[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 101 (Tuesday, June 20, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8719-S8720]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          WHERE IS THE BUDGET?

  Mr. SANTORUM. Thank you, Mr. President. First, I would like to thank 
the Chair for his indulgence in spending the time that I am supposed to 
be in the chair presiding and doing that for me. As customary, the 
Senator from Virginia is always there to do the gentlemanly thing and 
fill in a need. I appreciate very, very much the indulgence of the 
Senator.
  I am back to continue my vigil in requesting the President put 
forward a balanced budget resolution. The last time I appeared here on 
the Senate floor was the night the President announced his balanced 
budget resolution. I had sketchy details at the time but did not have 
the full package that the President presented.
  We have gotten it. It is about 6 or 7 pages, double-sided, about that 
big, that thick. That is his budget proposal, compared to his first 
budget proposal which was about this thick, to give the comparison, the 
amount of detail.
  As Members have heard on the Senate floor today and in newspapers and 
other places, it just does not measure up. The President uses a whole 
lot of assumptions that are exaggerated and made to make the 
projections of the economic growth and interest rates and everything 
else look rosy, and as a result, gets to a balanced budget through his 
numbers with smoke and mirrors.
  The Congressional Budget Office, who, in a State of the Union Address 
in 1993, he stated would be the numbers that he would use--that 
everyone should use because they are the most accurate--that he would 
use in determining whether we get to a balanced budget, scores the 
Clinton budget as continuing deficits of $200 billion or more. It is a 
straight line. Deficits do not come down at all under this budget 
proposal as scored by the Congressional Budget Office.
  The people who scored his budget over 10 years as getting the deficit 
to zero were the Office of Management and Budget, which is over in the 
Department of Treasury, which is his own people scoring his own 
numbers, which are, as was said, rosy assumptions. The nonpartisan 
Congressional Budget Office, the one that the President says we have to 
use, says that we have $200 billion deficits into the future for the 
next 10 years.
  So, as a result, I have to come back and add another number to this 
chart, which says, ``Days with no proposal to balance the budget from 
President Clinton.''
  I gave a period of time to give him the benefit of the doubt to get 
the numbers up here to let us see what the specifics were, whether this 
would be scored by a neutral party, the Congressional Budget Office, as 
a balanced budget resolution. In fact it has come back to be not 
balanced. It is disappointing.
  I just want to go over a couple of the details of the budget and then 
I want to address, finally, this chart which has gotten a little 
publicity here, of late.
  First, the details of the budget. The Republican budget gets to 
balance by the year 2002. What are the deficits that are estimated by 
the Congressional Budget Office under the Clinton budget: $196 billion 
in 1996, $221 billion in 1997, $199 billion in 1998, $213 billion in 
1999, $220 billion again in the year 2000; $211 billion in 2001, $210 
billion in 2002, $207 billion in 2003, $209 billion in 2004, and $209 
billion again in the year 2005; over $2 trillion in additional debt 
over the next 10 years under his revised budget which he says gets us 
to zero, which the Congressional Budget Office says gets us to even 
worse shape than we are now, $209 billion as opposed to $175 billion 
projected this year. So we have made no progress even under Clinton II.
  Let us look at the specifics of Clinton II. If you compare the 
Clinton second budget to his first budget, the one he [[Page S 
8720]] submitted to the Congress in February that nobody in this 
Chamber voted for--99 ``no'' votes, 1 ``absent''--under the Clinton 
first budget in discretionary spending, that is nonentitlement 
spending, he cuts over 5 years, $2 billion from his first budget. This 
new revised budget that is going to be tough, that is going to get us 
to zero, that is going to do all these things--make the tough 
decisions, face up to the music for the American public, that he went 
on national television to tell us how important it was, now to come to 
the table and make these tough choices--$2 billion over 5 years.
  Under his first budget he was to spend, just to give an idea of the 
magnitude of the numbers we are talking about, over the first 5 years 
in his first budget he submitted in February that did not come to 
balance--it did not even pretend to come to balance--total 
discretionary spending over that 5-year period, $2.730 trillion. That 
is the total discretionary spending accounted for in the Clinton first 
budget.
  The Clinton second budget--new, improved, I am going to get you to 
balance, make the tough decisions, tighten the belt some more, we have 
gotten the message from the American public, I know you want me to 
deliver--not $2.730 but $2.728 trillion. So over 5 years he reduced 
discretionary spending by $2 billion. That is not a Weight Watchers 
approach to the budget. You are not going to loosen any notches on $2 
billion out of $2.7 trillion.
  So how does he do it, if he does not cut discretionary? He admits he 
does not cut discretionary. You cannot play around with those numbers. 
How does he do it? He looks at these cuts in the outyears. He does not 
do much in the first few years. He sort of back-end loads it.
