[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 163 (Friday, October 20, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S15376-S15378]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, Tuesday night in Houston, and last Friday 
as well, the President of the United States made a comment where he 
said specifically, ``I had to raise your taxes more than I wanted and 
cut spending less than I wanted to, which made a lot of you furious.''
  Well, the comment made those of us who voted for that proposal even 
more furious than it made, apparently, the audience to which the 
President was speaking.
  Mr. President, the President of the United States has since said that 
he did not intend to say that the package was bad. He did not intend to 
mean that he was not proud of the people who voted for it. But he left 
the unmistakable impression that he would have cut more given the 
opportunity.
  The fact is that, in 1993, Congressman Penny and Congressman Kasich 
presented $105 billion in additional spending cuts after the budget 
deficit reduction bill was passed. I think it has done a tremendous 
amount of good for the U.S. economy. It did reduce the deficit--as now 
estimated, by nearly a trillion dollars.
  But Congressman Penny and Congressman Kasich, and later myself and 
Senator Brown on the Senate side, offered nearly identical proposals to 
cut over $100 billion over 5 years, and the administration opposed it. 
They did not just send a letter about it. They sent various Members up 
here, saying this was draconian and it was going to hurt--all the 
things that are mentioned, typically, when a spending cut is made. 
Maybe this is part of a triangulation strategy that we hear about a 
lot. But, Mr. President, it is strangulating the confidence that we 
have in Congress that whatever it is we do is going to continue to 
enjoy the support of the President.
  Now, I do not want to drag it much farther than that. I actually had 
a very harsh speech that I had written yesterday, and, fortunately, I 
think both for myself and the President, there was not time to get to 
the floor to give it. I have calmed down a bit since then. But a larger 
point needs to be made here, rather than, did the President misstate or 
not what it was he was trying to do?
  Not only did Congressman Penny and Congressman Kasich and Senator 
Brown and myself present spending cut proposals, but the President put 
together a bipartisan entitlement commission, with 32 people on it. 
Senator Danforth and I chaired that effort. We presented to the 
President, in 1994, the recommendations of that commission, and those 
recommendations are what I would like to talk about here today. They 
still need the full consideration of this body.
  Mr. President, it is fairly obvious that this place is still 
controlled by men. I am a man myself, and so it does not bother me most 
of the time. But we men behave differently than women in certain 
things. One of the things women have noticed over the years is that we 
have a tendency to exaggerate the size of things sometimes. That is, in 
fact, occurring in this entire budget debate.
  The Republicans get up and talk about this being revolutionary, and 
we heard Speaker Gingrich talking about a great revolution, and the 
Democrats say, no, it is draconian, it is terrible, destructive, and on 
and on. The American people get kind of confused and wonder what is 
going on.
  Mr. President, these are the facts. We will spend $1.5 trillion in 
1995, the fiscal year ending September 30. At the end of 2002, under 
the Republican budget resolution, it will be roughly $1.858 trillion. 
If you use the Congressional Budget Office baseline, with no change, it 
is about $2.1 trillion. So it is some $240 billion less. That is a lot 
of money, but hardly what I would put in the category of revolutionary. 
Nor is it fair to say they are draconian, and on and on.
  In some cases, I have had serious disagreements with the way the 
money is being allocated, but it is a relatively modest change. If you 
look at the tax revenue generated and total spending over the next 7 
years compared to the past 7 years, we will spend nearly $2.4 trillion 
more, and we are going to have $3.2 trillion more in tax revenue--a lot 
more tax revenue coming in and a lot more money going out as well.
  Mr. President, the goal that has been set over and over again by the 
Republicans in this budget resolution and debate--and last night you 
heard it again--is that we are going to balance the budget. Yes, that 
ought to be one goal. There is no question that it is accomplished 
under this budget resolution. I am for balancing the budget. I would 
like to be able to vote for the particular resolution that is going to 
come back to us at some point. In its current form, I will not be able 
to do it.
  Mr. President, there is another goal this budget resolution ought to 
address, and it was identified by the bipartisan budget commission as 
more troubling than the budget deficit. That is, as a percentage of our 
budget, overall entitlements--not to the poor, but to the middle 
class--overall entitlement growth is at an unsustainable level. Today, 
it is 64 percent of our budget. In 2002, at the end of this resolution, 
it will be 74 percent of our budget. In 2008, when my generation--the 
biggest generation in the history of this country--starts to retire, it 
will very rapidly go to 100 percent--100 percent, Mr. President. The 
Federal Government is going to be an ATM machine. Some will say that is 
fine, let it transfer payments out.
