[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 203 (Monday, December 18, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S18810-S18811]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          THE BALANCED BUDGET

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I have listened with a great deal of 
interest to my good friend, the distinguished Senator from Utah, and my 
friend from Iowa as well, talk about the challenges that we are facing 
on the balanced budget.
  I am always mindful of the fact that under the recommendations of 
President Clinton in 1993 we saw an $800 billion reduction in our 
deficit. So we have someone who has been serious about trying to do 
something and has a record of achievement.
  Still out there--in terms of the proposals that are advanced by our 
good friends and colleagues--I was listening carefully to see if they 
would talk about their tax cut of $245 billion and the additional kinds 
of costs that are going to be out there for our elderly people of $275 
billion. That is still out there, and still on the table. It is a 
central part of the differences which are out there. The fact that 
there are those on the other side of the aisle that want to use those 
Medicare savings for tax breaks for the wealthiest individuals has been 
talked about. It is an issue. We do not hear a great deal of discussion 
about it on the Senate floor today, or this afternoon, or even by the 
negotiators, and the benefits that will go to the wealthiest 
individuals.
  Also, there is a significant tax increase. We do not hear very much 
about that. Who is the tax increase on? It is on those workers who are 
making $28,000 a year or less. We hear often expressed here on the 
floor of the Senate by our good Republican friends saying let us get 
more money and put it in the pockets of the people at home who know 
better how to spend it than the Federal Government. I do not understand 
why that argument does not go for working families in this country, 
those that want to work and provide for their families. They have some 
EITC, the earned income tax credit, basically trying to help working 
families who are moving out of the challenges of the economic 
stagnation which is taking place today to help offset some of the 
increases in Social Security and Medicare figures--some $32 billion to 
$34 billion tax increase on those working families. We do not hear very 
much about that.

  That really gets to the heart of the difference. That is, can we have 
a program--and I believe that we can--that will balance the budget in 7 
years, and also meet the fundamental test of fairness.
  As the President has pointed out, and any one of us can point out, 
anyone can reach a balanced budget just by slashing and cutting--
cutting Medicare, cutting Social Security. Oh, yes. That is what we are 
doing in cutting Social Security when we talk about collapsing the COLA 
for our senior citizens. That is what we are talking about. We are 
talking about real cuts in Social Security--cutting back on the 
protection for children, cutting back on the nutrition program, cutting 
back in immunization programs, cutting back on day care programs for 
working families that are trying to make ends meet. This is about 
priorities. I think that the President has stated not just his 
priorities but the American people's priorities in terms of placing 
high on that list of priorities the interest of our seniors who receive 
Medicare.
  Let us not forget about the average person that receives Medicare is 
73 years old, more likely than not a widow, is receiving about $10,000 
a year of which their health care costs are about 20 percent of that 
out of pocket, living alone with diabetes or arthritis and probably 
very cold alone over these past few weeks, when we were trying to find 
some release and opportunity if they are living in the colder parts of 
this country because of the drop in temperature and the failure of 
funding the fuel assistance program. Eighty percent of that fuel 
assistance goes to families with $10,000 a year or less in income.

  That is who we are talking about. Those are real families. Those are 
real people. I am worried about the stock market, but, quite frankly, I 
am worried about the senior citizens. I am worried about the children. 
I am worried about the young people who want to try to go on and 
receive an education. I am concerned about that worker, to make sure 
that work is going to be respected and recognized and rewarded here in 
the United States. We have done that under Republicans and Democrats in 
the past.
  Yet, we are seeing all of those interests challenged under the 
proposal basically, what I consider a scorched-Earth policy in terms of 
the Republican balanced budget amendment. I think all of us welcome the 
new opportunities and the new advances that the President is making. I 
was listening to the importance of maybe staying here New Year's Eve. 
Many of us were meeting all afternoon on Sunday and Saturday as well in 
trying to find some common ground. That is certainly what the President 
is interested in. We joined 

