[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 165 (Tuesday, October 24, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S15557]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          PRESIDENTIAL BUDGETS

  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I hear all this talk about the budget every 
day and everybody says the same thing. We could probably just have a 
tape recording of what we said yesterday, and we get the same thing 
again today.
  Senators act like this is the first budget that has ever been brought 
before the House or the Senate submitted by a President that has been 
voted on that did not get any votes.
  The distinguished Senator from Mississippi talked about 96 to nothing 
or 99 to nothing. Remember Ronald Reagan's 425 to nothing in the House. 
I believe that is correct. I see him shaking his head. So there have 
been a lot of budgets that have been dead on arrival. Even the 
Republicans have voted against a Republican President's budget. So this 
is not new. Senators act like this is the first time for it to ever 
happen, this is the worst fellow that has ever been up there.
  If turning budgets down makes a bad President, then we have had some 
Republicans up there who had their budgets turned down, so they were 
not very good Presidents that we are now bragging about.
  One statement has been made here that we ought to quit this smoke and 
mirrors, and we ought to sit down and we ought to do it rather than 
beating up on the President. You have responsibility; I have 
responsibility; we all have responsibility to try to get it worked out. 
We take CBO figures. We take CBO figures and we get letters from the 
Director of CBO which state the Republican budget is not in balance by 
$105 billion.
  We did not select that chairman. The majority selected that chairman. 
That chairman sent us the letter, and we now have it, which says the 
budget that is being proposed is $105 billion short.
  So what I wish to do, Mr. President, is not stop the Pell grants for 
my State. I do not want to reduce or eliminate the help for 55,000 
higher education students in my State. We are in a global market. We 
are in global competition. Education is the great equalizer. But oh, 
no, we are increasing, you hear from the other side, Pell grants by 
$100. That may be true, but you are eliminating--if you are not 
eligible for $600, you are eliminated from the rolls. So in Kentucky we 
lose 6,000 Pell grants next year alone--next year alone.
  So it just is a little bit disconcerting to me to hear all of these 
things, and the public ought to be quite confused, quite confused 
because you get a CBO letter with a gold seal on it that says the 
budget is balanced, and the next day you get one that says it is not--
from the same office, signed by the same person as it relates to 
whether Social Security is in the trust fund and loaned or it is in the 
general fund. It cannot be both places. You can say what you want to 
and argue all day. I do not believe you can find a jury that would say 
in this particular case that it is both. You can borrow from it and 
spend it, but the assets are over in Social Security. It cannot be used 
twice. And so we do not have it.
  So the point I am trying to make here, Mr. President, is that we can 
take care of Medicare without cutting it $270 billion; $89 billion is 
enough. We do not need to put the middle-income people in a problem, 
and the middle-income people, $35,000 to $70,000, is where I would say 
they are as it relates to Medicaid and nursing homes because you are 
going to run out of money. That is going to fall on the shoulders of 
the sons and daughters of the $35,000 to $70,000 income families at 
some point when their parents are in a nursing home on Medicaid and the 
phone rings about the latter part of July, 1st of August saying, ``Come 
and get dad; come and get mom; we are out of money.''
  And you change the rules in this bill on regulations on nursing 
homes. You change the rules as they relate to regulations on nursing 
homes. Let States do it. The reason the Federal Government is in the 
business of regulating nursing homes is because the States had it. And 
the statement has been made, OK, just sedate the elderly; you can 
handle them easier; then you have fewer employees, you will need fewer 
employees.
  Well, that is just one giant indication that we are headed back to 
the same place we were when we had to take over the regulation of the 
nursing homes.
  One of the things that we see coming down the pike is hiding the sale 
of power marketing administrations in the House bill on page about 470-
something where it is now the Secretary of Energy, Interior and Army 
cannot sell PMA's, but in the House bill you repeal those three and 
then you instruct those three Secretaries to have a report on how to 
sell PMA's by the end of next year. And now you have put it in the 
appropriations bill, and those that are opposed to the sale of PMA's, 
you better go look at the appropriations bill, Interior bill, and see 
what they have done there and refuse to sign the conference report 
until the PMA sale is in that appropriations bill.
  I see the Senator looking at his watch. I will quit any time he wants 
me to.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. THOMAS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. THOMAS. I would have looked at my watch sooner.
  Mr. FORD. I would not have quit sooner, though.

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