[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 201 (Saturday, December 16, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S18777-S18778]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I appreciate your giving me an 
opportunity to step aside from presiding to make a comment or two about 
the dilemma that we find ourselves in today.
  The first point I want to make is that, from my perspective, we are 
dealing with a lineage of broken promises here.
  I have been somewhat dismayed by the confusion in the public about 
what is going on, but I guess it is understandable, given the size of 
the megaphone the President of the United States has. I will just run 
through several events that occurred over the last 2\1/2\ years.
  First, when the President was a candidate for the Presidency in 1992, 
he said in his campaign that he would balance the budget in 5 years. He 
would balance the budget in 5 years. We are now 3 years later and about 
to enter the next Presidential election cycle, and he has yet to submit 
a balanced budget of any kind or of any form. ``I will balance the 
budget in 5 years,'' and he is arguing with us about trying to balance 
it in 7 years. A very meaningful promise to the American people is in 
the trash can.
  Two years later, he came before the American people and the Congress. 
First he said, ``I will not submit a budget.'' Then he said, ``No, I am 
going to submit a balanced budget.'' So we waited and we received his 
budget. It was unbalanced at a level of $200 billion per year as far as 
anybody could see. ``I am going to balance it in 5 years.'' He forgot 
that. Then, ``I will submit a balanced budget,'' and he did and it was 
not balanced. It was not even close. It was so off the mark that the 
Senate, on two separate occasions, rejected it in a humiliating way--99 
to 0, every Republican, every Democrat. On the second attempt, I think 
the vote was 96 to 3, something like that. Total rejection.
  Then we passed for the first time, this Senate and the House, for the 
first time in almost 30 years, a balanced budget act and sent it to the 
President. We said we were going to do that, and we did it. It went to 
the President, and he vetoed it, killed it, which led to the current 
moment of negotiations between the Congress and the President.
  Just before Thanksgiving he and his negotiators, the President and 
his negotiators, agreed late one evening with the leaders of the 
Congress and ultimately voted on by the Congress that he and we would 
produce a balanced budget in 7 years and we would use the same set of 
numbers. That is real important. We say CBO, and that means 
Congressional Budget Office. That is the entity that the President said 
is the best authority in his State of the Union Address. A month later, 
the President had offered nothing.
  Then, finally, at the beginning of this week he gave us the outline 
of a budget that was immediately declared out of balance by upward of 
$400 billion. It was ridiculed in the press and by everybody who saw 
it, so he said, ``Well, I'm going to really give you a balanced budget 
Friday at 10 o'clock.'' I have to tell you, Mr. President, I never 
believed they were going to do it, which is the second point I am going 
to make in a minute. Sure enough, midday Friday, his negotiators came 
to the Budget Committee with two sheets of paper. This was their good-
faith attempt, two sheets of paper, and no budget, just a handful of 
numbers on it--it could have been done in 20 minutes--and we are 
dealing with the budget of the United States of America. They could 
have done this in 20 minutes, and it was $75 billion out of balance. He 
had no intention of submitting the balanced budget.
  They had already purchased television ads Thursday to say that the 
Republicans shut the Government down. This is scripted. This is raw 
politics. The problem is, you are dealing with real lives and a real 
democracy. There are 20,000 troops headed to Europe in the Balkans. 
They never intended to submit a balanced budget. This is why they 
waited until the very end. They knew exactly what we would say. We 
would say this is not what we promised America. We both promised a 
balanced budget using CBO, Congressional Budget Office, numbers and you 
come in at the last minute, you spend the whole month producing 
nothing, and you come in at the last hour with nothing so that you 
could stand up and say, ``Those radical Republicans, hard-hearted, 
shutting the Government down,'' meanwhile they were buying television 
ads even before the last meeting to run across the country saying, 
``Republicans shut the Government down.'' Pretty offensive politics.

  This is a classic struggle between a people and their 
representatives, trying to bring the financial affairs of our country 
under control. Eighty to ninety percent of the American people want a 
balanced budget, and they want it right now. They are tired of things 
as they have been. There is only one person standing between America 
and a balanced budget--his name is William Jefferson Clinton. He 
happens to be President of the United States. He singlehandedly 
defeated the balanced budget amendment by getting his leadership to 
change their votes. He has yet to offer the Congress or the American 
people a balanced budget.
  We all understand that his view of how to get a balanced budget may 
be different than ours. We welcome him to put his plan on the table, 
and then we can get down and work together, according him some of his 
wishes and according us some of ours, all of us fulfilling the demand 
of the American people, who said, ``Balance your budgets. We have to. 
Our businesses have to. You have ignored it, and you have made the 
country hurt because of it.''
  This is not the typical political exercise, Mr. President. I want to 
remind our colleagues that a commission, chaired by Members of the 
Senate, Senator Kerrey of Nebraska, Senator Danforth, former Senator 
from Missouri, 

[[Page S18778]]
an entitlement commission, has produced its work early in the year, and 
it says in that report that within the decade the United States will 
exhaust all of its resources. Every dime of this huge country will be 
consumed by just five things: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, 
Federal retirement, and the interest on our debt, and there is nothing 
left.
  What would we do if there is a Balkans war then? How would we build 
our roads? Defend ourselves? Nothing left, after these five 
expenditures. This balanced budget, that America knows in its heart we 
have to have, corrects that problem. It does not allow the Nation to 
run into that wall.
  Some people, I think, who have listened to the debate, think that 
balancing our budget is a very painful exercise. Not only does 
balancing our budgets immediately begin to set the right path for our 
children and grandchildren and for the new century, but every living 
American begins to benefit immediately. The rainbow that comes from 
balancing these budgets happens right now. Interest rates fall, so the 
average family saves $1,000 a year paying their home mortgage. They 
save on their car loan. They save on their student loans. They save if 
they build an addition to the house.
  The tax reductions benefit all families raising children. The average 
American family, if this balanced budget that we propose becomes law, 
finds 2,000 to 3,000 new dollars in their checking account to help that 
family raise, educate, feed, house, and provide for the health of their 
family. That is what happens. And it does not happen way off in the 
future. It happens tomorrow. We are already benefiting. Just the 
discussion of balancing the budget for the first time in 30 years has 
affected our economy positively. But there is more to come.
  It is beyond me how anybody, the President or any of his colleagues, 
would deny all America the benefits of managing our financial affairs. 
I do not understand it. It is a punishing blow to American families 
because it will push their interest rates up. It will slow the economy. 
When you do not balance your budget it is tougher to find a job. It is 
harder to start a business. They cannot get the capital that is being 
consumed by a voracious Federal Government that will not pay attention 
to its own financial affairs.
  So, just to repeat, and I will yield: A promise to the American 
people by the President that we can balance the budget in 5 years--he 
totally ignored it. A promise to the American people that he would 
submit a balanced budget earlier this year--he ignored it and submitted 
one with deficits as far as the eye can see. And then a binding, 
intense promise made between the President and the Congress, to the 
American people, just before Thanksgiving, that we would both produce 
balanced budgets and we would both use honest numbers to do it--and he 
walked in the last hour, having done nothing since that promise was 
made and gave us two sheets of paper.
  There was more time being spent producing the political ads than 
producing the balanced budget and that is a sad state of affairs.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coverdell). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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