  Mr. President, there are things that we appropriate that not only 
strengthen our economy but improve the quality of life. I made a lot of 
money as a consequence of my parents helping to build the interstate 
highway system. And as a consequence of their grandparents doing the GI 
bill, I have made a lot of money. This country has made investments in 
the past that have improved the quality of our life. We spend 

[[Page S15377]]
$1.7 billion a year on parks, and 17 million Americans a year enjoy 
them, but we are going to cut it back. We are going to cut $1 billion 
out of the FAA. We already have $3 billion a year in increased costs to 
shippers as a result of delays. God knows what kind of disasters may 
occur as a result of underfunding that program.
  We are going to have a real decline in education expenditures from 
$34 to $32 billion over the next 7 years. Transportation is going to be 
cut. We will be spending less on space and research and all sorts of 
things that we ought to be doing. The reason is, of the $358 billion 
increase in spending between this year and the year 2002, that 
incremental increase--all of it, more than 100 percent--goes for 
entitlements and net interest on the debt. Almost half of it, Mr. 
President, goes for an item that we have decided we do not want to talk 
about--Social Security.
  If you want to have a revolution, let us bring Senator Simpson's and 
my proposal into consideration. People say, well, let us postpone that, 
and ``we are going to do it in 1997,'' says Speaker Gingrich. When you 
are saving money for retirement, time is not on your side. You can 
exercise, jog, watch your diet, quit smoking, get massages, or whatever 
else, but you do not get the time back. Every year you wait, that is 
less wealth you generate. You may want to generate it in a collective 
pool or a individual pool, as Senator Simpson and I are proposing.
  Mr. President, to leave Social Security off the table makes it 
impossible to do what we want to do with this budget resolution--not 
only balance the budget by 2002, but balance the relationship between 
mandated programs and appropriated programs. We ought to decide 
collectively that it is going to be some fixed percentage of our 
budget, so we have money for schools, so we have money for roads, so we 
have money for Head Start, or whatever else it is we decide we want to 
spend it on.
  Mr. President, when the former chairman of the Appropriations 
Committee came to this body 35 years ago, 75 percent of the budget was 
allocated in appropriated accounts; 30 percent was entitlements and 
interest.
  The second objective we ought to be setting for ourselves is a big 
one. It is going to require us to change the eligibility age in these 
programs from 65 to 70, to phase it in. You cannot afford to do it any 
other way. It is why I said in the beginning that we describe it as 
big, either on the positive side or a negative side. But it is kind of 
a male sort of thing. The truth is that it is smaller than it needs to 
be.
  We need to take stock of the growth of entitlements. Otherwise, we 
are not going to have the money to be able to improve the quality of 
our lives, whether it is parks, natural resources development, or to 
increase the productivity of our people and narrow this widening gap 
that we see right now with the economic haves and have nots.
  Next, Mr. President, now that Republicans say they want to preserve 
and protect Medicare, what that means is the market does not work.
  When I hear the majority leader say the market is rational, the 
Government is stupid, here is one Government program he does not think 
is stupid. For people over the age of 65 who depend upon Medicare, the 
market does not work.
  The same is true for somebody who is 25, that is out there in the 
work force today making $8 an hour, being told they cannot have health 
insurance because they cannot afford it. That is the principle 
underneath the Medicare Program.
  What we need to do is to say that we are going to radically alter--
what a revolution--radically alter the system of eligibility and say to 
every American, if you are a legal resident or American citizen you are 
in. You do not have to doubt that you will have coverage. The goal of 
universal coverage is just as desirable today as it was in 1993 and 
1994 when we debated it all the time.
  Medicare, Medicaid, the income tax deduction, the Veterans 
Administration programs are fiscal political and structural barriers to 
getting that job done.
  Democrats who for 35 years have supported Medicare because we 
understand the market does not work, need to say to recent convert 
Republicans that to get everybody covered we have to do things much 
differently. That would be a revolution. That would be something big 
that men and women would seize properly.
  The last thing I say, Mr. President, contained in the debate 
yesterday in the Finance Committee was lots of conversation about the 
need to promote growing. I am for it. We should have a debate about 
fundamental tax reform.
  You cannot cut tax on those who have stocks and bonds and have a 
substantial amount of our income coming from stocks and bonds while 
raising taxes on people that make $7 an hour, depending on the earned 
income tax credit. It is not fair. It does not wash. All you can hope 
is they do not notice and they do not vote as a consequence.
  We are not being asked to reduce the capital gains tax by low-income 
people who may benefit when they sell their home. We are being asked by 
wealthy Americans who have stocks and bonds and who have accurately 
said, in my judgment, that the economy does need to grow through 
productive investment. We regard productive investment as replacing our 
income tax with a progressive consumption tax.
  It gives Americans an unlimited opportunity to save money and 
accumulate wealth over the course of their working life and promote 
economic growth at the same time.
