 percent with everything in it. 
Because, you know, Senator Domenici compromised. He tried to work with 
people and their priorities. He may not have liked everything that is 
in this resolution even though he is the prime author of the 
resolution. But we are going to rise above our small differences. We 
are going to try to set the priorities. We are going to have 
amendments.
  We may vote for some of those amendments, but in the end, Mr. 
President, the people who are doing what is responsible for this 
country are going to vote a balanced budget out of the Senate just as 
they have done in the House today. And we are going to make history. We 
are going to begin to turn the ship of state that started going in the 
wrong direction in the 1930's when we started building up spending and 
big Government until in 1994 the people said, ``I know I'm going to 
have to sacrifice. I'm ready.'' The people of this country said that. 
They understood what they were doing.
  And when I go home, people say to me, ``You hang tough. Don't back 
down now.''
  This is our chance to save our country. And if we miss it, the people 
of America know that we will not have this chance again maybe ever but 
certainly not in the near future.
  There is a new spirit in this country. The spirit of the Americans 
who went to the polls in 1994 and caused a revolution in the way that 
our Founding Fathers provided them to have a revolution. And that was 
the ballot box. The people had a revolution and they took their 
Government back. They have experienced the right of democracy. And now 
the people of America have said, ``We want you to do what is right. We 
understand that it will be tough. We understand that we will have to 
sacrifice. But we are ready. We are ready to do what is right for our 
children and our grandchildren.''
  Mr. President, it is time for us to look to the future, not to the 
next election.
  If we do what is right, everything else will take care of itself and 
we will create the jobs and the future for our children and that is 
what we are going to do.


                           Amendment No. 1111

              (Purpose: To propose the President's budget)

  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Domenici, I send 
to the desk the President's budget and ask that the President's budget 
be put on the table for consideration beginning tomorrow morning on 
Friday so that we will be able to have our first vote on the 
President's budget and we will see who wants to balance the budget and 
who is willing to take the steps that are necessary to do it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report the amendment.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Texas [Mrs. Hutchison], for Mr. Domenici, 
     proposes an amendment numbered 1111.

  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading 
of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection it is so ordered.
  (The text of the amendment is printed in today's Record under 
``Amendments Submitted.'')
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the 
Senate resumes the concurrent budget resolution on Friday there be 40 
hours remaining for debate under the statutory time limit.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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