Congressional Record, Volume 142 Issue 68 (Wednesday, May 15, 1996)

[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 68 (Wednesday, May 15, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5025-S5044]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Inhofe). Under the previous order, the
Senate will now proceed to consideration of Senate Concurrent
Resolution 57, which the clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

A concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 57) setting forth the
congressional budget for the United States Government for
fiscal years 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002.

The Senate proceeded to consider the concurrent resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.

Privilege Of The Floor

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I send to the desk a list of majority
and minority staff members and ask unanimous consent they be granted
the privilege of the floor at various times at the option of the
manager and the ranking member.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The list is as follows:

Majority Staff

Brian Benczkowski, Jim Capretta, Amy Call, Lisa Cieplak,
Christy Dunn, Beth Felder, Alice Grant, Jim Hearn, Keith
Hennessey, William Hoagland.
Carol McGuire, Anne Miller, Mieko Nakabayashi, Denise G.
Ramonas, Cheri Reidy, Ricardo Rel, Karen Ricoy, J. Brian
Riley, Mike Ruffner.
Melissa Sampson, Andrea Shank, Amy Smith, Austin Smythe,
Bob Stevenson, Beth Wallis, Winslow Wheeler (detailee).

Minority Staff

Amy Abraham, Kenneth Colling (fellow), Bill Dauster, Tony
Dresden, Jodi Grant, Matt Greenwald, Joan Huffer, Phil
Karsting, Jim Klumpner, Soo Jin Kwon.
Daniela Mays, Sue Nelson, Jon Rosenwasser (fellow), Jerry
Slominski, Barry Strumpf.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, again in behalf of the majority leader,
I ask unanimous consent that the presence of small electronic
calculators be permitted on the floor of the Senate during
consideration of the 1997 concurrent resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DOMENICI. Now, Mr. President, as I understand it, there are 50
hours of debate on this resolution. Unless it is agreed to add
additional time, each amendment is given 1 hour for the amendment, 1
hour in opposition to the amendment. Amendments to the amendments have
one-half hour, and one-half hour in opposition.
The Budget Act prescribes that opening statements will utilize 4
hours on economics, and that will be the opening of the budget debate.
I am not so sure we are going to use all that time, but I would like to
engage in a dialog with the ranking member, if he would, at this point.
Senator Exon, I note, and I think you would concur, this is a rather
exceptional year in that there are three full budgets that will be
offered to the Senate: There is the Republican budget that is pending,
encapsulated in the

[[Page S5026]]

resolution; there is a bipartisan proposal, led by Senators Chafee and
Breaux, which is a full substitute for the Republican proposal; and
then there is a third proposal, which I assume you or someone on your
side will offer, which is the President's budget, which, again, is a
full substitute for the Republican plan. Also, obviously, there are
many amendments that Members on your side and our side would like to
offer, either to the Republican budget resolution or to one or the
other of the other full budgets that I have just briefly described.
It had been my hope, and I share this with you to see what your
thoughts are, that we could use the 4 hours allowed for economic
discussion, 2 on each side, and then proceed with amendments to the
Republican budget for the remainder of the day--we ought to get a lot
of them in if we can do that--and that we then, late this evening, take
an accounting for ourselves and see where we are, and that at a later
time in this debate we take the full budgets that are offered as full
substitutes to the Domenici mark. So at some point you would offer the
President's and, some time thereafter, Senators Chafee and Breaux, or
Breaux and Chafee, would offer theirs.
I think we had a very good spirit of cooperation in the committee. I
am just hoping that between us we can get our Members to start sending
their amendments to us so we will know where we are going. I can say
unequivocally--I heard from the leader yesterday and I read a statement
this morning--we are going to finish this this week. I see no reason to
go into Friday night and Saturday if we can work together to kind of
organize, as best we can, our colleagues in their presentations.
I yield at this point for your thoughts or observations, if you would
share them with me.
Mr. EXON. I thank my friend, the chairman of the committee, for his
remarks and outline. Generally speaking, I do not know that I have any
serious reservations. I think the chairman of the committee has
basically stated what should be the procedure. I have a caveat to that
that I will mention in just a moment. I simply say that I agree that
even though we have 25 hours on each side--and while you have not said
that, I understand the intent is the 25 hours on your side would be
controlled by the majority leader or his designee, which would normally
be you, and the same thing would be true on our side with the minority
leader and myself as the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee. Is
that the way? Would we follow usual procedures in that regard?
Mr. DOMENICI. Yes.
Mr. EXON. I see no reason why we should not head for, and very likely
can, finish this by Friday late, if not sooner. I say to my friend, in
the 4 hours set aside for economic discussions, I do not anticipate we
would use all of our 2 hours on this side, although no one ever knows
what happens for sure in the U.S. Senate.
I simply say, as I listened to the opening remarks from the chairman
of the committee, if he felt we would likely only have amendments to
the Republican measure today, I had intended at a very early time to
offer the President's budget, which we offered very early in the
procedure in the committee, as you will remember, and we would not
agree in advance to any extensive delay in our desire to offer the
President's budget, which very likely would be the first action on this
side. And so I would like to advise the leader of that.

Mr. DOMENICI. First of all, let me indicate, the leader has already
indicated that I am his designee to manage this bill and allocate the
time. From time to time, as you will, I will give that to some other
Senator who will manage in my stead.
Mr. EXON. We will follow the same procedure here.
Mr. DOMENICI. Let me tell you one thing I failed to mention by way of
trying to reach some accord. It is my commitment and desire, and I hope
you will cooperate--I think there is no reason why we should not do
this. Senator Grassley has requested and I have agreed that his
amendment with reference to defense will be the first amendment
offered, and it addresses the pending resolution.
So sometime after our opening remarks and some discussions on the
economics, I will clearly ask that he be the first one, and I think you
will not have any objection.
Mr. EXON. I think it should be a foregone conclusion that whatever
the procedure, that you on that side and myself on this side will make
the final determination of what will be the order of filing amendments.
Certainly you have every right to recognize Senator Grassley for the
first remarks on that side.
What I have indicated is when our time comes, it is very likely that
the first action on this side will be the offering of the President's
budget as a substitute. I just want to alert you to that.
Mr. DOMENICI. You do not intend to have other amendments that address
themselves either to our budget or other things before you offer the
full budget?
Mr. EXON. That is my present plan, although we have not locked in
anything.
Mr. DOMENICI. I just thought it might be interesting, from the
standpoint of understanding, if we got some of the amendments out of
the way and we were looking at three full budgets and debating them in
a sequence which would permit us to see them all kind of one, two,
three. But you have every right to do that. So why do we not proceed.
Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President: Is it correct, under the Budget
Act, that there are now 4 hours equally divided, minus the time we have
used, I guess, after the opening statements?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes, that is correct.
Mr. EXON. May I inquire further along those lines. If, after the
opening statements by the managers, and we are into the 4-hour period
that has just been referenced by the leader of the committee, we
jointly agree or should jointly agree to yield back any remaining
time--in other words, suppose we have an hour on each side or an hour
on that side and half an hour on this side, whatever it is, we can
hopefully work to expedite the procedures----
Mr. DOMENICI. Absolutely.
Mr. EXON. And I am sure you would agree.
Mr. DOMENICI. I agree.
Mr. EXON. If we can take that 4 hours and get it down to 1 or 1\1/2\,
that is our goal.
Mr. DOMENICI. We are going to try to make it less than the 4 hours.
We have a few Senators who want to speak on this subject, and they are
going to be given that opportunity. And then we will get off that as
soon as we can.
I thank Senator Exon for his cooperative spirit this morning. I hope
we can do that all the way through the next 3 days.
Mr. President, we begin again today a debate that some might think
has not yet ended and others might think never ends. To my friend, the
ranking member of the Budget Committee, I know this is the last budget
resolution he will manage on the Senate floor. I will have more to say
about Senator Exon at the end of these remarks, but he knows the work
we are about today and probably for the rest of this week. It is very
serious work. It is work that will directly affect our country's
future.
In many ways, the work we are about today is a continuation of our
efforts of the last year to find a way to balance our Federal budget
early in the next century and, in doing that, to look through the
budget of the United States and find some areas where we are going to
have real trouble down the line if we do not make some reforms and
changes now.

In other ways, the work we are about here today builds on the
successful efforts last year to reduce spending and put us on a path to
a balanced budget. I think the fact has been lost in the heated debates
last winter that we did reduce spending on appropriated accounts to the
levels assumed in last year's budget resolution.
Largely because of those successes in the appropriated accounts, we
are able to continue our goal of reaching balance in 2002 as originally
planned. Obviously, our work is to achieve that goal, that goal which
would have been made easier had the President signed the Balanced
Budget Act of 1995 instead of vetoing it last December. But because the
President vetoed that legislation, which we worked so hard to

[[Page S5027]]

enact last year, we find ourselves back here today. A little
discouraged perhaps, but not daunted at all in our effort and our
endeavor, because this issue is not going to go away and the American
public demands that we balance spending and revenues at the earliest
possible time.
While some things will surely seem not to have changed from last year
as the debate progresses, in other ways things will have changed
significantly since 1 year ago.
First, one big change is that the President, after nine attempts, has
now, at least on paper, with some major gimmicks, figured out a way to
present what he claims to be a balanced budget plan. We will have a lot
more to say about the President's so-called balanced budget plan, and I
sincerely look forward to debating it.
But let me say at the outset, however, that I have known smoke-and-
mirrors budgets and I have known real budget plans, and I do not
hesitate to award the President, the President's so-called balanced
budget plan this year with an Oscar for the best acting in fiction.
Second, another big change this year, we will have a third budget
plan to debate. I think that is exciting. The bipartisan budget plan to
be offered by Senators Chafee and Breaux is a real budget plan. Again,
I look forward to debating that plan.
Unlike the President's, which is a hoax of a budget, I want to
compliment the group of Senators who have worked hard this last year to
put together a real budget, certainly not a smoke-and-mirrors budget
like the President's plan. Unfortunately, the bipartisan plan does not
achieve balance in 2002, and I have some concerns about elements of
that plan that we will debate later. But this is a welcome change from
a year ago when Republicans stood here on the floor alone and offered
the only real balanced plan for the American people, the only one to be
on the floor of the Senate in almost four decades.
Mr. President, the Senate-reported budget resolution, the one before
us today, Senate Concurrent Resolution 57, offers America hope. It is
real--no smoke and mirrors. It recognizes the need to set priorities,
it makes tough decisions, or at least says to those who will follow
after it with legislation that they are compelled to make some tough
decisions, and it is realistic. It can be done. It needs to be done.
This is a budget designed to help working American families, to make
them more secure, secure in their homes, in their communities, and in
their jobs.

It offers them a more efficient Government, one dedicated to economic
growth and security, support for our children and lower taxes on
American families.
The resolution before us today recognizes the very simple notion that
our Government cannot simply go on spending our children's money. It is
good medicine for our Nation and it is designed to prevent America's
children from having to swallow a poison pill of mounting Federal debt.
It is designed to prevent our Medicare system from going bankrupt in
just 5 years. It is designed to prevent a future of a crushing tax
burden on those just starting out in life.
The resolution before us, Mr. President, will strengthen America, it
will continue to build on our successes of last year, and change the
way our Government works, to make it more efficient, more responsive,
and less expensive.
Most importantly, it is a budget plan that will ensure a better
future for our children and our Nation. I said that last year; I
believed it then; I continue to believe it now. True leadership cannot
simply postpone this difficult work because it is an election year. The
problem will not go away simply because there is an election this fall.
The second balanced budget plan the Republicans have proposed in this
Congress is designed to return our Nation to fiscal reality and
preserve America as the land of opportunity, not only for now but for
future generations. In short, it reflects our commitment to fiscal
responsibility, generating economic growth, creating family wage jobs
and protecting the American dream for all our citizens young and old.
This budget will restore America's fiscal equilibrium. It will
balance the budget by the year 2002 without touching Social Security,
by ratcheting down the deficit by slowing the growth of Government
spending. But let me emphasize, Government spending will continue to
grow over the next 6 years. It is a budget which will reverse the tide
of 50 years of power that flowed from the rest of the country to
Washington.
We want to provide more freedom and opportunity to people at the
local level so they might have more control over the decisions on the
programs that affect their lives, affect their children, and affect
their communities.
Key changes are proposed to shrink the Federal bureaucracy to
terminate duplication in Government, to consolidate programs to improve
efficiency, and prioritize the limited resources we have. But at the
same time, we continue to support programs which provide needed
services to our citizens. We have been careful to preserve a safety net
for those truly in need.

We support programs aimed at keeping America safe, safe in their
homes, their schools, and their neighborhoods, by funding needed crime
programs and funding those parts of the U.S. Government that are
engaged day by day in fighting crime across America, such as the FBI,
the DEA, Border Patrol and the like.
The budget before us today provides $6.5 billion for environmental
protection, including increases of nearly $1 billion in the safe
drinking, Superfund and the environmental enforcement programs of EPA.
So in 1997 it cannot be said that this budget cuts environmental
spending. It does not. It increases environmental spending.
This budget moves toward protecting America's senior citizens. It
makes the Medicare trust fund solvent for 10 years, 1 decade. I regret
that I cannot stand here and say to the senior citizens of the United
States, we are going to make the trust fund solvent for 50 years. The
truth of the matter is, it is difficult to make it solvent for 10. And
we must at least do that.
I mention that the President's stated goal in his budget is solvency
of the trust fund through 2006, 10 years, the same goal as we have in
this budget resolution. The way we have solved it--that is, the budget
before us and the President's--is very different. We will have more to
say about this issue, a lot more during the debate.
But the Congressional Budget Office tells us very simply--question:
How much must we save in the trust fund to keep it solvent for 10
years? Their answer is: You need $123 billion of savings in the trust
funded portion of Medicare to meet the President's goal of 10 years.
That is what we have done. We have said, Medicare will be changed,
reformed, but there for every senior that wants it just like it is, but
the providers in that system, and through changing the program to offer
options, we must save $123 billion.
The President's budget, I regret to say, does not meet his goal. He
only extends the life of the trust fund for 1 additional year. This is
the President's first big gimmick, an unbelievable cruel hoax on senior
citizens, particularly those who depend upon home health care as part
of this system.
We protect, preserve and keep Medicare solvent for one decade. For
Medicare part B--all should know that when you speak of Medicare, there
are two pieces. One is a trust fund. Every working American puts money
in that trust fund. That is essentially the part that is an
encapsulated trust fund for the protection of senior citizens and their
health programs related to hospitalization and long-term home health
care. That is the part that is going bankrupt, and we will be there in
5 years unless we fix it. We have been told, to fix that part you must
reform it to save $123 billion.

