[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 81 (Wednesday, June 5, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5792-S5818]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will now proceed to debate House 
Joint Resolution 1, which the clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       A joint resolution (H.J. Res. 1) proposing a balanced 
     budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

  The Senate resumed consideration of the joint resolution.
  Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise today to call on the Senate to send 
the Dole-Hatch-Simon balanced budget amendment to the States for 
ratification. The time for decision has arrived. We will be voting on 
it either today or tomorrow. I suspect the vote is set for noon 
tomorrow. I hope that the Senate will respond to the needs of the 
American people and pass the balanced budget amendment.
  Let me initially pay tribute to some of my colleagues who have fought 
for the passage of this crucial measure. First, let me mention the 
distinguished senior Senator from Illinois, Paul Simon, the primary 
Democrat sponsor of this bipartisan amendment. Senator Simon has been a 
tireless and courageous, active worker on behalf of this amendment in 
his efforts over the years to secure passage of this amendment. His 
efforts on this matter, I think, are going to be missed in future 
Congresses. I have certainly enjoyed working with him. He is sincere. 
He is dedicated. He knows, unless we put the fiscal discipline into the 
Constitution, that we are not going to be able to balance this budget 
within 7 years or at any time in the immediate future.

  I also have to mention another veteran of the battle for the balanced 
budget amendment, Senator Strom Thurmond. The senior Senator from South 
Carolina has been a consistent voice for fiscal responsibility and a 
staunch supporter of the balanced budget amendment over many years of 
his service here. We look forward to his continued work on this and 
other matters in the future. Senator Heflin from Alabama has also been 
a long-time supporter of this bipartisan measure, who will certainly be 
missed in future Congresses. I will miss both of these senior 
Democrats, who have done so much to try to pass the balanced budget 
amendment.
  Let me also mention on our side--there are so many that should be 
mentioned on both sides--but let me mention Senator Larry Craig, of 
Idaho, who has been a forceful advocate of the amendment and has done 
the best within his power to try to get the amendment up and of course 
do everything he can to pass it. And I might also add Senator Paul 
Coverdell of Georgia, who has been a key leader on the team in moving 
this idea forward.
  I would also like to especially thank the 11 freshman Republican 
Senators who joined us at the beginning of this Congress. All of them 
leapt immediately into this fray in support of the balanced budget 
amendment when it came up in the very first month of the 104th 
Congress. They deserve a lot of credit. We only lost this by one vote. 
We will hear from each of them later, as we did in the first round of 
debates last year. It is heartening to see new Members so strongly 
dedicated to the fiscal soundness of our country.
  These and so many of my colleagues from both sides of the aisle have 
been valiant servants of their country in fighting for a constitutional 
provision which will protect future generations from the profligacy of 
the current and past generations. But one stands above them all in his 
tirelessness, his dedication, in his commitment to providing a better 
future for our children and grandchildren, an America like the one that 
he grew up in, fought for, and of course an America that he has served 
all of his life. He will be leaving us soon and he will be sorely 
missed in this body, but he will be going on to greater challenges and 
higher offices in the service of our country. I am, of course, 
referring to our majority leader, and our leader in this effort on the 
balanced budget amendment, Senator Robert Dole. Bob Dole has made this 
a priority and has worked to make a balanced budget amendment the 28th 
amendment to the Constitution. His efforts on this amendment happen to 
be consistent with his decades of service on behalf of all Americans 
and on behalf of future generations. The contrast of his record with 
that of President Clinton is very clear.
  President Clinton has fought the balanced budget amendment every step 
of the way. I would ask, why? The President now says he is for a 
balanced budget, yet I suggest the opponents of the balanced budget 
amendment are simply not ready to impose the kind of fiscal discipline 
on themselves that a constitutional amendment would require. It is 
tough to stop spending other people's money.
  Last year, President Clinton succeeded in blocking the balanced 
budget amendment. He used all the tools at his disposal. He sent out 
Cabinet officials to argue against the amendment and even against 
balancing the budget per se. He used the resources of the Federal 
Government and all the persuasive power of the Presidency to defeat the 
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

[[Page S5793]]

  Last year, President Clinton won and, in my opinion, the American 
people lost. The American people will lose again if President Clinton 
has his way again this year, unless he changes his mind and makes clear 
his support for this balanced budget amendment, the only one that has a 
possibility of passing because it already has passed the House of 
Representatives.

  The subject matter of the amendment goes to the heart of our Founding 
Fathers' hope for our constitutional system, a system that would 
protect individual freedom through limited government. In the later 
half of this century, however, the intention of the Framers of the 
Constitution has been betrayed by Congress' inability to control its 
own spending habits. The size of the Federal leviathan has grown to 
such an extent that the very liberties of the American people and our 
future generations are threatened.
  Since the other body has already given its approval to the amendment 
it is up to the Senate to follow suit to meet the needs of the American 
people, 85 percent of whom favor a balanced budget amendment. We need 
to relegate the spendthrift and tax-happy policies of the past to the 
dustbin of history.
  This amendment has broad support in the country and among Democrats 
and Republicans who believe we need to get the Nation's fiscal house in 
order so that we can leave a legacy of a strong national economy and a 
responsible national Government to our children and grandchildren.
  The problem is our worsening debt crisis. Our Nation is faced with 
the worsening problem of rising national debt and deficits and the 
increased Government use of capital that would otherwise be available 
to the private sector to create jobs and invest in our future. This 
problem presents risks to our long-term economic growth and endangers 
the well-being of our elderly, our working people, and especially our 
children and grandchildren. The debt burden is a mortgage on their 
future. The debt is fiscal child abuse and it must end.
  The total national debt now stands at more than $5.1 trillion. That 
means that every man, woman and child in Utah, and all of our States, 
has an individual debt burden of more than $19,600. While it took us 
more than 200 years to acquire our first trillion dollars of debt, we 
have recently been adding another $1 trillion to our debt about every 5 
years.
  Yet opponents of the balanced budget amendment claim that there is no 
problem. They point to the marginal slowdown in the growth of the debt 
in the last year or so as if it suggested that all our problems are 
solved. Only inside this beltway, in Washington, DC, can people claim 
that we are on the right track while we add to a debt of more than $5.1 
trillion.
  The President's own 1997 budget predicts that in the year 2000, total 
Federal debt will be more than $6 trillion. That means a Federal debt 
of about $23,700 per person. Everybody in this country will have jumped 
from $19,600 per person that we owe now to $23,700 per person. This 
would be nearly a tenfold increase in per-capita debt since 1975.
  When we last debated the balanced budget amendment I gave a daily 
update on the debt increase as we debated. By the end of the debate my 
``debt tracker'' was becoming unwieldy, so I brought down sort of a 
summary debt tracker to bring us up to date on the debt since we began 
debate on this amendment in January of last year.
  As my chart here shows, when we last began our debate in January 
1995, we were in debt, as a national debt, $4.81 trillion. Since 
January 30, 1995 to June 3, 1996, a little over a year, we are now at 
$5.13 trillion in national debt. We have gone up $320 billion while 
this President is claiming we are getting the national debt under 
control and that he is really solving the deficit problems. That is a 
false claim and there is no question about it.
  Translated in more understandable terms this means that the cost of 
delay in passing this important amendment has been more than $1,200 for 
every man, woman and child in our country. Put another way, over the 15 
months that have elapsed since President Clinton helped defeat the 
balanced budget amendment, the debt has increased on average over $650 
million a day; over $27 million an hour, over $450,000 a minute, over 
$7,500 every second. This is the price of the delay by President 
Clinton and his allies.
  That increasing debt is not just numbers on a chart. Over time, the 
disproportionate burdens imposed on today's children and their children 
by the continuing pattern of deficits could include some combination of 
the following: Increased taxes, reduced public welfare benefits, 
reduced public pensions, reduced expenditures on infrastructure and 
other public investments, diminished capital formation, decreased job 
creation, weaker productivity enhancement, and stagnating real wage 
growth in the private economy, higher interest rates, higher inflation, 
increased indebtedness to and economic dependence on foreign creditors, 
increased risk of default on the Federal debt, and, I might add, I 
think a very strong hit on Social Security--a very strong hit. Because, 
while we have done nothing to pass a balanced budget amendment, the 
debt has gone up $320 billion in just the last 15 months, and every 
time that goes up it reduces the value of every dollar and hits people 
on Social Security more than anybody else.
  So, while some are arguing that we have to protect Social Security in 
the balanced budget amendment, something that should not be written 
into a constitutional amendment, Social Security is endangered because 
we are not putting this fiscal discipline into the Constitution and we 
have now gone 15 months with more danger to Social Security than ever 
before, where, had we passed this amendment, we would be on the way to 
balancing the budget by the year 2002 without any obfuscation, without 
the phony budgets that we commonly see around here, without the smoke 
and mirrors. We would have to do it. That, in the end, is what will 
protect Social Security and other pensions of people who are counting 
on them in our society.

  Mr. President, one thing became clear during our recent experience in 
trying to enact the Balanced Budget Act of 1995. It is that we need a 
constitutional amendment. Some Senators argued during our debate last 
year on Senate Joint Resolution 1 that ``we did not need a 
constitutional amendment to balance the budget; we know what needs to 
be done; we should just do it.'' In fact, the President said that in a 
news clip I saw. He pointed to the media and said, ``Let's just do 
it.''
  That is what they have been saying for 60 years now and why 
everything is being put in jeopardy as this debt continues to 
skyrocket, while we continue not to have a balanced budget amendment 
which would protect us. The trouble with ``just do it,'' is that 
Congress did it and the President did not. But under a constitutional 
amendment to balance the budget, the words ``just do it,'' would have 
authority for both of the elected branches of Government.
  In the year that has gone by since President Clinton helped defeat 
the balanced budget amendment, the country has witnessed one of the 
most contentious budget battles in the history of our Nation. President 
Clinton was willing to let the Government shut down not once but twice 
before he finally agreed to work seriously toward balancing the budget.
  But really what guarantee is there the Federal Government will 
achieve a balanced budget? And it is not just balancing the budget; it 
is reducing the national debt as well.
  When the other side of the aisle controlled Congress, we never even 
had a serious consideration of this budget plan, we never even looked 
at it seriously. President Clinton never proposed a balanced budget 
until he was forced to. The budget that he submitted, when we first 
debated this amendment last year, had $200 billion deficits as far as 
the eye can see. Even our colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
recognized this as an entirely inadequate approach and rejected it. In 
fact, the President submitted no fewer than 10 budgets in 1 year in a 
series of attempts to avoid the tough, but responsible, decision to 
balance the budget.
  Can the country afford the risk of having this fight every year? 
Nothing shows more clearly how difficult it is to move in the right 
direction than just the last 9 months. Mr. President, we need the 
balanced budget amendment to lock in the balanced budget

[[Page S5794]]

rule, or the future of our children will become bleaker and bleaker.
  This constitutional amendment will help us end Congress' dangerous 
deficit habit in the way past efforts have not. It will do this by 
correcting a bias in the present process, which favors ever-increasing 
levels of Government spending. The balanced budget amendment reduces 
the spending bias in our present system by ensuring that, under normal 
circumstances, votes by Congress for increased spending will be 
accompanied by votes either to reduce other spending programs or to 
increase taxes to pay for our programs. For the first time since the 
abandonment of our historical norm of balanced budgets, Congress would 
be required to cast a politically difficult vote as a precondition to 
casting a politically attractive vote to increase spending.
  Mr. President, the Senate should approve the balanced budget 
amendment. A vote against the amendment is a vote for the old status 
quo of irresponsible drift into more insurmountable debt than we 
already have. Sending the balanced budget amendment to the States is 
the right thing to do for ourselves, our children and our 
grandchildren, and it will give us back responsible and accountable 
constitutional Government.
  I just want to say one more word about Social Security. I do not know 
of one Senator on either side of the aisle who does not want to protect 
Social Security. You do not write a protection for any particular item 
in the budget into the Constitution because that would lock it in and 
make it very difficult to ever make any changes or reforms that must be 
made.

