[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 203 (Monday, December 18, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S18800-S18801]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE BUDGET PROCESS

  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I am not on the Finance Committee. I am 
not on the Budget Committee. Through Democratic caucuses and studying 
the budget documents, I have been trying to follow this budget process. 
I have been an avid student of what is going on.
  I have been in the U.S. Senate 21 years. I am absolutely incredulous. 
I cannot believe what Congress is doing with charge, countercharge. 
Members of Congress are worrying about who is winning in the polls and 
who is losing in the polls. But I must say I am amazed that the 
Republicans absolutely refuse to provide a continuing resolution while 
we try to work this out. I cannot understand this steady objection to 
keeping the Government going while we fight about how we are going to 
balance the budget. How do you explain to the people back home that you 
are trying to balance the budget when you send 250,000 employees home 
and say, ``Not to worry, you are going to be paid anyway''? Can you 
believe that we told 250,000 Federal employees this morning not to show 
up for work and ``you will be paid anyway''?
  The only reason the people on my staff are going to be paid now, 
which they were not in the first Government shutdown, is because we 
passed and the President signed the legislative branch appropriations 
bill.
  Mr. President, we are also seeing what is almost tantamount to a 
constitutional amendment without voting on it. The Constitution says, 
essentially, that a bill passed by the Congress shall be presented to 
the President and if the President approves it, he shall sign it. And 
if he disapproves, he will not sign it or he will veto it. For 205 
years in this country, the President has signed or vetoed bills that 
were sent to him by the Congress, and the Congress either overrode the 
veto or they did not. If they did not have the votes to override the 
veto, then Congress went back to the drawing board trying to meet the 
President's objections in order to get a bill to him that he would 
sign.
  That has been the procedure under the Constitution for over 200 
years, and now we have a totally new procedure. And that procedure is 
that if the President vetoes a bill and there is a majority of one 
party in the Congress that takes exception to that veto, but not a big 
enough majority to override the President's veto, Congress shuts the 
Government down. Teach that President a lesson. How dare he veto a bill 
when the opposing party is in control of the Congress. President 
Clinton has correctly characterized this as a gun to his head.
  Republicans are not trying to override the veto. Nobody has brought 
the reconciliation bill back here for revision after the President 
vetoed it. We shut the Government down--twice. Twice within 2 months we 
bring the Government to a halt in such a needless, irresponsible way. 
The budget does not have to be approved tonight. It does not have to be 
approved between now and January 15, although it almost certainly would 
be approved by January 15.
  There are a lot of people across the land who are saying ``a pox on 
both your houses.'' Lord knows, I understand that. As I read this 
morning's account of this woman in Vermont who has a part-time job 
making $85 a month and trying to stay off welfare because she deplores 
it, but who, in the past, has received a little Federal help under what 
we call LIHEAP, low-income energy assistance program. This woman said 
she wore four sweaters to try to stay warm so she could keep the heat 
as low as possible, but I think she said she is going to run out of 
fuel next week and she does not have one farthing to buy new fuel. The 
fuel supplier--and I certainly understand his position--says, ``We 
cannot afford to extend credit to these people. We are not rich. We are 
just out there selling fuel trying to make a living.''
  Would you believe that 10,000 people in the city of Chicago alone 
have been refused and shut off from any additional gas because they 
cannot pay their bills? That is 10,000 homes in the city of Chicago 
alone. Last year there was $1.3 billion in this program, Mr. President. 
The people of the Northern States are running out of money and fuel.
  Why? So we can preserve a $245 billion tax cut for the wealthiest 
people in America. It makes Marie Antoinette look positively 
compassionate.
  There is the great novel James Baldwin wrote entitled ``Go Tell It On 
The Mountain,'' a young black man growing up in the South during the 
Depression, and he talks about a big dinner on the ground. He said 
these preachers would get up after their stomachs were full and talk 
about how many people they had saved, and the central character in this 
book was saying they talked about saved souls in the way you would talk 
about ears of corn being lopped off the stalk. And he took a vow, 
because he wanted to be a minister, that he would never take the gift 
of God so lightly.
  Do you know what happened in the book? As time went on, the central 
character became a preacher, very good at his trade, and the first 
thing you know he, too, was talking about saving souls like so many 
ears of corn being lopped off the stalk.
  There are two morals in that. One is that we all have a tendency to 
take ourselves too seriously and get to believing that somehow or other 
we have all the solutions. But the other moral is that people who are 
cold are like lost souls. They are real human beings.
  In this case, they are real human beings who are suffering. Why are 
they suffering? Because of us. All so we can have a $245 billion tax 
cut. That includes a capital gains tax cut, which would be good for me 
and just about every other Senator in this body, each of whom makes in 
excess of $133,000 a year. We will get a tax cut. People making less 
than $30,000 a year will see their taxes go up.
  The interesting thing is we are always standing on the floor of the 
Senate pontificating about what the American people want, especially 
when we think the American people want what we want. I heard people 
time and time again saying that people want a tax cut. The truth of the 
matter is, they do not. Look at this chart. This shows 10 polls asking 
whether Americans prefer tax cuts or deficit reduction: USA Today/CNN/
Gallup in December 1994; New York Times/CBS in January 1995; Wall 
Street Journal/NBC in January 1995; Washington Post/ABC in February 
1995; Times/Mirror, February 1995; Wall Street Journal/NBC, March 1995; 
Los Angeles Times, March 1995; USA Today/CNN/Gallup, April 1995; the 
New York Times/CBS, April 1995; New York Times/CBS, October 1995.
  In every single one of them, a majority of people said, ``Do not cut 
taxes until you balance the budget.'' Congress is supposed to at least 
be mildly responsive to what the American people believe.
  Mr. President, let me add something interesting about this last New 
York Times/CBS poll taken in October 1995. I hope all my Republican 
friends are listening. The national polls showed that overall, 60 
percent of those surveyed did not want a tax cut until after the budget 
was balanced, 35 percent did. But among Republicans surveyed, the 
figure was 68 to 30. Well over 2 to 1 of Republicans said do not cut 
taxes until you balance the budget.
  So how did this huge tax cut proposal come to be? Well, the Budget 
Committee asked CBO to make a study and say, if we get a balanced 
budget by the year 2002, how much will we save in interest costs and 
other dividends from a balanced budget?
  CBO said, ``$170 billion.'' So how did we decide to use that fiscal 
dividend? Use it to soften Medicare cuts? No. Medicaid, our health care 
system for the poorest of the poor, one-half of which are children? No. 
Education? No. Environment? No. Earned income tax credit? No. The 
Budget and Finance Committees said, ``Oh, $170 billion dividend for 
balancing the budget. Let's give that and another $75 billion to the 
richest people in America in the form of tax cuts.''
  If you have not seen Kevin Phillips' recent article, I recommend it 
to everybody. He is no bleeding heart liberal. He points out what 
happened in 1981. If we followed the Reagan prescription of cutting 
taxes, we were told, we would generate so much economic activity we 
would balance the 

