[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 179 (Monday, November 13, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2165-E2166]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              LEGISLATION TO HELP KEEP THE TRAINS ON TRACK

                                 ______


                        HON. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, November 13, 1995

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing legislation that 
would convert the budget resolution from a concurrent resolution of the 
Congress into a joint resolution that would require the President's 
signature and have the force of law.
  For the past several months, news reports have been full of 
discussion about the possibility of a fiscal train wreck. Tomorrow, due 
to the failure of Congress to pass appropriations bills and a 
reconciliation bill, 800,000 Federal employees will be sent home and 
Federal agencies will shut down. Millions of Americans will be without 
the services of those agencies and will again have to contemplate the 
absurd process that brought us to this situation.
  At the root of the crisis is disagreement between the Congress and 
the President over big-ticket items in the budget. The congressional 
leadership is attempting to gain leverage over the President in the 
budget debate by attaching extraneous, irrelevant, and controversial 
provisions to such must-pass legislation as the continuing resolution 
and the debt-ceiling bill. The resulting disruption of Federal services 
would be a major inconvenience for millions of Americans, and a 
financial catastrophe for thousands of American families which depend 
on Federal paychecks.
  The legislation I am introducing today is designed to prevent future 
threats of train wrecks by bringing the President into the 
congressional budget process at an earlier point. Currently, the 
President is required to submit a budget at the start of the calendar 
year. Congress then spends the next few months working on its own 
budget resolution. The congressional budget resolution is a concurrent 
resolution of the Congress, which does not have the force of law.
  This year, Congress spent the first 100 days of this session working 
on the Contract With America legislation. As a result, the work on the 
budget resolution was delayed. Instead of complying with the April 15 
deadline established in the Budget Act, the House did not complete its 
work on the budget until May 18, and the final budget was not approved 
until June 29, 2\1/2\ months late.
  The delay in passing a budget put Congress way behind schedule on the 
appropriations bills. In addition to putting Congress behind schedule, 
the budget resolution, passed without Presidential involvement or 
approval, also put Congress and the President on a collision course on 
policy. By calling for $270 billion in Medicare cuts, and $245 billion 
in tax breaks, mostly directed to the wealthiest Americans, the budget 
also created the likelihood of the crisis we face now.
  Now, 6 weeks after the start of the new fiscal year, we have still 
not passed reconciliation legislation, only 3 of the 13 regular 
appropriations bills have been sent to the President, and the President 
and the congressional leadership remain sharply at odds over these 
major issues.
  The shame is that this situation could have been prevented. Had the 
Congress been required to pass a budget resolution that must be signed 
into law by the President, these issues would have been resolved months 
ago. Instead of having a legislative showdown that threatens the 
delivery of Federal services to millions of Americans and the paychecks 
of thousands of American families, we should have resolved the issues 
during the spring and summer.

  The budget resolution can never be more than a blueprint for Federal 
spending. The thousands of individual programmatic decisions on 
spending must be handled in the appropriations process. By making the 
budget resolution a joint resolution, and giving the President the 
power to sign it or veto it, we would force the tough decisions between 
the two branches of Government to be resolved before we reach crisis 
stage. The result would produce a Government that functioned more 
efficiently.
  In addition to requiring the President to sign the budget resolution, 
the bill I introduce today would also address the issue of increasing 
the debt ceiling. In addition to the crisis of shutting down Federal 
agencies, we also face a potentially far more serious crisis regarding 
the creditworthiness of the Federal Government.
  It is an outrage that the congressional Republican leadership is 
willing to risk the full faith and credit of the Federal Government in 
order to achieve its political objectives. Yet that is the situation we 
face today. Never in the history of our country has the Federal 
Government defaulted on its financial obligations.
  This legislation would automatically increase the debt ceiling with 
adoption of the budget resolution. Once a budget has been approved, and 
signed by the President, the amount of debt that will be incurred has 
been established. It makes no sense to require a separate vote to raise 
the debt ceiling. Passage of the budget sets the deficit or surplus, 
and the 

[[Page E 2166]]
amount, if any, by which the debt ceiling will need to be increased. It 
is utterly irresponsible, once Congress has authorized a deficit, to 
refuse to raise the debt ceiling.
  The irony of our current circumstances is that the Republican 
majority in both Houses of Congress has already voted to raise the debt 
ceiling to $5.5 trillion, to cover the deficits over the next 2 years. 
My legislation would give the force of law to Congress' budget policy 
decisions.
  Nobody benefits when the Congress and the President are at 
loggerheads and the Nation's fiscal credibility hangs in the balance. 
The American people are sick and tired of the gridlock in Washington. 
Some in Washington, anticipating the shutdown of Government, have 
adopted the slogan, ``Don't Blink.'' What they mean is they have their 
eyes closed right to the damage this train wreck will inflict. The 
American people are not interested in a Government in which elected 
officials close their eyes to their responsibilities.
  This crisis is of our own making. We can take steps to prevent it 
from recurring in the future. The legislation I have introduced today 
will require the President and the Congress to work together much 
earlier in the budget process, and will help us keep the trains on 
track.

                          ____________________