  The fact of the matter is, though, that if we do not pass a balanced 
budget amendment, Social Security will suffer, because we know by the 
year 2014, Social Security will start going bankrupt. In fact, many 
think it is going to start going bankrupt well before then. If we pass 
a balanced budget amendment, we will have to face these problems, and 
we will have to face them in a way that will protect those who are on 
Social Security in ways that, if we do not pass a balanced budget 
amendment, they will never be protected.
  People need to know that is what it is. We have had 15 months of our 
debt going up $320 billion and that cannot help but have an effect on 
the financial viability of our country, on the financial viability of 
Social Security, on the financial viability of the whole world. We have 
to get it under control. The only methodology that I know of that will 
get us there, and I think most people will agree will get us there, is 
a balanced budget amendment locked into the Constitution which all of 
us revere and worship, which all of us will pay attention to, which all 
of us will honor and are sworn to uphold that will help us to get these 
spending practices under control.
  I hope we can pass this balanced budget amendment. I do not have any 
illusions about it, but we are going to have this vote, and if it does 
go down again, which everybody expects it to, it will not be the last 
time we vote on this, we will be back next year and the year after, if 
that is what it takes, until this amendment is locked in the 
Constitution and people have to face the music here in Congress. It is 
about time we did.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. HOLLINGS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Santorum). The Senator from South 
Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator 
Exon be recognized at 1 p.m. today.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator 
Dorgan be recognized at 3:30 p.m. today to use whatever time he 
utilizes under the time he controls and that I be recognized after 
that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I find it hard to believe my ears. What 
this really involves is the determined effort by the proponents of 
Senate Joint Resolution 1 to balance the budget with a constitutional 
amendment that devastates Social Security over the next 7 years by over 
$600 billion.
  Let me read section 7 of the joint resolution:

       Total receipts shall include all receipts of the United 
     States Government, except those derived from borrowing. Total 
     outlays shall include all outlays of the United States 
     Government, except for those for repayment of debt principal.

  We suggested when this came up last year, and again earlier this 
year, that we were readily prepared to vote for a balanced budget 
amendment--we are waiting on the majority leader, of course, to make 
his motion to reconsider--if we add to the existing exclusion in 
section 7 that ignores those funds derived from borrowing and similarly 
exclude the Social Security trust fund surpluses.
  The distinguished Senator from Utah says, ``Oh, it's so fine, we're 
going to finally lock it in,'' and he shows a chart with a horrendous 
debt. He says, ``Now we're going to finally really fix it so we can 
balance the budget.'' Then in the same breath, he says that ``we're 
going to protect Social Security.''
  Social Security has long been protected. I intend to talk a little 
later about the history of our efforts to save it in 1983 with the 
National Commission on Social Security Reform on which the 
distinguished majority leader, Senator Dole of Kansas, served.
  But more to the point at hand: I made a motion as a member of the 
Budget Committee on July 10, 1990, that we put in a provision for 
Social Security protection. The reason being that we were beginning to 
rob the Social Security trust fund.
  When the National Commission on Social Security Reform, the Greenspan 
commission, issued its report in 1983, they mandated that Social 
Security would be put off-budget in 1992. But when we saw what was 
really going on, I worked in bipartisan fashion with Senator Heinz and 
put into the law section 13301, signed on November 5, 1990, by 
President George Bush, which reads as follows:

       Exclusion of Social Security from all budgets. 
     Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the receipts and 
     disbursements of the Federal Old Age and Survivors Insurance 
     trust fund, the Federal Disability Insurance trust fund, 
     shall not be counted as new budget authority outlays, 
     receipts or deficit or surplus for purposes of the budget of 
     the U.S. Government as submitted by the President, two, the 
     congressional budget or, three, the Balanced Budget and 
     Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985. Exclusion of Social 
     Security from the congressional budget, section 301(a) of the 
     Congressional Budget Act of 1974, as amended, by adding at 
     the end the following: ``The concurrent resolution shall not 
     include the outlays and revenue totals of the Old Age 
     Survivors and Disability Insurance Program established under 
     title II of the Social Security Act or the related provisions 
     of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 in the surplus or 
     deficit totals required by this subsection or in any other 
     surplus or deficit totals required by this title.''

  That is the law of the land. The Congressional Research Service and 
all others reading it who understand the English language know that 
section 7 of House Joint Resolution 1 repeals that law.
  They dutifully praise the Senator from Illinois who stood for long 
periods of time here with me trying to balance the budget. He has come 
to me and other Senators on this side of the aisle and said, ``Let's 
see if we can't compromise.'' I replied, ``I don't mind being 
realistic, if you want to extend the date or any other wording.'' But 
Social Security has to be protected. We demonstrated the seriousness of 
our convictions with Senator Dole's vote and Senator Hollings' vote, 
just last year.
  Mr. President, just November of last year, on the 16th of November, I 
put an forth an amendment:

       Notwithstanding any other provision of this joint 
     resolution, the 7-year balanced budget passed by the Congress 
     to the President shall not include the use of Social Security 
     trust funds to reflect a balanced budget.

  In other words, that put the Congress on record against any kind of 
unified budget that included Social Security trust funds. That was 
passed with Senator Dole's and Senator Hollings' vote, 97-2, and in the 
original instance, back 5 years ago, in 1990, it was 98-2.
  Yes, we talk about protecting Social Security, but in this 
constitutional amendment, we avoid that particular protection that is 
already in the law. Why are they so adamant to do so? Because they 
cannot present a balanced budget, Mr. President, over that 7-year 
period without using Social Security trust funds and without other 
smoke and mirrors.
  I have put it into the Record many a time. I will put it in again and 
show

[[Page S5795]]

you the particular budget that I submitted. And I said that if you 
could give me a 7-year balanced budget without an increase in taxes, a 
realistic budget without the smoke and mirrors, I would jump off the 
Capitol dome. I tried to convince them. They all said, ``Well, 
Hollings--what's he for?''
  I will put it in here right now in this Record. Mr. President, I ask 
unanimous consent that the Truth-in-Budgeting Act schedules, dated 
January 23, 1995, be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

           Hollings Releases Realities on Truth in Budgeting

       Reality #1: $1.2 trillion in spending cuts is necessary.
       Reality #2: There aren't enough savings in entitlements.
       *Have welfare reform, but a jobs program will cost; savings 
     are questionable.
       *Health reform can and should save some, but slowing growth 
     from 10 to 5 percent doesn't offer enough savings.
       *Social security won't be cut and will be off-budget again.
       Reality #3: We should hold the line on the budget on 
     Defense; that would be no savings.
       Reality #4: Savings must come from freezes and cuts in 
     domestic discretionary spending but that's not enough to stop 
     hemorrhaging interest costs.
       Reality #5: Taxes are necessary to stop hemorrhage in 
     interest costs.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                  1996    1997     1998     1999      2000      2001      2002  
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Deficit CBO Jan. 95 (using trust funds).......      207     224      225      253       284       297       322 
                                               =================================================================
Freeze discretionary outlays after 1998.......        0       0        0      -19       -38       -58       -78 
Spending cuts.................................      -37     -74     -111     -128      -146      -163      -180 
Interest savings..............................       -1      -5      -11      -20       -32       -46       -64 
                                               -----------------------------------------------------------------
      Total savings ($1.2 trillion)...........      -38     -79     -122     -167      -216      -267      -322 
                                               =================================================================
Remaining deficit using trust funds...........      169     145      103       86        68        30         0 
                                               =================================================================
Remaining defict excluding trust funds........      287     264      222      202       185       149       121 
5% VAT........................................       96     155      172      184       190       196       200 
Net deficit excluding trust funds.............      187      97       27      (17)      (54)     (111)     (159)
Gross debt....................................    5,142   5,257    5,300    5,305     5,272     5,200     5,091 
Avg. interest rate on debt (in percent).......      7.0     7.1      6.9      6.8       6.7       6.7       6.7 
Interest cost on the debt.....................      367     370      368      368       366       360       354 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note.--Figures are in billions. Figures don't include the billions necessary for a middle-class tax cut.        