The other part, frequently called part B, is an insurance program for
the rest of health care that is not provided in the trust fund. This
program is funded by general tax dollars, and there is no trust fund.
Seniors pay a portion of the insurance premium, and essentially it is
an insurance policy.
I want to make it absolutely clear, for part B we have taken the
President's proposed savings, $44 billion--we have heard all we can
take about Republicans and Medicare--and this year it is clear that we
are responding with 44 billion dollar's worth of savings in part B,
exactly the same number as the

[[Page S5028]]

President. But we are making the trust fund solvent in a real way with
no gimmicks and absolute integrity.
In our budget, so that everyone will understand the dimension of this
issue, we provide $1.46 trillion of Medicare spending over the next 6
years--$1.46 trillion. We propose to increase on each Medicare
beneficiary the amount of money spent from $5,300 per person today to
$7,000 per person in 2002. How can that be called a cut? You do the
arithmetic and it is a huge increase. If we were to provide these kinds
of increases anywhere else in any budget it would be impossible to
sustain it. In the case of seniors, we have a commitment. We want to
save the fund and maximize their coverage.
Our budget throws the Medicare trust fund a life preserver. The
President's budget throws Medicare overboard. We will have more to say
about how the President gets to his statement of 10 years of solvency
in part A of the trust fund as we move along.
Medicaid: Now, so everybody will understand, Medicare is for seniors;
Medicaid is a program of the U.S. Government, or I should say, a
composite of 23 programs that are put together to help poor people by
giving them health care, by paying their health care bills with certain
limitations and certain exceptions. This budget assumes we will spend
$731 billion on Medicaid over the next 6 years. This budget assumes the
implementation of the Medicaid reform plan as recommended unanimously
by a bipartisan group of Governors--that is, 48 Governors. We have
added back $54 billion in Medicaid spending compared with last year's
resolution. Mr. President, that is $36 billion of Medicaid spending,
compared with the Balanced Budget Act vetoed by the President. We are
anxious to get this Medicaid reform done. With the support of Democrat
and Republican Governors it can be done. The amount proposed for
savings is truly achievable.
Medicaid spending, Mr. President, will increase under this budget 46
percent over the next 6 years. How can that be called a cut? Medicaid
spending in this budget will increase by 46 percent over the next 6
years. This budget recognizes the need to overhaul America's
deteriorated welfare system. Funding levels in this resolution allow
Congress to send power back to the States as requested by the National
Governors' Association, by converting a failed AFDC Program, Aid for
Dependent Children Program, sometimes called the welfare program, into
a block grant with certain guarantees.
The resolution before the Senate assumes reforms in the food stamp
and child nutrition programs to slow the growth rate of spending in
those programs but maintains the entitlement to preserve a nutrition
safety net for children. It assumes funding targets on the severely
disabled in Supplemental Security Income Program.

This budget assumes funding from reforms to child enforcement
programs, to make deadbeat dads support their children instead of
making the Government, the taxpayer, hard-working families trying to
make a living, instead of asking them to do the supporting with tax
dollars. This assumes we will change the law, truly make deadbeat dads
pay their legally responsible child care and support.
This resolution assumes savings from restricting immigrants the
access to Government assistance programs to ensure that sponsors live
up to their promise not to allow immigrants to become a public charge.
Actually, very few Americans, and until lately, very few Senators, knew
that under our generous policy of family unification, for the last 15
years or so, American citizens have been busy bringing their relatives,
most of them elderly mothers, fathers and grandparents, to our country,
under our policy of unification, sign a certificate of support, for we
do not invite the unification so that the taxpayers can pay for the
support of these people that are brought to America to join in our
society and be part of their family.
It is incredible how that approach has degenerated into a program
where billions of American tax dollars are going to legal immigrants
who are brought here purposefully to avoid the certificate of support
and become wards of the Government. It is American history from our
inception. We have held a policy that we are not bringing aliens to
America to become wards of the public. That has fallen apart. We put it
back together in our assumptions here. Many of the assumptions were
realized in the votes on the immigration bill, Mr. President, as we
voted numerous times last week and the week before.
Finally, this budget provides $122 billion in tax relief for American
families through a $500 per child family tax credit. This will aid 52
million American children in 28 million families. I want to repeat, in
this budget resolution, the resolution itself says we will reduce the
amount of tax we take into the Treasury by $122 billion because we are
going to give 28 million American families, 52 million American
children, a chance to keep more of their money and spend it on their
needs. If ever the Tax Code of America went amiss and became
antifamily, it was when we lost our way and let the deduction for a
dependent child wither away from where it was in my day to where it is
today. What can be deducted as an expense of rearing a child is a mere
shadow of what it was in years past. Yet, we wonder why there is so
much strain and stress in families. We will not even be returning it to
its more wholesome day of profamily taxes, but we will make a giant
step when we say every parent with children under 18 will get a tax
deduction of $500. Their taxes will be reduced by $500 for each child.
What is wrong with that?
For those who want to stand on the floor of the Senate and talk about
this budget cutting something so we can pay for tax cuts, let me just
say I am very, very proud that we have made room in this budget for
this $500 child tax credit. For those who accuse us, let them stand up
and say they do not want to give the $500 tax credit. Under our plan, I
repeat, a family with two children under age 18 would receive $1,000 of
permanent tax relief.

In summary, on the $122 billion tax proposal in this resolution, we
have reduced Government spending from what it would be by $712 billion.
In doing that, we feel very positive about being able to say $122
billion is given back to the people rather than spent on more
Government.
In closing, let me say that I hope we can move, during the next 2\1/
2\ days, to enact this resolution, and then move toward implementing it
in the months of June and July. I believe this can be done. But if, for
some reason, we fail again to get the job done, I can only say that I
think the tide is turning, and we will be back again and, clearly,
sooner rather than later, we will do what is right.
Finally, I wish it were possible to have my friend and ranking
member, Senator Exon, join me in support of this last budget resolution
and his last budget resolution on the floor of the Senate. That is not
possible. But he will be convinced, maybe, on its merits, and as we
move through this debate, I just want to say that he has been a very
good ranking member and has spoken his party's case extremely well. I
believe it is fair to say that the two of us have done that, with
little rancor and, in my case, with great respect and admiration,
regardless of how it turns out in terms of where Senator Exon ends up
2\1/2\ days from now. I know that he feels very strongly about the need
to find a balance in Federal spending. He has been a long-time
supporter of the constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. He
supported the line-item veto legislation that was enacted recently. He
supported the unfunded mandates legislation voted out of our Budget
Committee earlier this year.
Obviously, in the years to come, if it is my privilege to be here on
the floor, I will miss him and I wish him well. We will have more to
say about that soon.
At this time, I yield the floor.
Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Campbell). The Chair recognizes the
ranking minority member, the Senator from Nebraska [Mr. Exon].
Mr. EXON. I thank the Chair. I thank my friend and colleague from New
Mexico for his most kind remarks. I appreciate them more than he knows.
When I came here 18 years ago, I sought a seat on the Budget
Committee and was granted one. I have served on the Budget Committee
the entire time I have been here. One of the stalwarts on that
committee on the other side of the aisle, whom I got to know initially
very well that first year on the Budget

[[Page S5029]]

Committee, was Pete Domenici. What he has just said means a great deal,
and I thank Senator Domenici for that. I have the highest respect for
his ability and his integrity, and I appreciate what he said about my
support.
I feel the same way about the Senator from New Mexico. We do not
always agree, and we cannot in this body. Sometimes it may be difficult
for people who do not understand the U.S. Senate to recognize and
realize that we can disagree on policy, we can disagree on numbers, and
we can speak very forcefully about that. That is the process. But as
far as personal esteem is concerned, there is no one in the U.S. Senate
whom I hold in more high personal esteem than I do my chairman, the
Republican Member, and the excellent floor manager of the measure
before us.
So in spite of what is said after that, I certainly want Senator
Domenici to know, as he already knows, that we are good friends, who
have high regard for each other personally. And in the difficult tasks
that face the Nation, here is where we come to some disagreement as to
how to reach the proper end that we both are seeking.
As Senator Domenici has said, Mr. President, this is the last budget
resolution that I shall manage on the floor of the U.S. Senate. I
remember well my first budget resolution 18 years ago. It was in the
spring of 1979, and our dear and late colleague, Senator Ed Muskie of
Maine, was the chairman of the Budget Committee, and the distinguished
Senator from Oklahoma, Henry Bellmon, was the ranking minority member.
The projected deficit for fiscal year 1980 was less than $20 billion.
It does not seem possible, but that is what it was. I had high hopes,
as a freshman Senator, that we would see the end of deficit spending. I
said so in my first speech. But those hopes were dashed, Mr. President,
during the Reagan-Bush years when deficits were piled upon deficits.
President Reagan's Office of Management and Budget Director, David
Stockman--in case he has been forgotten--later described that period of
time under Reagan-Bush as ``fiscal carnage.'' The fiscal carnage that
took place at that time is what we are attempting to deal with here
today, as we were last year. Four years ago, President Clinton began
the arduous task of drawing a narrowing circle on the deficit, and he
succeeded beyond all expectations, with no help, Mr. President, from
those on that side of the aisle.
I will simply cite the difficulties that we are in and how we are
going to get out of them, and the significant contribution that
President Clinton has made to the possibility of balancing the budget
by the year 2002.
The graph that I have behind me here is entitled ``Budget Deficits,
CBO Estimates.'' These are Congressional Budget Office estimates of
where they were going. You will see the year 1980 to the year 2000
across the bottom of the chart, and the billions of dollars in deficits
on the left side. If you will notice, halfway up the chart, before the
dotted lines start, is where President Bill Clinton came into office.
At that time, you will notice that the annual deficits were about $300
billion a year. I would like to make a point here that I think all too
many Americans do not fully appreciate or grasp. They hear
``deficits,'' they hear ``national debt,'' and all too often I think
the difference between the two becomes blurred. So, once again, for the
Record, let me state that the deficits we talk about are the annual
shortfalls where we spend in Government more than we take in. The
annual deficits were running wild.
I just stated in my opening remarks that when I was here in my first
year, we were facing an annual deficit of $20 billion. When Bill
Clinton became President of the United States, we were facing annual
deficits not of $20 billion but of $300 billion.
I hear attacks again and again that are not factual, indicating that
the President of the United States is not sincere, that he is trying to
use smoke and mirrors. The smoke and mirrors in this chart shows what
has happened. This bottom line is that President Bill Clinton--without
help from or even one vote on that side of the aisle in the U.S. Senate
or over in the House of Representatives--has driven that $300 billion
deficit down. That is the annual deficit as opposed to the trillion-
dollar, multitrillion-dollar debt of the United States of America. That
is something that I think people overlook.
At the end of each year when the deficit is $20 billion, as it was
when I came here, or up to $300 billion when Bill Clinton came here as
President of the United States, those deficits at the end of each and
every year are piled upon, and we start all over at the end of each
year. Those deficits magically go away, I guess. What we do is pile
them onto the national debt, which has risen since I came here--before
the Reagan-Bush years from under $1 trillion; today, to over $5
trillion--and are going up even under the projections of the
Republicans to at least $6 trillion, before we balance the budget,
hopefully by the year 2002.
The point I want to make again, Mr. President, is that when Bill
Clinton became President of the United States we were running deficits
of $300 billion. Notice the lower line where they have come down now to
where the Congressional Budget Office projects they will be under $150
billion next year. Bill Clinton, therefore, is not even given credit by
those on that side of the aisle for more than cutting in half the
annual deficits of the United States of America. That is a remarkable
achievement. But you do not hear much about it from that side of the
aisle.
The lower part of this President's budget takes the budget down to
balance by the year 2002 as opposed to what the Congressional Budget
Office projections said they would be on that up line before Bill
Clinton--BBC, Before Bill Clinton. I submit for the Record that I do
not think anyone can refute it, that unless we had followed the fiscal
responsibility of Bill Clinton when he became President of the United
States that has more than cut the annual deficits in half, we would not
be standing here today pretending, or hoping, that we could balance the
budget by the year 2002 because we would have been way up here on the
upper part of this chart. And had we continued to follow the policies
that those on the other side of the aisle, evidently by their votes,
wanted to follow we would not be standing here today talking about
reaching balance in 2002.
Before Bill Clinton, BBC, we were in deep trouble, and we are still
in very deep trouble. But unless Bill Clinton had taken a stand and
unless the Democrats, by a tie, or one vote, had the courage to stand
up and say, ``We have to stop it,'' we would not be in a position
today, even under the Republican proposal to balance the budget by the
year 2002. So let us give Bill Clinton at least some credit.
We thought, Mr. President, that we had a chance last year to build on
the President's success. Under his leadership, we would have reduced
our Federal deficit to use some other figure by a projected $846
billion through fiscal year 1998. We had a rare opportunity to balance
the budget last year, but that opportunity was squandered by the
radical right. Here we are yet with another year and with yet another
Republican budget that does not fairly do what this Senator and most on
this side of the aisle and most of the American people want to do:
balance the budget in a fair and equitable manner.
During the opening remarks by my friend and colleague from New
Mexico, and I think I can quote the manager of the bill correctly, he
said the President claims that he will balance the budget. But he
indicated in his remarks that it was fictional. Let me say, Mr.
President, that all during that debate that followed the budget last
year and the failure of the Republicans even to meet with the President
to work out a proposition, it is clear to see where the responsibility
lies.

Despite the claims, despite the statements, June O'Neill, the
Republican-appointed head of the Congressional Budget Office, testified
in front of the Budget Committee, and I quote June O'Neill: ``The
President's budget proposals and policies, as estimated by the
Congressional Budget Office, would balance the budget by the year
2002.''
Let me repeat that again. Contrary to what you have heard, contrary
to what you are going to hear, the Republican-appointed head of the
Congressional Budget Office says the President's budget policies will
balance the budget by the year 2002.
Mr. President, we also heard a great deal so far today--and I am sure
that

[[Page S5030]]

we will hear more about it in the future--that the President of the
United States is not being honest with regard to the Medicare trust
fund. Mr. President, I cite a letter, and hereby request it be printed
in the Record of May 9, 1996, from June O'Neill, the Republican-
appointed head of the Congressional Budget Office, to me, the Honorable
James Exon, ranking member, Committee on the Budget:

Dear Senator: At your request, the Congressional Budget
Office has examined the effects of the administration's
budgetary proposals on the hospital insurance trust fund.
Under current law, the hospital insurance trust fund is
projected to become insolvent by the year 2001. CBO estimates
that the administration's proposal would postpone this date
to the year 2005.

