[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 193 (Wednesday, December 6, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S18052-S18053]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        THE RECONCILIATION BILL

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I noticed some earlier discussion on the 
Senate floor that prompted me to come and discuss the pending veto of 
the reconciliation bill by President Clinton. Some wonder, because they 
extol the virtue of that reconciliation bill, why on Earth would the 
President veto it?
  It occurred to me that often cartoonists are able to capture the 
equivalent of 1,000 words in one little picture. This cartoon out of 
the Times Union, I think, describes pretty well why the President feels 
he must veto this legislation. You look at the cartoon. He has the 
Republican tax cut in the carriage, and the elderly woman on Medicare 
with the walker pulling the carriage here. And he says, ``Giddyup ol' 
gal.'' That is a cartoonists' message of poking fun. Behind that 
cartoon is a message.
  Those who say that the tax cuts, half of which goes to those whose 
incomes are over $100,000 or more, will have no impact or no 
relationship to Medicare, that is hardly believable. That is not to me 
or to cartoonists or to people around the country. There is a 
relationship.
  The discussion about all this is not to balance the budget; we ought 
to. The question is, how do you do two things, balance the budget and 
still retain the priorities that are necessary for this country?
  I have said before--and I want to state again today--I give the 
Republican Party credit, the Republicans in the Congress credit, 
because I believe they sincerely want to balance this budget. I think 
their initiative to push to do that makes sense, and I compliment them 
for that. I think there are a lot of us who also want to balance the 
budget but want to do it with a different sense of priorities.
  I hope they will accord us the same respect and say, ``Yes, that 
makes sense.'' And, ``We understand your priorities.'' And, ``Let's try 
to find a compromise.'' I hope that is the way we will be able to solve 
this problem, to do two things, balance the Federal budget and at the 
same time reach the kind of compromise on priorities that protects 
certain things that many of us think are important.
  I happen to think that we ought to have separated this job. First, 
balance the budget, and then, second, when the budget is balanced and 
the job is done, then turn to the issue of the Tax Code. But that was 
not the case. The case was that you had to do a tax cut within the 
context of this reconciliation bill. The problem is that the 
priorities, in my judgment, are priorities that are not square with 
what the country's needs are.
  A previous speaker talked about being a Senate pork buster. I guess I 
was unaware that we have a caucus called pork busters, a rather 
inelegant name, but I understand what it means. A pork buster, I think, 
would be to look at where is the pork, where is the spending that ought 
not be spent? I would encourage those who are part of the pork busters 
caucus to take a look at the defense bill, because I have talked before 
about the issue of priorities in the context of balancing the budget, 
especially as it relates to the defense bill.
  I have a list here of additions to the defense bill that no one from 
the Defense Department asked for, no one wanted, no one said we needed, 
no one requested. This is extra money stuck into the defense bill by 
people in the Senate who said, ``By the way, Defense Department, you 
don't want enough trucks. You didn't order enough trucks. We insist you 
buy more 

[[Page S 18053]]
trucks.'' So the Congress says, ``We're going to order more trucks for 
you. It is true you did not ask for them, but you need to be driving 
more trucks. You did not ask for more B-2 bombers. We're going to order 
up some B-2 bombers for you. You didn't ask for amphibious ships.'' And 
the major debate is which of the ships shall we buy? There is a $900 
million one or a $1.2 billion one, so the Congress says, ``You didn't 
order either of them, so we insist you buy both of them. That's our 
priority. You didn't order enough F-15's. We're going to order some for 
you. You didn't order enough F-16's. We're going to order some of those 
for you. You didn't order enough Warrior helicopters, Longbow 
helicopters, Black Hawk helicopters. We insist you get some of those as 
well.''
  This is from people who say they are conservatives. Probably some of 
the pork busters are some of these people, I do not know. But if they 
are looking for pork to bust, boy, I tell you this is a slaughterhouse 
that will keep them busy for a year. I can give you chapter and verse 
on planes, ships, submarines, tanks, helicopters that were ordered that 
the Secretary of Defense said he did not want.
  So, you know, I say, look, if this is a question of priorities--and I 
think it is--how do you balance the budget? What are the priorities? 
How do you strengthen our priorities and reach from zero? There was $7 
billion added to the defense bill this year, $7 billion that the 
Secretary of Defense said he did not want. I have said before and I am 
going to state again, because I think it is descriptive of the priority 
problem, a little program called star schools is cut 40 percent and a 
big program called star wars is increased in funding by 100 percent. It 
is, I think, the script of the fundamental problem of priorities.