  Do not put a capital gains tax cut out at the same time we cut and 
raise taxes for people that are at or below $25,000 a year, and to use 
that money--they do not use it for television sets.
  I heard a colleague who is critical of the program say all they are 
doing is buying television sets. They use that few dollars to pay 
medical bills, buy cars that have 80,000 miles so they can go to work 
and drop the kids at the child care center. Many are using it to make a 
downpayment on rental deposits. They are using it the way the working 
people ought to, to consume the things that are increasingly making it 
difficult for them to cover their costs.
  Finally, I say it again, I wish that the Republicans on the other 
side that currently control the majority of this Senate, I wish they 
would turn across the aisle and say we should start negotiating. What 
do you want, Senator Kerrey? My answer is simple. What I want is to fix 
the cost of entitlements as a percent of our budget. What I want is to 
say now you support the idea that the marketplace does not work, agree 
that we will get universal coverage so every American knows they are 
covered in health care. You cannot make the system work any other way.
  Rather than block granting Medicaid to the States, we ought to bring 
that and say to the States that $40 billion we will pay for, but you 
have to take $40 billion, whether for education, job training, 
transportation--something you do well. We have agreement; we will use 
the marketplace.
  We do not have to get down and fill the air with rhetoric about 
Government taking over health care. We know the market is doing a good 
job of controlling cost. There is consensus that that is what ought to 
be done. Unless we change our notion of how people are going to become 
eligible for health care, you cannot get that job done.
  Last, I say for my friends on the other side of the aisle, there is 
consensus on our tax system, whether it is the U.S.A. tax that Senator 
Domenici and Senator Nunn have worked on or other tax proposals, we 
know we should not just be concerned about how much money we generate 
to pay whatever is mandated or whatever we want to appropriate.
  We need to think about generating the money so the economy grows and 
so Americans out there who are producing the tax revenue have the 
opportunity to save enough to accumulate wealth over the course of 
their working life.
  Finally, Mr. President, I hear an awful lot, and I put out a lot 
myself from time to time about how bad the Government is and how 
terrible it does. I want to declare to my colleagues and people I 
represent in Nebraska that one of the reasons I stay in the job and am 
excited about the job, you can use the Government of the United States 
of American to save lives. It saves lives.
  It will be interesting to see what Colin Powell says when we ask him 
about health care. The Government of 

[[Page S15378]]
the United States of America, the hospitals that provide health care 
for U.S. Army servicemen have saved lives. Those people are Government 
employees. You could change lives, enrich lives, improve lives. That is 
what it ought to be about.
  We need to improve the Government and make it operate more 
effectively, but we need to tell the American citizens there is no free 
lunch in this deal. This Government in this country cannot be any 
better than our people are willing to make it. Our people are willing 
to make it a heck of a lot better than we allow.
  We are frightened of universal health care. We got our brains beat 
out in 1993 and 1994. We do not want to talk about it. The American 
people want to talk about it. We do not want to talk about fixing the 
costs of entitlements based on facts and truth as the Speaker calls 
for. We know if we give the facts and truth, we have to do Social 
Security, we have to change eligibility age, we have to change the 
method of eligibility.
  Instead of working Republican and Democrats, I just hope that in the 
next 60 days or however long it takes to do this deal, rather than 
looking to always negotiate with the White House and try to cut a 
deal--I fear that more than I do anything right now--look across the 
aisle and work with us.
  We are prepared to cast the tough votes. We want to embrace the 
future. We are not for the status quo. We are for change. We want to 
alter the course of our Nation's future and give investments to our 
children and be able to give them a brighter future than they have 
right now.
  We are prepared, I believe, to cast the tough votes to change the 
course of this Nation's future, not based upon some calculation of 
triangulation, trying to determine whether the President is more 
popular or less popular, trying to figure how to get reelected, but 
trying to decide what is best for the people we represent, and most 
important what is best for our future.
  Every single day of our lives has Americans--I do not care what your 
status is, what your name is, where you live--not a bad exercise to do 
as opposed to jogging is get up in the morning and go to bed at night 
and thank God for the things we have. We are a wealthy Nation, blessed 
with enormous freedoms and opportunities.
  I got out of high school in 1961. The cold war was on and our class 
thought whether we would go in the Army, Navy, or Marine Corps because 
we knew we were likely to go to Vietnam.
  That is not the future of today. There is tremendous opportunity. 
Seize that opportunity rather than hyperventilate and exaggerating each 
other's position. Seize the opportunities and try to put in place a 
change in the law that sends this Nation in a different direction, that 
does not just balance the budget but satisfies other needs and concerns 
and desires that the American people have today.
  I yield the floor.

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