Enough is enough is enough. I do not think we accomplish a great deal
by plotting against other people's motives when the leader of the CBO
has certified that the President is being honest and that the President
and his administration are being straightforward.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letter I just
referenced be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. EXON. Here we are, Mr. President, with yet another Republican
budget. But after 18 months of extremism and demagoguery, after two
shutdowns and a threat of a dozen more, I must say that I expected
something better. True--and I congratulate and thank my friend from New
Mexico--true, there is some degree of dulling the knife's edge from
last year's disastrous Republican budget proposal that was not
appreciated by the vast majority of the people of the United States
once they understood it.
But I ask, is this latest Republican budget kinder? Is it a gentler
budget than the Republicans had promised the American people? I think
not. Yes, it is somewhat better, I would say, than last year. Primarily
that is possible because the Congressional Budget Office in the
estimating of what is going to happen in the future has come up with a
healthier economic growth than they had previously. I thank Senator
Domenici and the Republicans for wisely using that to alleviate some of
the hit that many Americans not as fortunate as the rest of us would
have taken.
We hear time and time again about how the Republicans are going to
spend more money on these programs than in the past. You have heard
already and you will hear more about the fact that the Republicans are
spending more money than in the past, especially with regard to
Medicare programs. Yet the facts are that the additional money the
Republicans are saying they are going to spend, therefore saying,
piously, that it is not a cut, even though the rate of increase that
the Republicans are proposing for the average Medicare recipient is
less than the projected increased costs of health care for the public
at large will not be sufficient for the seniors that need Medicare. So
another way of saying it, oh, yes, they are providing more money but
they are not providing the money that seniors need for Medicare, if you
look at the projections of what the increased costs will be for the
public at large.
One need only go in this area to the materials issued on May 8 by the
House Budget Committee and the joint House-Senate press conference that
followed. You will see the same venomous policy and skewed priorities
that were proposed in last year's budget included in this new
Republican budget, although I hasten to add it is an improvement over
last year.
The direct student loan program would be eliminated. The Goals 2000
Program would be terminated. That is a key educational function. The
earned income tax credit would be slashed by $17 billion, $7 billion
above what the bipartisan Governors found was acceptable.
So that there will be no misunderstanding, the earned income tax
credit was first proposed, I believe, by President Ford, and the earned
income tax credit is designed for the very lowest of the low-paid
people of the United States of America. It is designed to get them out
of poverty by giving them an earned income tax credit. It was a Ford-
Republican proposal that we Democrats in a bipartisan fashion
recognized was good, and we have taken up the mantle. They, the other
side of the aisle, are devastating that earned income tax credit that
goes right to the heart and throat of many people living near that
economic edge.
The programs that they advocate also eliminate the Department of
Commerce, and Energy would be either eliminated or deep sixed to the
place where they could not function. Even the slightly better off
Senate Republican budget cuts $65 billion more in discretionary
spending than the President's plan, and discretionary spending is
something that we all agree now is a major concern for the future
welfare of America. I suppose this warms the cold hearts of Speaker
Gingrich and Mr. Armey and the Republican freshman class over on the
other side of the Hill, but it is of little consolation to the American
people who had expected moderation and imagination and teamwork.
I say to my good friend, the distinguished chairman of the Budget
Committee, I compliment his leadership on that side of the aisle in
many areas, and I listened with great interest and had a tendency to
stand up and applaud when Senator Domenici was talking about the need
to make changes in the immigration policy. I happen to agree that we
have gone way too far and allowed way too many people into the United
States of America. Not all of the immigrants but far too many are
coming in here to take advantage of our safety net that is already
overcrowded, and we are not doing a very good job of maintaining it. We
cannot have immigrants coming into this country primarily to take
advantage of our safety net.
I hope and think my friend from New Mexico appreciates the fact that
during the recent debate on this measure, this particular Senator voted
almost without exception with the distinguished Senator from Wyoming
[Mr. Simpson], the leader of the effort. I think we will find that we
did not do everything we wanted to do, but I think we made some good
strides under the excellent leadership primarily of Senator Simpson
and, of course, on our side Senator Kennedy. Immigration is still a
major problem and causes us great difficulty when we try to come up
with what is the right thing to do.
Once again, I compliment Senator Domenici for his leadership in this
area and in many others. Yet we are faced with those in our party and
he on his side in his party among many who feel that some kind of
compromise is something bad.
Compromise is the only way we have to bring 100 dedicated, strong-
willed people into some kind of coalition so that we can get things
done.
I must say that I look at this budget resolution, Mr. President, that
this budget resolution, while some improvement over the last, still
fails in many ways. Most of all, this budget fails the American people.
I do not think putting frosting over a bad cake makes it any better. It
still divides our great country when we should be striving to unite it.
It still casts blight when we should be providing shade and comfort for
the elderly, the disabled and especially our children. It still
extracts the most from those who have the least when we should be
asking for a fair and shared sacrifice. This is where President
Clinton's budget succeeds. That is why I will be offering to use the
Clinton budget, which balances the budget by the year 2002 as certified
by the Republican appointee to the Congressional Budget Office.
This is where the Republican budget, in my view, fails the test of
fairness. The Republican budget promises many things. As far as I can
see, the Republican budget may achieve balance. I agree that it would
achieve balance, as does the President's budget, in the year that they
claim it will. But at what cost to the American people under the
Republican budget? What sacrifices, many of them unfair in the view of
this Senator, are we going to make? As far as the rest of the loud
promises are concerned, they are gusty winds of propaganda. This
Republican budget delivers least when it promises to do most.

The Republican majority would like Americans to believe that they are
saving Medicare for future generations. ``Preserve and protect,'' was
their poster-tested public relations slogan. But when $167 billion--I
repeat, Mr. President, when $167 billion is lopped off the projected
spending for Medicare over

[[Page S5031]]

the next 6 years, $50 billion more than in the President's budget, I am
not so sure it will be the same first-class health care system that
exists today. It is this first-class system--and it is a first-class
system--more than just a trust fund that we are trying to protect and
preserve.
Despite the attacks from the other side, I cite back once again to
the letter that I received from June O'Neill, the Republican-appointed
CBO chief, that the President is right in his projections.
The Republican budget would reduce Medicare spending growth per
beneficiary far below--far below the projected private sector growth
rate. I mentioned this earlier. It is right to say we are increasing
the spending, but if we are increasing the spending for Medicare less
than the cost of health care delivery in the private sector, then that
is not an increase.
I am very fearful that what the Republicans are doing here will,
without question, diminish the quality and the access to health care
for millions of middle-class Americans. Doctors and hospitals will be
able to charge seniors for the entire balance of the charges above the
Medicare payment. Hear this again. Under the proposal, the Republican
proposal that they claim is fair and reasonable, doctors and hospitals
would be able to charge seniors for the entire balance of the charges
above the Medicare payment. The danger here, and Americans should
understand it, and they will not have the wool pulled over their eyes--
is the Republican majority may assert----
Mr. DOMENICI. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. EXON. I will yield at conclusion of my remarks.
The Republican majority may assert that premiums are not going up,
but they cannot make the same claim about seniors' out-of-pocket
expenses to pay their medical bills. The $123 billion reduction in the
growth of the Medicare hospital insurance spending will particularly
devastate rural and urban hospitals. The Republicans assert that it is
necessary to preserve the solvency of the trust fund through the year
2006. Not true, Mr. President. President Clinton's budget proposal
extends the life of the trust fund without such deep reductions as the
Republicans are proposing. The Republican-appointed CBO Director has
certified, and I say this again, that the administration's proposal
would extend the life of the Medicare hospital insurance trust fund
until the year 2005.
What about Medicaid? What about Medicaid reform? Reform was the
Republican rallying cry, but instead of attempting to reform Medicaid
in a manner that would be acceptable to mainstream America, the
Republican majority paddled up one of their right-wing tributaries and
came out with something new. I believe you would take the whole Nation
by surprise if you told them that the Republican Medicaid reform might
mean that middle-class working American families might have to pay
thousands of dollars out of their own pockets for nursing home care for
their loved ones, or that millions of low-income children might have
their health care jeopardized, or that enforcement of nursing home
standards might not be as vigilant as it is today.
In other words, ``reform'' means ``conform,'' to their way of
thinking, even if it means taking out a second mortgage on your home to
pay for nursing home care for a sick or elderly parent. With a $72
billion reduction in Medicaid from the projected spending combined with
a block grant approach, that may well be the scenario.
In closing, I want to talk for a moment about tax breaks. My
colleagues know that I oppose all tax breaks until we get the deficit
under control. But, of course, that is not going to prevail. This is
just one conservative Senator's opinion, that we should not be talking
about tax breaks until we get the budget finally and completely under
control. But that is not the way it is going to be, because this is a
political year. It is not easy to say ``no'' to tax cuts. It is a
painful, unpopular vote. But that is what we should be doing, in the
opinion of this conservative Democratic Senator.
This year the Senate Republicans claim a net tax cut of $122 billion.
This figure is going to be talked about a great deal during this
debate. But let me repeat that. This year the Senate Republicans claim
a net tax cut of $122 billion. But no one should be fooled into
believing that the Republicans intend to limit their tax breaks merely
to that. The gross cuts will be much larger. The House Budget Committee
and its chairman boast that this budget will provide at least $180
billion in permanent new tax relief.
There is something amiss here. The Republicans are certifying and
claiming that they have only $122 billion in tax cuts in the Senate
proposal and yet those who consulted with the Republicans in the
Senate, their counterparts over in the House of Representatives, claim
that the same numbers will add up to $180 billion in tax cuts, and have
said so publicly. There is something wrong. Their budget also provides
for a list of tax cuts that could include nearly every item included in
last year's totally failed budget that was rejected by the President
and rejected by the American people. Just so no one has forgotten, the
tax cuts in that bill would have gone primarily to the wealthiest
Americans. So much for the little guy in a Republican proposed budget.
I provide this side-by-side comparison for a good reason. I ask my
colleagues to remember what happened last year. The Senate Republican
budget had $170 billion in tax breaks and the House Republican budget
lavished even more at $347 billion in tax breaks, largely for the
wealthy. In the end, the conferees agreed to $245 billion in tax
breaks. So experience tells us to be wary of Republican promises of how
much or how little tax breaks will be, and who in the end will benefit
from them.
The Republican budget also does not call upon special interests, who
assume few if any of the burdens of balancing our budget. While
President Clinton has proposed that $40 billion--$40 billion be raised
from corporate reform and loophole closing, the Republican budget lists
no savings from these categories.
When I mentioned that President Clinton has proposed $40 billion be
raised from corporate tax giveaways and reforms and loophole closings,
I only say, referring back to the chart I have in back of me that I
referenced earlier, the President, Bill Clinton, knows what he is doing
with regard to being a fiscal leader.
Having said that, I must admit that I would not have stood on the
floor of the U.S. Senate and said that a year ago in January when the
President sent his group down here to explain to us on the Budget
Committee his budget for last year. At the time, I said it was a bad
budget, I did not support it, I would not support it. But through the
influence of Senators like myself and others, we have helped Bill
Clinton make the firm decisions that he made to accomplish the goal of
reducing the annual deficit from $300 billion when he took office down
to $150 billion.
The President is now on the right course. I did not salute him when
he came up with a budget last year that I did not think made any sense.
I salute him for what he has done now. He is on the right course. The
figures prove that he is on the right course. Let us get behind the
President and support him.
Chairman Domenici made it clear, however, that the tax increases can
be used by and maybe increased by the Finance Committee to offset
additional tax breaks. If the past is any guide, the Republicans will
soon be proposing to raid the pension funds for working families to pay
for tax breaks that will primarily benefit those earning over $100,000
a year.
I do not believe, Mr. President, that my friend and colleague,
Senator Domenici, wants that. But he has to deal with some people on
the other side of the Hill who plainly want that, and the Republicans
in the Senate need and have to have the cooperation and the support for
their Republican counterparts on the other side of the Hill.
I simply say that there is an alternative. There is an alternative to
this rehashed and repackaged Republican budget. It is the President's
budget. In my 18 years in the Senate, this is the first Presidential
budget of either a Republican President or a Democratic President that
this Senator has supported, and I support it in the form that is
submitted. Not that I agree with all of it, and I hope that if we were
using the President's mark, the

[[Page S5032]]

President's budget, we would adopt some changes. But from the
standpoint of starting and setting up something to amend, we would be
far better off to work from the President's budget with some flaws than
the Republican proposal with many, many, many more flaws.
The President's budget reflects his values and the priorities. It
makes difficult choices, but it makes them fairly. It balances fiscal
responsibility with caring and compassion for our seniors, the young
and the neediest among us.
At the appropriate time--sometime today--I will offer the President's
budget as a substitute for the Republican budget that is presently
before us. There is a clear distinction between these two budgets, a
distinction that is not lost on the American people. We should have the
opportunity to debate and vote on these two distinct visions for the
future of our Nation, and we will.
Mr. President, let me conclude by saying to the chairman of the
Budget Committee, once again, that I know he had a very difficult time
putting this budget resolution together, and I suspect he would be the
first to admit that there are some things in here that he is not
enthusiastic about. But, once again, the art of being a leader in the
U.S. Senate, regardless of which side of the aisle you are on, has to
take into consideration what you can do, what you can accomplish,
building a coalition. Certainly, in this case, the Senator from New
Mexico has built a coalition of what most of the Republicans would like
to see.
I join with my chairman and thank him for mentioning the fact that
Senator Breaux and Senator Chafee, and several of our comrades on both
sides of the aisle, have come up with a budget that is worthy of some
consideration. Likewise, there are some parts of that budget that I do
not agree with, but at least it is something that we should take a hard
look at and possibly, in the end, incorporate some of those concepts
and those ideas of those thoughtful Senators, both Democrats and
Republicans, who are trying, in my opinion, to be helpful.
I had hoped one day in my Senate career I would be able to say to my
good friend, for whom I have said before I have high respect and
admiration, that I support his budget. Unfortunately, that day has not
come. But I really enjoy working with him, and I hope that the debate
that follows will be as factual as possible, will be as short as
possible, and, once again, I tell him that I will try in every way I
can to cooperate with him, as I did in the committee, not to have this
go on and on and on.
I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Exhibit 1

U.S. Congress,

Congressional Budget Office,

Washington, DC, May 9, 1996.
Hon. J. James Exon,
Ranking Minority Member, Committee on the Budget, U.S.
Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Senator: At your request, the Congressional Budget
Office (CBO) has examined the effects of the Administration's
budgetary proposals on the Hospital Insurance (HI) trust
fund. Under current law, the HI trust fund is projected to
become insolvent in 2001. CBO estimates that the
Administration's proposals would postpone this date to 2005.
Sincerely,
June E. O'Neill,
Director.

Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico [Mr. Domenici], is
recognized.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, shortly, I am going to yield as much
time to Senator Mack as he desires. Senator Spencer Abraham will come
to the floor probably during Senator Mack's discussion. On the record,
I want to state that I am going to designate Senator Abraham in my
stead to control the time on this side, at least until noon or 12:30.
Mr. President, I want to make two very brief comments with reference
to the statements of the distinguished Senator from Nebraska. First, if
the Senator is suggesting that Republicans are for lower taxes, we are
going to plead guilty. We are for lower taxes. If the Senator suggests
that we are going to cut taxes for families with children, we plead
guilty. We are going to do that.
Second, the President of the United States entered into his office as
President at a point in time when a number of things were happening
and, as a matter of fact, he was very, very fortunate, as was the
country, that these events occurred. I personally believe the
President's budget and the President's conduct had nothing whatsoever
to do with them. They were in play.

Let me just put up one little chart. You see, Senator Exon says that
this budget deficit CBO estimates--let me see if I can meander over
there a little bit.
Does the Senator mind if I use his chart?
Mr. EXON. No. The Senator is welcome to.
Mr. DOMENICI. The Senator would make a point that at this point in
history the budget starts turning down, and it would have gone up; and,
therefore, President Bill Clinton has done a masterful job of
controlling the expenditures of our country and being fiscally
responsible.
Let us just look. This is not me. This says the Congressional Budget
Office. It is not the Senator from New Mexico. We asked them, what did
this? How did this happen? Lo and behold, here is what they said: Taxes
were raised, and that made up 38.3 percent of getting this down.
So the American people right off should know, yes, the Democrats got
the deficit down. And 38 percent was because they increased taxes. Most
interesting, 50 percent--50 percent--of this reduction, from this line
to this line, had nothing whatsoever to do with any action by anyone.
They are merely reestimates of the expenditure of Government to adjust
them to the reality instead of the estimate, such things as the savings
and loan fund to pay for the bailout. We overestimated the amount of
money, and it was sitting there in the budget, a huge amount of money.
I cannot believe that anybody is going to claim that the President did
that or the Democrats, by voting for a tax-loaded budget-deficit
package, did that. That is a huge amount of money.
Others are estimates in the expenditure costs of programs. The
estimated increases did not come out as high as the budget projected. I
must say, in all deference, it did not matter who was elected
President. That 50 percent occurred from no action on the part of the
executive branch or the Congress. So that is 50 percent; plus 38
percent of the reduction in the deficit.
Over here we had economic changes amounting to $13 billion. We will
just put that up there. If they want to argue about that $13 billion--
that the President deserves credit for that--then we can talk about
that. But the thing that we must be worried about--that we must be
worried about--is that the Congressional Budget Office told us that
through 1995 the total cuts in spending were $1 billion, the total cuts
in spending were $1 billion.
Frankly, in all deference and with all of the gentleness that I can
muster, this is not a deficit-reduction package that is calculated to
permanently reduce the size of Government, which everyone says is the
cause of the deficit. Nobody says we are being taxed too low--strike
that. Somebody does. Most people do not think we have to raise taxes
and spend more. They think we should cut the expenditures of Government
to get to fiscal equilibrium. This is the history of those lines.