  The priorities are wrong. That is why the President is going to veto 
that today. The priorities in terms of what the bill, the 
reconciliation bill, says to the public, are these: In the same town, 
going to two different addresses with two different messages. The first 
letter to describe how this balanced budget plan affects you, we will 
go to the top floor of the best office building in town. And on the 
18th floor they will knock on the CEO's door of a major corporation and 
say, ``Well, we just passed this bill, this budget balancing bill, and 
here is how it affects you. Your company gets some relief from what is 
called the `alternative minimum tax,' so you get $7 million in tax cuts 
because of a little provision called the AMT in this bill. So we want 
you to smile here on the 18th floor with this big desk and big office, 
with a $7 million tax cut we give you.''
  And then you get back in the taxi and go to the other side of town to 
a little one-room apartment occupied by a low-income person in their 
late 70's with heart trouble and trying to struggle along and figure 
out how she stretches a very low income to eat and pay for more 
medicine and pay for rent. We say to that person, ``Well, we just 
dropped off a $7 million tax cut downtown to the CEO of a big company, 
but our message for you is not quite so good. We're going to tell you 
that you are going to have to pay a little more for your health care 
and probably get a little less health care to boot. You are going to 
pay more and get less. You have to tighten your belt more. You 
understand the message. You have to tighten your belt. Yes, you are in 
your late seventies; I know you cannot compensate by getting a second 
job or first job, but you have to tighten your belt.''
  See the different messages? One to the biggest office in town saying, 
``You get a big tax cut.'' The other to the person struggling out there 
barely making it saying, ``By the way, we're going to add to your 
burden.'' That priority does not make any sense.
  There is another little piece in here--I hope the chairman of the 
Senate Finance Committee will come and we can have a discussion about 
this someday--a little piece in this tax cut bill, by the way, on the 
issue of deferral. It says, we are going to make it more generous for 
you than under current law. If you move your plant overseas and close 
your plant here we are going to make it more generous. We are going to 
increase the little tax loophole that says to companies, ``Leave 
America, put your jobs elsewhere, close your plant here.''

  Boy, you talk about an insidious tax perversion that says we will 
give you a tax break if you only leave our country. That is in this 
bill. It is not a big thing; it is a tiny, little thing. I bet there 
are not two or three Senators know it is there or why it is there or 
who it is going to benefit. But that is the kind of thing that 
represents a fundamentally wrongheaded priority. And it is what the 
Senator from South Carolina talked about.
  There is not any question, you will not get a debate in this Congress 
about whether you should balance the budget. We ought to do it. The 
question is how, how do you balance the budget and at the same time 
have a fair sense of priorities about what strengthens our country and 
what is important in our country.
  I am one of those who will negotiate, a team of people sitting around 
a table, Republicans and Democrats on a negotiating team. I very much 
want this to succeed, very much want it to work. I believe the end 
stage of the President and the Democrats and the Republicans in 
Congress can agree on a goal of balancing the budget and agree on a 
goal of preserving priorities that make sense for this country in 
health care, education, the environment, agriculture and a couple of 
other areas, that we can get this job done. The American people expect 
us to get it done, and we should.
  But we have a circumstance where the budget reconciliation bill or 
the balanced budget provisions were essentially written without any 
assistance from our side of the aisle. There was not a budget meeting. 
The Senate Finance Committee met drafting this with the majority party, 
which is fine, but it does not make for a process in which you get the 
best of what both parties have to offer. That is what I think the end 
stage of this process ought to be.
  So, I echo many of the things said by the Senator from South 
Carolina. I believe the goal is very worthwhile. We ought to do it, we 
ought to do it the right way, the real way, and when we get it done 
working cooperatively with both sides of the aisle, I think the 
American people would have reason to rejoice that we put this country 
on sound footing.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.

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