  In fact, of the 10-year budget that he has proposed, you would think 
if we are going to cut money over 10 years you would do it on a 
straight line. You cut so much per year every year to get to balance. 
It does not take much of a mathematician, which I am not, to figure out 
if you were going to cut the same amount every year to get your 
balance, sort of a straight line down, you would have to get about 10 
percent a year. That is what you would figure.
  In the first year the President cuts 2 percent; 2 percent of his cuts 
first year, 3 percent next, 4 percent next, 5 percent next, in years 9 
and 10, 17--almost 18 percent of the cuts and almost 21 percent of the 
cuts; the last 2 years, long after--that is three Presidents from now--
he decides that is when we are going to do all the cutting.
  It is a lot easier if you are sitting in the White House and look two 
or three Presidents down the road and have them do all the tough work. 
He does not do any of the tough work under the rest of his 
administration or the potential next administration. So again, all the 
tough decisions are put off to future Congresses and future Presidents 
and none of the real tough decisions are made now.
  I say that in criticism of the President's budget. But I will say 
that I appreciate that he at least came to the table. He did not come 
to the table with much. He is not going to feed a lot of people with 
what he has at the table, but he at least came. He entered into the 
debate, he made some, I think, relevant comments when he came to some 
of the health care programs and how they had to be on the table. I know 
it upset folks on the other side of the aisle but at least he came and 
said we have an obligation to do this.
  I hope he comes back with some real budgets and with some real 
numbers that show that we will do this. So I unfortunately will have to 
come back and talk more about how the President has not come through 
with a budget.
  There are a couple of things I want to comment on in wrapping up, and 
again I appreciate the indulgence of the Senator from Virginia.
  There was an article in the Washington Post on Sunday about how some 
of my colleagues were upset with this chart I have on the floor because 
of its irreverence, some may suggest, in its title. I was criticized by 
Members that I should not, in a chart, refer to the President by his 
first name.
  I did a little looking back, as to how the other side treated 
Republican Presidents when they were in the majority--when they were 
here and the President was a Republican. I found just a few things. We 
did not do an extensive research--frankly, you did not have to do 
extensive research to quickly find references to Presidents which were 
in my opinion a heck of a lot more pejorative in nature than mentioning 
the President's first name in a chart.
  In the 99th Congress, the next-to-the-last Congress, when President 
Reagan served as President, there were 77 references by Members to the 
term ``Reaganomics.'' That at the time was not a flattering term. 
``Reaganomics,'' 77 times. In the 100th Congress 42 times. The term 
``Reaganomics'' appeared in the journal here in the U.S. Senate, used 
by Members of the U.S. Senate to describe Ronald Reagan's fiscal 
policies. That is not a very nice thing to say. Yet I do not recall any 
of those comments being made and Members being attacked for that.
  I have, from the Congressional Record here, March 3, 1989, the 
Senator from South Carolina, the junior Senator from South Carolina 
referring to President Reagan as ``Ronnie,'' in his discussion. I do 
not assume to use any more familiar terms in referring to the current 
President.
  I have, from the Congressional Record of 1991, the Senator from 
Massachusetts who used the term, not only on November 15, but on 
November 7 and November 1, the phrase ``waiting for George,'' George 
Bush, the President of the United States. ``Waiting for George is more 
frustrating than waiting for Godot.'' He used that phrase several times 
during debate in 1991 with respect to the unemployment compensation 
extension.
  So, I mean, I also will refer back to the Senator from Massachusetts, 
September 20, 1988, during the campaign where he referred to the then-
Vice President, candidate for President, as ``Where was George then?'' 
That was, as I mentioned before, the reason for this chart. The term 
``Where's George'' was a popular saying back in 1988. And it was a 
popular saying, not as the Senator from North Dakota said to me while 
on debate the other day, at the Convention, the Democratic National 
Convention in 1988, but also on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
  So, I think before we get a little high and mighty about the 
reverence paid to people, I do say ``Days with no proposal to balance 
the budget from President Clinton.'' We try to be respectful and I am 
respectful of the office of the President and of President Clinton, but 
I think this chart is well within the bounds of decorum here in the 
U.S. Senate, and I do so with the greatest amount of respect and also 
with a very sincere effort to try to bring the President's attention 
back to this issue, to where he can become a relevant player in making 
budget policy for this country, which I think the country needs.
  Whether we like it or not, the President has to sign the budget 
reconciliation. So he needs to be relevant to this process. We need the 
President. We cannot do it alone. We would like to be able to do it 
alone but we cannot. That is not the way the Constitution set it up. He 
needs to be relevant and needs to be involved. And I appreciate the 
first step he took, and his advisers who encouraged him to come to the 
fore and make that suggestion.
  Now it is time to come and do a little harder work and get that--
sharpen that pencil a little bit and start working with real numbers to 
come up with real solutions to the problems that face this country.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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