Having said that, I want to just make one last point. Senior
citizens, senior citizens, the President of the United States has
pulled off in his budget a huge hoax--a huge hoax--for which, because
of other things in his budget, as I said in my opening remarks, he
truly deserves the Academy Award for fiction on his budget.
Let me just tell you about Medicare. Medicare in the entrusted fund,
the trust fund, Mr. President, has been assuring and paying seniors for
long-term--long-term--home health care. Let me repeat, in the trust
fund, seniors, you have been getting your long-term home health care
paid for by this guaranteed fund.
Second point. It is the fastest growing item in Medicare. Fact--the
President chooses to take that program out of the trust fund. That
program is $55 billion, home health care for seniors.
What a hoax. You take out something you are providing them, and say,

[[Page S5033]]

``We're saving the trust fund.'' Now the question is, how does he pay
for it, the home health care for the seniors? Interesting. He does not
pay for it. He puts it right on the backs of the taxpayers of America.
One might even say, you raise the taxes $55 billion, because the truth
of the matter is, the insurance premiums that the seniors pay for,
everything other than what is in the trust fund, other than
hospitalization and long-term care, the insurance premiums, the
President says we are not going to add the $55 billion to the premiums.
So magically he has made the trust fund more solvent by taking away
some of its responsibility and also diminishing the assuredness of that
coverage for seniors and at the same time does not pay for it.
He just says, add it to the expenditures of the Government. I believe
it is at risk. I believe it was safe in that trust fund. I believe it
is at risk when you take it out and you do not pay for it and you just
say, the taxpayers will pay for it, and Congress will see to that.
That is the truth of the difference in our solvency of the trust fund
and the President's. He has this magic $55 billion solvency by saying
what we have been giving you out of that trust fund we are not going to
give you any longer. But we have made it solvent.

So frankly that is the only difference between the President and the
Republicans. That is a big difference. That is a difference that, when
it is understood, will turn the tables on who is really worried about
making sure the senior citizens get their care and protection.
At this point I yield to Senator Mack.
Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.
Mr. MACK addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coats). The Senator from Nebraska, as
manager of the bill, is recognized.
Mr. EXON. I yield myself whatever time is necessary off of my time.
Mr. President, I listened very carefully to my friend and colleague,
and as near as I can tell, when he uses charts to show how we are
falsely trying to take credit for reducing the annual deficit, and
giving that credit where I think it logically belongs, to President
Bill Clinton, I simply say, well, it is tomfoolery.
I also suggest, regardless of the charts and percentages that we talk
about, one of the reasons that we are making significant progress is
the fact that under President Bill Clinton we are having a good
economy, a growing economy, the stock market reaching record
proportions.
I simply say, at least I hope my Republican colleagues would agree
that we should give President Clinton the credit that he deserves for
the good economic news, the growing economy without inflation that we
are experiencing under the leadership of Bill Clinton.
I would hate to think what the Republicans would be saying if we were
here debating this resolution at a time when the economy was not going
well, if the confidence of Americans was not as healthy as it is. I am
sure that under those conditions my Republican colleagues would not be
blaming President Clinton for those downturns. That is facetious and at
best it is an understatement.
One other thing on Medicare. The Republicans always seem to keep
moving the goalposts. Last year, how many times did we hear, ``Mr.
President, just give us a balanced budget that will be scored and
balanced by CBO, and we can come to an agreement.'' The President did
that at the urging of myself and others who thought that his earlier
budget proposal last year was not sound. He made dramatic changes. He
changed many things, all for the good.

Finally, believe it or not, we got CBO to approve a budget plan that
the President had offered. Then, rather than sealing the agreement that
they had made--if you could come to a balanced budget agreement
certified by CBO, we could get together--they started moving the goal
post.
On Medicare, the Republicans always seem to be moving the goal post
once again. All last year, the Republicans called for preserving the
Medicare hospital insurance trust fund. All year, time and time again,
that is what they wanted. Now, Mr. President, now that the President
has come up with a plan, certified again by the Republican appointee,
the head of the Congressional Budget Office, they are moving the goal
post. They said 2005 is not enough, we have to go beyond that. It is
like they are moving the budget, and every time we meet their goal and
reach their goal line, they move the goal post. That may be political.
I think it is. At least, it seems to me, it is not realistic.
I simply say, as somewhat of a football expert, Nebraska could not
possibly have won two national championships if we moved the goal post
every time we got close to the goal line. I reserve the remainder of my
time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan is recognized.
Mr. ABRAHAM. How much time remains on our side?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator would be advised there are 24
hours 15 minutes.
Mr. ABRAHAM. Is there a limit on opening statement time?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is no limit.
Mr. ABRAHAM. I yield such time as he may consume to the Senator from
Florida.
Mr. MACK. Thank you, Mr. President. I am going to focus my remarks
this morning not so much on the specifics of the budget, as others will
during the next several days, rather I will focus on the economic
conditions that surround this debate.
The distinguished Senator from Nebraska who a minute ago said he
hoped that we Republicans would give President Clinton credit for good
economic news, may be disappointed in what I have to say, because it
certainly is not my intention to give the President high marks for what
is happening in the economy.
I ask people to reflect first on my very strong feelings about the
Office of President of the United States, an office that all of us hold
in high regard, when we think back across our history to some of the
great leaders who have held that position. But today, as I discuss the
economy, I find it difficult, frankly, to hold in high regard the
comments made by the President of the United States with respect to
what is happening with the economy, what is happening with growth, what
is happening with opportunity.
In his State of the Union Address this year, President Clinton said
this is the strongest economy in three decades. Last year, fourth
quarter to fourth quarter, the economy grew at an anemic 1.3 percent.
Over the entire time that President Clinton has been in office, we have
seen economic growth of only 2.4 percent a year. Compare that to the 10
years prior to President Clinton's administration, when economic growth
in America averaged 3.4 percent a year. I do not believe this economy
is something that we should brag about.
Now, some economists cite statistics and say to us, ``Well, things
are really kind of OK, not to worry.'' Let me tell you who I pay
attention to. It may be all right for the President to pay attention to
those economists and maybe try to hide behind the numbers--2.8 percent
annual real growth in the first quarter of this year--while ignoring
the fact that in 1995 we had only 1.3 percent real growth; or to say
the unemployment rate is at 5.4 percent, while failing to say at the
same time that there were no net jobs created in the private sector
last month--none, zero. What does that mean? No opportunity. No
opportunity to find a new job, no opportunity to leave one job to
advance to another. No jobs created.

When I want to know about the state of the economy, I pay attention
to the people back home, people who come up to me and tell me they are
worried about their future. In fact, it is interesting to ask people
these days, how many of you believe that you are better off than your
parents were at your age? Almost every hand in every audience goes up,
agreeing that they are better off than the previous generation. But
when you then ask how many believe their children will be better off
when they are your age, maybe four or five hands go up. It appears that
for the first time in a long, long time, we have a generation of
Americans that thinks the next generation will not do as well as they
have done. That is what is causing the tremendous anxiety that exists
in America today.
Still, President Clinton wants to claim the strongest economy in
three decades--on the basis of 1.3 percent growth. It is interesting to
remember

[[Page S5034]]

that in 1992, when he was campaigning for the Presidency, he called the
economy the worst in 50 years, even though the economy that year grew
at 3.7 percent. It is a little difficult to understand the President's
line of thinking: one day he talks about 3.7 percent growth as being a
very weak economy, and then a few years later and he is President, and
the economy is growing at only 1.3 percent, or even 2.4 percent, to say
we have the strongest economy in three decades. It is very difficult
for me, frankly, to give this administration, or this President, credit
for a strong economy.
I think we ought to, again, listen to what the people back home are
saying to us. One example. I recently heard a story about a woman
recalling that her husband had said to her on two separate occasions,
``You better not go out today. I may have to call and tell you to come
pick me up, because I may not have a job when this day ends.'' I think
about the mother telling her children she would not be home in the
evening because she had to get a second job to make ends meet.
One piece of statistical data that has not made the headlines is
that, since January 1994, the number of individuals holding a second
job has increased 17 percent. Now, the economists might tell working
people not to worry. The President may tell working people not to
worry, that everything is fine. But I can tell you that the people back
home do not agree. They are very anxious about their future, and their
ability to make ends meet.
As a matter of fact, a recent poll asked, ``How worried are you about
your ability to make ends meet?'' The response indicated that some 20
million American families a year say their ability to make ends meet is
their No. 1 concern. Now there are 30 million families who are
concerned about their ability to make ends meet. The anxiety question
is real. Economists can say whatever they want, but the people in the
State of Florida are concerned about the future.
A couple of other statistics point to why people are feeling anxious.
Real median family income has declined in 4 out of the last 5
years. And many other indicators suggest that trend will continue. Real
compensation--that is, wages and benefits--grew only four-tenths of a
percent in 1995, the slowest in 14 years. Between 1982 and 1989, real
income per person grew three times as fast as it has since 1993, when
President Clinton took office.

The real issue before us is, how can we help create higher levels of
growth? Should America be satisfied with 2.4 percent real growth, or
worse? I say the answer is absolutely not.
From the end of World War II to the beginning of the Clinton
administration in 1993, economic growth averaged nearly 4 percent a
year. Today, we are told we are doing well with growth of only 1.6
percent. Where are the jobs going to come from that will ensure
prosperity and opportunity tomorrow?
Not long ago, the President of the United States was in Florida, and
there was debate over the future of the sugar industry in the
Everglades. Protesters opposed to the administration's plan said they
were going to lose their jobs. In essence, the President responded:
``Don't worry, we will see that anyone who loses their job will get
another one.'' I wonder how many times he has made that comment around
the country. But where does he think these jobs come from? Government
doesn't create jobs. They come from the private sector, and they come
as a result of Government getting out of the way and allowing for
investment to take place.
So we must begin this discussion, Mr. President, with the
understanding that the economy is weak, not strong, that job creation
has slowed. While the administration wants to brag about the 8.5
million jobs created since they came into office, they neglect to
mention that if job formation took place at the same rate as in
previous recoveries, there would have been 11.5 million jobs created in
America, and we are really 3 million jobs short. Furthermore, of the
8.5 million jobs that have been created, many are second and part-time
jobs going to families that need second jobs just to make ends meet.
That does not make for a growing economy.
I think it is also important that, when we debate the budget, we must
remember who is paying the bills. I think about the people at home who
come up and tell me about their tax burden, what they are being asked
to pay for Government. I think of the young couple, the husband who
works two jobs all week long, from early in the morning until late at
night, five days a week, and then stays at home on Saturday and Sunday
to take care of his little ones while their mom is out on her job over
the weekend in order to make ends meet. I think about the couple that
gets up at the crack of dawn and commutes long distances to work, and
does not get home at night until well after dark, who cannot spend time
with their kids, yet are being asked to pay more and more and more to
the Federal Government.
Do you know what really frustrates them? It is that they are being
asked to work longer and harder to pay more taxes to support programs
that they know have failed and to support individuals who are not
working. That is the central theme that runs all through the debate.
For example, with respect to the 4.3-cent rollback of the gasoline tax.
Every time workers pull up to the gas pump, that 4.3 cents in gasoline
taxes goes not to build more roads or to build more bridges, but to
fund Federal programs they know have failed, and support people who
refuse to work. That is why support for activities here in Washington,
DC, has been so deeply undermined in America.
So, Mr. President, I believe our debate should not be so much
concerned about this budget itself, but about what needs to happen in
order to spur growth of this country, and thereby provide more hope and
opportunity for more Americans.
Let me make one other point about productivity growth. Prior to the
mid-1970's, productivity in America grew approximately 2.1 percent a
year. In the last 10 years, that rate declined to about 1.1 percent.
And now, during the 3 years of the Clinton administration, productivity
growth has averaged only three-tenths of a percent. If productivity
does not increase in a meaningful way, there is no way to pass on
higher wages to employees.
What is causing productivity to decline? More taxes, more spending,
more Government, and less freedom, including taking away the freedom to
pursue greater creativity, to spur American ingenuity, and to provide
opportunity. With higher taxes, more regulation, and more interference
from Washington, there is less opportunity for American business to be
more productive, more competitive, and to create jobs.
So, Mr. President, I say that, at this point, this economy is weak.
There is no sign that, in the long run, we are going to achieve higher
levels economic activity or offer hope and opportunity to future
generations of Americans unless we follow far different policies than
the ones offered by the administration. Those politicians who believe
that today's economic statistics indicate opportunity are making a
grave mistake. The debate on this budget should be about America's
future, about the ability to create jobs and opportunity through more
investment, job creation, and business formation.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
(Mr. ABRAHAM assumed the chair.)
Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I asked the Senator from Michigan if he
would assume the chair so I could take the opportunity to come down to
the floor to compliment my colleague, Senator Mack from Florida. He
outlined for the Senate, and for those who are observing, the real
concern and the deep anxiety that exists among many Americans today
about their future and their family's future. A concern that I think is
now becoming almost universally shared about the impact of the
decisions, or lack of decisions, that Washington has made. This
inability of Congress and the President to make decisions impact their
future in a negative way.
We have not faced up to some of the difficult choices that clearly
must be made if we are going to put our economy on an upward path, and
if we are going to offer and provide opportunity for the young people
of the next generation of America, not to mention this current
generation that is struggling with that economic anxiety. The Senator
from Florida put his finger on the most immediate items that we in this
Congress and with this President can address in answering these
particular problems. We can provide immediate relief to Americans today
by

[[Page S5035]]

doing what they have asked us to do, and that is examine the role, the
function, the scope, and the size of Government. We can address what
virtually a universe of Americans now believe--this Government tries to
do too much, it is too big, it spends too much. Americans see the
results of this Government and they are simply not the kind of return
on investment that Americans are asking for. They are working harder in
order to pay more taxes to fuel and feed a Government spending effort
that is not addressing the basic needs of Americans in an effective
way, and they are saying ``scale it back.'' If we could do so and make
the appropriate decisions in doing so, we can provide them with an
immediate increase in their wages. We can give them immediate salary or
hourly wage increase by giving them tax relief from the excessive
burden of taxes now being imposed.
This whole question about the gas tax is not really to move the price
of gasoline which I paid this morning $1.65.9 a gallon. The question
is, and the issue is, that the Congress has not been straight and fair
with the American people on the issue of gas taxes and on a whole range
of other taxes. The Clinton 4.3-cent gas tax increase was not applied
to building roads and bridges, which most motorists in Indiana and, I
think, across the country believe. When Americans pay extra money to
cover gasoline increases, I know they at least think it goes to build
roads and bridges and to help ease their commute to work, or their
travel across the country. But no. This gas tax increase went to
general revenues in order to feed the excessive and seemingly unabated
spending habits of Congress.
So just in the gas tax alone we are talking about more than a
reduction at the pump. We are talking about being honest with the
American taxpayer in terms of how their money is being used and giving
them some relief. The budget that we are debating today is designed to
put us on a path toward fiscal responsibility that will allow us then
to take the savings that occur over and above balancing the budget
which can occur in outyears and return it to the American people in the
form of tax relief so they do not have to work so hard and do not have
to take that extra job simply to pay taxes to fuel Government.
The Senator from Florida has accurately addressed the issue. And I
wanted to take the opportunity to step down from the Chair to thank him
for his contributions and for reminding us and keeping our eyes focused
on the real picture.
The second point I would make is simply that we as a Congress and the
President of the United States must address the tough choices and the
priority choices that we all know have to be addressed if we are going
to get a handle on this budget.
This idea of deferring for some future Congress the questions about
mandatory spending and entitlements is simply postponing the inevitable
and bringing us closer to a day of cataclysmic budget collapse. We
cannot continue to run up the deficit as we have. We cannot continue to
pretend that there are not problems in the mandatory spending programs
that need to be addressed.
It reminds me of the old commercial where the fellow picks out the
dripping carburetor leaking with oil and says, ``You've got two
choices. You can pay me now or you can pay me later. If you pay me now,
we can make this a lot less expensive and a lot less painful. But, if
you wait, the whole engine is going to fall apart.''
If we keep postponing this decision, the whole engine is going to
fall apart. Republicans have attempted to come forward with budget
after budget addressing these questions in an honest way even at
considerable political risk only to find that President Clinton ducks
his head in the sand, or slips and slides his way through the political
minefield, the end result of which is to do nothing.