------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Non-Defense Discretionary Spending Cuts          1996      1997  
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Space Station.......................................     2.1       2.1  
Eliminate CDBG......................................     2.0       2.0  
Eliminate Low-Income Home Energy Assistance.........     1.4       1.5  
Eliminate Arts Funding..............................     1.0       1.0  
Eliminate Funding for Campus Based Aid..............     1.4       1.4  
Eliminate Funding for Impact Aid....................     1.0       1.0  
Reduce Law Enforcement Funding to Control Drugs.....     1.5       1.8  
Eliminate Federal Wastewater Grants.................     0.8       1.6  
Eliminate SBA Loans.................................     0.21      0.282
Reduce Federal Aid for Mass Transit.................     0.5       1.0  
Eliminate EDA.......................................     0.02      0.1  
Reduce Federal Rent Subsidies.......................     0.1       0.2  
Reduce Overhead for University Research.............     0.2       0.3  
Repeal Davis-Bacon..................................     0.2       0.5  
Reduce State Dept. Funding and End Misc. Activities.     0.1       0.2  
End P.L. 480 Title I and III sales..................     0.4       0.6  
Eliminate Overseas Broadcasting.....................     0.458     0.570
Eliminate the Bureau of Mines.......................     0.1       0.2  
Eliminate Expansion of Rural Housing Assistance.....     0.1       0.2  
Eliminate USTTA.....................................     0.012     0.16 
Eliminate ATP.......................................     0.1       0.2  
Eliminate Airport Grant in Aids.....................     0.3       1.0  
Eliminate Federal Highway Demonstration projects....     0.1       0.3  
Eliminate Amtrak Subsidies..........................     0.4       0.4  
Eliminate RDA Loan Guarantees.......................     0.0       0.1  
Eliminate Appalachian Regional Commission...........     0.0       0.1  
Eliminate Untargeted Funds for Math and Science.....     0.1       0.2  
Cut Federal Salaries by 4%..........................     4.0       4.0  
Charge Federal Employees Commercial Rates for                           
 Parking............................................     0.1       0.1  
Reduce Agricultural Research Extension Activities...     0.2       0.2  
Cancel Advanced Solid Rocket Motor..................     0.3       0.4  
Eliminate Legal Services............................     0.4       0.4  
Reduce Federal Travel by 30%........................     0.4       0.4  
Reduce Energy Funding for Energy Technology Develop.     0.2       0.5  
Reduce Superfund Cleanup Costs......................     0.2       0.4  
Reduce REA Subsidies................................     0.1       0.1  
Eliminate Postal subsidies for Non-profits..........     0.1       0.1  
Reduce NIH funding..................................     0.5       1.1  
Eliminate Federal Crop Insurance Program............     0.3       0.3  
Reduce Justice State-Local Assistance grants........     0.1       0.2  
Reduce Export-Import Direct Loans...................     0.1       0.2  
Eliminate Library Programs..........................     0.1       0.1  
Modify Service Contract Act.........................     0.2       0.2  
Eliminate HUD Special Purpose Grants................     0.2       0.3  
Reduce Housing Programs.............................     0.4       1.0  
Eliminate Community Investment Program..............     0.1       0.4  
Reduce Strategic Petroleum Program..................     0.1       0.1  
Eliminate Senior Community Service Program..........     0.1       0.4  
Reduce USDA spending for Export Marketing...........     0.02      0.02 
Reduce Maternal and Child Health Grants.............     0.2       0.4  
Close Veterans Hospitals............................     0.1       0.2  
Reduce Number of Political Employees................     0.1       0.1  
Reduce Management Costs for VA Health Care..........     0.2       0.4  
Reduce PMA Subsidy..................................     0.0       1.2  
Reduce Below Cost Timber Sales......................     0.0       0.1  
Reduce the Legislative Branch 15%...................     0.3       0.3  
Eliminate Small Business Development Centers........     0.056     0.074
Eliminate Minority Assistance Score, Small Business                     
 Institute and Other Technical Assistance Programs,                     
 Women's Business Assistance, International Trade                       
 Assistance, Empowerment Zones......................     0.033     0.046
Eliminate New State Department Construction Projects     0.010     0.023
Eliminate Int'l Boundaries and Water Commission.....     0.013     0.02 
Eliminate Asia Foundation...........................     0.013     0.015
Eliminate International Fisheries Commission........     0.015     0.015
Eliminate Arms Control Disarmament Agency...........     0.041     0.054
Eliminate NED.......................................     0.014     0.034
Eliminate Fulbright and Other International                             
 Exchanges..........................................     0.119     0.207
Eliminate North-South Center........................     0.002     0.004
Eliminate U.S. Contribution to WHO, OAS and Other                       
 International Organizations Including the U.N......     0.873     0.873
Eliminate Participation in U.N. Peacekeeping........     0.533     0.533
Eliminate Byrne Grant...............................     0.112     0.306
Eliminate Community Policing Program................     0.286     0.780
Moratorium on New Federal Prison Construction.......     0.028     0.140
Reduce Coast Guard 10%..............................     0.208     0.260
Eliminate Manufacturing Extension Program...........     0.03      0.06 
Eliminate Coastal Zone Management...................     0.03      0.06 
Eliminate National Marine Sanctuaries...............     0.007     0.012
Eliminate Climate and Global Change Research........     0.047     0.078
Eliminate National Sea Grant........................     0.032     0.054
Eliminate State Weather Modification Grant..........     0.002     0.003
Cut Weather Service Operations 10%..................     0.031     0.051
Eliminate Regional Climate Centers..................     0.002     0.003
Eliminate Minority Business Development Agency......     0.022     0.044
Eliminate Public Telecommunications Facilities                          
 Program Grant......................................     0.003     0.016
Eliminate Children's Educational Television.........     0.0       0.002
Eliminate National Information Infrastructure Grant.     0.001     0.032
Cut Pell Grants 20%.................................     0.250     1.24 
Eliminate Education Research........................     0.042     0.283
Cut Head Start 50%..................................     0.840     1.8  
Eliminate Meals and Services for the Elderly........     0.335     0.473
Eliminate Title II Social Service Block Grant.......     2.7       2.8  
Eliminate Community Services Block Grant............     0.317     0.470
Eliminate Rehabilitation Services...................     1.85      2.30 
Eliminate Vocational Education......................     0.176     1.2  
Reduce Chapter 1 20%................................     0.173     1.16 
Reduce Special Education 20%........................     0.072     0.480
Eliminate Bilingual Education.......................     0.029     0.196
Eliminate JTPA......................................     0.250     4.5  
Eliminate Child Welfare Services....................     0.240     0.289
Eliminate CDC Breast Cancer Program.................     0.048     0.089
Eliminate CDC AIDS Control Program..................     0.283     0.525
Eliminate Ryan White AIDS Program...................     0.228     0.468
Eliminate Maternal and Child Health.................     0.246     0.506
Eliminate Family Planning Program...................     0.069     0.143
Eliminate CDC Immunization Program..................     0.168     0.345
Eliminate Tuberculosis Program......................     0.042     0.087
Eliminate Agricultural Research Service.............     0.546     0.656
Reduce WIC 50%......................................     1.579     1.735
Eliminate TEFAP:                                                        
    Administrative..................................     0.024     0.040
    Commodities.....................................     0.025     0.025
Reduce Cooperative State Research Service 20%.......     0.044     0.070
Reduce Animal Plant Health Inspection Service 10%...     0.036     0.044
Reduce Food Safety Inspection Service 10%...........     0.047     0.052
                                                     -------------------
      Total.........................................    36.942    58.407
------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Mr. HOLLINGS. I included that to show how you could do it, how many 
cuts would be necessary in discretionary spending, with taxes and 
without taxes at that particular time. I did that because I had heard 
my colleagues on national TV. On ``Meet the Press,'' I heard the 
distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Domenici, on 
the House side Mr. Kasich, and others say they are going to present a 
balanced budget.
  I got together with the best of minds on the Budget Committee, the 
staff. We worked all through the month of January. Then we just put it 
into the Record that we had tried. I should note that the spending cuts 
I included were rather harsh --harsh, harsh. I was not prepared to vote 
for those unless we got a consensus to go along and really do the job.
  But let me not get off my major point here with respect to this 
resolution. The reason they will not exclude Social Security trust 
funds and pick up the votes on this side--and they could pick up easily 
5 and probably 10 votes, and they know it--is that if they include the 
exclusion, they will rob their plan of some $600 billion over the 6- to 
7-year period.
  You know, this is all about the Presidential election. I mean, after 
all, why have 7 years? It gets us by the election here in November and 
it gets us by the November election in the year 2000. So anytime you 
can get past two Presidential elections--and there were high hopes at 
one time that they were going to have the White House--you would not 
have any real responsibility to do anything under the constitutional 
amendment until after you were elected and reelected.
  They certainly did not want to go along, even though they could get 
the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, for which the 
Senator from South Carolina has previously voted. I do not mind a 
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, but the reason they do 
not call up a balanced budget amendment that protects Social Security 
is because they know that they could not then vote for the fraud that 
is in their recent budget proposal.
  I have categorically made this statement again and again for the past 
15 years. No real balanced budget has been submitted in that 15-year 
period, no balanced budget has been submitted by this Congress or the 
President in the last 15 years. And to have the unmitigated gall to get 
up here and bring charts to the crowd--I do not know how long the 
distinguished Senator

[[Page S5796]]

from Utah has been in the U.S. Senate, but he has been here a long 
time. I do not know how long the Senator from Kansas has been here, our 
distinguished majority leader, but I know he voted with us in 1968 when 
we balanced the budget. I think the exact date was some time in June 
1968. He was in the House and I was in the Senate.
  June 20, 1968, was the date of the adoption of the conference report 
on H.R. 15414 imposing--listen to this, Mr. President, hear ye, all 
ears take heed--imposing a 10-percent surcharge on personal and 
corporate income taxes. It required the Federal Government to cut 
fiscal 1969 expenditures by $6 billion, and to reduce new obligational 
authority by $10 billion. It required a reduction in the number of 
Federal employees, extending certain existing excise taxes, 
accelerating payments of corporation taxes, revising or extending the 
effective date of certain welfare and medical assistance laws, and 
including provisions on various other subjects adopted by a vote in the 
House of Representatives of 268-150. It shows the distinguished Senator 
from Kansas voting ``aye.''

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the voting record be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                Excerpt From House Votes 109 Through 112

       112. HR 15414. Adoption of the conference report (H. Rept. 
     1533) on HR 15414 imposing a 10-percent surcharge on personal 
     and corporate income taxes, requiring the Federal Government 
     to cut fiscal 1969 expenditures by $6 billion and to reduce 
     new obligational authority by $10 billion, requiring a 
     reduction in the number of federal employees, extending 
     certain existing excise taxes, accelerating payment of 
     corporation taxes, revising or extending the effective date 
     of certain welfare and medical assistance laws, and including 
     provisions on various other subjects. Adopted 268-150: R 114-
     73; D 154-77 (ND 96-49; SD 58-28), June 20, 1968. A ``yea'' 
     was a vote supporting the President's position.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                      109  110  111  112
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kansas:                                                                 
    1-Dole..........................................    Y    Y    N    Y
    2-Mize..........................................    Y    Y    Y    Y
    4-Shriver.......................................    Y    Y    Y    Y
    5-Skubitz.......................................    Y    Y    Y    Y
    3-Winn..........................................    Y    Y    N    N
------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, that is the Senator from Kansas that we 
know and love. He was increasing taxes. He was cutting spending. He was 
getting rid of Federal employees, and right on down through his record 
as chairman of the Finance Committee--yes, we might as well bring it 
out categorically--he proposed the largest tax increase in the history 
of the U.S. Government.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed an article by 
Judy Mann, entitled ``Fiddling With the Numbers.''

