[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 206 (Thursday, December 21, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S19077-S19078]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        A BIPARTISAN GROUP UNVEILS A PLAN TO BALANCE THE BUDGET

  Mr. CHAFEE. First of all, I thank the Senator from Nevada for 
permitting us to go ahead of him. That was very gracious.
  This morning, a bipartisan group of Senators--19 in all--unveiled a 
plan to balance the budget by the year 2002, using CBO, Congressional 
Budget Office, numbers. The group, which Senator Breaux and I had 
convened several weeks ago--actually, we had our first meeting in 
October--includes, as I say, so far, 19 Senators. That is without going 
out and seeking new Members. It is just those who have come to us and 
want to join in this effort.
  We are all united in this belief, Mr. President: It is absolutely 
essential that this Nation have a balanced budget by the year 2002, and 
that it will be impossible to achieve that budget unless those on both 
sides of the aisle are prepared to compromise. This is the essence of 
the effort of this group of Republicans and Democrats who are getting 
together for a common objective.
  The Senate bipartisan balanced budget plan is a huge step forward on 
the path to this budget agreement. It represents, I might say, Mr. 
President, the first truly bipartisan proposal to balance the budget. 
There are other groups in the House that are working, but they do not 
include Members of both sides. It was made possible, this agreement, 
only because both sides were willing to compromise on some very 
strongly held beliefs. We did this for the good of this country of 
ours. This is especially true with the compromising aspects with 
respect to the issues of Medicare and tax cuts. I am grateful to the 
Democrats in our group for their willingness to go with the CBO 
numbers. They agreed to that before it became accepted by the White 
House. This was a big step for the Democratic Members of our group.
  Now, undoubtedly, this plan will cause consternation on the 
Democratic side with number, and on the Republican side with some. But 
we are committed to reaching this balanced budget, free of gimmickry, 
and we are doing it for the welfare of future generations, for our 
children and our grandchildren.
  To those who disagree with our numbers, let me say this, Mr. 
President, and to those who think they can do a better job: Go to it. 
We welcome their efforts. All I ask is they do it with a bipartisan 
group, not just one group from one side and one group from the other. 
Sure, we can come out on the Republican side with a massive tax cut and 
tremendous slashes in Medicare, for example. But try that on the 
Democratic side and see how it goes. So the essence of this was that we 
had Members from both sides.