Mr. MACK. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. COATS. Yes. I am happy to yield to the Senator.
Mr. MACK. I think it would be helpful if we put this debate in terms
that citizens around the country can associate themselves with. I
remember last year when we were going through this debate, we talked
about what would happen if we got a balanced budget. We said that
interest rates would come down and that would mean lower mortgage
payments, lower automobile payments, and more affordable student loans.
I think it is important to look closely at what has happened since we
did not get an agreement on a balanced budget. Long-term interest rates
have risen by a percentage point. What does that mean to the average
consumer, to the couple who is out there today closing on the purchase
of their first home? For the average home in America, that higher
interest rate means they will pay about $650 more each year in
payments, or another $100 a year for a car.
So there are real consequences to this debate and for failing to get
a balanced budget proposal through the Congress and signed by the
President of the United States.
Real families, real individuals, hard working men and women of
America, are paying hundreds of dollars more each year because of the
failure to come to an agreement on a balanced budget.
I thank the Senator for yielding.
Mr. COATS. I thank the Senator for those comments.
I will close by quoting what has already been quoted on the floor
today probably, the piece written in the Washington Post by Robert
Samuelson, who is an economist and writer that I greatly respect
because he speaks with great candor, and I think speaks about the
thrust that this Congress and that the President needs to address. Just
to quote part of this. He says, ``As a moral matter, Americans deserve
candor.''
Americans deserve to hear the truth about the financial situation in
which we find ourselves. We are debating in the Senate this week the
budget for the next fiscal year and a budget which lays out a plan to
achieve a balance in the future. We are debating about these very
issues, the issues of how we spend taxpayer dollars, and how we
establish priorities. And there is no better time to talk about it than
this particular week in the Senate.
Samuelson said, ``As a moral matter, Americans deserve candor. As we
debate this issue, they deserve what we believe to be the truth. They
deserve candor about the situation in which we find ourselves. When you
look at the mandatory spending in just the Social Security and Medicare
areas, it is an unassailable fact that longer lives, steep health
costs, and an aging baby boom will inevitably make Social Security and
Medicare unbearably expensive in the next century.''
The next century sounds like a long way away. We have plenty of time
to worry about it. This is 1996 approaching 1997. We will be at the
next century before we know it.
He uses the word ``unbearably expensive.'' ``We are facing a crisis
of fiscal proportions that this Nation has never faced in its history.
It will be unbearably expensive, if we do not address it, and address
it now.''
He goes on to say, ``At some point, spending and benefits will be cut
to avoid costs that seem politically intolerable. But the trouble is
that the longer changes are delayed the more abrupt and unfair those
changes will be, and that's why silence is irresponsible.''
We are today hearing silence on this issue from the White House. We
are seeing gimmicks, budgetary gimmicks, as the Senator from New Mexico
just outlined, to fool, or attempt to fool the American people about
the status of the Medicare trust fund by shifting $55 billion out of
that trust fund to the general revenues to either put the benefit
program at risk, or to add additional costs to the taxpayer, or to
drive us deeper into debt.
Samuelson says ``This is a relevant character issue about the
President. Question: Does he have the moral fiber to help America make
difficult choices?''
We are trying to make difficult choices. This budget requires
difficult choices. But it is time that we stood up and began to tell
the American people the truth about those difficult choices and not
postpone the inevitable. At great risk to this economy, at great risk
to the future of this generation, and an extraordinarily unbearable
risk to the future generation.
So I hope we will use this time to make these discussions relevant,
to talk about them in an honest way, and to quit the posturing and the
pretending and to end the practice of saying,

[[Page S5036]]

``Well, we cannot do it now because there is an election just months
away.'' I have served in this body for some time, and every 2 years the
excuse is ``we will do it after the next election.'' The time to do it
after is running out. The risk is extraordinary; the results are
unbearable; and I hope we could face up to these decisions and honestly
put it before the American people.
Frankly, I think they are ready for the truth. Frankly, I think they
will reward truth and reward candor, and I hope this can be a major
part of this debate in the Presidential election and in the Senate and
congressional elections, and I hope we can initiate the debate this
week.
Mr. President, I thank you for your patience. I suggest the absence
of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coats). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. ABRAHAM. I yield myself such time as I may need.
Mr. President, once again, we have before the Senate the budget
resolution that was passed by the Budget Committee under the leadership
of Senator Domenici. This budget resolution achieves balance in the
year 2002. It accomplishes this feat by reducing the size of Government
and slowing the growth of various governmental programs. At the same
time, it preserves and protects Medicare, provides full funding for
education and environmental programs, and increases funding for Federal
crime programs over previous levels.
Mr. President, let me begin by saying I am happy that this year we
are dealing with a belief that we should balance the budget. One year
ago in this budget process the President was talking about $200 billion
a year deficits as far as the eye could see. This year the President is
talking about balancing the budget and attempting, we would argue not
successfully but at least attempting, to present a budget that does
bring us into balance.
The differences though are considerable. The accomplishments of the
Republican budget contrast strongly with the President's budget
submitted earlier this year. Where we rely on tough economics and tough
choices, the President's budget relies on rosy scenarios, gimmicks and
deferred savings. Where we employ new ideas to help curb the growth of
our entitlement programs, ideas like choice in Medicare and returning
our welfare programs back to the States where they belong, the
President relies on tried and, I believe, failed policies that
guarantee our entitlement programs will continue to spiral out of
control. Where we put our faith in individuals and families by
encouraging economic growth so they can earn more, reduce the size and
scope of government so they can keep more, and in the process do more
for themselves and their families, the President's budget simply puts
his faith in more government.
The differences are these. We are offering a budget that gets to
balance and achieves it by making some tough choices, choices that have
to be made if we are to truly have a balanced budget.
The President's budget, on the other hand, in effect says we can
achieve a balanced budget painlessly, without anybody really having to
suffer. That is, in my judgment, impossible. Obviously, we have to
constrain the growth of government. We have to do it in a way that is
fair and equitable. To say that we can accomplish this where tough
choices are not needed is wrong.
Other Members have already addressed the important details of the
Republican budget. How it reduces overall growth in Federal spending by
over $440 billion through the year 2002 while increasing funding for
education, the environment and crime fighting programs. How it protects
veterans' health care and homeless programs from the devastating cuts
included in the President's budget. And how it protects Medicare home
health care programs by keeping the program within the part A portion
of Medicare where it belongs.
Today, I would like just to focus on one difference between the two
budgets. That is the area of tax cuts and how the Republican approach
contrasts with that of the President.
First, let me put the tax picture in perspective. According to the
Tax Foundation, more than one-third of the average American worker's
wages go to taxes. For working parents that meant they had to work
until May 7 just to pay their taxes this year. The Tax Foundation calls
this tax freedom day, and May 7 is the latest it has ever been
recognized.
Other indicators are just as ominous. Columnist Bruce Bartlett
pointed out recently that State, local and Federal revenues now consume
more of our national income than ever--31.3 percent of everything
Americans earned last year. At the Federal level, taxes are also at
near record levels. Last year, they consumed 20.4 percent of our
national income. This marks only the second period in which the Federal
tax burden has exceeded 20 percent of the gross domestic product of the
United States. The last period was at the end of President Carter's
administration, just prior to President Reagan's tax cut proposals of
1981.

President Clinton has played a very active role in helping achieve
this record tax burden. As a candidate, he campaigned on a platform of
middle-class tax cuts. At that time he stated, ``We will lower the tax
burden on middle-class Americans.'' He even argued against raising
gasoline taxes, telling voters, ``I oppose Federal excise gas tax
increases.'' Why? Because a gas tax ``sticks it to lower income and
middle-income retired people in the country, and it's wrong.''
That is the campaign rhetoric of 1992, but it is not consistent with
his performance thereafter. As we all know, President Clinton pushed
through the Congress in 1993 the largest tax increase in history: $265
billion over 5 years. Gas taxes were raised during that budget battle.
The President also raised taxes on senior citizens. He raised taxes on
the largest corporations, and he raised taxes on thousands of the
smallest businesses. He raised taxes on the living and he even raised
taxes on the dead. Then he turned around and told a Houston audience,
``You might be surprised to find * * * I think I raised your taxes too
much.''
That is true. The fact is, the tax burden has been raised higher than
it has ever been before, except for one point in American history. More
significantly, by ranking tax burdens according to Presidents, you can
see that this President has presided over the highest average tax
burden of any President in the history of the country, 19.933 percent
of national income.
In a nutshell, the President has succeeded in completely reversing
the progress made during previous administrations in moving us toward a
simpler, fairer, flatter Tax Code. The Tax Code now is more burdensome,
it is more complex, and it is more costly as well.
What does that mean to average Americans? We can talk about numbers
and percentages, as we often do on the floor here, to the point where
we lose sight of its impact on real people. But what it means is this.
Last year Americans paid to Uncle Sam $87.2 billion more than they
would have under previous policies. For the average American family,
that's over $800 taken out of their pocket each year and handed over to
the Federal Government.
The Balanced Budget Act which President Clinton vetoed last year
would have provided partial relief from these record tax burdens. The
bill would have reduced the tax burden on Americans by a modest amount,
on average about $36 billion a year. In other words, the tax relief
vetoed by President Clinton last fall was less than half the increased
tax burdens that Americans have experienced since he took office in
1993. President Clinton vetoed the Balanced Budget Act and deprived
Americans of middle-class tax relief, like the $500-per-child family
tax credit, marriage penalty relief, expand IRA's, spousal IRA's, and
estate tax reforms that would have given small business and family farm
owners the opportunity to pass on their enterprises to their families
in a way that is not feasible right now because of the high inheritance
taxes.
Which brings us to this year. In the President's State of the Union
Address, Mr. Clinton announced that ``the era of big Government was
over.'' He then

[[Page S5037]]

sent to Congress a budget which would ensure that Government spending
and income taxes remains at record levels.
Once again, however, we have to look beyond the rhetoric. When the
President released his budget in March, he claimed he was providing
Americans with $99 billion in tax relief, enough to pay for a watered-
down child tax credit.
On closer inspection, however, the President also included $62
billion in tax loophole closing and other increased revenues, which
means the net tax relief is only $36 billion.
Finally, in an attempt to make the budget reach balance in the year
2002, President Clinton has to terminate his tax cuts in the year 2000,
which reduces the total tax relief provided in the Clinton budget
between 1996 and 2002 to something around $6 billion.

Think about that. We are talking about net tax relief over 6 years of
about $1 billion per year. There are 250 million-plus Americans. That
means the President's tax cut, spread over six years, averages out to
about $4 per American per year. This amount is hardly consistent with
the promise that was made during Clinton's election campaign for
significant middle-class tax relief. In fact, Mr. President, as I think
about it, it probably means one extra trip to McDonald's per year for
the average American family.
But that is not the worst part. The worst part is that, while
President Clinton terminates his tax cuts, his tax increases are
permanent. They go on forever. The net effect is another tax increase
on Americans. Between 1996 and 2006, President Clinton's budget would
raise taxes on Americans by $50 billion. Add this new tax increase to
the previous tax increases, and this Presidency will have cost
Americans 465 billion additional dollars through the year 2002.
Contrast this tax increase with the Republican budget. Our budget
includes funding for the full-sized, permanent, $500-per-child family
tax credit. Our goal is to reduce the tax burden for those taxpayers
who need it the most--parents attempting to raise young children. For a
family earning $30,000 per year in my home State, Michigan, with two
children, the child tax credit would reduce their 1996 Federal income
tax burden 51 percent. That is real relief from what, under President
Clinton, has become the highest tax burden on families in the history
of this country.
That is the difference between the direction that we perceive
Americans wanting to go and the direction they would have under the
President's proposals. Our goal is to let American families earn more
and keep more. Our goal is to give American families a chance to keep
more of the dollars that they earn and to be able to use those dollars
to help their families, particularly those families in the middle class
who are struggling to make ends meet, working hard and playing by the
rules.
I think the choice before the Senate is clear. On the one hand, you
have a resolution that is responsive to the American voters and
taxpayers in their desire to see a smaller, more effective Government
with its books balanced, and, on the other hand, you have the
President's budget which is responsive to the status quo and inside-
the-beltway interests.
I would like to just close by thanking Senator Domenici for his
leadership on this issue. This is my second opportunity to vote for a
budget resolution. Thanks to Chairman Domenici's resolve and guidance,
I am once again proud to support and back a document that brings this
Government's budget into balance. It has been 25-plus years since the
Congress was able to do that, and it is under the leadership of Senator
Domenici and the Republican majority that we accomplished this goal.
Last year we took this goal as close as we could to the finish line
by making sure that Congress ultimately passed a budget that was in
balance. Unfortunately, the President chose to veto that budget. He
chose to veto tax cuts for working families. He chose to veto reform of
the Medicare Program to help ensure the solvency of the Medicare trust
fund. And, he choose to veto a budget that will give Americans relief
from the high interest rates that result from uninterrupted Federal
budget deficits. years.
Hopefully this year, when a balanced budget is presented to the
President, we will have a different result. I hope he will sign that
budget, and I hope he will agree with us that it is time to truly put
the era of Big Government to rest and move in a different direction.
The President's budget does not really accomplish that. The budget
which the Senate Budget Committee passed last week does. I look forward
to working to see its adoption here on the floor of the Senate.
I yield the floor.
Mrs. BOXER addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ashcroft). The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am pleased to be here today as a member
of the Budget Committee to talk about the differences between President
Clinton's budget, which I voted for in the Budget Committee, and the
Republican budget that passed on a partisan vote.
First, I wanted to point out that the Senator from Michigan complains
about the size of Government as a share of the economy, but he only
tells half the story, if that. What he did not know is that President
Clinton has reduced the size of Government. There are fewer people
working for the Government now than at any time since John Kennedy was
President.
Let me repeat that: There are fewer people working for the Government
now than at any time since John Kennedy.
Spending by the Federal Government now is 22 percent of the economy.
But what the Senator did not know is that this is the lowest percentage
since the 1970's--lower than it was when we had Republican Presidents.
As a matter of fact, the record level was set during the Reagan
administration.
So I think when we talk about this budget and the situation today, we
ought to put it into the context of where we have come from. We have
come from a time when there were hardly any new jobs created to a point
where President Clinton has fulfilled his commitment to create more
than 8 million new jobs. We have come from a time where we talked about
deficit reduction but ran up more debt during George Bush and Ronald
Reagan than all the years since George Washington through Jimmy
Carter. Now we have seen deficit reduction 4 years in a row.