                       [From the Washington Post]

                       Fiddling With the Numbers

                             (By Judy Mann)

       Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, the Republican meteor from New 
     Jersey, had the unusual honor for a first-term governor of 
     being asked to deliver her party's response to President 
     Clinton's State of the Union message last week.
       And she delivered a whopper of what can most kindly be 
     called a glaring inaccuracy.
       Sandwiched into her Republican sales pitch was the kind of 
     line that does serious political damage: Clinton, she 
     intoned, ``imposed the biggest tax increase in American 
     history.''
       And millions of Americans sat in front of their television 
     sets, perhaps believing that Clinton and the Democrat-
     controlled Congress had done a real number on them.
       The trouble is that this poster lady for tax cuts was not 
     letting any facts get in her way. But don't hold your breath 
     waiting for the talk show hosts to set the record straight.
       The biggest tax increase in history did not occur in the 
     Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. The biggest tax 
     increase in post-World War II history occurred in 1982 under 
     President Ronald Reagan.
       Here is how the two compare, according to Bill Gale, a 
     specialist on tax policy and senior fellow at the Brookings 
     Institution. The 1993 act raised taxes for the next 5 years 
     by a gross total of $268 billion, but with the expansion of 
     the earned income tax credit to more working poor families, 
     the net increase comes to $240.4 billion in 1993. The Tax 
     Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982, by comparison, 
     increased taxes by a net of $217.5 billion over 5 years. 
     Nominally, then, it is true that the 1993 tax bill was the 
     biggest in history.
       But things don't work nominally. ``A dollar now is worth 
     less than a dollar was back then, so that a tax increase of, 
     say $10 billion in 1982 would be a tax increase of $15 
     billion now,'' says Gale. In fact, if you adjust for the 48 
     percent change in price level, the 1982 tax increase becomes 
     a $325.6 billion increase in 1993 dollars. And that makes it 
     the biggest tax increase in history by $85 billion.
       Moreover, says Gale, the population of the country 
     increased, so that, on a per person basis, the 1993 tax 
     increase is lower than the one in 1982, and the gross 
     domestic product increased over the decade, which means that 
     personal income rose. ``Once you adjust for price 
     translation, it's not the biggest, and when you account for 
     population and GDP, it gets even smaller.''
       He raises another point that makes this whole business of 
     tax policy just a bit more complex than the heroic tax 
     slashers would have us believe. ``The question is whether 
     [the 1993 tax increase] was a good idea or a bad idea, not 
     whether it was the biggest tax increase. Suppose it was the 
     biggest? I find it frustrating that the level of the debate 
     about stuff like this as carried on by politicians is 
     generally so low.''
       So was it a good idea? ``We needed to reduce the deficit,'' 
     he says, ``we still need to reduce the deficit. The bond 
     market responded positively. Interest rates fell. There may 
     be a longer term benefit in that it shows Congress and the 
     president are capable of cutting the deficit even without a 
     balanced budget amendment.''
       Other long-term benefits, he says, are that ``more capital 
     is freed up for private investment, and ultimately that can 
     result in more productive and highly paid workers.''
       How bad was the hit for those few who did have to pay more 
     taxes? One tax attorney says that his increased taxes were 
     more than offset by savings he was able to generate by 
     refinancing the mortgage on his house at the lower interest 
     rates we've had as a result. The 1993 tax increase did 
     include a 4.3-cent-a-gallon rise in gasoline tax, which hits 
     the middle class. But most of us did not have to endure an 
     income tax increase. In 1992, the top tax rate was 31 percent 
     of the taxable income over $51,900 for single taxpayers and 
     $86,500 for married couples filing jointly. Two new tax 
     brackets were added in 1993: 36 percent for singles with 
     taxable incomes over $115,000 and married couples with 
     incomes over $140,000; and 39.6 percent for singles and 
     married couples with taxable incomes over $250,000.
       Not exactly your working poor or even your average family.
       The rising GOP stars are finding out that when they say or 
     do something stupid or mendacious, folks notice. The jury 
     ought to be out on Whitman's performance as governor until we 
     see the effects of supply side economics on New Jersey. But 
     in her first nationally televised performance as a 
     spokeswoman for her party, she should have known better than 
     to give the country only half the story. In the process, she 
     left a lot to be desired in one quality Americans are looking 
     for in politicians: honesty.

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I will read one sentence. The entire 
article is in the Record so we know there is no misuse of this 
particular instrument here: ``The biggest tax increase in post-World 
War II history occurred in 1982 under President Ronald Reagan.''
  Now, Mr. President, we also have the statements from the other media. 
That statement was in the Washington Post on January 1 of last year. 
Everybody knows about that quote from the Wall Street Journal dated 
October 26, 1994: ``Contrary to Republican claims, the 1993 package is 
not the largest tax increase in history. The 1982 deficit reduction 
package of President Reagan and Senator Robert Dole in a GOP-controlled 
Senate was a bigger tax bill, both in 1993 adjusted dollars and as a 
percentage of the overall economy.'' That was in the Wall Street 
Journal, October 26, 1994.
  Further, from the Washington Post of February 1, 1995: ``The biggest 
tax increase in history did not occur in the Omnibus Budget 
Reconciliation Act of 1993. The biggest tax increase in post-World War 
II history occurred in 1982 under President Ronald Reagan.''
  Now, from the New York Times, November 3, 1995: ``It is not true that 
the $240 billion tax increase approved by Congress in 1993 at Mr. 
Clinton's behest is the largest in American history, When adjusted for 
inflation, the only way to make comparison for dollar amounts in 
different years, a tax increase engineered by Mr. Dole in 1982, when he 
was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, was larger.'' That was 
the New York Times, November 3, 1995. That is the Senator from Kansas 
that we know and love.
  I voted, this Senator from South Carolina, with the Senator from 
Kansas back in 1968 when we had the last balanced budget. I voted 
against Reaganomics in 1981 and went along the legislation in 1982 
because we could see the disaster coming; deficits were exploding, we 
needed more revenues, and the budget was getting entirely out of hand. 
Now, Mr. President, you cannot believe your ears. You cannot believe 
your ears. Having increased spending over the 15-year period, $250 
billion more than we have taken in, on

[[Page S5797]]

an average each year, we have run the national deficit--I do not need a 
chart; all you need is the facts--from less than $1 trillion.
  From the beginning of this Nation, in 1776 with the cost of the 
Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, 
World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the cost of all the wars, we 
still had not run up a debt of $1 trillion. I know we had Desert Storm, 
but the others are supposed to have paid for it. In a 15-year period, 
without the cost of a war, we have run amok. We have gone from less 
than $1 trillion to over $5 trillion.
  What is the interest cost? The interest cost now is estimated to be 
353 billion bucks next year; that is the April 30 figure by the CBO. 
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have this table printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                                  Gross interest
                                    U.S. budget                                    Gross Federal      (Budget   
       President and year           (outlays in     Trust funds    Real deficit        debt         realities,  
                                     billions)                                      (billions)    Sen. Hollings,
                                                                                                     4-17-96)   
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Truman:                                                                                                         
    1945........................            92.7             5.4  ..............           260.1  ..............
    1946........................            55.2             3.9           -10.9           271.0  ..............
    1947........................            34.5             3.4           +13.9           257.1  ..............
    1948........................            29.8             3.0            +5.1           252.0  ..............
    1949........................            38.8             2.4            -0.6           252.6  ..............
    1950........................            42.6            -0.1            -0.1           256.9  ..............
    1951........................            45.5             3.7            +1.6           255.3  ..............
    1952........................            67.7             3.5            -3.8           259.1  ..............
    1953........................            76.1             3.4            -6.9           266.0  ..............
Eisenhower:                                                                                                     
    1954........................            70.9             2.0            -4.8           270.8  ..............
    1955........................            68.4             1.2            -3.6           274.4  ..............
    1956........................            70.6             2.6            +1.7           272.7  ..............
    1957........................            76.6             1.8            +0.4           272.3  ..............
    1958........................            82.4             0.2            -7.4           279.7  ..............
    1959........................            92.1            -1.6            -7.8           287.5  ..............
    1960........................            92.2            -0.5            -3.0           290.5  ..............
    1961........................            97.7             0.9            -2.1           292.6  ..............
Kennedy:                                                                                                        
    1962........................           106.8            -0.3           -10.3           302.9             9.1
    1963........................           111.3             1.9            -7.4           310.3             9.9
Johnson:                                                                                                        
    1964........................           118.5             2.7            -5.8           316.1            10.7
    1965........................           118.2             2.5            -6.2           322.3            11.3
    1966........................           134.5             1.5            -6.2           328.5            12.0
    1967........................           157.5             7.1           -11.9           340.4            13.4
    1968........................           178.1             3.1           -28.3           368.7            14.6
    1969........................           183.6            -0.3            +0.9           365.8            16.6
Nixon:                                                                                                          
    1970........................           195.6            12.3           -15.1           380.9            19.3
    1971........................           210.2             4.3           -27.3           408.2            21.0
    1972........................           230.7             4.3           -27.7           435.9            21.8
    1973........................           245.7            15.5           -30.4           466.3            24.2
    1974........................           269.4            11.5           -17.6           483.9            29.3
Ford:                                                                                                           
    1975........................           332.3             4.8           -58.0           541.9            32.7
    1976........................           371.8            13.4           -87.1           629.0            37.1
Carter:                                                                                                         
    1977........................           409.2            23.7           -77.4           706.4            41.9
    1978........................           458.7            11.0           -70.2           776.6            48.7
    1979........................           503.5            12.2           -52.9           829.5            59.9
    1980........................           590.9             5.8           -79.6           909.1            74.8
Reagan:                                                                                                         
    1981........................           678.2             6.7           -85.7           994.8            95.5
    1982........................           745.8            14.5          -142.5         1,137.3           117.2
    1983........................           808.4            26.6          -234.4         1,371.7           128.7
    1984........................           851.8             7.6          -193.0         1,564.7           153.9
    1985........................           946.4            40.6          -252.9         1,817.6           178.9
    1986........................           990.3            81.8          -303.0         2,120.6           190.3
    1987........................         1,003.9            75.7          -225.5         2,346.1           195.3
    1988........................         1,064.1           100.0          -255.2         2,601.3           214.1
Bush:                                                                                                           
    1989........................         1,143.2           114.2          -266.7         2,868.0           240.9
    1990........................         1,252.7           117.2          -338.6         3,206.6           264.7
    1991........................         1,323.8           122.7          -391.9         3,598.5           285.5
    1992........................         1,380.9           113.2          -403.6         4,002.1           292.3
Clinton:                                                                                                        
    1993........................         1,408.2            94.2          -349.3         4,351.4           292.5
    1994........................         1,460.6            89.1          -292.3         4,643.7           296.3
    1995........................         1,514.4           113.4          -277.3         4.921.0           332.4
    1996........................         1,572.0           126.0          -270.0         5.191.0           344.0
    Est. 1997...................         1,651.0           127.0          -292.0         5.483.0          353.0 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Historical Tables, Budget of the U.S. Government FY 1996: Beginning in 1962 CBO's ``1995 Economic and Budget    
  Outlook.''                                                                                                    

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator is running for 
President and he is getting the praises. He also ought to get the 
facts. He is running on his record. ``He gets results, results, 
results.'' Well, heavens above, what is the result? We are spending $1 
billion a day for nothing. Now, they could perhaps assess the blame to 
the Senator from South Carolina, or the Senator from Kansas, or any of 
the other Senators that have been around the last 15 years, but you can 
look at your books--Mr. President, they cannot blame President William 
Jefferson Clinton. He is the only President who has come to town since 
Lyndon Johnson that has cut the deficit.
  The Republicans have the unmitigated gall, totally shameless, to 
single out the one individual that came in and said we are going to cut 
the deficit $500 billion, we are going to tax gasoline, we are going to 
tax Social Security and in return get the finest result to the economy 
that you could possibly imagine. Meanwhile, Senators on the other side 
of the aisle said they would be hunting us in the street and shooting 
us down like dogs and all that nonsense. We could not get a single 
Republican vote in the U.S. Senate. We could not get a single 
Republican vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.
  But President Clinton stuck to his guns. We stuck to our guns. Yes, 
we were responsible for those spending cuts. We are responsible for 
those tax increases and we are responsible for the wonderful economy, 
the low inflation rate, the creation of over 8 million jobs and 
everything else. Yet they have come out to point fingers, when they are 
the ones who caused this waste of $1 billion a day for nothing. 
Interest costs have gone up from $75 billion in 1980-81 to $353 
billion. Just in round figures that is a $275 billion increase in 
spending for nothing--no Government, no schools, no highways, no law 
enforcement, no foreign aid, no welfare, no nothing.
  The crowd that caused this waste has now come around in this 
Presidential race and are trying to throw a long

[[Page S5798]]

pass. Please. I never heard of such foolishness--here we are dead 
broke, we are spending $1 billion a day. Nobody has proposed that kind 
of spending cut or tax increase. Now we have the distinguished Senator 
from Kansas who wants to repeal the gas tax, $30 billion. He wants to 
have a missile defense of $60 billion. He now is going to propose an 
across-the-board cut of $600 billion. Anything to get elected. Come on. 
I have a hard time when I wake up every morning and come to the office 
to face this problem. That is why I asked for this extra time on this 
measure.

