[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 96 (Tuesday, June 13, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8289-S8291]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    THE PRESIDENT'S BALANCED BUDGET

  Mr. SANTORUM. I rise to keep vigil with the President on his plans to 
introduce a balanced budget under the same circumstances that we had to 
in the Senate, with precise cuts, precise reductions in the rate of 
growth in some programs, changes in the tax law that would get us to a 
balanced budget.
  Just a few minutes ago, the President concluded what he termed --this 
is from the White House press release--The President's Economic Plan: A 
Balanced Budget That Puts People First.
  He just concluded a minute or two ago. Obviously, I was here on the 
Senate floor. I was not able to see the actual address, but I have 
before me--I feel like Johnny Carson--I have before me the actual press 
release that outlines how he is going to get to a balanced budget over 
10 years. Now, it is interesting that he is going to take it over a 10-
year period. You would think that balancing the budget over a 10- 
[[Page S8290]] year period would make it easier to balance the budget 
in the longer time to do it. That is not the case, however. Because of 
the demographic trends in our society and the entitlement nature of a 
lot of Government programs we have, spending actually kicks up higher 
and goes up faster in the years 2003, 2004, and 2005, those last 3 
years of the 10-year budget, and therefore it is actually harder to get 
to a balanced budget over a 10-year period. In fact, while it takes 
under our proposal here that passed the Senate roughly $1.2 trillion in 
spending cuts and interest savings to get to a balanced budget in 7 
years, it takes about $1.6 trillion in spending cuts and interest 
savings to get to a balanced budget over 10 years. So of this $1.6 
trillion, what does the President come up with? Well, here are the 
specifics.
  And before I put this number up, we have had 25 days, counting 
yesterday, 25 days with no proposal to balance the budget from 
President Clinton. Now, we are waiting to see whether I have to put 26 
up or whether the proposal put forward by the President tonight meets 
the straight-face test, whether the President actually has put forward 
a budget that accomplishes balance. This is the operative word--balance 
the budget, not plan for economic future, not Putting People First but 
balance the budget in 10 years.
  So we are going to withhold judgment for now as to whether the 
President with the specifics he has offered tonight balances the 
budget. That is not to say that once he releases his document, which I 
am sure they are working on feverishly over at the White House, once 
they release this document and have all the specifics down that we will 
not give the President credit, but all we have is the information 
presented to us at this time, and since the Senate is recessing we have 
to go only by the information that the President provided us. So we 
will hold 26 here for a minute.
  Here is what the President has provided in his plan. First steps 
toward health care reform while strengthening the Medicare trust fund--
strengthening, not solving the problems with the Medicare trust fund. 
The President's plan calls for half the Medicare savings of the 
Republican plans ($130 billion).
  For those of you who do not have calculators at home, do not worry. I 
will in fact be keeping track of the savings here, and I will make sure 
we add them up and we do get the numbers the President needs to balance 
the budget.
  So it is $130 billion in savings for the President for Medicare cuts, 
but there would be no beneficiary cuts. He does not explain how he does 
that, but he suggests that he can do it without cutting beneficiaries. 
Fine, $130 billion in deficit reduction.
  Second is $55 billion in Medicaid cuts. Again, that is a third of the 
level of what the Republicans proposed in our budgets. That is $55 
billion plus $130 billion for the President.
  Then he goes on and talks about protecting investment in education 
and training. That is paragraph 2 here in his press release. And he 
says, ``The President's plan puts people first by preserving 
investments in education and training, with significant increases in 
Head Start, Goals 2000, AmeriCorps, student aid, a new GI bill of 
rights for workers that increases training through skill grants, and a 
$10,000 education tax deduction.''
  Now, there is nothing in here that reduces the deficit. In fact, 
everything in here increases the deficit and increases spending. We do 
not know how much, though. He does not tell us exactly how much. All we 
know is that there are increases in spending in the President's budget 
that look to be, with a $10,000 education tax deduction, potentially a 
significant amount of money, but again we do not know, we do not know 
whether any of these are new entitlements and how they will grow in the 
next 10 years. But we do see, I suggest, significant increases here, 
but we cannot account for those.
  Next is a tax cut targeted only to working families. Again, no 
deficit reduction here. We are talking about the President's middle-
income tax cut which he has proposed, which is the education deduction, 
tax credit for children and expanded IRA's.
  Under the President's original proposal when he proposed his budget 
in February, that plan cost about $65 billion over 5 years. Over 10 
years, that number, you would think, would be double that but, in fact, 
because of the way it is back-end loaded--he back-end loads that tax 
cut--it is actually dramatically more. We do not have a score in on 
that, but I suspect it is at least $150 billion, or more, in costs.
  So on the one side you have $130 billion--try to keep this in your 
mind--on Medicare, $55 billion on Medicaid, and on the other side you 
have a questionable amount of money on education and about $150 billion 
plus in tax cuts. OK? This is not exactly the straight road to a 
balanced budget, but we are not done yet.
  No. 3, components of savings for the balanced budget. Here is where 
we really get down to the brass tacks and get serious about balancing 
the budget. He restates his Medicare and Medicaid savings. I hope he 
does not count them twice because they appear twice in this document, 
but they are here for repetition sake. Welfare reform has savings of 
$35 billion--$35 billion. That now goes on the cut side, and we add 
that to the $130 billion and $55 billion. By the way, that is half of 
what the Republicans have proposed in the budget resolution that passed 
the Senate.
