[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 163 (Friday, October 20, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S15380-S15383]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         BUDGET RECONCILIATION

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I listened with interest to this morning's 
discussion. I would say to my friend from Pennsylvania, I do not 
support the budget plan the President sent to the Congress. I did not 
think it was a good budget when he sent it back in February. I do not 
support it now.
  But I would say the budget that is coming, the reconciliation bill 
that is coming to the floor, is substantially worse than the proposal 
the President offered, even though I do not support the proposal of the 
President. We could have a vote on a proposal here in the Senate that 
does make some sense, that does balance the budget in the right way, 
that does not attack the Social Security trust funds. It can be done 
the right way, but the proposals here we are debating, in my judgment, 
steer this country in a direction that is not healthy.
  The Senator from Nebraska a few minutes ago talked about the proposal 
that says to a lot of working families we are going to increase your 
taxes. And that is what this proposal will do.
  Yesterday, the Treasury Department released an analysis indicating 
that about 50 percent of the families will find increased taxes as a 
result of this proposal. Then it says, if you are wealthy enough to get 
your income from stocks and bonds, you will get a tax cut. It will be 
beneficial to you. There is a beneficial approach for you. And the 
Senator from Nebraska says that is not what Members said they wanted.
  Is it unusual for people to be skeptical when 97 percent of the 
members of a political party voted against the Medicare program saying, 
We do not want it, we do not think it is necessary, we do not support 
it, and then they now later say, ``We are the ones that are going to 
save it.'' And people are skeptical about that? I think they have a 
right to be skeptical.
  That is what the debate is about, the priorities. I do not think we 
ought to talk about a tax cut at this point this year. I think what we 
ought to do is balance the budget, do it the right way, and then when 
we have done that job figure out what we should do about the taxes. But 
some people here want to take the popular things first, and say, Let us 
serve the dessert first; that is, wait and serve dinner.
  I watched with some interest earlier this week people who have been 
in Congress for 30, 35, 25, or 20 years come to the floor of the 
Chamber and cast their vote saying they would like to have term limits, 
and what is wrong with our country is that there are not term limits. 
Somebody who has been here for 30 years now votes for term limits, and 
says the problem with America is we did not have a limit of 12 years on 
their term. What are they telling the American people--stop me before I 
run again?
  It is interesting to me that people say this is about changes and 
reform. In many respects, it is the business-as-usual crowd. Although 
the priorities are changing, the way they see it, the rich have too 
little, the poor have too much, and we are going to change that 

[[Page S15381]]
with this reconciliation bill. We will take some from the poor and from 
middle-income working families and give some to the more affluent 
families.
  But aside from that, we will debate plenty of that in the coming 
days. I want to point out to my colleagues that the day before 
yesterday the majority party came to the Chamber and said, We have from 
the Congressional Budget Office now a letter, and it says in the year 
2002 with our plan we will have a budget surplus. They were very proud 
of that letter.
  So I wrote a letter to the Congressional Budget Office, and said if 
you compute this the way you are supposed to compute it --which is 
honestly, and the law requires you cannot use the Social Security trust 
fund to compute that because those can only be used for Social 
Security--if you compute it without the Social Security trust fund, 
what do you have?
  Yesterday I received a letter in return saying,

       . . . including an estimated off-budget surplus of $180 
     billion, which is the Social Security surpluses, the CBO 
     would project an on-budget deficit of $98 billion for the 
     year 2002.

