[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 185 (Sunday, November 19, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S17481-S17482]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE WEARY

  Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, we are engaged in an exercise of trying 
to balance the budget. That term has been on every Presidential 
candidate's lips since the 1970's. Indeed, in this Chamber, in my 21 
years in Congress, we have had a number of speeches on proposals to 
balance the budget. We have had the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings legislation 
that was supposed to balance the budget. We had the Muskie rules back 
when Senator Muskie was here--he used to sit right over here, I 
remember--to balance the budget. Then we have had numerous votes on the 
debt ceiling. We have debt ceiling legislation that we are supposed to 
provide as a vehicle that would force a balanced budget. This has gone 
on and on and on, and the American people are weary.
  Finally, today, we are faced with a situation where our Government is 
shutting down because we cannot reach an agreement on balancing the 
budget. I feel that there might be a better mechanical way of going 
about this. I would rather force the Congress to have a vote every hour 
and stay here, or I would rather that the President be forced to come 
and meet with the congressional leaders every 4 hours, something like 
they do in some of the railway labor negotiations where negotiations 
are forced rather than shutting down the Government.
  I have been trying to find some way of sponsoring legislation so we 
have an alternative vehicle to bring this type of impasse to a climax. 
I think it is a poor way to do business, that we are shutting down some 
of our services and that we are going through this exercise that will 
probably be costly in the long run, as a way of forcing the issue. But, 
nevertheless, we are here. This is where we are as of this hour.
  So where do we go from here? I hope our leaders do not compromise at 
this point on anything less than something that will really balance the 
budget with real numbers. If we come up with phony numbers and a more 
lengthy period of time, it will severely hurt the long-term bond 
market, in my opinion. It will mean that long-term interest rates will 
go up substantially. It will mean that mortgage interest rates will go 
up substantially. It will mean eventually that student loan interest 
rates will go up substantially. It will mean that farmers' and 
ranchers' interest rates will go up substantially. And it will mean 
that our economy will be subject to inflationary pressures with high 
interest rates. That would be very damaging to the prosperity that we 
enjoy.

  Let me say that I feel passionately that balancing the budget is a 
moral issue, and I am not one to come to this floor with a lot of 
moralistic speeches. But it is moralistic because it is right. It is 
the right thing to do to pay our debts. It is also moralistic because 
we are shoving a responsibility off to someone else, our children and 
grandchildren or future generations. We are not taking responsibility 
for what we are spending during our watch. That is a moral issue.
  It is also a moral issue because we are going to be robbing future 
middle-class wage earners and working people of part of their paychecks 
without consulting them. We are going to be robbing senior citizens of 
a standard of living that they have come to expect and enjoy in the 
future, and we are going to be robbing people who are poor, who expect 
to get Government benefits or jobs or whatever from an economy that is 
abundant.
  Therefore, I look upon this as a moral issue, as much as anything 
else. So I feel passionately that we must carry through at this time 
and do what we have to do.
  During this past year, I have voted for the Dole-Domenici budget in 
this Chamber. By that, I mean the Republican budget or the budget put 
forth by 

[[Page S 17482]]
Senator Domenici and the Budget Committee of the Senate and Senator 
Dole, our leader. On all the votes that have come along, there have 
been efforts to untangle that budget that have been apple-pie-and-
motherhood votes to add this on or add that on.
  I have voted with Senator Domenici to hold together that budget 
package because I feel it is the best budget we have had in my 21 years 
in Congress. It is the first time we have had a budget that has a 
vision to move us to a balanced budget by the year 2002. That does not 
say we are paying anything on the Federal debt. We are not. We still 
have that huge debt to deal with. It does not say anything that we are 
going to get into a balanced budget until 2002. We are still engaging 
in deficit spending until 2002.
  What is the big fight about here in town? The President of the United 
States campaigned on a platform to balance the budget within 5 years. I 
remember Jimmy Carter's was he was going to balance the budget in 4 
years during the time he was President. Ronald Reagan campaigned on a 
program to balance the budget. Every Member of this Senate has run for 
the Senate on a program to balance the budget.

  The point is, it goes on and on and on, and there are excuses and 
there are phony numbers, there are CBO numbers, there are these 
numbers, that numbers. But the American people have said, enough is 
enough, get on with a plan. There are going to be some people in this 
segment of the economy angry, some people in that segment.
  I think it just takes an across-the-board approach. I think the 
Domenici-Dole budget has some flaws in it. There are some things in it 
I disagree with but, generally speaking, it cuts the rate of increase. 
Some of these programs have been increasing at 12 percent a year. This 
reduces the rate of increase to between 5 and 7 percent.
  With that rate of increase, we can absorb the increases and bring us 
to a balanced budget. So when we talk about cuts, for the most part, we 
are not talking about cuts at all. We are talking about increasing at a 
slower level, but still increasing probably at the rate of inflation. 
So at least let us get with it. At least let us do it. And I hope our 
leadership does not compromise away this work and these votes that we 
have cast this year. I hope we stick to our guns and stick to this plan 
that has been put forward, which I call the Domenici-Dole budget.

  Mr. President, let me say something about middle-class working 
people. One way or another, they end up paying most of the taxes in 
this country. I think that is unfortunate. I am a member of the Finance 
Committee, and I have tried to change that. There are promises about a 
flat-rate tax in the future, and there are promises about a tax on 
consumption instead of income taxes in the future. But it will still 
end up that those families or those individuals who work hard, obey the 
law, they end up pulling the wagon. They are the ones paying for this 
nonsense, and they are the ones out there who helped elect this new 
Congress. In frustration, they are saying, ``Let us do something about 
this.''
  Mr. President, I think it is time for us to do something. I hope to 
continue to be a part of that. I ask our leadership not to make 
compromises that are unnecessary, that go beyond the framework of the 
Domenici-Dole budget, that would leave us, once again, going away from 
here with the American people being promised that there is going to be 
a balanced budget and there is not. I hope that the President and the 
Congress will heed the American people.
  I thank the Chair for this opportunity to speak.

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