  Mr. President, this plan is intended to demonstrate to the 
negotiators on both sides that, one, it is essential to compromise and, 
two, that it can be done. It is a doable task. No one should throw up 
their hands in despair and say the sides are too far apart.
  What did we do? There were significant steps taken to control the 
growth of Medicare and other entitlements. Our plan calls for Medicare 
savings of $154 billion, with a strong commitment from everybody in the 
group that the part B premiums stay at 31.5 percent, with affluence 
testing for those above the regular brackets, and also means testing 
for those who are in the lower-income areas--and they might well 
qualify for paying less than 31.5 percent.
  We have agreed to conform the retirement age for Medicare with that 
of Social Security--namely, age 67. This is something that is going to 
take place in the future and will not contribute any dollars to the 7-
year plan. But we feel it is critical to include this needed long-term 
entitlement reform.
  On Medicaid, we have savings of $67 billion. Underlying this number 
is a view that we should preserve the Federal entitlement for our most 
vulnerable citizens, while, at the same time, we provided the States 
with broad flexibility to administer the program. This is, again, not 
going to make everybody happy, but it was something that we all agreed 
to.
  We have agreed to $130 billion in tax cuts. We did not delineate how 
the tax cuts would be. We left that to the negotiators. We did not say 
X amount for capital gains cuts or Y amount for a child tax credit. We 
have chosen to reduce the CPI, Consumer Price Index, by .5 percent, 
which gives us $110 billion in additional savings.
  Frankly, we did this because we have had all kinds of testimony 
before the Finance Committee, which stated that the present CPI is a 
flawed measurement and should be adjusted actually beyond the .5 
percent. It should be as high as .7 percent, or indeed some economists 
say as high as 2 percent. We also included $58 billion in savings under 
welfare, which assumes the Senate-passed welfare reform bill. On 
discretionary reductions, we came in slightly below the so-called hard 
freeze--namely, no increase for inflation over the 7-year period.
  Finally, Mr. President, we support the immediate adoption of a clean 
continuing resolution, on a short-term basis, until sometime next week, 
to get people back to work and get these budget negotiations back on 
track.
  Mr. President, this is not a perfect plan, and it is not offered in 
the sense that we are budget negotiators. It is an illustration that a 
responsible balanced budget agreement using CBO numbers is doable. I 
hope it will help our negotiators as they go about the difficult task 
of securing a final budget accord.
  Mr. President, I am delighted to be joined here on the floor with the 
distinguished Senator from Louisiana, who was absolutely crucial in all 
these negotiations that we had.
  I yield the floor to him.
  Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, at a time when most Americans believe that 
many Members of Congress ruined this Christmas season, and are probably 
on the verge of killing each other because we have not been able to 
agree on the principles and even how to keep the Government open, I 
want to say what a great privilege and pleasure it is to be able to 
work with the senior Senator from the State of Rhode Island. His 
wisdom, his experience, his knowledge, his compassion for people, and 
yet his dedication to making Government work really is a pleasure to 
me, as a Democratic Member on this side of the aisle, to be able to 
work with a person of great common sense and great compassion and just 
common sense that understands that in order to make Government work 
there is such a thing as the art of compromise. That makes sense.
  I think we have gotten to a point in this Congress where the word 
compromise is almost a dirty word that you should never utter for fear 
of moving away from the party principles. All of us who have been here 
longer than 12 months have to understand the way to get things done is 
to put forth the best ideas from both sides of the aisle and recognize 
that on difficult issues that those principles that we stand for need 
not be compromised, but how to get to those goals in fact does 
necessitate 

[[Page S19078]]
compromise if we are ever going to make Government work.
  Unfortunately, there are some who do not want to make Government work 
who have been elected to the Congress who are more concerned with 
shutting it down in order to make a point than in being willing to 
negotiate and talk with the other side and compromise with the other 
side in an effort to reach a legitimate compromise.
  I think there is enough blame to go around. This is not a partisan 
statement at all. In fact, it is the opposite. I think both sides have 
had various Members at various times stake out lines in the sand and 
say we will not go any further than this, but there is a consequence to 
those type of speeches. The consequence is that the American people are 
shouting. They are not whispering any longer. They are shouting, 
``Enough is enough. We have sent all of you here, Democrats and 
Republicans, to make Government work, not to shut it down, not to close 
the doors on the services that people need, not to make political 
points.''
  That is what elections are about. After you are here, it is about 
service, and after you are here it is about making Government work for 
the people that elected us. We are at a point now where we are, both 
sides, losing the faith of the American people to do exactly what we 
are supposed to be doing.