  They should not get the votes for this disaster. Coming around here 
with a constitutional amendment, like a crowd at a football game up in 
the grandstand hollering, ``We want a touchdown, we want a touchdown.'' 
Heck, we are the team. We are on the field. What have they done, other 
than procedure--to pass it on to the States, and after two or three 
elections, 7 years from now, with the State's ratification--or 2, 3 
years, whatever--pass it to the States and let them ratify and come 
back and let the Congress then go along with the ratification. Anything 
to push off our responsibility and act like we are not here. They bring 
in charts and blame the one individual that has cut the deficit since 
he took office. Down in Arkansas he had a track record of 10 years of 
balancing budgets. He comes to town with these interest costs and a 
horrendous debt. What does he do? He submits a realistic budget that 
would have the economy in good shape, and we can not get a single vote. 
And they have the unmitigated gall to come up here and say they are 
leading the way, and that President Clinton does not want a balanced 
budget while they do. They are the ones who caused these horrendous 
deficits.
  Then I look at the screen from the Republican TV channel, channel 2, 
and here is what it has on there. It says: ``Interest costs on the 
national debt account for 15 percent of all Federal spending.'' False. 
Interest costs on the debt are 27 percent of all Federal spending. Mark 
it down. I have to correct this myself. I cannot get the newspapers to 
do it.
  Republican statement on the TV channel: ``40 cents of every Federal 
income dollar goes to pay interest on the national debt.'' Fact: 54 
cents of every Federal income tax dollar goes to pay interest on the 
national debt.
  Republican statement: ``Annual interest cost on the national debt 
almost equals annual discretionary spending.'' Fact: Annual interest 
costs far exceed discretionary spending. Discretionary spending--which 
is inclusive of international affairs--for 1996 is $267 billion. The 
1996 interest on the debt is $344 billion.
  Another Republican statement--they just put out--you talk about truth 
and who has character, come on. ``Annual interest costs on the national 
debt almost equals the cost of national defense.'' That is on the 
Republican screen right now, so all the Republican Senators can glean 
these quick misinformations and run out on the Senate floor and act 
like they have studied the problem and know what they are talking 
about. False. The fact is, annual interest costs far exceed the cost of 
national defense. The 1996 defense spending is $265 billion. Interest 
costs on the debt are $344 billion.
  Now, Mr. President, I hardly know how you are supposed to make sense 
out of this ``non-sense''. All that these plans accomplish is to move 
the deficit from the general Government over to Social Security. And 
they talk like it is a given: ``Unified budget, unified budget, unified 
budget.'' That is my distinguished colleague from New Mexico, the 
chairman of the Budget Committee. I know he is a brilliant Senator, and 
I know he knows differently.
  I want to go now to the Social Security record because, Mr. 
President, we have had a difficult time zeroing in on how we got to 
where we are. I hold the report of the National Commission on Social 
Security Reform, dated January 1983--right on page 23 it says: ``The 
National Commission was able to reach a consensus for meeting the 
short-range and long-range financial requirements by a vote of 12-3.''
  The distinguished Senator from Kansas was included in that vote, Mr. 
President, and he bragged openly to the Catholic Conference on May 26--
just this past month--that he helped save Social Security in 1983. In 
the short term, he did. He was a member of the commission. And one of 
their conclusions, point 21 on page 224, was: ``A majority of the 
members of the national commission recommends that the operation of 
OASI, DI, HI, and SSI trust funds should be removed from the unified 
budget. Some of those who do not support this recommendation believe 
that the situation would be adequately handled if the operations of the 
Social Security Program were displayed within the present unified 
Federal budget as a separate budget function, apart from the other 
income security programs.''

  Now, Mr. President, there is no question that the distinguished 
Senator from Kansas supported that. And Senator Dole referred, in his 
additional views along with Congressman Conable, who was chairman then 
on the House side, in statement 5, page 2, to the short and long-term 
deficits in Social Security: ``In our judgment, $150 billion to $200 
billion is the amount required to keep the system solvent through 1990, 
and over the very long-term, the next 75 years, the needs of the system 
amount to about $25 billion a year.'' Thus, there was an understanding 
that we were making necessary changes to ensure the integrity of the 
Social Security system.
  Now, moving on, to save time, Mr. President, again, on statement 5, 
page 7: ``Accumulating considerably larger reserves is desirable,'' 
said the Senator from Kansas. But now those reserves are what he is 
trying to eliminate--eliminate about $600 billion to get this farcical 
constitutional amendment. We have never written a farce into the 
Constitution. I hope we do not put a farce in it now, because we know 
what the farce is. ``Accumulating considerably larger reserves is 
desirable.'' And then the Senator said later on, ``Trust fund reserves 
have been on a downhill coast for years.'' So he was very concerned as 
chairman of the Finance Committee at that particular time. He stated so 
in his submission of the particular bill on March 16, 1983, as the 
chairman when he said, ``OASI, DI in the particular bill actually 
generates a surplus.'' Again, a particular caveat or catchall to make 
sure it does not go below. On page 22, on March 16, Senator Dole says, 
``If the reserves fall below 20 percent of the annual outgo, the annual 
COLA would be based on the lower increase in wages and prices.''
  So they put in the 20-percent cushion, and constantly throughout 
referred to the effect on the trust funds. Now, the only reason I 
emphasize that is to show that in 1983 the distinguished Senator wanted 
to have trust funds. But they also wanted to ensure that the trust fund 
was off budget.
  Let me read from the actual Congressional Record of March 24, 1983, 
on the House side.
  It says:

       D. Separate treatment of trust fund operations under 
     unified budget. Beginning with 1969, the financial operations 
     of the Social Security trust funds have been included in the 
     unified budget of the Federal Government. House bill: House 
     bill provides for the display of OASI, SI and DI fund 
     operations as a separate function within the budget. 
     Beginning with the fiscal year 1989, these trust fund 
     operations would be removed from the unified budget--Senate 
     amendment, no provision.

  The conference agreement, here is what they agreed to:

       The conference agreement follows the House bill except that 
     the trust fund operations would not be removed from the 
     unified budget until the fiscal year 1992.

  So the conference committee chose to follow the recommendation in the 
Greenspan commission report and adopted into law that by 1992 you would 
take Social Security off-budget as a true trust fund.
  When we started to see these surpluses being used to make the deficit 
look smaller, we decided we couldn't wait until 1992. On July 10th, 
1990, in the Budget Committee, by a vote of 20 to 1, we put Social 
Security trust funds off budget and abolished the unified budget, 
including inclusion of Social Security. In that vote, 20 to 1, the one 
dissenting vote was the distinguished Senator from Texas, Senator 
Gramm.
  Let me say what we did when we adopted the law in 1983 and go back to 
what Mr. Heinz said, the former distinguished Senator from 
Pennsylvania, our great colleague, John Heinz, and I quote:

       Mr. President, unless we separate Social Security from the 
     budget, it is absolutely inconceivable to me that we are 
     going to be

[[Page S5799]]

     able to finance Social Security in any kind of rational way 
     in the long run. Left in the unified budget, there does not 
     seem to be anything we are going to be able to do except 
     spend Social Security surpluses on other programs in the 
     surplus years and our Social Security in the deficit years. 
     Without some assurance that this program will be treated like 
     the Social Security insurance program that it is, how can we 
     expect young workers who are paying millions to pay anything 
     into Social Security today, nearly 100 million of them, to 
     trust that the benefits that they pay in taxes are going to 
     be in when they retire 30 years from now? The answer is, 
     unless we separate Social Security, as I provided, I do not 
     think we can.

  So it was Senator Heinz on the Republican side, in a bipartisan 
initiative in 1990, by a vote of 98 to 2--who worked with me to do just 
exactly that by law. It is the law today. It was signed by a Republican 
President, George Bush, but now under this constitutional amendment is 
about to be repealed.
  They talk about protecting Social Security. But they are trying to 
disregard the protection we already have. We owe Social Security $520 
billion as of the end of April. That is how much has been borrowed from 
Social Security. Tack on under this particular constitutional amendment 
another $600 billion as planned in the Republican budget by the year 
2002. In the end, we may pass a constitutional amendment, but even if 
it was adhered to and things fell into place under a best-case 
scenario, we would end up saying, Yes, we balanced the budget, but we 
devastated Social Security. We would owe Social Security $1.14 
trillion. And who is going to raise taxes for that? Yet, they sit up 
here in solemn dignity talking about who is for balanced budgets, the 
very crowd that devastated us, devastated the plan.
  I do not know how you make sense out of this crowd. I do not know how 
you make sense out of the media.
  James Fallows wrote a very interesting volume entitled ``Breaking the 
News.'' In there he discussed the dichotomy between Walter Lippmann and 
John Dewey. Lippmann and Dewey both agreed that we should have an 
outstanding press and an expert press, and to a great extent, we do. 
They know these things. Unfortunately, they have gotten into the habit 
of taking polls, because they want to be ahead of the news. So they 
gather news and then they find the stories to support the polls. That 
is an incestuous kind of thing and consequently, the press ends up 
making the news rather than reporting the news.