  So in 24 hours this proposal has a slight surplus. Then it has a $98 
billion deficit in the year 2002.
  But the point is the only way you can claim the budget is in balance 
with this kind of arithmetic is if you take money out of Social 
Security and use it. People say that has been going on for a long time. 
If that is the case, it is business as usual. This is change? No. It is 
not. This is business as usual.
  I started in 1983 offering the first amendment in the Ways and Means 
Committee saying if you are going to put in the trust fund money you 
intended to save for the Social Security System, do not raid it, do not 
pollute it, do not take the money for any other purpose, but protect 
it, keep it out the of calculation of the operating budget deficit. I 
happened to lose in that vote in 1983, and I have tried a number of 
times since. The Senator from South Carolina actually succeeded in 
putting it into the law.
  That is why I said to the Congressional Budget Office that you cannot 
add it up this way. If you add it up the right way, the Director of CBO 
says what you get is in the year 2002 a $98 billion deficit. I am most 
anxious to hear people explain that to the American people.
  Mr. SANTORUM addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania is recognized.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I had a question for the Senator from 
North Dakota.
  Does the Senator from North Dakota believe that the President's 
revised budget balances the budget in 10 years? Does the Senator 
believe that? He is running around the country saying he has a balanced 
budget that balances in 10 years.
  Does the Senator agree with that?
  Mr. DORGAN. No. But let me ask the Senator from Pennsylvania a 
question. Does he believe that what he is bringing to the floor of the 
Senate balances the budget in the year 2002 in light of what the 
Director of CBO says she thinks, that we will have a $98 billion 
deficit?
  Mr. SANTORUM. I happen to believe, as I think most Americans do, that 
the Social Security program is a Federal program. Maybe some people do 
not think it is. It is a Federal program, and it should be counted as a 
Federal program. We have the luxury--it is a luxury--over the next 
several years of having a surplus in the Social Security trust fund. 
But, as the Senator from North Dakota knows, that luxury is a short-
lived luxury. Those of us who are going to be working to balance the 
budget, over the next several years and beyond, are going to have to 
start working with a Social Security fund deficit shortly, in the not 
too distant future, in about 15 years. So we are going to have the 
luxury now. But we are going to have to face the music.
  I think the important thing is to begin that over a long period of 
time so that we can start dealing with those deficits. And I think it 
is important to look at the Government as a whole--look at all of the 
Federal Government programs.
  The Senator from Nebraska just a few minutes ago was saying you 
should do what he wants to do on Social Security, which is eventually 
privatize Social Security and change it.
  So there are a lot of things out there. We may have to deal with the 
Social Security issue. But all I am suggesting is that I think it is 
absolutely appropriate to use all Federal accounts, to look at it as a 
unified budget as it has been done in the past to see whether we 
balance the budget. Remember, it is a surplus now, but it will not 
always be a surplus. We will have to deal with this problem over the 
long term.
  Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. SANTORUM. Yes.
  Mr. DORGAN. I wonder. The Senator, I think, understands that the 
Social Security trust funds are trust funds. If the Senator says we 
have a surplus now, he either assumes that there is going to be a 
surplus in the trust funds and not used for the operating budget 
deficit--in which case there is going to be $100 billion deficit in the 
year 2002--or he is not going to have the money in the trust fund. 
Either one of the two is going to happen.
  Mr. SANTORUM. If I may reclaim my time. As the Senator from North 
Dakota knows, Social Security issues the notes, and the notes are paid 
interest. And we are going to have to pay the interest back as we 
continually do now. We will have to continue to pay that back. If you 
want to make the Social Security trust fund argument, you have to make 
the highway trust fund argument, you have to make the aviation trust 
fund argument, and you have to make the unemployment trust fund 
argument. The Government is made up of a bunch of trust funds in many, 
many respects. If you want to take them all out and say just because it 
is a trust fund it is not a Federal program, that just does not mesh 
with how we run our Government. The Government is segregated in the 
trust funds because we have certain taxes dedicated to those funds. 
That does not mean they are not part of the Government. Of course, 
these are part of the Government. If they were not, people would not 
pay the Social Security taxes because they would not have to because 
there would not be anybody there to enforce it. We are there to enforce 
it, to make sure that the IRS enforces the payment of those taxes. We 
can talk to a lot of businesses who have not paid their taxes. They 
will tell you that the IRS is in their pocket in 2 minutes making them 
pay that.
  If you want to say that somehow is not a Federal program, or the 
unemployment program is not a Federal program, or the highway trust 
fund or aviation trust fund is not a Federal program, that all of those 
should be removed and we should balance the rest of the budget, that to 
me is a gimmick where you are trying to get around the whole issue. The 
real issue is are we going to make the changes in law to get this 
budget in the balance, not just for the next 7 years but into long-term 
when a lot of these funds are going to be running deficits? My feeling 
is that we have to make the tough decisions.
  I am going to be proposing an amendment I think eventually, to offer 
it as the President's budget because the President does not make the 
tough choices. He does not even come close with surpluses, and all of 
these are fudged. Without them you cannot achieve a balanced budget. 
Yet, he runs around this country talking about his balanced budget. He 
has this budget that is going to balance over 15 years. There is not 
anybody in the Congress, there is not anyone who has studied this issue 
in the country, who has looked at these numbers who believes they 
balance. They do not. The only person that believes they balance is the 
President, and the only reason he believes it is because he wants to 
fool the American public into believing that he has some balanced 
budget, that he is accomplishing the same thing we are when the fact is 
he is not. And you have the Congressional Budget Office, which said 
back in June, after he introduced this second budget of his that came 
into balance, that his budget will produce in the next 7 years the 
following deficits: 196 in 1996, 212 in 1997, 199 billion--these are 
all billion-dollar deficits--a $199 billion deficit in 1998, $213 
billion in 1999, $220 billion in 2000, $215 billion in 2001, and $210 
billion in the year 2002.