[[Page S18801]]
budget by 1984. So 1984 came around and the deficit was up to almost 
$200 billion. It was $58 billion his first year as President, and after 
we passed everything he asked for, the deficit in 1984 was not 
balanced, it was $200 billion out of balance.
  Then we went to Gramm-Rudman. Gramm-Rudman was going to balance the 
budget in 3 or 4 years. And the rest of the story is painfully known to 
everybody in America. The budget deficit soared once again.
  Then we had that fiasco at Andrews Air Force Base. We were going to 
balance the budget by 1993. What happened? The budget was headed for 
almost $300 billion in deficit.
  Forgo the tax cut, Mr. President, and take two-tenths of a percent 
off the Consumer Price Index, and we will be 90 percent of the way home 
toward a balanced budget. We will not have to tell the nursing home 
patients of this country that their children are going to have to start 
picking up the tab for their care in the nursing home. You do not have 
to tell the elderly when they go to bed at night they might be 
destitute the next morning because of a catastrophic illness.
  Mr. President, I came here to vent my frustration and, hopefully, 
make a little sense about what is going on and what is not going on. 
What is not going on is the people's business. I yield the floor.
  Mr. ROBB addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia is recognized.
  Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, might I inquire of the Chair if we are in 
morning business or if we are on the Defense authorization bill at this 
point?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are on the Defense authorization bill.
  Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, although it could be properly conducted on 
the authorization bill, under the Pastore rule I ask unanimous consent 
that I be recognized as if in morning business for not to exceed 10 
minutes. And it will probably be considerably less.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered. The Senator from Virginia may proceed.
  Mr. ROBB. Thank you, Mr. President.

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