[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 193 (Wednesday, December 6, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S18101-S18102]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. GRAMS (for himself, Mr. McCain, and Mr. Coats):
  S. 1452. A bill to establish procedures to provide for a taxpayer 
protection lock-box and related downward adjustment of discretionary 
spending limits and to provide for additional deficit reduction with 
funds resulting from the stimulative effect of revenue reductions; read 
the first time.


                  the taxpayer protection lockbox act

  Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Taxpayer 
Protection Lockbox Act. I am pleased to be joined by my good friend and 
colleague from Arizona, Senator McCain.
  Mr. President, in light of what is happening today at the White 
House--with President Clinton carrying out his threat to veto our plan 
to balance the Federal budget--this legislation could not be introduced 
at a more appropriate time.
  The American people ought to be disgusted that the President would 
turn his back on their wishes and veto the Balanced Budget Act of 1995.
  After all, the people have called repeatedly on the Federal 
Government to get its spending under control. The President says he 
wants to eliminate the wasteful spending, too. Our plan delivers, and 
yet, our bill is being vetoed.
  The people want relief from a Federal tax burden that's consuming 26 
percent of their family's monthly income. The President says he wants 
to provide tax relief too, and even says he supports the child tax 
credit. Our plan delivers, and yet, our bill is being vetoed.
  The people have asked us to reform a welfare system that sucks up tax 
dollars yet offers few incentives for welfare recipients to move from 
dependency to independence. The President says he wants welfare reform, 
too, in fact, he made it a major part of his Presidential campaign. Our 
plan delivers, and yet, our bill is being vetoed.
  Most important, the people are calling on us to balance the Federal 
budget by the year 2002. The President says he wants a balanced budget, 
too, and agrees that we can get there in 7 years. Our plan delivers, 
and yet again, the President is stopping it in its tracks with today's 
veto.
  ``I want a budget that includes all of that,'' says the President--
``the spending cuts, tax relief, welfare reform, while it balances in 7 
years using honest numbers. I just do not want your budget.''
  And somehow the President manages to say it with a straight face, 
even though he has bogged down the budget negotiations by refusing to 
offer a comprehensive, 7-year plan of his own.
  Mr. President, despite all the rhetoric and all the campaign 
promises, this administration has no real interest in eliminating the 
Federal deficit and changing the status quo in Washington--they would 
have to curtail their spending to do it. Today's veto clearly 
demonstrates the President is not ready to cut spending. And that has 
been the pattern in Washington for a very long time--once the 
Government has gotten its hands on the taxpayers' dollars and 
squirreled them away into the Federal Treasury, Congress, and the 
President will spend them.

  My legislation, the Taxpayer Protection Lockbox Act, will help ensure 
that when pork-barrel spending is trimmed from the budget, it is the 
taxpayers--not the big spenders on Capitol Hill--who will benefit.
  For years, Members of Congress have bragged to their constituents 
about trying to cut the fat out of the Federal budget. Yet as time has 
passed, Federal spending has gone up, our annual budget deficits have 
gone up, and the debt we're leaving our children and grandchildren has 
gone all the way up to $5 trillion.
  How can this be? If all of these claims of cutting the budget are 
right, should spending not go down, not up?
  Well, if you are speaking in plain English, it should--a cut means 
you spend less money this year than you did last year. But in the 
language of Congress--``Hill-Speak'' as some call it--a cut is not 
necessarily a cut.
  For example, under our plan to balance the budget, Medicare spending 
will grow from $181 billion this year to $277 billion in the year 
2002--a 53-percent increase over the next 7 years. But because Medicare 
will not grow at the uncontrolled rates of the past, those who use 
Hill-Speak call this increase a ``cut.''
  It does not make much sense, does it? And yet there is more.
  Every year, Congress is required to pass the 13 appropriations bills 
which fund the Federal Government--everything from the National Highway 
System and NASA to foreign aid and the Postal Service. While many of 
these programs are important and worthwhile, too many tax dollars are 
still being used for wasteful pork-barrel projects, which either 
benefit certain regions of the country at the expense of others, have 
not been previously authorized by law, or are simply not worth the tax 
dollars spent on them.
  As a member of the Senate pork busters coalition, I have worked to 
eliminate this wasteful abuse of the taxpayers' hard-earned 
dollars. For example, during debate on the energy and water 
appropriations bill, I offered an amendment that would have eliminated 
$40 million from the Appalachian Regional Commission. I did not believe 
Minnesota taxpayers should be subsidizing so-called economic assistance 
to the 13 States, located mostly in the Southeast, which make up the 
ARC. But due to the program's strong support by Senators whose States 
benefit from ARC, this amendment was rejected by the Senate.