  That is the Congressional Budget Office. They are the folks we have 
to deal with in trying to get a certification of whether we balance the 
budget or not. 

[[Page S15382]]
 Unfortunately, the President is running around using--I ask unanimous 
consent for 30 additional seconds.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. Reserving the right to object, might I ask to be followed 
by 5 minutes following the presentation by the Senator from 
Pennsylvania, the same unanimous consent request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered. The Senator from North Dakota will be recognized.
  Mr. SANTORUM. The point I am trying to make is the President in his 
first State of the Union Address to the Congress said that he would use 
the Congressional Budget Office numbers because they were the most 
reliable numbers. Now, he said he was going to do it. He is not doing 
it, and if he did use it, those numbers would not balance.
  We have an obligation to the American public to play straight with 
them. The President is not playing straight. We are going to offer an 
amendment that is going to show the President that nobody here believes 
his numbers. Quit going around the country saying you have a balanced 
budget when you do not.
  Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I appreciate the indulgence of my 
colleagues but because we are not able to have a discussion back and 
forth very easily--I hope one day we could put an hour aside jointly 
controlled and have a discussion to figure out where are the facts. I 
would love to do that with my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle, but because of this discussion I want to take a couple minutes 
to try to clarify this.
  It is not, as my colleague from Pennsylvania says blithely, well, 
this is all Government spending; it is a Government program, Government 
revenue. Therefore, it must be counted this way or that way.
  Let me tell my colleagues what happened. In 1983, it was determined 
that we were going to have a problem with Social Security. Just after 
the Second World War, when the war ended, a lot of folks came back to 
our country, and I am told that they were very affectionate, had very 
romantic notions about seeing their loved ones again, and over a period 
of some years, with deep affection, this country produced the largest 
baby crop in the history of America: the war babies. And so when these, 
the war babies, the largest crop of babies in American history, reach 
retirement rolls just after the turn of the century in 2010 and 2015, 
we need to be prepared for that.
  So in 1983 we prepared for it. We said we are going to build 
surpluses in the Social Security trust funds. This year we will collect 
$70 billion more than we need to spend in Social Security. Why? Because 
we like to do that? No, because we are saving for the future.
  Now, if instead of the $70 billion that we collect this year above 
what we need to spend in Social Security, if instead of keeping it in 
the trust fund, we say we will use it over here as general revenue to 
balance the budget, have you saved it in the trust fund? Of course not. 
It is a fraud.
  No business in this country would do what you propose we do. None. I 
am going to take the employees' retirement funds and use them in my 
operating budget. No one would do that. And that is why I asked the 
Congressional Budget Office to tell me, if you do not use the Social 
Security trust funds, then what do you have? What you have is a budget 
deficit of nearly $100 billion in the year 2002.
  I am telling you this is business as usual. This is parading around 
and masquerading as doing something you are not. You are not balancing 
the budget if you are misusing the Social Security trust funds. And do 
not tell me they are ordinary funds. They are collected from every 
worker's paycheck in this country and they are labeled Social Security 
taxes.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. DORGAN. The wage earners are told they are going to be put into a 
trust fund, and they are told the trust fund is going to be used for 
only one purpose. Now, when it is used instead for the purpose of 
balancing the operating budget, that is misusing the trust fund. It is 
looting Social Security. It is fundamentally dishonest. And it is 
business as usual, regrettably.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. DORGAN. I would be happy to yield.
  Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Senator.
  When the gas tax was enacted, did not the Congress and President, 