[[Page S18811]]
with him in trying to find that ground, and I think important progress 
has been made.
  But it will be useful to find out, quite frankly, in the various 
actions that are taken by the majority in this Congress about how they 
are holding the 250,000 workers, Federal workers hostage to these 
negotiations. They are innocent bystanders trying to do a good day's 
work in servicing people in this country and yet they are the ones who 
are left out and left behind through no fault of their own, many of 
them with long and distinguished careers and a commitment to public 
service. They effectively are being told, no, we are going to hold them 
hostage until they are going to finally yield to our position.
  That I think is one that the country does not find to be 
satisfactory. What they want is action; that is what is needed at this 
time, but action that is going to preserve the best of our values and 
priorities. And those priorities are expressed in respecting the 
elderly people who have made this country the great country it is.
  And the principal reason for that is very simple. It is a recognition 
that when people get on into their golden years, their incomes are 
going to go down and their health needs are going to go up. It is true 
today. It was true in 1965 and 1964 when Democratic administrations 
battled for it. It is true today.
  To put those seniors at risk is not in the interest of this Nation, 
and the budget can be balanced without doing that. We do not have to 
sacrifice the interests of working families by escalating their tax 
obligations through increased taxes in the EITC. We do not have to put 
at risk further the children of this Nation with the cutbacks in 
support programs for Head Start, the programs that reach out to the 
schools, that help with math and science. We do not have to cut back 
for the sons and daughters of working families that want to go on to 
their universities and schools across this country. We should not kill 
their hopes and dreams. We know that every dollar that is cut in 
education will be repaid three or four times with additional kinds of 
social service. We know that the best investment that this country made 
was in the cold war GI bill. For every dollar invested in the education 
of those veterans that came from all parts of the country, men and 
women alike, was $8 returned to the Treasury--a pretty sound 
investment. Nonetheless, the budget of the other side cuts those 
programs.

  All we are saying is, sure, we can reach the common ground, but we 
also have to reach it in preserving the kind of priorities that the 
American family holds dear.
  We have in the Chamber this evening, I see my friend and colleague, 
Senator Wellstone, who was really the leader in the Senate in making 
sure that scarce resources were advanced out to the senior citizens and 
needy families all over this country. I can say to him and to President 
Clinton that New Englanders, whether they are in Maine, New Hampshire, 
Vermont, Massachusetts, throughout New England, so many families 
tonight know they are going to have a better, warmer Christmas because 
of the release by the President, letting forth the low-income fuel 
assistance, which is of such desperate importance.
  How tragic it was to be reminded just the other day, once again, in 
our forums that we have held on some of these cutbacks of the children. 
The schoolteachers testified a noticeable body-weight reduction in 
children happens every single year as the temperature decreases. You 
can almost measure the impact on children in many of the schools in the 
neediest parts of the country, in rural and urban areas. The weight 
goes down. The children are not being fed. The choice is being made at 
home between food on the table and heat for those children.
  In the testimony by some of those wonderful teachers in a number of 
different schools they talked about how at this time of the year, when 
the cold comes, they are followed up and down the corridors, small 
children grabbing their hands and asking whether they have something to 
eat and if that individual teacher has more. They say, can you give us 
something more because I have a brother or sister home.
  That is happening. That is happening. And we went to briefings today 
in terms of where the nutrition program is going. It is going down, not 
up. It is going to make the problem more intense, not less.
  So for those who have slick, easy, quick answers for these issues, I 
hope they will think hard and long about these judgments and these 
decisions.
  Finally, Mr. President, as one, like 99 others, who cares deeply 
about this arrangement, I am troubled by the fact that we are not 
having really the fair allocation of belt tightening across this 
country as we will see over the period of the 7 years--$400 million 
which is in there today, in the budget in terms of tax expenditures. 
Others call that corporate welfare. That will go up $4.4 trillion over 
the next 7 years--$4.4 trillion--and the various proposals that are 
going to be advanced before us are going to index that so that every 
single tax loophole can be preserved over that period of time.

  Sure, we are going to try to find $30 or $40 billion, and that is 
certainly a worthwhile effort, but we are talking about $4.4 trillion. 
We are quite prepared to index all those tax revenues, including the 
billionaire's tax loophole. Those are the billionaires that renounce 
their citizenship so they can avoid paying taxes.
  We voted on that on two different occasions with over 90 Democrats 
and Republicans. Pull that out of the balance. Pull that out of the 
budget. The door is hardly closed in that conference when they put it 
right back in. You wonder how we are going to do the public's business 
on some of this. There is no indication that they are prepared to drop 
that provision, no suggestion that they are prepared to try to do 
something about Medicare; that they are trying to do something about 
children; that they are trying to do something about these priorities.
  So we understand the complexities and the difficulties that the 
President has, and he is working through those and doing it with the 
interests and the needs of the American people in mind. But it is one 
that bears careful watching and defies an easy and simple solution.

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