  But Dewey went further, by saying that the American public should be 
engaged. It is Fallows' position that the public has not been engaged, 
nor have they been made to feel a part of the process so that they 
could understand hard facts. He states in his book that the press has a 
duty to report the truth even if they have to go against public 
opinion. We as a society are not getting those truths reported.
  Unfortunately, this particular Senator takes issue with the idea 
about the public being engaged. The public knows, and they want to be 
disengaged. They get this all ``spew time'' on the 7 o'clock news, they 
get this all spew time in the magazines, the daily press, and the 
media. It is a deluge. All they hear from us is this preelection off-
Broadway show on the floor of the national Congress complete with 
charts.
  The little tidbit of the moment this morning is that Medicare is 
going broke in the year 2001. So what has changed? That was the report 
when President Clinton took office. It was going broke in the year 
2001. He extended--oh, they do not want to say that--he extended it 
into 2002; 1993 was his first assault on Medicare spending, because, 
yes, we not only cut spending $500 billion, we not only increased taxes 
some $240 billion, but we cut Medicare $57 billion without a Republican 
vote.
  They came in here with these tremendous tax cuts, which, 
unfortunately, my friend, Stevie Forbes, has the Republican nominee 
talking about now. I hope he does not go overboard with that nonsense. 
Because I can report to you exactly where that nonsense started. Here 
it goes again.
  I want to include, Mr. President, an article from the New 
Perspectives Quarterly of March 22, 1993, by none other than David A. 
Stockman, the daddy rabbit of Reaganomics.
  I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

            [From New Perspectives Quarterly, Mar. 22, 1993]

    America Is Not Overspending; North America: The Big Engine That 
                                Couldn't

                         (By David A. Stockman)

       David A. Stockman Director of the Office of Management and 
     Budget from 1981 to 1985, during the first years of the 
     ``Reagan Revolution,'' David Stockman left office amid the 
     lingering controversy caused by his revelations in the 
     Atlantic magazine about the internal Administration politics 
     which, Stockman said, would result in untenable deficits.
       Stockman's memoirs of those years are entitled A Triumph of 
     Politics: How the Reagan Revolution Failed. He is currently a 
     General Partner at the Blackstone Group, a New York 
     investment house.
       President Clinton's economic plan deserves heavy-duty 
     criticism--particularly the $190 billion worth of new 
     boondoggles through FY1998 that are euphemistically labelled 
     ``stimulus'' and ``investment'' programs. But on one thing he 
     has told the unvarnished truth. There is no way out of the 
     elephantine budget deficits which have plagued the nation 
     since 1981 without major tax increases.
       In this regard, the full-throated anti-tax war cries 
     emanating from the GOP since February 17 amount to no more 
     than deceptive gibberish. Indeed, if Congressman Newt 
     Gingrich and his playmates had the parental supervision they 
     deserve, they would be sent to the nearest corner wherein to 
     lodge their Pinocchio-sized noses until this adult task of 
     raising taxes is finished.
       The fact is, we have no other viable choice. According to 
     the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecast, by FY1998 we 
     will have practical full employment and, also, nearly a $400 
     billion budget deficit if nothing is done. The projected red 
     ink would amount to five percent of GNP, and would mean 
     continuing Treasury absorption of most of our meager net 
     national savings through the end of the century. This is 
     hardly a formula for sustaining a competitive and growing 
     economy.
       The root problem goes back to the July 1981 frenzy of 
     excessive and imprudent tax-cutting that shattered the 
     nation's fiscal stability. A noisy faction of Republicans 
     have willfully denied this giant mistake of fiscal 
     governance, and their own culpability in it, ever since. 
     Instead, they have incessantly poisoned the political debate 
     with a mindless stream of anti-tax venom, while pretending 
     that economic growth and spending cuts alone could cure 
     the deficit.
       It ought to be obvious by now that we can't grow our way 
     out. If we should happen to realize CBO's economic forecast 
     by 1998, wouldn't a nearly $400 billion deficit in a full 
     employment economy 17 years after the event finally 
     constitute the smoking gun?
       To be sure, aversion to higher taxes is usually a 
     necessary, healthy impulse in a political democracy. But when 
     the alternative becomes as self-evidently threadbare and 
     groundless as has the ``growth'' argument, we are no longer 
     dealing with legitimate skepticism but with what amounts to a 
     demagogic fetish.
       Unfortunately, as a matter of hard-core political realism, 
     the ritualized spending cut mantra of the GOP anti-taxers is 
     equally vapid. Again, the historical facts are overwhelming.
       Ronald Reagan's original across-the-board income tax cut 
     would have permanently reduced the federal revenue base by 
     three percent of GNP. At a time when defense spending was 
     being rapidly pumped up, and in a context in which the then 
     ``conservative'' congressional majority had already decided 
     to leave 90 percent of domestic spending untouched, the 
     Reagan tax rate cut alone would have strained the nation's 
     fiscal equation beyond the breaking point. But no one blew 
     the whistle. Instead, both parties succumbed to a shameless 
     tax-bidding war that ended up doubling the tax cut to six 
     percent of GNP--or slashing to nearly one-third the permanent 
     revenue base of the United States government.
       While delayed effective dates and phase-ins postponed the 
     full day of reckoning until the late 1980s, there is no 
     gainsaying the fiscal carnage. As of August, 1981, Uncle Sam 
     had been left to finance a 1980s-sized domestic welfare state 
     and defense build-up from a general revenue base that was now 
     smaller relative to GNP than at any time since 1940!
       In subsequent years, several ``mini'' tax increase bills 
     did slowly restore the Federal revenue base to nearly its 
     post-war average share of GNP. The $2.5 trillion in 
     cumulative deficits since 1981, however, is not a product of 
     ``over-spending'' in any meaningful sense of the term. In 
     fact, we have had a rolling legislative referendum for 12 
     years on ``appropriate'' Federal spending in today's 
     society--and by now the overwhelming bi-partisan consensus is 
     crystal clear.
       Cash benefits for Social Security recipients, government 
     retirees and veterans will cost about $500 billion in 1998--
     or six percent of prospective GNP. The fact is they also cost 
     six percent of GNP when Jimmy Carter came to town in 1977, as 
     they did when Ronald Reagan arrived in 1981, Bush in 1989 and 
     Clinton in 1993.
       The explanation for this remarkable 25 years of actual and 
     prospective fiscal cost stability is simple. Since the mid-
     1970s there has been no legislative action to increase 
     benefits, while a deep political consensus has steadily 
     congealed on not cutting them, either. Ronald Reagan pledged 
     not to touch Social Security in his 1984 debate with Mondale; 
     on this issue Bush never did move his

[[Page S5800]]

     lips; and Rep. Gingrich can readily wax as eloquently on the 
     ``sanctity'' of the nation's social contract with the old 
     folks as the late Senator Claude Pepper ever did.
       The political and policy fundamentals of the $375 billion 
     prospective 1998 cost of Medicare and Medicaid are exactly 
     the same. If every amendment relating to these medical 
     entitlements which increased or decreased eligibility and 
     benefit coverage since Jimmy Carter's inauguration were laid 
     end-to-end, the net impact by 1998 would hardly amount to one 
     to two percent of currently projected costs.
       Thus, in the case of the big medical entitlements, there 
     has been no legislatively driven ``overspending'' surge in 
     the last two decades. And since 1981, no elected Republican 
     has even dared think out loud about the kind of big changes 
     in beneficiary premium costs and co-payments that could 
     actually save meaningful budget dollars.
       To be sure, budget costs of the medical entitlements have 
     skyrocketed--but that is because our underlying health 
     delivery system is ridden with inflationary growth. Perhaps 
     Hillary will fix this huge, systemic economic problem. But 
     until that silver bullet is discovered, there is no way to 
     save meaningful budget dollars in these programs except to 
     impose higher participation costs on middle and upper income 
     beneficiaries--a move for which the GOP has absolutely no 
     stomach.
       Likewise, the ``safety net'' for the poor and price and 
     credit supports for rural America cost the same in real 
     terms--about $100 billion--as they did in January, 1981. That 
     is because Republicans and Democrats have gone to the well 
     year after year only to add nickels, subtract pennies, and, 
     in effect, validate over and over the same ``appropriate'' 
     level of spending.
       On the vast expanse of the domestic budget, then, 
     ``overspending'' is an absolute myth. Our post-1981 mega-
     deficits are not attributable to it; and the GOP has neither 
     a coherent program nor the political courage to attack 
     anything but the most microscopic spending marginalia.
       It is unfortunate that having summoned the courage to face 
     the tax issue squarely, President Clinton has clouded the 
     debate with an excess of bashing the wealthy and an utterly 
     unnecessary grab-bag of new tax and spending giveaways. But 
     that can be corrected in the legislative process--and it in 
     no way lets the Republicans off the hook. They led the 
     Congress into a giant fiscal mistake 12 years ago, and they 
     now have the responsibility to work with a President who is 
     at least brave enough to attempt to correct it.

  (Mr. ASHCROFT assumed the chair.)
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Chair. The 
entire article is there, but let me just read this paragraph. How did 
this all get started, that chart of yours--if you want to know where 
that chart started, it did not start under President Clinton. He has 
reduced the deficit.
  He has reduced the deficit. The debt they show on that chart that 
goes from less than $1 trillion on up to over $5 trillion occurred 
under you and me. And I quote:

       The root problem goes back to the July 1981 frenzy of 
     excessive and imprudent tax cutting that shattered the 
     Nation's fiscal stability. A noisy faction of Republicans 
     have willfully denied this giant mistake of fiscal governance 
     and their own culpability in it ever since. Instead they have 
     incessantly poisoned the political debate with a mindless 
     stream of antitax venom while pretending that economic growth 
     and spending cuts alone could cure the deficit. It ought to 
     be obvious by now that we can't grow our way out.