when they signed that, say that that money would be dedicated, every 
penny you pay at the pump for gas taxes is dedicated to the highway 
trust fund, to be used only for construction of highways and other 
purposes within that act? Is that not what the law says?
  Mr. DORGAN. No. In fact, the law has been changed to take part of 
that and move it for other purposes.
  Mr. SANTORUM. There is 2.5 cents----
  Mr. DORGAN. If the Senator wants to win a debate we are not going to 
have, I say good for you. I will give you a medal. But we are not going 
to have a debate about the gas tax fund.
  My interest is in having a debate about the $70 billion this year in 
the Social Security trust fund that we deliberately collect above what 
we need to save for the future and the fact that they again will be 
misused. That is the question. We could have a debate about trust funds 
for others.
  Mr. SANTORUM. If the Senator will continue to yield.
  Mr. DORGAN. I would be happy to yield.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Is there not a surplus in the highway trust fund?
  Mr. DORGAN. Yes.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Is that surplus being used to offset the deficit?
  Mr. DORGAN. Yes, by law.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Well, only a portion of it is by law. As the Senator 
knows, 2.5 cents----
  Mr. DORGAN. A portion by law.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Is dedicated to deficit reduction. The vast majority of 
that fund is dedicated for the purposes only of improving our highways 
and other things related to transportation. Yet, we use that surplus to 
offset the deficit.
  Mr. DORGAN. Yes.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Just like, as the Senator suggested, we use the surplus 
in Social Security to offset the deficit.
  My question is, why are you not here with a resolution that also 
deals with it, and why did not the other side when they debated the 
Social Security issue take all the trust funds that were running 
surpluses? But why just pick out Social Security, if you are really 
serious and you want to have fairness, not say----
  Mr. DORGAN. Let me reclaim the time.
  Mr. SANTORUM. It is too small.
  Mr. DORGAN. It is a good question. I happen to feel the same way 
about trust funds. But you do not worry about a mouse in the corner 
when there is a gorilla at the door. The 500-pound gorilla on this 
issue is the hundreds of billions of dollars of surplus in the Social 
Security trust fund. That is what you want to get at because accessing 
that money--to be precise, about $1.2 trillion of that money--allows 
you to balance the budget, or claim you have balanced the budget. But 
it is dishonest. It is not balancing the budget.
  The President did the same thing. I do not disagree with you to say, 
did he do it? Yes. It is wrong. It has been wrong since 1983, and the 
question is, when are we going to stop?
  When do you stop coming to the floor and parading around with 
pocketfuls of money from the Social Security trust fund and claim you 
have done something to balance the operating budget deficit?
  June O'Neill, the head of the CBO that you all hired, now says if you 
do not include those funds--and you should not--you do not have a 
balanced budget in 2002. What you have is nearly a $100 billion 
deficit.
  Now, we have a legitimate disagreement about priorities. I do not 
think we ought to have a tax cut. I do not think 50 percent of it ought 
to go to families over $100,000 in income. I do not think you have to 
take $270 billion out of Medicare. I do not think we have to build B-2 
bombers or Star Wars or ships, planes, and submarines the Defense 
Department did not order.
  We have a difference in priorities about what we should invest in and 
spend money on. I do not believe you 

[[Page S15383]]
ought to kick 55,000 kids off Head Start.
  But beyond those differences in priorities, nobody ought to disagree 
that it is wrong to take trust fund money to the tune of $1.2 trillion 
and claim you have done something good for the American people. You 
have weakened this country. You have cheated old folks out of a future 
they delivered in Social Security trust funds, and I would hope one day 
we will stop this business as usual and tell the American people what 
this budget is about.
  Is my time expired?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank you.
  Mr. THOMAS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. DeWine). The Senator from Wyoming.

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