  Corporate contributions of $25 billion over 7 years through a 
bipartisan effort to close corporate loopholes, special interest tax 
breaks and unwarranted corporate subsidies. OK, that is another $25 
billion on the tax-increase side, but deficit reduction side.
  Now we go to the last page of these three pages. Other than 
education, research and selected investments in the environment and 
other areas, domestic discretionary spending is cut by over 20 percent 
in real terms near the end of the plan--near the end of the plan.
  So what he is suggesting is that over 10 years, we will take the 
number of about, I think it is, $270 billion today is what we spend on 
discretionary spending overall. Obviously, a chunk of that is education 
and other things he says is taken off the sheet and says we are not 
going to cut that. I do not know how much that is. I am working off the 
back of an envelope here. You might not be able to tell that.
  We have a number less than $270 billion that he is going to reduce by 
20 percent over 10 years. So we are going to get from $270 billion 
roughly down to $215 billion over 10 years.
  The Republicans, in their budget, I think, get down to over 7 years 
about $225 billion. So they only take it down a little more than where 
the Republicans already had it, which is not a substantial savings. I 
do not know how they do that. I would suspect you are going to see 
savings generally in the area of around $75 billion overall. So we will 
give him that amount of money roughly, although we do not know the 
specifics. I think that is a generous allocation.
  Finally, defense outlays in the President's plan are above both the 
House and Senate levels. Let me repeat that. Defense outlays in the 
President's plan are above both the House and Senate levels in fiscal 
year 2002. So he is talking about higher defense spending than what we 
passed here. Yet, savings are achieved by keeping budget authority 
constant from 2002 to 2005. In other words, we are going to spend more 
money the first 7 years but less money the last 3 years, and that will 
offset the spending here.
  What it sounds like is defense is a wash. In other words, we are not 
going to spend any more or less; there is no real reduction in spending 
in defense. So how do these numbers add up, because that is it, there 
are no more specifics on how the President gets to a balanced budget.
  I remind you, going back to the beginning of this talk, the 
President, in order to balance the budget, has to come up with spending 
cuts and interest savings that total $1.6 trillion over 10 years, and 
they have to be scored by someone other than someone who is working for 
the Democratic National Committee, someone who is independent, like the 
Congressional Budget Office, to look at this and score it as to whether 
these are real: $1.6 trillion, specified cuts in the Clinton bill--
specified--$245 billion out of $1.6 trillion, $245 billion are 
specified.
  Another $75 billion, I figured out, in discretionary spending could 
be cut. That is a rough estimate. So we will give the President the 
benefit of the doubt of $315 billion in spending cuts 
[[Page S8291]] and offset that with at least $150 billion in increases 
because of his tax cut, which gives you a net of about $165 billion.
  Tonight, the President of the United States went on national 
television for 5 minutes with a plan that he submitted--here--to all of 
us and gave us a little cheat sheet on what he was going to talk about 
that cuts 10 percent of what he needs to get to a balanced budget over 
10 years--10 percent. He puts forward 10 percent of the cuts he needs 
to balance the budget over 10 years.
  I do not know if that meets the straight-face test. I do not think it 
does. I think when the President of the United States comes and says he 
is going to present an economic plan to balance the budget over 10 
years, then comes before the American public on national TV, which the 
Vice President was able to ascertain for him, and then comes up with 
only 10 percent of the cuts necessary to get to a balanced budget, I am 
not too sure that this number ``6'' does not belong up on that board. I 
am not too sure that the President has come to the table yet with a 
serious plan that scores as a balanced budget.
  Certainly, the details that he has offered and the notes that have 
been haphazardly slipped to me by my staff as he listened to his speech 
certainly do not give me any further indication, any further specifics 
about how the President accomplishes this goal. But to come forward on 
national television--on national television--saying he is going to 
balance the budget and come forward with 10 percent, that is an insult. 
It is an insult. It is an insult to all of us who sit there and work 
hard to try to make this happen, and it does not do much to elevate the 
stature of the President's office.
  If you are going to come to the American public, if you are going to 
say you will play straight, if you are going to be specific on how to 
do it, do not try to finesse them again. Someone is watching. Someone 
is going to pay attention to the details, and you are not going to be 
able to keep fudging the fact that you are not coming forward with the 
tough decisions. And stretching it out over 10 years, you will find, 
does not make it any easier.
  So tonight I have to put up number ``6.'' Five-minute speeches on 
national television do not count. Facts, specifics, documents, vision, 
plans count. All of those were in the Senate-passed budget resolution, 
every one of them. They changed the dynamics of Government. They 
provided vision of how we are going to challenge the problems, to take 
those challenges on in the future. We solve the Medicare trust fund 
problem. The President does not do any of those things. He felt the 
pressure.
  I do not know whether he started off his speech saying, ``Here I 
am,'' in response to my talks on the Senate floor, but if he did, he 
came up short. He, in fact, is not found yet. We still do not know 
where the President is when it comes to putting forth measures to 
balance this budget.
  And so while there are many other things I would like to do at 9:20 
in the evening than come and talk about the President and his inability 
to lead this country, I will continue to come back until I get the 
specifics of how the President is going to put forward a plan to lead 
this country into the future. And to date, day 26, the President is 
still absent without leadership, and has still refused to come to the 
table.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under a previous order, the Senate would have 
stood in recess until 9 a.m. on June 14. Does the Senator from 
Connecticut rise to ask unanimous consent to speak?
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I do. I ask unanimous consent that I may be 
able to proceed for 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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