[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 191 (Monday, December 4, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S17875-S17876]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE BUDGET IMPASSE

  Mr. BREAUX. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, as the Congress comes back from the weekend recess, a 
lot of people I know throughout the country, and in my State of 
Louisiana in particular, have been wondering whether Congress is going 
to be able to get together to solve the budget crisis. We do not have a 
lot of time before December 15, and there is the prospect of yet 
another shutdown of the Federal Government because Congress has not 
been able to resolve how to come together on a plan to balance the 
budget over a specified period of time.
  Mr. President, I will make a couple of comments about that impasse 
because I think indeed it is very serious. I remember looking at the 
New York Times on Saturday morning. It was a report on the progress 
that Congress has made on this effort to balance the budget. I will 
read perhaps a couple of sentences from that article on Saturday by Mr. 
David Rosenbaum:

       The budget negotiations this week between Congress and the 
     White House were a complete bust. For 3 days in a row, 
     lawmakers and administration officials met around a table in 
     a conference room in the Capitol of the United States, closed 
     the doors, accomplished absolutely nothing, and came out and 
     accused each other of refusing to negotiate in good faith. 
     Then, on Thursday afternoon, they adjourned until next week. 
     No one savvy about Washington politics was surprised.

  Mr. President, at a time when President Clinton can bring all the 
heads of the territories in Bosnia to Dayton, OH, and ask them to sit 
in a room until they reach an agreement ending a war that has been 
going on for centuries, can we not bring together the parties in this 
body called Congress to agree on what we should do with the budget?
  I mentioned another article, which I think is right on target. It is 
by our distinguished leader, Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic 
leader. He 

[[Page S 17876]]
pointed out in this article, which appeared in Roll Call:

       People of this country are sick and tired of a Government 
     that does not understand their problems or their neighbors' 
     problems, sick and tired of politicians fighting over things 
     that the rest of the country cannot understand, and, most of 
     all, they are sick and tired of the fact that it seems 
     impossible to get anything done in Washington.

  Mr. President, I think that it is time, when we talk about the 
budget, for the moderates in both parties to come together and help 
resolve this problem. I am absolutely convinced that you cannot put 
people in a room who have visions of what the future of this country 
should be like that are as different as night and day. It is my opinion 
that the most difficult problems cannot be solved from the left working 
in, nor from the right working toward the center. I am absolutely 
convinced that you cannot take the fringes of any political party and 
try and use that methodology to solve difficult problems, such as a 
budget problem.

  I know that all the folks that are working on the budget are people 
of good faith and have strong beliefs about what a budget agreement 
should accomplish and what it should contain. Mr. President, I am 
suggesting today that there are moderates on the Democratic side--
moderates in the Democratic Party, both in the House and in the Senate, 
that really want to have a budget agreement. I think it is now time for 
the moderates on both sides of our political parties to try and band 
together to help resolve this problem. I am very concerned that as the 
days go by and hours keep ticking off the clock, that we are not making 
the progress needed and necessary in order to solve this problem before 
yet another deadline occurs.
  As it was said in the Saturday article I quoted, the talks so far 
between Congress and the White House were a complete bust. Mr. 
President, we owe to the American people much more than that. We owe 
the best talent, the best minds, and the best dedicated public servants 
to work together across party lines to bring this debate to a closure. 
Let me suggest a couple of things I think moderates can agree to.
  First, I think it is certainly possible that we can agree that there 
should be a balanced budget and it should be in 7 years. Point No. 1.
  Second, I think that all of this debate about which economic 
assumptions we are going to use to help solve this problem almost 
border on the point of being ridiculous. The Congressional Budget 
Office has suggested that growth is going to be about 2.3 percent next 
year. The Office of Management and Budget suggested that growth rate 
will be about 2.5 percent. Is there not a middle ground between those 
two numbers, a figure between 2.3 and 2.5 that people with good 
intentions cannot agree to? I suggest that we split the differences 
between those, and I think that is something that can be done. I think 
it can be done in a way that brings about the best economic assumptions 
that we need in order to fix this problem.
  Third, I think people should be able to agree on a Consumer Price 
Index adjustment. The people who have looked at this issue have 
recommended that, clearly, the Consumer Price Index on which we base so 
many of our economic programs is overstating the cost of products that 
consumers buy and that an adjustment of somewhere up to 1 percent 
perhaps is a reasonable and rational adjustment.
  I suggest that we could take a point, a percent adjustment, and by 
doing that really allow us a great deal more flexibility in solving 
this budget impasse.
  Fourth, I think we ought to be able to agree on a tax cut that is 
reasonable and fair. Some have suggested no tax cut at all, zero. Some 
have suggested we absolutely have to have $245 billion in tax cuts. Is 
there not, again, a middle ground that we could agree on that comes up 
with a reasonable tax cut and save somewhere in the range of $100 to 
$150 billion over the 7-year period? Is that not a fair compromise to 
those who say we should have none and those who say we should have the 
higher amount? I suggest it is.
  The fifth point I think we should be able to come together on is the 
fact that the savings we have from these procedures I just outlined 
should be utilized to put back money in Medicare and Medicaid and the 
earned income tax credit and the welfare program, environmental 
programs, and yes, equally if not more important, the education 
programs which determine the future of the people of this country and 
use those extra funds to increase some of those drastic, suggested cuts 
in those programs.
  Mr. President, I think reasonable people in both parties who could 
call ourselves moderate should be able to get together and do these 
things. I think it is more difficult when you have people who are on 
the left in their party, or on the right in their party trying to 
resolve these differences. Is it not better to have a group of people 
in the middle who are moderates who can agree, and once we get an 
agreement which I think is pretty easy to get to, work it out so that 
we then move toward the outside to solve the problem?
  The way to solve this problem is working from the center out, not 
from the left end or from the right end, but, rather, working out the 
principles. These five principles I outlined I think give us the strong 
basis for trying to reach a balanced budget in 7 years, one that, 
hopefully, this President would be able to see meets the needs that he 
has outlined, solves the problem, and everybody comes away a winner.
  I do not see how anybody wins if we have another stalemate. Everybody 
loses. Yet if we do reach an agreement, everybody should win. And 
winners or losers in the Congress is not really what it is all about; 
it is whether we will craft a program that the American people can win 
with and the future generations can say that Congress did the right 
thing when they were called upon to meet this challenge.
  I strongly suggest that now is the time for moderates in the 
Republican Party and the Democratic Party to start talking to each 
other. There is nothing wrong with that. That is what a democratic 
Government is all about--compromises, meeting together, solving the 
problems in the center, and then working it away, and these agreements 
are received by more people in order to reach a majority.

  I am just very concerned if we do not do that, if we try and solve 
this problem from the left working in or from the right working in, we 
will just have a stalemate. I do not think there is any political 
capital in bringing this Government to a closure again because we at 
that time will be admitting once again we cannot make Government work. 
That is not why we were sent to Congress. Just the opposite is the 
reason we are here.
  I call today upon moderates in both parties to start talking, to 
meeting, to see if we cannot agree on these five principles I have 
tried to outline and take it from there and see where it leads us.
  I suggest, in conclusion, we might be very surprised that it leads us 
to a balanced budget agreement that the Congress can pass with great 
enthusiasm, and this President will find that he will be able to 
support it as well.
  I yield the floor.

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