  So much for growth, so much for tax cuts, so much for the ying-yang 
of entitlements. They had in the Atlantic Monthly this past issue an 
article by my friend Peter Peterson, former Secretary of the Treasury 
as well as in the Department of Commerce, and eminent fiscal expert. 
But he says the father of all unfunded mandates is Social Security and 
Medicare.
  It's absolutely ridiculous when you get the best of the best talking 
that nonsense. Social Security has a surplus of $520 billion. Medicare 
has a surplus of $130 billion according to the April 30 Treasury 
report. So we have surpluses that they would call unfunded mandates. 
This misconception is followed by Time Magazine saying that the biggest 
thing causing the deficit is these runaway entitlements. All absolutely 
false.
  What is in deficit, Mr. President, is the general Government. There 
is one big sham, one big fraud that is going on here in the National 
Government. And the people are enraged because they know about it. They 
are paying more and getting less Government. And, of course, the 
pollsters are off on that bit about get rid of the Government, get rid 
of the Government, get rid of the Government. The Government is not the 
solution; the Government is the enemy.
  The fact is that we can spend money and save money, but these 
interest costs on the debt keep going up and away. Payment is required 
just like taxes. They say two things you cannot avoid are death and 
taxes. The third thing is interest costs on the debt. They are interest 
taxes going up on automatic pilot. As we talk today, while we talk, it 
will go up another billion bucks. And what is broke today is the 
Government, not the entitlements.
  Now, I commend my distinguished friend from Nebraska, Bob Kerrey, and 
the former Senator from Missouri, Jack Danforth. I voted for the Kerrey 
amendment to the budget resolution because, yes, I agree we have to get 
a bridle on this animal. We are going to have to gradually raise the 
retirement age. We are going to have to consider other changes such as 
holding up on the COLA's.
  I have voted for a COLA freeze in the past. I have proposed budget 
freezes. I have proposed automatic spending cuts across the board. I 
have even proposed increasing taxes to reduce the deficit. But, Mr. 
President, you cannot get it now from this group. They are the ones who 
do not want to pay for Government. And they have the audacity to come 
here with these runaway spending programs and ridiculous allegations 
that the President is against defense. It is all a political act. They 
know he is oversensitive about defense and that he is going along with 
what the Joint Chiefs want.
  I was with Danny Graham. I got the first SDI award. Do not tell me 
about SDI and its support. I still support it. But after spending 
almost 90 billion bucks and having nothing to show for it, now is the 
time to stop, look, and listen and move in a measured way, as the 
distinguished Senator from Georgia, Sam Nunn, says to do and the Joint 
Chiefs say to do. But instead of being practical, they give us 
political theatre. And this particular constitutional amendment is 
another act where they try to make the President look bad for not being 
able to get the Democrats' vote.
  Come on. The President did not get my vote on GATT. He did get my 
vote on NAFTA. I have a lot of things on which he is not going to get 
my vote. What are you talking about, get the vote.
  But the Republicans can get Hollings' vote in a flash if they protect 
Social Security. Just put in section 7 that Social Security funds are 
excluded. Why not write what the law requires and what we all say 
should be done to give the children and grandchildren a sense of trust, 
reliance, and respect for Government. There is no such thing as a 
unified budget with Social Security. By law Social Security is off-
budget. But now they put in the constitutional amendment these 
different statements here.
  Some may ask, what does the Senator from South Carolina want? 
Everybody knows, or should know, that the Senator from South Carolina 
works in a bipartisan fashion. This Senator, you are looking at him, 
got the only bipartisan thing done in the last 2 years, the 
telecommunications bill. I know it. The public knows it. I worked for 4 
years on that. We worked with the Republicans and Democrats and we got 
91 votes, 91 of the Senators on the floor. So I know how to work in a 
bipartisan way.
  In fact, I worked with President Johnson to balance the budget in a 
bipartisan way. But when President Reagan came to town with the so-
called Kemp-Roth tax cut, I knew we were headed for the pits. I knew 
it. Senator Dole knew it. I can show you his statements critical of 
Kemp-Roth. He was not any supply-side chairman of Finance. He knew 
better. Senator Howard Baker, the majority leader, sat right down there 
at that first desk and he shrugged his shoulders and said this is a 
riverboat gamble. You did not get elected to come up here and gamble 
like a riverboat gambler. And I will not go along with it.

  Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush called it ``voodoo.'' How 
in Heaven's name can you cut your revenues, increase all your spending 
for defense, as elicited by Warren Rudman in his recent book, and 
expect a balanced budget? Who is that stupid? We continue to practice 
pollster-driven politics and focus on hot-button issues. But the public 
knows better.
  So I voted against Reaganomics. I voted for the spending cuts. I 
voted for the tax increases. And I want to correct the record in that 
Rudman book,

[[Page S5801]]

which I have a little time to do. The inference is, in that first 
chapter, that Senator Hollings had some doubts about Gramm-Rudman-
Hollings and later asked for a divorce. It implies that I acted like I 
was just along for the ride.
  Let me tell you now, the Senator from South Carolina worked in a 
bipartisan fashion like a dirty dog, over the objection of the 
Democratic majority leader, over the objection of the Democratic 
chairman of the Budget Committee. On 14 votes, up or down, we got a 
majority of Democrats to vote for across-the-board spending cuts of 
Gramm-Rudman-Hollings: $36 billion a year.
  Incidentally, I helped write Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. I used this 
budget tool as Governor. I got a balanced budget. I got the first 
triple-A credit rating. The distinguished former Governor and occupant 
of the Chair knows what I mean. We do not have a triple-A credit rating 
in the great State of South Carolina now. I got it. It has been lost. 
So I know how hard it is to work and get from Standard & Poor's a 
triple-A credit rating. I did it with a rule we had in the legislature 
of automatic cuts across the board, and that is all Gramm-Rudman-
Hollings was. If you did not meet the target of spending cuts, then the 
law did it for you.
  You could see the maneuvering and extension of a year and extension 
again of another year. So, 1987 we were still serious, eight of us, in 
a bipartisan fashion. I am qualifying myself as a witness. With six 
Democrats and two Republicans, Senator Boschwitz and Senator Danforth, 
myself and others, we voted for a value-added tax of 5 percent to 
eliminate the deficit and the debt. We knew we needed spending cuts. We 
knew we wanted Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. We knew we had to cut the size of 
the Federal Government. We knew we had to have spending freezes. But we 
also realized in that vote--and it was after a very serious, studied 
debate in the Budget Committee--that balancing the budget also required 
increasing revenues.
  I appeared before the Finance Committee. I have testified twice. I 
met with the expert, Dr. Cnossen, who knows all about VAT's. I later 
met with the then-chairman, Senator Moynihan of New York, of the 
Finance Committee, and I am willing to appear again. I have introduced 
my legislation again in this Congress because I know you cannot 
possibly get a balanced budget without also raising revenues.
  The way they have been doing it is, No. 1, rob the trust funds, not 
just Social Security to the tune of $1.2 trillion. They have the 
highway trust funds, and the House crowd just acted to take the 
transportation trust funds off-budget. They said, ``Wait a minute, you 
are taking our highway funds.'' They said, ``Wait a minute, you are 
taking our airport improvement moneys,'' to make the airports safe and 
everything else of that kind, ``and using it on foreign aid, or 
welfare, or defense, or whatever. You are not spending it for its 
purpose.''
  So the House is has acted on that measure. But there are still other 
trust funds: They are using military pension surpluses, they are using 
civil service pensions, and everything else of that kind, to the tune 
right now of $1.2 trillion. So, we put forth, in a bipartisan fashion, 
a value-added tax. Then, in a bipartisan fashion, we enacted section 
13301 to protect Social Security.
  Thereafter, in April 1991, we wanted to answer the catcall that we 
heard from some Members on this side and on the other side of the aisle 
about the annual surpluses in Social Security. The distinguished 
Senator from New York, Senator Moynihan, Senator Kasten of Wisconsin, 
and myself, we offered an amendment to cut--what; taxes? Social 
Security payroll taxes.

  We had the argument about the payroll taxes. I do not know why they 
are talking about cutting taxes again, just in time for the 1996 
election. Why don't they look at how the distinguished Senator from 
Kansas voted back in 1991. He could have cut Social Security taxes, and 
supported truth in budgeting. We offered that amendment in April 1991, 
in a bipartisan fashion, and we got voted down.
  Now, they have the audacity to come here, at this particular time, 
and talk on and on and on about who is for deficits. Let me be 
categorical about this. I know what President Reagan did, because I put 
into the Record the statement made by none other than the Director of 
his Office of Management and Budget, David Stockman. I was there and I 
saw it. I said, man, if this thing works, we can all go back home. 
Every Governor will start cutting his revenues. Go to the mayor of the 
city. I wish you would go back to your mayor wherever you live and say 
we have a new way of doing things. What we ought to do is cut your 
revenues. But cut your revenues 25 percent and see what your bond 
rating is then. You will have to lay off your firemen and policemen and 
everything else like that, and you will get run out of the mayor's 
office.
  Try that on as a Governor. They try to give these tired arguments a 
kind of dignity and bring out charts and everything else. They claim 
they need a $500 or $600 billion cut to get the economy moving, but 
then they have Greenspan trying to hold growth down to 2.5 percent.
  We could take care of a lot of deficits here if we had more growth, 
but that is another debate. The fact of the matter is, they come out 
with all of these things about tax cuts, getting rid of the 4.3-cent 
gasoline tax added in 1993, $30 billion over those years. I voted for 
it. It is working. In fact, we know the price of gasoline went down 
after we put on the tax.
  It is the fourth quarter in the Presidential race. They are throwing 
the bomb, anything to bring the candidate alive, anything to bring the 
candidate alive--actually changing his entire congressional record of 
fiscal responsibility. You have him now for growth where he was not 
before. You have now for tax cuts when he was for tax increases and 
voted for and supported them and led the way for fiscal responsibility. 
You have him going along with any kind of thing to satisfy some small 
group that they have there--even assault weapons, I think.
  Anybody knows you cannot let assault weapons be used around this 
country. Come on. But now they want to court another particular group 
in the polls, so they pick another hot-button item, and try to complete 
a long pass play.
  Welfare reform--let it be shown that on welfare, we have worked and 
worked hard and had a good record. But then they wanted to abandon the 
children. I think it is on course again now, so I will not say any 
more, but I would be glad to get into that debate, because you cannot 
immediately save money by putting people to work, instituting an 
employment program, instituting day care, transportation and all these 
other things.
  In the outyears you might, hopefully, get them off welfare, and I 
would go along with that and want to support it. But in the meantime, 
let us not continue to attack children's programs to the tune of $60 
billion and then in the same breath say, Let's have $60 billion for 
SDI, because we've put ``Defend America'' in the title of the bill.
  The time is now, Mr. President, to rebuild the strength of our 
economy. Our Nation's strength is like a three-legged stool. We have 
the one leg of values as a nation. That is strong. We feed the hungry 
in Somalia. We help develop democracy in Haiti. We commit troops for 
peace in Bosnia. We stand for freedom around the world and for this 
Americans are willing to sacrifice. The values leg is strong.
  The second leg of military is unquestioned.
  The third leg that is fractured and almost causes us to topple is the 
economic leg, and that is easily understood. For 50 years now, in 
trying to spread capitalism, defeat communism, spread democracy the 
world around, we sacrificed our economy. I have had many a debate on 
textiles. Others have had it on steel and iron and different 
manufacturing. The truth is that Japan is a larger manufacturing nation 
than the United States of America. The truth is, we have been 
blindsided. Read ``Blindside'' by Eamon Fingleton.
  Now is the time to start rebuilding our Nation's health. Let's start 
with those on welfare and, more than anything else, yes, let's continue 
this initiative for children because in the long run, it will save us 
money. I wrote a book on hunger. I worked to establish the women, 
infants and children feeding program or WIC. You cannot rebuild a 
strong America by denying the infants and expectant mothers access

[[Page S5802]]

to nutritional programs. For every dollar we spend in WIC, we save $3.
  You are not going to build a strong America by denying Head Start to 
5- and 6-year-olds. For every dollar we put in to Head Start, we save 
$4.25.
  We are not going to build a strong America by denying school lunches 
to the 6- and 7-year-olds.
  We are not going to build a strong America by denying title I to the 
disadvantaged 9- and 10-year-olds.
  You are not going to build a strong America by denying summertime 
jobs.
  You are not going to build a strong America by denying student loans 
for youngsters, 16-year-olds, to go to college.
  These are the programs we are cutting, and meanwhile we are all 
talking about who is really telling the truth, who is really for 
reducing the deficit, who is really for a balanced budget, and we go 
through this silly act. People blame both sides, and they should blame 
both sides. That is why the American public does not turn out in force 
for national elections.
  Now is the time to get real. Cut out the balanced budget amendments 
and let's balance the budget. Give it to us, and I will support it, I 
will go to conference. As a former chairman of the Budget Committee, I 
will work in a bipartisan fashion. We can balance this budget. It is 
going to be tough, but we will all have to work together to do it. We 
can't afford to keep turning it into Presidential political headlines.
  It goes without saying that these particular budgets have never been 
balanced.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent a letter from June O'Neill of 
October 18 to the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                  Congressional Budget Office,

