[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 185 (Sunday, November 19, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S17478-S17479]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            BALANCED BUDGETS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, people in the audience, people in the State 
of Nevada, people all over this country, are wondering what this is all 
about.
  Kevin Phillips, who is a Republican, did a piece on public radio this 
week that I think fairly well illustrates what the problems are between 
those on that side of the aisle and those of us over here, when he 
said:

       If the budget deficit were really a national crisis instead 
     of a pretext for fiscal favoritism and finagling, we'd be 
     talking about shared sacrifice with business, Wall Street, 
     and the rich, the people who have the big money making the 
     biggest sacrifice. Instead, it's senior citizens, the poor, 
     the students, and ordinary Americans who will see programs 
     they depend on gutted while business, finance, and the 
     richest 1 or 2 percent, far from making sacrifice, actually 
     get new benefits in tax reductions.

  Mr. President, this is what it is all about. This is extremely 
inconvenient, extremely difficult for everyone in the country, 
especially States like Nevada where there is such a huge Federal 
presence, national parks, large recreation areas, the busiest 
recreation area in America, the biggest entity of the Park System. I 
should not say the largest--the most heavily visited in the entire Park 
System, Lake Mead Recreation Area. Almost 10 million people visit there 
each year, almost a million a month. They cannot get there. It is 
locked up.
  A lot of sacrifices. But the principle, Mr. President, is important, 
as indicated by a Republican, Kevin Philips, when he said what is being 
done by the Republicans is something to benefit the rich, those people 
of position, and hurting the middle class and the poor. That says it 
all.
  Mr. President, why are we in this situation we are in today? I see my 
friend from the State of California, the mayor previously of one of the 
most famous cities in America, the city of San Francisco, someone who 
recognizes crisis because she was thrown into the mayorship as a result 
of an assassination, an American who has spent her life trying to 
balance budgets, who has come to Congress and the Senate, talking about 
money, someone who has struggled with how to vote on these issues--
because I have spent time with her--and who recognized she would not 
balance the budget on the back of senior citizens by virtue of her 
vote, earlier, when we excluded from the balanced budget amendment, 
Social Security. These are tough decisions, tough decisions for people 
who strongly believe in a balanced budget.
  I resent, Mr. President, because it is not factual, that people on 
the other side of the aisle say those of us here do not believe in a 
balanced budget. I point to my friend from California as someone who 
has lived for balancing budgets.
  Yesterday, when I was on this floor, I was between the two Senators 
from the State of Nebraska, former Governors, the former chairman of 
the Budget Committee, Jim Exon, and the former Governor of Nebraska, 
Bob Kerrey, chairman of the Entitlement Commission. In a dialog they 
indicated how they had worked over their political lives for a balanced 
budget.
  No, Mr. President, the balanced budget is not something that the 
Republicans hold the prize on. We have as many on this side of the 
aisle who have spent their entire lives talking about balanced budgets.
  This is not a battle over a balanced budget. We all acknowledge there 
should be a balanced budget. It is a question of priorities. We all 
believe there should be a balanced budget. This Senator from Nevada 
believes there should be a balanced budget. But I, along with the 
Senator from California, did not feel it should be done using Social 
Security proceeds. I, like Kevin Phillips, Republican political 
analyst, do not believe the sacrifices should be made ``by senior 
citizens, the poor, students, ordinary Americans who will see programs 
they depend on gutted, while business, finance, and the richest one or 
two percent, far from making sacrifices, actually get new benefits and 
tax reductions.'' This is not a Democrat who wrote this for a 
Democratic magazine. This is a Republican who gave an honest analysis 
on National Public Radio.
  Why are we here? We are here because the Republican majorities in the 
House and the Senate have not passed the appropriations bills. It is as 
simple as that.
  We could spend a lot of time discussing how is the best way to 
balance the budget, and I think it is appropriate that we do that. But 
we should do it in the context of real legislation, not contrived 
crises that we see develop here. If the appropriations bills had been 
passed on time, we would all be home today with our families.
  We all have stories to tell. I will have my five children together 
for the first time in a long time, Thanksgiving. They are all now 
gathering in Nevada without the patriarch of the family. But that is 
OK, because I believe what we are doing here is important and I believe 
my five children also believe what I am doing here today is important, 
because what we are doing is a matter of principle.
  People have called my office. They want this thing resolved. I do not 
blame them. They do not identify themselves as Democrats or 
Republicans. They are average Americans whose greatest expectation of 
Government is it operate to serve people's interests. They are the kind 
of people who pay their taxes, play by the rules, and vote for the 
person and not the party. They want to know why this standoff is 
occurring, and I have explained why the standoff is occurring. It would 
be easy for all of us to fold our tents. I would go home to Nevada to 
my five children and everybody would disperse throughout the United 
States, but it is not that easy.
  We are stuck at an impasse because the bills that finance Government 
were simply not passed on time. Under the congressional budget process, 
the House Appropriations Committee is supposed to finish the last 
annual appropriations bill by June 10. Is it not interesting, we have 
13 appropriations bills and none of them were finished on time. 
Commerce, State, and Justice, July 19, 6 weeks late; DC appropriations, 
October 19, 4 months late; Labor-HHS, July 24, 7 weeks late; Defense, 
July 25--on and on, and, simply, they could not do it. The Senate then 
had to follow suit. We did the best we could. 

