[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 1 (Wednesday, January 3, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S21-S22]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          TWO SIMPLE STEPS TO BALANCING THE BUDGET IN 7 YEARS

  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, the shutdown of the U.S. Government is 
becoming a crisis. A recent article in the New York Times carried this 
headline: ``Judge Says Budget Impasse Could Shut Nation's Courts.'' The 
article reported that:

       A senior judge who represents the policymaking board of the 
     Federal judiciary today warned that the budget stalemate 
     might force the nation's courts to shut down shortly after 
     New Year's Day.

  Mr. President, this is unthinkable. It is time to settle, and a 
settlement ought to be within reach. Here are two simple steps that I 
propose be taken immediately to break the stalemate and balance the 
Federal budget in 7 years:
  First, drop the tax cut; and second, a 1-percentage point correction 
in the Consumer Price Index.
  Under the President's December 1995 budget as scored by CBO, these 
two steps get you to a balanced budget in the year 2002. It's as simple 
as that, It's doable and ought to be done, and it ought to be done now.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a table entitled ``Two 
Simple Steps to Balancing the Budget in Seven Years,'' and the article 
from the New York Times of December 23, be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                               TWO SIMPLE STEPS TO BALANCING THE BUDGET IN 7 YEARS                              
                                    [By fiscal year, in billions of dollars]                                    
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     1996     1997     1998     1999     2000     2001     2002 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Deficit under administration's proposal as                                                                      
 estimated by CBO................................      148      162      155      148      145      130      115
Drop Tax Cut.....................................       -3      -13      -14      -16      -22      -24      -25
CPI minus one percentage point...................       -5      -15      -26      -37      -51      -66      -82
Additional savings on debt service...............  .......       -1       -1       -2       -3       -4       -6
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Deficit Disappears...........................      140      133      114       93       69       36        2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


       Compiled by Senate Finance Committee Democratic staff from 
     CBO estimates.

       January 2, 1996.

                [From the New York Times, Dec. 23, 1995]

          Judge Says Budget Impasse Could Shut Nation's Courts

                      (By Robert D. Hershey, Jr.)

       Washington, December 22.--A senior judge who represents the 
     policy-making board of the Federal judiciary today warned 
     that the budget stalemate might force the nation's courts to 
     shut down shortly after New Year's Day.
       Gilbert S. Merritt, the chief judge of the United States 
     Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, said in an interview 
     that ``a breakdown in constitutional order'' could occur if 
     money was not authorized soon.
       His warning came as an additional 20,000 workers were 
     ordered off the job today, bringing the total number of 
     furloughed Federal workers to 280,000, about one in seven 
     people on the Government's nonmilitary payroll. The partial 
     shutdown reached its seventh day today, surpassing the six-
     day shutdown that involved 800,000 workers in mid-November 
     and making it the longest on record.
       The White House and Congress are trading accusations over 
     who is more to blame for the deadlock. The shutdown results 
     from their inability to agree on several spending bills 
     needed to finance Government operations in the fiscal year 
     that began on Oct. 1. Meanwhile, they are also arguing about 
     legislation to balance the Federal budget by the year 2002.
       The White House has issued a six-page list of Government 
     functions suspended by the budget deadlock, ranging from 
     granting farmers special permission to use restricted 

[[Page S22]]
     pesticides on crops to the reimbursement of banks for Government-
     guaranteed loans that have defaulted.
       Judge Merritt's warning came in a separate statement. The 
     840 Federal judges would remain available for work, he said, 
     but it is unlikely that the courts would continue to be 
     staffed by clerical, probation and security personnel.
       ``The judges cannot run the court system alone,'' said 
     Judge Merritt, who sits in Nashville. ``And if the judiciary 
     shuts down, you can't arrest people for Federal crimes 
     because you can't bring them to court.''
       Republicans said the White House was to blame for the 
     problems. ``President Clinton shut down the Government,'' 
     said Michele Davis, spokeswoman for Representative Dick Armey 
     of Texas, the House majority leader. ``He vetoed three bills 
     last week that would have reopened'' national parks, museums 
     and monuments, and restored the missing services, she added.
       The shutdown of the national parks forced the cancellation 
     today of the first of the annual Bracebridge dinners at 
     Yosemite National Park in California. Bracebridge, an 
     Ahwahnee Hotel tradition since 1927, recreates a Renaissance 
     feast and includes an eight-course meal.
       About 1,650 guests, picked by lottery from among 60,000 
     requests, were turned away after park rangers closed the 
     gates to Yosemite on Wednesday.
       Although the Clinton Administration cited various aspects 
     of law enforcement among its examples of lapsed activity, it 
     did not mention the threat Judge Merritt found to the 
     judiciary.
       ``If this goes into the first week in January, we are going 
     to have a serious problem,'' the judge said in the interview. 
     He spoke as the chairman of the steering committee of the 
     Judicial Conference, the policy-making body of Federal 
     judges.
       Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist has long urged Congress 
     to consider a separate financing bill for the judiciary, but 
     there has been no response so far, the judge said. The 
     judiciary is now running on funds it gets from fees, which 
     are not allocated to any specific year's budget and which it 
     is allowed to spend on its own. But this money will soon run 
     out, Judge Merritt said.
       The White House list included such highly visible examples 
     of service loss as 23,000 passport applications not being 
     accepted on the average day, 383,000 daily visitors affected 
     by the closing of the national parks and 92,400 people in 
     Washington denied admittance to the Smithsonian museums, the 
     National Zoo and the National Gallery of Art.
       Among other effects of the shutdown on the list were these:
       Suspension of activity involving sales of timber from 
     national forests.
       No processing by the Federal Housing Administration of 
     2,500 home purchase loans and refinancing.
       Suspension of civil enforcement actions by the 
     Environmental Protection Agency, except for Superfund cases, 
     that yield an average of $3 million a day in fines or 
     injunctive relief against polluters.
       No processing of 20,000 applications a day for student 
     loans or Pell grants.
       Blockage of more than $92 million a day in foreign sales 
     because of the closure of the center that licenses exports of 
     military items and sensitive technology.
       In a related development, the Bureau of Labor Statistics 
     said that publication of the Producer Price Index and the 
     Consumer Price Index, scheduled for Jan. 11 and Jan. 12, 
     respectively, would be delayed about a week even if 
     furloughed employees returned to work by Tuesday. And 
     employment figures for December scheduled to be made public 
     on Jan. 5, will be delayed if workers do not return by 
     Tuesday.
       ``The absence of this information potentially could create 
     a degree of short-term paralysis in decision making with 
     resulting long-term adverse effects on the nation's economic 
     well-being,''' said Commissioner Katharine G. Abraham. ``For 
     example, companies could delay investment or hiring 
     decisions, causing a decline in output and national income.''

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