There are many other facts about this economy that are important. The
misery index is at the lowest point. That is a combination of
unemployment and inflation. It is at a very low point. As I said, we
have fewer Government employees than at any time since John Kennedy.
Does that mean everything is perfect? No, it does not mean everything
is perfect. We have a long way to go. We should have started yesterday
by passing an increase in the minimum wage. That is what we should be
doing. We should be reaching across the aisle to make life better for
millions and millions of working people who have seen that minimum wage
go to a 40-year low in terms of its purchasing power. Seventy percent
of the American people think it is an issue of fairness, and we have a
Republican leader over in the House who says he really does not believe
there ought to be any minimum wage--there ought to be no minimum wage.
Can you believe it?
The thinking that has taken over this Congress since 1994 never fails
to amaze me. Yesterday, I said the passion that is being expressed on
the other side about reducing 4 cents on the gas tax should be matched
by a passion to increase the minimum wage for our people.
We already know from the experts that the oil refiners will probably
get that 4 cents a gallon. When that issue comes before us, we are
going to work hard on the Democratic side to make sure that money does
go into the pockets of consumers, but even with that, we cannot ensure
it. Let us say they got every penny, that is $27 a year, and the
deficit will go up. If it is made a permanent repeal, it will go up by
$30 billion.
So how do the people view this Republican Congress when deficit
reduction is supposed to be No. 1 and then we repeal a gas tax, which
will probably go into the pockets of the oil companies, and then we are
going to have to find out how we are going to make up that money? The
latest plan is to do a one-time fee on banks. But the fact is, that fee
on banks is supposed to be put aside in case there are bank or savings
and

[[Page S5038]]

loan failures, not to be used up on a gas tax repeal.
What does that all have to do with the budget? I think in many ways
it is symbolic of the kind of budgets we are going to see presented.
One, in my view--and that is President Clinton's budget--really does
put people first, and the other, the Republican budget, I do not think
puts people first. Of course, it is up to the American people to
decide.
I am going to just show the differences in the budget, as I see them.
I will use a chart to do that, because I think it is one thing to talk
about how we feel about the budget, which we all will do, it is another
thing to put the numbers behind our statements.

So I have tried to highlight from my perspective as a Budget
Committee member some of the most important differences in the two
budgets. I want to talk about education and job training.
If people from another country were to ask me what makes our country
great, I would say it is because we have a great middle class and
everyone has a chance at the American dream.
And then if they asked, ``Why do people have a chance at the American
dream,'' I would say, ``If I had to say one thing, it would be
education.''
I happen to be a product of public schools, all the way from
kindergarten through college. I was very fortunate to have a good
education in public schools. In college, I went to the State
university. It cost me $12 a semester. It was amazingly affordable. Of
course, as I go around my State, the people who like me say, ``Look at
that Senator, she's a product of public schools.'' Of course, the ones
who do not say, ``See what public schools can do; look at that
Senator.''
The fact of the matter is, it is education that is the key to the
American dream, and today it is more than education, it is education
and job training. As our President has said, many of us will have seven
and eight jobs in a lifetime, and we need the constant retraining, the
reeducation. I know people of my generation have had to learn how to
use the computer. It is not that easy, but it can be done.
The fact is, if you look at the two budgets, the President's budget
and the Republican budget, the President adds $56 billion more to
education and training than does the Republican budget. That is a fact.
Both budgets balance in the timeframe of 6 years. Both budgets balance.
So we do not have to argue about that. That is resolved. The question
is, what are your priorities? What do you want to invest in? And I
think that this Democratic President is correct in saying we must
invest in education.
What the Republicans do is actually, compared to 1996 levels,
decrease by $3.2 billion over the next 6 years what is spent on
education. I just have to say, if there were no other differences in
this budget, no other differences than this first point, $56 billion
more to education and job training in President Clinton's budget than
in the Republican budget, if there was not one iota of difference other
than that, I would say vote for President Clinton's budget, which is,
of course, what I intend to do.

There are more important things as well--Environmental Protection
Agency enforcement. I see the Senator from Arkansas is on the floor,
and yesterday I thought he made a spectacular statement about the
importance of clean air and clean water and an environment we can hand
down to our children that is at least as beautiful as the one we
inherited. You cannot do that without enforcement.
We had this argument in the 1970's when, under President Nixon, we
set up the Environmental Protection Agency. That was bipartisan. What
has happened to the environmental issue? We cannot find support for
environmental protection on the Republican side of the aisle.
It takes inspectors to enforce the laws, to make sure that companies
are not polluting and that when they do, they pay to clean it up. It
takes dollars to clean up Superfund sites, most of which are very close
to our populated cities.
I visited one of them in San Bernardino, CA. The cleanup was stopped
because of the Government shutdown. We could not get the money to clean
it up, and the pollution and the toxic waste was about to penetrate
into the water table. Thank goodness we were able to get those funds
after the Government reopened to begin cleaning up that site. That is
just one small example of the problems that we have.
Years ago we did not know that some of these chemicals were very
dangerous, that they could sink down into the water table. But we know
it now, and if we do not pay the price now, we will pay it later. How
wise it is to clean up those pollutants now before they get into the
water table and people cannot drink the water, and if they do, they get
sick. I just read a recent report that they have traced chemical
pollution in the water supply to childhood leukemia.
The fact of the matter is, it is shortsighted to shortchange the
Environmental Protection Agency, and that is a difference in our
budget.
Let us get to the issue of Medicare. I thought we had the fight over
Medicare in the sixties, and we decided it was shameful and morally
reprehensible that half of our senior citizens had no health insurance.
We passed a good law, the Medicare law. It has worked. Do we have to
make sure that the Medicare system is sound? Do we have to make
corrections and reforms? We do. And the President does in his budget.
He makes that fund safe until at least 2005.
But what does the Republican budget do? It cuts $50 billion more out
of Medicare than does President Clinton's budget--$50 billion more. It
is hard to imagine what $50 billion would look like. But taking $50
billion out of Medicare more than the President--more than the
President--and saying that system can survive is simply not so. As I
understand it, all of the costs would be put on to the hospitals in
this particular plan, and hospitals will start closing; we will lose
emergency rooms and we will be in big trouble. I think our senior
citizens deserve better.
Republicans cut $18 billion more than the President out of Medicaid.
I hope to have an amendment to talk about the Medicaid issue. Who is on
Medicaid? The poor children, the poor families, and two-thirds of our
senior citizens in nursing homes are on Medicaid, our grandmothers and
our grandfathers.
What do you suppose is going to happen when you take $18 billion more
than the President did out of Medicaid? Nothing good will happen, I can
assure you. We have already had the scandals in the nursing homes in
the 1980's. I do not want to live through that again. We cannot take
these kinds of dollars out of Medicare and Medicaid and have a system
that functions and a system that works. Then if you do the medical
savings accounts on top of that, which is also, as I understand,
assumed in this budget, the healthiest and the wealthiest will leave a
lot of our plans, including Medicare, and it is going to make matters
far worse when the healthiest and the wealthiest leave the big
insurance pool.
The earned income tax credit. Republicans cut $12 billion more than
the President in the earned income tax credit. What is the earned
income tax credit? It is a credit given to those in our community who
work very, very hard for very low wages. And the purpose of it is to
ensure that they do not have to go on welfare. And it is really a very
important, very important tax credit for those at the bottom of the
scale who work so hard and do not want to be on welfare. Yet, the
earned income tax credit, which was really praised highly by President
Reagan, President Bush, bipartisan, is hurt deeply in the Republican
budget.
However, there is one area where the Republicans spend more. Guess
what it is? It is the Pentagon. They spend $11 billion more than the
Department of Defense asked for. Let me repeat that. In this budget, if
you vote for it, you are voting for $11 billion more than the
Department of Defense, the admirals and the generals, asked for. I do
not get it. I do not get it.

We have the strongest military in the world, and we should keep it
that way. We spend more than any other nation. I am going to tell you
exactly what we spend compared to other countries.
Here is a chart that shows that the U.S. military budget spends more
than the next five countries combined. I want to thank Senator Simon
for sharing this chart with me. He had used it

[[Page S5039]]

in the Budget Committee. So here we see the United States, $264
billion; Russia, $98 billion; Japan, $54 billion; France, $41 billion;
the United Kingdom, $35 billion; and Germany, $34 billion.
Let me make a point. Let us just say for purposes of this that Russia
is not our friend. Of course, the cold war is over and she would like
to join NATO. But for the purposes of this conversation, let us say
Russia was not our friend, because there are elections coming up and we
are nervous about it, I understand. All the other countries--Japan,
France, the United Kingdom, and Germany--are our very close allies. So
if you take what America spends, and you add what our best friends
spend, I mean, we are up there in the stratosphere. We do not have to
lose sleep at night about the size of our military budget.
And the fact of the matter is, the kinds of threats we now face are
very different than the threats that we faced in the height of the cold
war, when we worried about intercontinental ballistic missiles and we
worried about nuclear weapons. Thank goodness times have changed. Are
they risky times? Yes. Are they dangerous times? Yes. We can never not
be vigilant. But the threats are different. And the costs should
reflect the different types of threat.
We are far more threatened by terrorism, for example, than we are
from an intercontinental ballistic missile. And you need different
things to prepare for that than you do that type of a star wars threat
that we used to feel in the cold war days. So with all of this
information, the Republican budget adds yet another $11 billion.
I want to hearken back to what Dwight Eisenhower said, general and
President, a Republican. He said, it is very important to educate our
children; that the defense of our Nation is not only in the size of its
arsenal, but how educated our children are. He is the one who brought
to the Congress in the 1950's the National Defense Education Act. He
called it the National Defense Education Act because he knew, if we are
going to be strong, if we are to defend America and its principles and
its democracy, it takes an intelligent country and it takes young
people who are ready to learn.

I will tie that into a conversation I had with the entrepreneurs in
the Silicon Valley. I am so proud to represent them here in the U.S.
Senate. When I went to see them when I was running for the Senate back
in 1992, I said, ``Tell me the one thing I could do for you if I become
your Senator.'' I fully expected them to say something like, ``Well,
cut our taxes.'' They did not say that. They said, ``If you become our
Senator, get us an educated work force. Get us an educated work
force.'' Today they are hiring foreign workers because they are not
getting the skills here that they need. The answer lies in this budget.
That is why this debate is so exciting and so important. It can sound
a little boring when you talk about technical terms such as ``real
freezes'' and ``hard freezes'' and all the rest and technical
assumptions, ``CBO'' and ``OMB,'' and all the things we talk about in
our budget meetings.
But behind all those words is reality. The reality is, what do we
believe in? What do we believe will make us great? If we can, in our
budget, invest in those things that will make us great, in the context
of a balanced budget, because we need to do that--we need to do that.
We are wasting so much on interest payments on the debt. We have to get
a handle on that. And we do in both of the budgets before us. The
debate can now focus on these differences, these things.
So, Mr. President, it is indeed an honor for me to partake in the
debate. I want to thank Senator Exon, our Democratic ranking member,
for all the hard work that he has done and the staff has done. I want
to thank the President of the United States for giving us a budget that
I think we can be very proud to vote for. It is fiscally responsible.
It makes the tough and hard choices. It comes to balance, but it does
it in a way that makes the right investments: Education, environment,
Medicare, Medicaid, the earned income tax credit, and a sensible number
for defense.
You put that altogether, and I think you have a pretty good roadmap
into the next century, one in which America will truly be the economic
leader of the world, and also the moral leader of the world.
Thank you very much, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I rise today as a member of the Budget
Committee in strong support of the 1997 balanced budget resolution. I
want to commend the diligent work of our chairman on that committee in
moving this legislation to the floor of the U.S. Senate.
As we begin our debate, I hope we will keep our Federal debt in
perspective. As of today, the Federal Government is $5 trillion in
debt, more than $19,000 for every man, woman, and child in America. The
whole concept of $1 trillion is so difficult to understand. An analogy
I use to explain how much a trillion is, I go back to a very simple way
of thinking about it. That is, if you started a business on the day
that Jesus Christ was born, almost 2,000 years ago, and on the day he
was born you lost $1 million and you lost $1 million every day since
the day he was born--$1 million every day--you still would not have
lost $1 trillion.
We in this country have a $5 trillion debt. Looking at this problem
from another angle, a child born today owes $187,000 just on interest
on the debt over his or her lifetime. We clearly cannot sustain this
course of unrestricted, unrestrained Federal spending. That is why we
are here today to introduce a balanced budget which will protect those
children and that opportunity for an American dream for those children.
It really boils down to the whole concept of long-term thinking. We,
in this town, too often think in terms of 1 year or 2 years. It is time
for all of us to come together and think in terms of that long term. In
my own career of medicine, before coming to this body, you do an
operation to possibly get through a short-term, acute problem, but you
do it for the long-term quality of life for that individual. It is this
long-term thinking that all of us need to engage, bring to the table in
this budget debate.
Long-term thinking clearly means reducing spending and reforming
entitlements, something that is tough to do--and this is a political
year--really any year. All of us are dependent on reaching out to the
public. Telling the public, broadly, that entitlements, or benefits
established by law and paid to any eligible beneficiary--and we define
that the eligibility requirements, regardless of cost, are what are
driving this country to higher and higher debt and larger deficits over
time --it is the result of the automatic-pilot spending that causes
entitlements to be the largest and fastest growing portion of our
Federal budget.
On this chart--and it is a familiar chart to many of us on the budget
committee, but it is one that is worth imprinting in our minds because
it shows the problem that we have, not just in 1996 and 1997, but on
into the next century. The chart is very simple. It shows Federal
spending; that is the height of each of the bars. It starts in 1970 and
comes to where we are right now, 1990, then to the year 2000, and on
into the next century, the year 2030.
The green line is the revenue that comes in to Washington, DC, the
taxpayer dollars, the amount of money that is coming in. We can see,
over time, as a percent of GDP--gross domestic product--that is
constant. It has been constant for decades and will be for decades,
right at 19 or 20 percent of GDP. We can see, of interest, that the
income coming in, the revenues, matched in 1970--the last time it
matched--Federal spending. Why? We have not had a balanced budget in
almost three decades in this country.
We can see through the 1980's and the 1990's that the Federal
spending outpaced the revenues. That is why we have the deficit each
time. We add up each of the deficits, and we get the $5 trillion debt.
In red are the entitlements. There are basically five entitlements--
there are really more than that: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,
pensions, and welfare spending.
Look at the dramatic increase, historically, over time, to where we
are today, in the red, in entitlements. They are on autopilot. The
interest is the amount of money, the interest on

[[Page S5040]]

the Federal debt. It is the amount of money that we are paying each
year we have to pay on the $5 trillion debt that is out there. As the
debts increase, the amount of increase over time has increased.
In the blue, looking at 1970, we have discretionary spending.
Discretionary spending is that spending that is for the sorts of things
that we just talked a little bit about earlier. That is our national
parks, defense of this country, education, roads and infrastructure.
Notice how, over time, the blue is getting smaller as the red gets
larger on autopilot.
What is frightening--and the reason why I want to show this chart--is
what happens in 4 years, 10 years, in the year 2000, 2010, and 2020.
Revenues stay the same and there is a huge growth in overall Federal
spending. Unless we do something, this is inevitable. This is agreed to
in a bipartisan way. These are data that are generated by a number of
sources that, again, both sides of the aisle accept. It is inevitable.
The reason it is inevitable in some part is because of our aging
population, because we had a baby boom back 30 years ago now which will
be traveling through, which at the year 2010 will hit.