[[Page S 17479]]

  I have to hand it to the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, 
the senior Senator from Oregon, a fine, fair chairman who has done the 
best he can under very difficult circumstances.
  There is no excuse for these bills not having passed. But I think it 
was part of a contrived program, established by the leaders in the 
House. I do not make this up. Why were these annual appropriations 
bills not passed on time? Because stuck inside most of these bills are 
controversial legislative proposals that otherwise would not be passed. 
Abortion, in many of the appropriations bills, has simply drawn them to 
a grinding halt.

  Wiping out environmental protection--one bill had 17 environmental 
riders to, in effect, wipe out the ability of the Environmental 
Protection Agency to protect clean air, clean water. They stuck in 
things like grazing.
  I am a western Senator and I have fought the good fight on grazing 
for many years. There is a time and a place for grazing. It should be 
in authorizing legislation, not on appropriations bills. The same as 
mining, same as drilling in ANWR, same as clear-cutting of trees in 
various parts of this country. Why do we not do these in the ordinary, 
regular procession of authorizing regulation? Why in appropriations 
bills?
  Many of these appropriations bills read more like legislative wish 
lists. The majority knew these bills must be signed into law to keep 
the Government operating, and they viewed these bills from a gambler's 
perspective. They gambled, notwithstanding controversial legislation 
that they could not get passed in the ordinary process, that the 
President would sign them anyway.
  They were wrong. Even if the President refused and the Government 
were to shut down, they would use the shutdown as a weapon, and that is 
what they have done. They would force the President to sign legislation 
that the majority of the American public opposed for the sake of 
keeping the Government operating. This was apparent as far back as 
April.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is advised, at his request he was 
to be reminded when he had 1 minute remaining.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to have 
4 more minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. In April, House Speaker Newt Gingrich vowed to create a 
titanic standoff for President Clinton by adding vetoed bills to must-
pass legislation increasing the national debt. This was reported in a 
number of places, including the Washington Times, on April 30. He 
boasted that ``the President will veto a number of things and we will 
put them all in the debt ceiling, and then he will decide how big of a 
crisis he wants.'' Again, this is a quote from Speaker Gingrich.
  We learned, a couple of days ago, why the Speaker is allowing this 
standoff to continue and why, even from his own perspective, it is 
tougher than it would have been ordinarily. Do you know why? Because he 
had to leave Air Force One from a door that he did not feel was 
appropriate, and the President did not spend enough time with him on 
the airplane. This is going to the funeral of an assassinated Prime 
Minister of the State of Israel.
  In the Washington Post, the Speaker is quoted as saying, because the 
President did not speak with him on the flight to Israel for Prime 
Minister Rabin's funeral, ``that is part of the reason why you ended up 
with us sending down a tougher interim spending bill.'' The Speaker is 
also quoted as saying, ``It is petty, but I think it is human.''
  I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that it is not human; it is just plain petty.
  Let us talk about some facts. Fact No. 1: Speaker Gingrich said, as 
early as April, that a Government shutdown and default were political 
tools he was likely to use as a lever to push his extreme agenda. That 
is a fact.

  Fact No. 2: There are 12 appropriations bills necessary to fund the 
Government. Since this Government has been in session starting last 
January, the majority has simply failed to do this, and that is why we 
have the crisis we have today.
  Fact: President Clinton favored a balanced budget and is fighting for 
one. The fight is over how to get there. The Republicans want to do it 
on the backs of seniors, the poor, students, and ordinary citizens. The 
Republicans want to do it in their own way.
  We have now an economy that is great. We have the lowest inflation, 
the lowest unemployment in 50 years. We have the third year in a row 
where we have had declining deficits--certainly not enough, but the 
third year in a row for the first time in 50 years. We have 175,000 
fewer Federal employees than we had 2\1/2\ years ago, the highest 
economic growth since the days of Johnson, the highest corporate 
profits in the history of the country. Why? Because the Democrats, a 
couple of years ago, passed a budget that cut $500 billion from the 
deficit. That is why the economy is so good.
  Do you know we did not get a single Republican to vote with us? The 
Vice President had to come and break the tie.
  Fact: Recent polling shows Americans do not want the extreme agenda 
pushed by the radical right in the GOP. That is why the Speaker is 
using the Government shutdown and the threat of default as a way to 
blackmail this Congress and this President.
  Final fact: Since the Republicans cannot pass their ideologically 
extreme agenda through normal legislative channels, they are trying to 
force the President to agree to their demands to shut the Government 
down. That is not how the system should work.
  Mr. President, the crisis has been planned by Professor Gingrich.  He 
knows how crises develop. He has studied it. We have one here. It is 
all of his own doing, and I say, people of good will, both Democrats 
and Republicans in the Senate, should stand up and say that is not the 
way to run a government.
  Legislation is the art of compromise, and we should work this out. We 
all agree on a balanced budget. It is a question of priorities. Let us 
fight out the priorities on the floor of the Senate and the floor of 
the House the way we have done it for 200 years.
  Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized.

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