  That is why the press conference that we had this morning, Senator 
Chafee and myself, accompanied by about 19 Members, 18, 19, 20--half 
and half; half Democrats and half Republicans--who stood up and said, 
we have heard the pleas of the American people to get the job done. We 
have heard the pleas of our constituents who have said ``Stop the 
madness. Make Government work again. Trust us to accept your judgment 
when you reach a compromise,'' and we presented that plan. It is a 
blueprint. It is an outline. It has specific numbers on how to reach a 
balanced budget in 7 years, scored by the CBO in a way that is not 
everything that both sides would want, but I think reflects a fair 
middle ground.
  We have called for a continuing resolution. This is a bipartisan 
group that says we should continue the Government so we can have the 
negotiators work without the pressure of having the Government shut 
down. This is Republicans and Democrats saying, at the same time, and 
in the same forum, we need a simple continuing resolution, uncluttered, 
give us until January 15th so the negotiators can work in peace and do 
the job that they are supposed to do. A very important point, the first 
time that a bipartisan group has said that.
  Second, this group has called for tax cuts. These tax cuts are 
smaller than many Republicans would like but at the same time these tax 
cuts are larger than many Democrats would like. But it is a tax cut, a 
significant tax cut, which is designed to increase growth and 
productivity and savings in this country.
  The second thing we do is we say there will have to be more cuts in 
entitlement programs--propose less cuts than Republicans would like and 
certainly more cuts than Democrats would like. But we are recommending 
that there be entitlement cuts to these programs to restore their 
solvency, to assure they will be around for the next generation, 
recognizing that to do that we have to have some significant reforms.
  Mr. President, what we have offered is a blueprint. Part of that 
blueprint is something that some people think is so horribly 
controversial that we cannot even utter the word except in closeted 
surroundings, and that is an adjustment in the Consumer Price Index. 
Every economic expert, the people that read numbers every day and wear 
the green eyeshades and look at how much it costs to buy a typical 
basket of groceries, have told the Congress that we overestimate the 
Consumer Price Index, and taxes are indexed to that. Entitlement 
increases are indexed to that. But the index needs to be adjusted.
  You would think that that is not too difficult a thing to do. But our 
side does not want to go first because people will say it is a tax 
increase or a cut in entitlement programs. Republicans do not want to 
go first because of the same reason. So as a result, nothing gets done. 
Our side stood up today in a public forum and said yes, we think it 
ought to be fixed. It is broken. The suggestion is that there be a .5 
percent adjustment in the Consumer Price Index, which will generate 
about $110 billion over the next 7 years that we can use for programs 
that need greater funding, that will meet the needs of the people of 
this country.
  I will conclude by saying this: Mr. Chafee has offered some real 
leadership here, and the other Republicans who have joined him have 
said, yes, it is time to recognize that compromise is all the way out. 
So we call for a truce today. We called for a ``stop the shouting and 
stop the blame game'' today. It was a significant statement. The 
product that we have put on the table, I think, is one that makes 
sense. It may not be the final answer, but it certainly offers a 
blueprint for us to get out of the mess that we are in.
  We would hope that our colleagues will take a look at the product. I 
hope the negotiators will consider it as we present it to them this 
afternoon. I think the negotiations are going well. And hopefully, with 
a continuing resolution, they will have adequate time to get the job 
done. I yield the floor.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I want to thank the distinguished Senator 
from Louisiana for the kind comments. It was a joint leadership. He was 
kind enough to say it was my leadership. No, no, it was the joint 
leadership in which we shared the responsibilities and the effort 
together, Senator Breaux and I, and we certainly had wonderful support 
from everybody involved.
  Mr. President, the agreement that we submitted today in the press 
conference and have outlined here on the floor was remarkable for this 
fact: Everybody agreed on every point. Now, that does not mean we 
started that way, but when we finished people did not say, ``Well, I am 
for points 1 through 4 but include me out on points 5, 6 and 7. But I 
am there for points 8, 9, and 10.'' Everybody signed on for all of the 
points. That was tough. It was tough for the Democrats to go to the 
$140,000 tax cut; it was tough for the Republicans to agree on the 
Medicare cut. We think we could have done better on the Medicare cut. 
We do not use the word ``cut''; ``reduction in the rate of increase.''
  In order to reach an agreement we all compromised. I think it was a 
wonderful effort, and along with the Senator from Louisiana, I commend 
it to our colleagues and hope they take a good look at it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order the Senator from 
Nevada is now recognized.
  Mr. CONRAD. Will the Senator from Nevada yield to me for just 2 
minutes?
  Mr. REID. As soon as I yield to the Senator from West Virginia for 
whatever time he may consume, as long as I do not lose my right to the 
floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Senator from West Virginia.

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