Now, 2010 sounds a long way away, but in truth it is 14 years away.
You can see in the year 2010, 14 years away, that entitlements, in the
red, and on the debt, in the yellow, consume all Federal revenues in 14
years unless we do something. The last year and a half we have not done
anything. Unless we do something, we will have no money left over for
the discretionary spending. This is education, national parks,
research, science, and defense of this country. That is why we must
come together and act in a reasonable way.
The growth of mandatory spending we can look at differently to drive
home the problems that we have. That is really in this second chart.
Mandatory spending--what we spend if we do nothing--on entitlements and
interest on the debt are consuming an increasing portion of our Federal
budget pie. This chart, I think, describes that and explains that very
well. We have mandatory spending in 1965, overall spending in 1965;
overall spending in 1995 is shown by the middle pie; and then looking
on into the future. This is our overall budget. The red is
entitlements; the yellow is interest on the debt; and the discretionary
spending is in the light blue.
Look what happens between 1965 and 1995: Entitlements and interest on
the debt in 1965 consumed about one-third of our overall budget; by
1995, the discretionary spending and the mandatory spending have
flipped. We can see entitlements and interest on the debt now consume
almost two-thirds of the overall budget, with the discretionary
spending having consumed before two-thirds, now only one-third. We must
act.
Again, why do we need to act today for the long term and not just the
short term? Because if we look out again in 14 or 15 years, in the year
2012, the entire Federal budget will be spent for entitlements and
interest on the debt, with absolutely no money left over for defense,
medical research, roads, national park, and infrastructure. This is
what happens if we do not act, if we do not act in this body, in a
bipartisan coming-together, in a reasonable way.
Clearly, we face a monumental fiscal crisis if we do nothing. This
1997 balanced budget resolution, which came out of the Budget
Committee, begins to solve this long-term problem by reducing spending
growth and reforming entitlements. Over the next 6 years, our
resolution will slow spending by $441 billion. More importantly, 85
percent of these spending reductions target mandatory programs, those
automatic pilot entitlements that are driving us deeper and deeper into
debt.
Our budget, unlike the President's budget, addresses this problem of
growth in entitlements and interest over time, which ultimately
eliminates discretionary spending. Now, long-term thinking also means
strengthening and improving programs that are critical to the health
care of our Nation.
Of the 400 entitlement programs in the budget, I want to briefly
comment on two--Medicare and Medicaid. It is the long-term decisions
that we make about these programs that are crucial because it is they
that are the fastest growing entitlements, and it is they that provide
the critical health care services that over 37 million senior citizens
depend upon and over 30 million people below the poverty level. It is a
little disappointing because I have been in this body about a year and
a half to 2 years, and we have made absolutely no headway in saving,
strengthening, and simplifying Medicare. Yet, the problem has been laid
out for us now almost 2 years ago.
Politicians all too often have been negligent in telling people the
truth about Medicare's really precarious financial situation. Let me
say at the outset that, as a physician, I have taken care of thousands
of Medicare patients personally, day in and day out. It is the world's
largest insurance program. It is hugely popular among 37 million
participating Americans. It is giving seniors and individuals with
disabilities unprecedented access to the great health care system that
we have today. It has prolonged and improved the lives of millions and
millions of Americans. Thus, we must work together to strengthen and
save this program.
The truth is depicted again in this chart, though. This is the
Medicare hospital trust fund, the so-called part A trust fund. It
started going broke last year. If I were to come into any small
business and say, ``You are going broke right now,'' what would they
do? They would react, go back and develop a strategic plan. They would
react on that day. Yet, we sit in this body and have not yet done one
thing to reverse Medicare going broke in a few short years.
This chart shows overall assets of the trust fund in billions of
dollars. You can see that we were spending more than we were taking in
beginning last year. This is 1994. In 1995, we went into the red in the
Medicare trust fund spending, the actual cash flow going in and out.
That deficit spending has increased this year, will increase this year,
the year after that, and the year after that. Meanwhile, this trust
fund is going down, down, and down, where in 4 to 5 years the trust
fund will be bankrupt.

I should add that these projections have gotten worse over the last
year. Last year, we said it is not going to start going bankrupt for a
year and will not really go bankrupt until 2002. Well, over the last 14
months of doing nothing in the U.S. Congress, Medicare is going
bankrupt more quickly.
This chart shows this whole concept. We sort of looked at cash flow
in the last part, how much is coming in and going out. If we look at
actual bankruptcy--I took a chart that we used last year, based on the
Medicare trustees' report of last April, and updated that chart. This
chart looks at, in billions of dollars, how much the trust fund has in
assets. When it gets down to this line, Medicare is actually going
bankrupt. This is 1985 to 1995. It projects out to the year 2004. The
line that I used last year, which was in the Medicare trustees' report,
was the blue line. From 1985 to 1995, as you can see, the Medicare part
A trust fund looked better and better and better. However, we saw,
beginning last year--not this year, and we saw it on the previous
chart--we started deficit spending. This is what we projected last
year. This is 1995. That is, Medicare would be bankrupt in the year
2002. I should add, when Medicare goes bankrupt, by law, no hospitals
can be paid. So when it goes bankrupt, that means that care will
actually be denied. That is inevitable, unless we act. Well, last year,
we presented a plan to the President of the United States that would
save Medicare, would change the course of this line on out into the
future. Yet, it was vetoed by the President. Now we have yet another
opportunity to salvage, to save and strengthen Medicare.
Look what has happened in the course of the last year and a half of
doing nothing. That is where I have updated this chart. That is where
the red line comes in. Based on the predictions by the Congressional
Budget Office, we see that Medicare is not going to go bankrupt in the
year 2002. But now it is going to be going bankrupt in the year 2000--
and nothing else has changed--unless we act. In this balanced budget
resolution, I will show you, shortly, how we will extend these lines
out and preserve Medicare.
Surely, we must save and strengthen and simplify this program. We
have to lay aside the politics and focus on protecting those Americans.
I think of

[[Page S5041]]

those thousands of patients who I have taken care of myself, and who
were treated for heart disease, lung disease, emphysema, and had lung
cancers taken out, and who have gone through coronary bypass surgery.
Those are the people I have seen and the people we have to be
responsible to in preserving this program.
This chart shows the Medicare hospital insurance trust fund with what
we have before us today in this balanced budget resolution, with what
the President has proposed and will be talking about later today, and
what we will discuss on this floor today and tomorrow. Under current
law, again, this shows that Medicare will be going bankrupt in the year
2000 if we do nothing. That is the red line. Well, the President, in
his proposal--once you get rid of the gimmicks of moving home health
care and part A of the trust fund elsewhere, which is a gimmick--if you
put that aside, you can see that under the President's proposal, in
green on the chart, the hospital trust fund is extended for 1 year.
We have to get away from this short-term thinking and look on into
the next century. The baby boom does not even hit until 2008. We have
to be prepared for the year 2008 and extend solvency for 10 years. That
is what our balanced budget proposal does. The balanced budget
proposal--the one we will be debating and discussing--extends the life
of the part A trust fund, which is the heart of Medicare, out for 10
years. That is an objective that the President said he would like to
see out there. It is something I feel strongly about. Remember, out in
the year 2006, we are going to have a whole new set of problems we have
to address. In the proposal before us, we extend for 10 years the
solvency. The President extends it only for 1 year. If we do nothing,
it will be going bankrupt in the year 2000.
With regard to Medicaid, which is the second area I want to discuss,
I think we have a historic opportunity to work together to preserve
what has become and needs to be a real safety net for women, children,
senior citizens, and our disabled population.
Let me, again, say that about 35 percent of the people who I have
transplanted hearts into are below the poverty level and benefited by
having Medicaid. So, again, my experience with this whole health care
issue is pretty real in that 35 percent of all the people I have
transplanted benefited by having Medicaid, which served them very well.
The problem is that Medicaid, today, takes up 6 percent of total
Federal spending and about one-fifth of State spending. Unless we act,
we will see about a 155-percent increase in just 10 years.
This increase in Medicaid spending, if you look at it just from last
year to this year, is more than we spent in whole on mass transit, on
all criminal investigations, on pollution control and abatement, and on
the National Science Foundation. That is just how much the increase has
been. Unfortunately, Medicaid, with this inexorable growth, is
bankrupting our State budgets, who have Medicaid being the largest
single entity in the States' budgets, driving out spending on other
very useful causes, like police, crime, and education.
Let me say at the outset that nothing in our balanced budget
resolution constitutes a cut in Medicaid--absolutely nothing.
President Clinton and Republicans both attempted to rein in growth
and spending and protect the eligible population. The differences are
going to be hammered out in the committee. But let me just say what we
started with.
We started with the bipartisan cooperation in working with the
Nation's Governors, 48 of whom got together and passed out unanimously
a proposal that we agree with. Their plan was designed to protect all
current law eligibles and included in the umbrella a fund for
emergencies.
To preserve the important safety net which must be there, Medicaid
spending under our plan, our proposal, will increase 25 percent over
the next 6 years. There are $54 billion more in our bill than in last
year's budget resolution. It is not a cut. The program will continue to
grow at a rate of about 6.5 percent under our proposal, which is
important--two times the rate of inflation--and it will grow a total of
46 percent from 1996 to the year 2002.
Let me also add that as we strengthen Medicare, improve Medicare, and
save Medicare for the future, and as we improve, simplify, and
strengthen the Medicaid programs, we must also recognize that
biomedical research must and will remain a priority for our Nation's
long-term health care needs, again going back to the importance of
thinking long term and not just short term. In this field of biomedical
research, shortsightedness would only yield some quick remedies that
would really, I think personally and based on my experience,
potentially endanger lifesaving breakthroughs from continuing research.
The 1997 budget resolution allows us to maintain funding for the NIH,
the National Institutes of Health, at the level of funding secured last
year and an increase of 8.8 percent, or almost $1 billion, more per
year than in last year's budget resolution. Their commitment will help
to preserve our position as a world leader in biomedical research.
Finally, Mr. President, long-term thinking means avoiding budget
gimmicks. Earlier I spoke very quickly about a gimmick that I find very
troubling in the administration's budget of transferring home health
care, which is growing at about 17 percent a year, from one part of
Medicare to another to make us feel better about part A. Medicare is
part A, the hospital trust fund we have talked about, and part B, which
is physician services, we focused on a lot over the last year and a
half.
Part A, the hospital trust fund, and the data that we just talked
about, is the hospital part A trust fund. We cannot solve that problem
without some fundamental reform. What the President has done,
unfortunately, is take assets out of the part A trust fund, move them
elsewhere and say, now the trust fund is going to be solved long term.
It is just not right. It is just not true. That is a gimmick. We have
to have fundamental structural reform if we are going to look at the
long-term solvency of that part A trust fund.
I guess I want to comment lastly on the President's ``spend now, save
later,'' proposals for discretionary spending. This chart looks just to
the nondefense discretionary outlays, the spending that is out there.
The red is the President's plan. The green is the Senate-reported plan
that we have on the table now. It is $270 billion in overall spending,
fiscal year 1996, where we are today, going out to the year 2002 over
the next 6 years. The difference in this plan is very clear--increased
spending in these early years by the President's plan in nondefense
discretionary spending where we have real numbers coming in addressing
the problem today, not focusing on just the first 2 years, but the long
term.
The President has certain trigger proposals which will come into play
these last few years, and I think they really defy common sense. The
American people need to recognize these proposals as gimmicks that are
antithetical to our efforts to balance the budget. No American family
or individual would conduct their financial affairs in this manner, and
their Government should not either. The problem is now. Let us address
the problem now, not increase spending hoping, hoping, that it will be
addressed in the future.
I look forward to offering a sense-of-the-Senate amendment on the
floor that will oppose these discretionary triggers and support
commonsense budgeting.
Our constituents deserve nothing less than a courageous forward
thinking leadership here in Washington. All of us know that today they
want us to balance the budget. Today they want us to save Medicare from
bankruptcy, which is inevitable if we do not act. They want us to
reform Medicaid to return welfare to workfare, to provide tax relief
without resorting to budgetary gimmicks. We do need to transform
Washington from that 2-year town that looks to the next election to a
20-year town that looks to the next generation.
We can start that today as we get this whole budget discussion
underway this morning and in the afternoon, over the next 50 hours, by
eventually passing this 1997 balanced budget resolution.
I would like to briefly yield time, if I might, out of my time to
Senator Grams, my friend from Minnesota.
Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska is recognized.

[[Page S5042]]

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I would like to briefly respond to the
remarks and comments of my friend and colleague from Tennessee.
Could I see that chart that he just had there about the trust fund
going broke?
Mr. President, here is one of the things that I am most concerned
about. I think we all recognize that we have a problem, and we all are
trying to work together to solve it. I do not think it is particularly
helpful for us to show on television charts that scare the devil out of
the senior citizens of America.
The Medicare fund is not going to go broke. Everybody knows it is not
going to go broke because the Congress, whatever it has to do, is going
to step in and stop it. The fact of the matter is that while we keep
criticizing what the President of the United States has done, as I
demonstrated by charts earlier on today--listening to people on the
floor of the U.S. Senate that have recently come into the Congress, you
would think they are the only ones who have any expertise or knowledge
on how to balance the Federal budget--as I showed vividly with charts
this morning, it was the President of the United States, Bill Clinton,
who has come on board and at the urging of some of us who have been
fiscal conservatives for a long, long time and very much concerned
about the skyrocketing budget deficits annualized at about $300
billion, Bill Clinton is the one who has reversed that course. For the
first time since man's mind runneth to the contrary, we have seen a
dramatic turnaround in the annual deficits of the United States of
America.
I only say, once again, that all of these things that are being
thrown around by those on that side of the aisle who fought without a
single Republican vote against the deficit reduction proposal advanced
by the President of the United States and supported by Democrats was
the only time in 30 years that we have had a turnaround in the annual
deficits.
When I see people talking about the trust fund going broke,
unfortunately, I feel it is a means of scaring senior citizens. I tell
the senior citizens that the fund is not going to go broke. Of all the
criticisms that have been made about how bad and how gimmickry the
President of the United States is with his proposal, I cite once again,
and, if necessary, I will read it once again.
Let me repeat what June O'Neill said on May 9, 1996, in a letter to
me after I made a request for her, June O'Neill, the Republican
appointee as head of the Congressional Budget Office that we all look
to as a guiding light today and the umpire, if you will, on disputes
between the political parties. She said, ``Under the law, the trust
fund is projected to become insolvent by 2002.''
So we agree with that part. But when we talk about going busted, that
is something else--going bankrupt, projected to go bankrupt.