  What is worse about our appropriations system is that even if 
amendments like mine had passed, these funds are not returned to the 
Treasury or the taxpayers. Instead, they are placed into a slush fund 
which can be spent on other programs.
  In other words, even when we are successful in passing amendments to 
cut appropriations spending in these areas, these funds are not used 
for deficit reduction; they are used for additional spending in other 
areas. As I said before, only in a place like Washington dominated by 
Hill-Speak is a cut not necessarily a cut--and the result is a $5 
trillion debt for our children and grandchildren.
  In an effort to end this abuse of taxpayer dollars and to return 
honesty to the budget process, the Taxpayer Protection Lockbox Act 
changes the rules of the budget process to ensure that any funds cut in 
appropriations bills be dedicated back to the Treasury for the purposes 
of deficit reduction. By replacing the current Congressional slush fund 
with a taxpayers' lockbox, my legislation guarantees that when Congress 
cuts funding for wasteful programs, those dollars are returned to their 
rightful owners--the taxpayers.
  In addition, my legislation creates a new revenue lockbox, which is 
geared toward our 7-year balanced budget plan.
  As we all know, when Congress considers a long-term budget, we take 
into account economic projections which estimate the amount of tax 
revenue that will come into the Treasury over the next 7 years. We then 
use these revenue estimates to determine the extent to which Federal 
spending can grow without resulting in a budget deficit in the year 
2002.
  While these estimates by the Congressional Budget Office are 
generally on the mark, they are, of course, simply estimates. It is 
likely that even more dollars will come into the Treasury as a result 
of our balanced budget plan, given the fact that we include tax relief 
designed to stimulate economic growth, create new jobs and turn tax 
users into productive taxpayers.

  These additional dollars, however, should not be used to feed 
Congress' appetite for spending; instead, any additional revenue that 
results from our growth plan should be returned to the 

[[Page S 18102]]
taxpayers in the form of additional tax relief. After all, these funds 
were made available because of the hard work and productivity of the 
American people; it makes sense to give those dollars back to the 
taxpayers and encourage even greater productivity, rather than handing 
them to Washington for more pork-barrel spending.
  Even now, we can see the very problem my legislation is designed to 
address. As part of the budget negotiations, President Clinton has 
already tried to seize more of the dollars we are returning to the 
taxpayers in the form of tax cuts, to use them for--you guessed it--
more spending.
  The bottom line estimates are, the President wants to spend $400 
billion more than our Budget Act of 1995 called for--$400 billion more 
of your money.
  Well, the taxpayers cannot afford for us to let him do that today, 
nor can they afford it in the future. We must ensure that tax dollars 
are returned to their rightful owners: the taxpayers, not the 
Government.
  And that is just what my revenue lockbox does--it requires that any 
revenues above and beyond current estimates be used for tax cuts and/or 
additional deficit reduction. It ensures taxpayers that their hard-
earned dollars will no longer be automatically spent by the Government. 
It ends the misperception that tax dollars belong to the Government, 
rather than the taxpayers.
  Most importantly, it restores honesty to the budget process and 
ensures that a spending cut is truly a spending cut, even in 
Washington.
  Mr. President, the Taxpayer Protection Lockbox Act earns its name by 
locking in real deficit reduction, while protecting the American 
taxpayers when Congress just cannot seem to say ``no'' on its own. I 
urge my colleagues to join me in standing up for the taxpayers by 
supporting this timely legislation.

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