June O'Neill goes on to say that the Congressional Budget Office,
which, I say again, is run by the Republicans--it has a director who
makes these decisions after listening to staff that are Republicans--
June O'Neill says in that May 9 letter to me, ``The Congressional
Budget Office estimates that the administration's proposal would
postpone this date,'' or the date when it could be in some trouble,
``to the year 2005.''
I simply say, Mr. President, it is not necessary for us to talk about
this going broke and indicate that the Democrats and the President of
the United States are doing nothing about it when that is not the case.
The Senator complains about backloading, about backloading in the
President's budget. Take a look at the Republican budget. It is like
the kettle calling the teapot black. There is little difference with
regard to the backloading in either the Democratic plan or the
Republican plan, and we should be honest about it and not mislead the
American people. It seems to me you would have to agree that under my
calculations, both budgets, both the Democratic budget of the President
and the Republican budget, achieve exactly the same amount of deficit
reduction--82 percent of it in the last 3 years.
Let me repeat that. You hear this talk about backloading. Backloading
means that you do not make the cuts upfront now. You wait until the 6th
and 7th year of the budget. So that is after Bill Clinton will have
finished his second 4-year term as President of the United States or
that is after our good friend, Senator Bob Dole, would finish his first
4 years as President of the United States. But both are guilty of the
same thing. And I wish to lay down the marker now, that when you hear
about backloading, it is a plague on both of our houses.
Mr. President, 82 percent of the deficit reduction or savings in both
the President's plan and the Republican plan is in the last 3 years. So
I simply say that there is probably little to be gained if you want to
talk honestly about who is the worst backloader.
I reserve the remainder of my time and yield the floor.
Mr. FRIST addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. FRIST. Let me just very briefly respond because I know we have a
number of colleagues here. I guess the one element that I would like to
respond to is the scare tactics, because it has been a fascinating year
for me. I have only been here for a year and a half, and I do not have
all the answers to the budgetary problems that we have today, but if we
look at the issue of scare tactics, the numbers that I showed you in
terms of the chart and Medicare going bankrupt were given to us, given
to this body, by the Medicare trustees, a bipartisan group, three
members of President Clinton's Cabinet, and that is the chart that
comes directly out of their numbers. They tell us that it is an urgent
problem; it is going bankrupt--again, bipartisan.

The numbers that have been released recently are that things are
getting worse, that part A--40 percent of the overall Medicare Program
is part A--is going to be insolvent. We were told in 7 years. Now we
know it is going to be 6 years, which, since it has been a year, is
only 5 years from now. That is scary. That is scary.
But contrast that with the number of things you see on television.
Every time I go back to Tennessee they say, ``What are you people
trying to do with our budget and Medicare, trying to slow the growth
from 7 percent to 6 percent,'' which is what we were trying to do last
year and that is what we are trying to do this year.
That scares seniors. That scares seniors. If we do not do anything,
that program is going broke. It is gone. The 70-year-old people who
need heart surgery, who I operate on, are not going to get it.
I have not been around that long, but maybe by the year 2000 they
will come in with some huge tax increase or strip back benefits in the
year 2000, but that is the only thing that will save the program.
Nothing else will do it because it is inevitable; it is going bankrupt,
part A, the hospital part of the trust fund.
So we have seen a lot of scare tactics out there over the past year
and a half. Those scare tactics have been on television, paid
advertising. They scare every senior citizen. Every person over the age
of 50 will come up, because they are scared, and say, ``Don't touch
anything, because what we can see on the television ads, if you reform
the system, we are not going to have a health care system at all.''
Those are the scare tactics I am afraid of. I have just presented the
facts in terms of bankruptcy. I agree with Senator Exon. We need to
work together. Clearly, both budgets have their real problems. These
numbers came from CBO scoring, that right now, if you look at the
hospital trust fund--these are CBO numbers, Congressional Budget Office
numbers, that came from June O'Neill's staff to our staff that have
been released and part of the record we talked about in the
Budget Committee--it is going bankrupt in 5 years--the red line--if we
do nothing.

Under the President's plan, if you remove the gimmickry of the $55
billion in home health care--it is just moved to the side--CBO said it
extends the life of the trust fund for 1 year.
Our proposal, according to CBO, June O'Neill's group, says we have 10
years in our report. This, again, comes from the Congressional Budget
Office.
I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
Mr. GRAMS addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.

Unanimous-Consent Agreement

Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, first, in business to come before the
Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in recess today
from the hours of 1:30 to 3:30 and that the time

[[Page S5043]]

during recess then be charged equally from the budget resolution. By
the way, this does have the approval of the minority side as well.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. EXON. There is no objection on this side, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GRAMS. Thank you very much, Mr. President.
I rise today with great pride in supporting the budget resolution for
fiscal year 1997, and I commend the distinguished chairman of the
Senate Budget Committee, Senator Domenici, and my colleagues on the
committee for drafting a piece of legislation of which every American
can be proud.
This bill, more than anything else, is about promises, making
promises and keeping them. The American people have every reason to be
cynical about political promises. They hear so many of them, and they
hear them repeated so often that it is easy to begin to tune them out.
Yet, something resonated with the voters when we went to the people
back in November of 1994 and we promised that we would take this
country in a better direction if they elected a new majority to
Congress.
Last year we redefined the role of the Federal Government when we
laid out a plan for the Nation's future unlike anything that the people
have seen over the last 40 years. Up until then, they had always been
told that big Government was good Government; that we could keep
spending as much as we wanted and never get stuck with the bill; that
Washington knew best.
That was nothing more than a fairy tale. Our budget pointed toward a
more realistic, more responsible path, and we passed that into law only
to have it vetoed by a ``pie crust'' President whose promises are
easily made and easily broken.

Now the second installment of our balanced budget promise is before
us and we have a second opportunity to take our case to the people. Our
budget recognizes that we do have a responsibility to guarantee our
children a debt-free future and that balancing the budget without
raising taxes must be a priority of this Congress.
Mr. President, it is ironic that we begin debate on the budget
resolution today, May 15. Each year, the nonpartisan Tax Foundation
calculates its tax freedom day, and that is the day on which Americans
stop working just to pay their State, Federal, and local taxes and
actually begin keeping their earnings for themselves.
Now let us go back to 1925. Tax freedom day arrived on February 6.
But this year, Americans had to wait until May 7 before they were
allowed to keep the first dime of their own money. Mr. President, 1996
marked the latest arrival ever for tax freedom day. In fact, tax
freedom day has just jumped ahead an entire week since President
Clinton took office because under Bill Clinton's watch the Government
is taking more from the paychecks of middle-class Americans than ever
before.
Let me repeat that. Despite all the claims you hear about Bill
Clinton doing well with the budget and the deficit, tax freedom day is
a week later under Bill Clinton than ever before because, under the
watch of President Bill Clinton, he is taking more money out of the
pockets of American taxpayers than ever before.
I also want to make a couple of notes on some of the charges or
responses we have heard today from some of our Democratic colleagues,
and I will just go back to Senator Exon and some of the comments he
made, that Congress will step in to save Medicare. Senator Frist of
Tennessee is more of an expert on this than I am, and he has done a
good job of laying it out and trying to explain what happens, but we
know the President is using smoke and mirrors when he says he is going
to take $55 billion out of Medicare and move it into the general fund
so it will make it look like it is solvent. And when Mr. Exon says
Government or Congress will step in to save it, what does he mean? The
President has ignored the issue. How they would step in and save it
would be to raise your taxes.
Let us not talk about it today, but if we get the opportunity we will
come in and we will raise our taxes. Also, about the claims that they
passed the 1993 budget plan without a single Republican vote, we are
very proud of that, that we were not part of raising taxes in 1993.
My colleague from California, a few minutes ago, was talking about a
smaller Government today under President Clinton than ever before, and
a higher Government level under President Reagan in the 1980's. But I
think that is when you take into consideration all military personnel
as well. The truth is, under this administration we have more
bureaucrats and more people working in Government outside of the
military than at any time in history. So they have not shrunk the size
of the Federal Government. They have shrunk the size of the military in
order to come up with those numbers.
Then lower deficits, the reason we have lower deficits today is
because of higher taxes. They are taking more money from the average
taxpayer to offset the increase in spending. Also, we have enjoyed some
lower interest rates over the last couple of years. But when we are
talking about spending, it continues to grow out of control, so we have
not reduced the size of the Government, we have not eased the spending
burden on Americans, especially when you look again at the fact that
tax freedom day comes 1 week later today than it did 3 years ago.
And then the gas tax. I tell you, some just cannot stand to let go of
a tax no matter how small they try to make it look. They are saying the
4.3 cents is going to go into the pockets of oil companies. That is
doubtful. When they reduced the excise tax on air fares, when the
Government tax went off, that was immediately passed on to the consumer
in a rebate. But no matter what that question might be, we do know one
thing, the $5 billion in that increased gas taxes come out of the
pockets of taxpayers and it has gone into the pockets of bigger
Government.
When we talk about cutting and backloading our budgets, and we are
charged we do not do any better than what the President has proposed in
his budget--there are some very stark differences. Our budget, over the
life of 7 years, begins to trim the size and scope of the Federal
Government and we will enjoy compounded savings in the fourth, fifth,
sixth, and seventh year of our budget. But the President's plan takes
100 percent of its backloading reductions in the last 2 years, and it
takes it directly out of discretionary spending. I do not think there
is one Member of this Congress who could stand up and tell the mayors
and Governors of this country and others they are going to make that
deep of a cut in the last 2 years. That will not happen.
So we do have some differences in how we achieve the balanced budget.
It seems they always try to find some good out of a bad situation. On
the farm you would call that trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's
ear. But the news is more discouraging for taxpayers of Minnesota
because national tax freedom day came and went 8 days ago, but
Minnesotans do not keep their own dollars until today. That is, 136
days into 1996, because of higher State and local taxes, and the
differences in the Federal tax burden, Minnesota is tied with Wisconsin
in having the fourth latest tax freedom day in the Nation. Only the
residents of Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey pay higher taxes
than we do in Minnesota. That is nearly 20 weeks, over 800 hours on the
job, just to pay Uncle Sam.
By imposing his record-breaking $255 billion tax increase in 1993,
again, President Clinton bears the responsibility for ever-increasing
tax burdens from singles to families to seniors to job providers. Every
segment of society has felt the pinch. Motorists were hit especially
hard by the President's gas tax increase, which again boosted the cost
of gasoline by nearly $5 billion every year.
So, whatever you call it, the Clinton crunch or the middle-class
squeeze, as long as taxes keep rising, the dollars Americans have left
over to provide for their families will keep falling. It must be the
goal of Congress to help Americans earn more money and keep more money
so they can do more for themselves, their kids, their communities, and
their churches.
The budget resolution we begin debating today will go a long way
toward ensuring tax freedom day arrives earlier next year for all
Americans. Mr. President, its cutting taxes provisions

[[Page S5044]]

could not come at a better time. Government has become a looming
presence in the lives of the American people. Each year the people are
asked to turn more responsibilities over to the Federal Government for
Government regulation, for Government support. From the time they get
up in the morning until they go to bed at night, there are very few
aspects of American daily life that are not touched now by the hand of
government.
So government has been forced to grow just to keep up. Consider that
government spending at the Federal, State, and local level has jumped
from 12 percent of the national income in 1930 to 42 percent today, and
the burden for keeping these ever-ballooning bureaucracies in operation
has fallen on the taxpayers, of course, through more and higher taxes.
The increase has been dramatic. Between 1934 and 1995, individual
Federal income taxes as a percentage of gross domestic product rose
1,114 percent.
Today, the typical American family faces a tax burden from all levels
of government of 38 percent, and most middle-class American families
are turning more money over to the government than they are spending
for their family's food, clothing, shelter, and transportation
combined. Families with children are now the lowest after-tax income
group in America, below elderly households, single persons and families
without children.
A significant number of families are relying on a second job just to
pull themselves above the poverty line and to meet their annual tax
obligations. The majority of families who have reached a middle-class
standard of living are families with two incomes. They are still trying
to pursue the American dream, but the ever-increasing tax burden keeps
pushing it out of reach.
According to the Gallup organization, 67 percent of the people say
they are handing over too much of their own money to the Federal
Government. They might feel differently if they were getting a fair
return on the investment, but Americans see their hard-earned dollars
being wasted by the Federal Government. They look at the services they
are getting in return and they feel like they have been taken to the
cleaners.
It has always been easy for past Congresses to be generous with
somebody else's money. This Congress, however, is no longer willing to
let the Government gamble away the taxpayers' hard-earned dollars. In
fact, we are going to keep those dollars out of the Government's hands
in the first place. The centerpiece of our balanced budget plan is the
$500 per child tax credit, and I am proud this desperately needed
provision remains at the heart of our legislation. The tax credit alone
will allow 28 million taxpaying households to keep $23 billion of their
own money each year.
In my home State of Minnesota, the tax credit would return $477
million every year to families who work hard, pay their bills, and
struggle every day to care for their children without relying on the
Government.
In addition another 3.5 million households nationwide will find the
$500-per-child tax credit tax liability has eliminated their tax
liability entirely; 3.5 million households. President Clinton has
promised a middle-class tax cut of his own, but, again, it is virtually
nonexistent in his 1997 budget. Let us look at what he calls for.
To qualify for the President's version of the child tax credit your
child has to be under the age of 13--meaning that just about the time
you need that tax relief the most, it would dry up. In addition, it
would only be $300 per child for 3 of its 5 years, and then it would be
abruptly terminated 2 years early. The $122 billion in tax relief
Congress is offering in our budget resolution is real tax relief. It is
not a paper gimmick.

The second plank of the legislation before us is the promise to
balance the budget by the year 2002. Every year the Federal Government
is spending billions and billions more than it takes in. Because of 4
decades of fiscal insanity, the national debt has today eclipsed $5
trillion and continues to rise. Just the interest alone on a debt that
massive is accumulating at the rate of $4 million an hour. If our
national debt were shared equally among all Americans, each of us would
have to pay up $19,000 for every man, woman, and child in this country.
Every child born today in the United States of America comes into the
world already saddled with a debt of more than $19,000. The share for
an average family is $75,000.
So the first, most important result of a balanced budget would be to
free our children and grandchildren from the economic burden they will
inherit from this generation, a burden they did not ask for and one
they certainly do not deserve. Because we have been able to begin
reining in spending over the past year, our budget reaches balance in 6
years, not 7 as we first proposed a year ago. By contrast, the
President's 1997 budget plan never achieves balance. It achieves an
annual budget deficit of $84 billion by the year 2002. Our plan
achieves its goals without dramatic cuts of any kind--except in the
deficit.
Spending on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, welfare programs,
and the earned income tax credit will all continue to grow to meet this
Nation's needs over the 6-year life of our budget.
Keeping promises may be considered out of style here in the Nation's
Capital City, where promises are a dime a dozen among the professional
politicians, but back in Minnesota a promise is something a person does
not back down on, even if it was made by a politician.
With our budget resolution and its meaningful tax relief, its
protections to ensure the solvency of the Medicare Program, its reform
of the welfare system, its commitment to a balanced budget by the year
2002, this Congress is keeping the promises that we made to the
American taxpayers.
Thank you very much, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. If the Senator from Michigan will withhold.

____________________