                                                 October 18, 1995.
     Hon. Pete V. Domenici,
     Chairman, Committee on the Budget, U.S. Senate, Washington, 
         DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: The Congressional Budget Office has 
     reviewed the legislation submitted to the Senate Committee on 
     the Budget by eleven Senate committees pursuant to the 
     reconciliation directives included in the budget resolution 
     for fiscal year 1996 (H. Con. Res. 67). CBO's estimates of 
     the budgetary effects of each of those submissions have been 
     provided to the relevant committees and to the Budget 
     Committee. Based on those estimates, using the economic and 
     technical assumptions underlying the budget resolution, and 
     assuming the level of discretionary spending specified in 
     that resolution, CBO projects that enactment of the 
     reconciliation legislation submitted to the Budget Committee 
     would produce a small budget surplus in 2002. The effects of 
     the proposed package of savings on the projected deficit are 
     summarized in Table 1, which includes the adjustments to 
     CBO's April 1995 baseline assumed by the budget resolution. 
     The estimated savings that would result from enactment of 
     each committee's reconciliation proposal is shown in Table 2.
       As you noted in your letter of October 6, CBO published in 
     August an estimate of the fiscal dividend that could result 
     from balancing the budget in 2002. CBO estimated that 
     instituting credible budget policies to eliminate the deficit 
     by 2002 could reduce interest rates by 150 basis points over 
     six years (based on a weighted average of long-term and 
     short-term interest rates) and increase the real rate of 
     economic growth by 0.1 percentage point a year on average, 
     compared with CBO's economic projections under current 
     policies. CBO projected that the resulting reductions in 
     federal interest payments and increases in federal revenues 
     would total $50 billion in 2002 and $170 billion over the 
     1996-2002 period. Those projections were based on a 
     hypothetical deficit reduction path developed by CBO. The 
     deficit reductions estimated to result from the 
     reconciliation legislation submitted to the Budget Committee, 
     together with the constraints on discretionary spending 
     proposed in the budget resolution, would likely yield a 
     fiscal dividend similar to that discussed in the August 
     report.
       If you wish further details on this projection, we will be 
     pleased to provide them.
           Sincerely,
                                                  June E. O'Neill,
                                                         Director.

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, that letter of October 18, 1995, said 
that we produce a small budget surplus with this 1996 budget we are 
under. But, Mr. President, when reminded of the law--do you think you 
have to remind a trust officer in a bank of the law? Do you think a 
director of the Congressional Budget Office has to be reminded of the 
Budget Act on Social Security?
  I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                                    U.S. Congress,


                                  Congressional Budget Office,

                                 Washington, DC, October 20, 1995.
     Hon. Kent Conrad,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator: Pursuant to Section 205(a) of the budget 
     resolution for fiscal year 1996 (H. Con. Res. 67), the 
     Congressional Budget Office provided the Chairman of the 
     Senate Budget Committee on October 18 with a projection of 
     the budget deficits or surpluses that would result from 
     enactment of the reconciliation legislation submitted to the 
     Budget Committee. As specified in section 205(a), CBO 
     provided projections (using the economic and technical 
     assumptions underlying the budget resolution and assuming the 
     level of discretionary spending specified in that resolution) 
     of the deficit or surplus of the total budget--that is, the 
     deficit or surplus resulting from all budgetary transactions 
     of the federal government, including Social Security and 
     Postal Service spending and receipts that are designated as 
     off-budget transactions. As stated in the letter to Chairman 
     Domenici, CBO projected that there will be a total-budget 
     surplus of $10 billion in 2002. Excluding an estimated off-
     budget surplus of $115 billion in 2002 from the calculation, 
     CBO would project an on-budget deficit of $105 billion in 
     2002. (The letter you received yesterday incorrectly stated 
     these two figures.)
       If you wish further details on this projection, we will be 
     pleased to provide them. The staff contact is Jim Horney, who 
     can be reached at 226-2880.
           Sincerely,
                                                  June E. O'Neill.

  Mr. HOLLINGS. October 20, 1995, to the Honorable Kent Conrad.

       Dear Senator: After taking Social Security off budget--
       Actually, the budget projected would have a deficit of $105 
     billion. We might get that truth out. We fought to get 
     adherence to that law. We put up an amendment, and we cannot 
     get support for it. But we continue to put up that amendment 
     and everything else to say we want a balanced budget.

  I have worked in the vineyards for 30 years for a balanced budget up 
here. I got one back when I was Governor of my State, and I will go 
along with you, but just do not move deficits. Let's eliminate 
deficits. Let's not move the deficits from general Government over to 
Social Security putting it in debt $1.100 trillion by the year 2002. 
All you have to do is add ``Social Security trust fund'' where you say, 
``except for borrowed funds.'' ``Except for borrowed funds from the 
Social Security trust fund.''
  That is all it is, a little language. They do not want to do it, 
because the truth hits them in the face when they go around the corner. 
If they put that in a constitutional amendment, there is no way in the 
world that they can produce a balanced budget without increasing taxes.
  Their political singsong is, ``We can just balance the budget. We're 
conservatives, and they're spending us blind, and the liberals there, 
they want to continue spending and all we need is spending cuts and you 
can eliminate the Government.''
  Mr. President, with $267 billion in domestic spending eliminated and 
with the $344 interest cost increase, you would still have a deficit. 
Do not just cut--eliminate. Eliminate Commerce or housing or energy or 
education. Eliminate Interior, eliminate the Justice Department, get 
rid of the FBI, the DEA, the Border Patrol and just eliminate it all, 
and you still have a deficit.
  That is the dilemma we are in. Today's problems are not entitlements. 
It is not Social Security and AARP. My distinguished friend from 
Wyoming comes in here and says there is no trust fund. Well, that is 
his view. But in the view of the Congress and under his vote, there is 
a trust fund. Under the recommendation of the Greenspan commission, we 
put it off budget. Since 1990, we have had it formally in the law and 
they now want to repeal the law with section 7 of this particular 
constitutional amendment.
  Mr. President, thank heavens for the sobriety of the Members on this 
side who have dutifully written a letter saying, Dear Mr. Dole: Just go 
along with the protection under the law that we have in section 13301 
of the statutory laws of the United States of America and you've got us 
five and you can pass a constitutional amendment in a flash.
  They do not want a constitutional amendment. They want to get the 
credit, but they do not want to get the duty and responsibility. It is 
an absolute fraud, and they know it.

[[Page S5803]]

  I retain the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the distinguished 
Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. THURMOND. I thank the able Senator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.
  Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the motion to 
reconsider House Joint Resolution 1, the balanced budget amendment. 
Last year, the House acted with wide bipartisan support as it adopted 
the balanced budget amendment by a vote of 300 to 132. Unfortunately, 
last year in the Senate, we fell 1 vote short of the 67 votes needed 
for final passage. Now, we have an opportunity to do the right thing 
and adopt this proposal.
  Mr. President, mandating balanced Federal budgets is not a new idea. 
The first constitutional amendment to balance the budget was proposed 
in 1936 by Minnesota Representative Harold Knutson. During World War II 
the attention of the Nation was distracted from efforts to secure 
annual balanced budgets, although Senator Tydings and Representative 
Disney introduced several balanced budget amendments during that 
period.
  Following World War II, a Senate joint resolution on balanced budgets 
was introduced by Senators Tydings and Bridges and reported out by the 
Committee on Appropriations in 1947 but received no further action. 
During the 1950's, an increasing number of constitutional initiatives 
for balanced budgets came to be introduced regularly in Congress. It 
was during that time that I supported legislation such as that offered 
by Senators Bridges, Curtis, and Harry Byrd to require the submission 
by the President of an annual balanced budget and to prevent Congress 
from adjourning without having enacted such a budget. No action was 
taken on these measures. Yet, since the beginning of the 84th Congress 
in 1955, an average of four constitutional amendments to require a 
balanced Federal budget have been proposed during each Congress. There 
was little substantive action in the 1960's and 1970's on our 
proposals. But finally, in 1982 while I was chairman of the Judiciary 
Committee, the Senate passed a balanced budget amendment which I 
authored. Our victory was short-lived, however, because the Speaker and 
the majority leader at that time led the movement to kill it in the 
Democrat-controlled House of Representatives. That was our high water 
mark as we fell one vote short in 1986, four votes short in 1994, and 
one vote short last year. This is our final opportunity this year to 
deliver to the American people a balanced budget amendment.

  Mr. President, simply stated, this legislation calls for a 
constitutional amendment requiring that outlays not exceed receipts 
during any fiscal year. Also, the Congress would be allowed by a three-
fifths vote to adopt a specific level of deficit spending. Further, 
there is language to allow the Congress to waive the amendment during 
time of war or imminent military threat. Finally, the amendment 
requires that any bill to increase taxes be approved by a majority of 
the whole number of both Houses.
  This legislation would provide an important step to reduce and 
ultimately eliminate the Federal deficit. The American people have 
expressed their strong opinion that we focus our efforts on reducing 
the deficit. Making a balanced budget amendment part of the 
Constitution is appropriate action for addressing our Nation's runaway 
fiscal policy.
  Over the past half-century, the Federal Government has become 
jeopardized by an irrational and irresponsible pattern of spending. As 
a result, this firmly entrenched fiscal policy is a threat to the 
liberties and opportunities of our present and future citizens.
  The national debt is over $5.1 trillion. Today, the payment of 
interest on the debt is the second largest item in the budget. That 
accounts for the estimate that this year it will take over 40 percent 
of all personal income tax receipts to pay the interest on the debt.
  Mr. President, the tax dollars that go to pay interest on the debt 
are purely to service a voracious Federal appetite for spending. 
Payment of interest on the debt does not build roads, it does not fund 
medical research, it does not provide educational opportunities, it 
does not provide job opportunities, and it does not speak well for the 
Federal Government. Payment of interest on the debt merely allows the 
Federal Government to carry a debt which has been growing at an 
alarming rate. It is deficit spending which has brought us to these 
crossroads. Congress has balanced the Federal budget only once--I 
repeat, only once--in the last 36 years and only 8 times in the last 64 
years. A balanced budget amendment as part of the Constitution will 
mandate the Congress to adhere to a responsible fiscal policy.
  The American businessmen and businesswomen have become incredulous as 
they witness year in and year out the spending habits of the Congress. 
Anyone who runs a business clearly understands that they cannot survive 
by continuing to spend more money than they take in. It is time the 
Federal Government abides by this simple yet compelling principle.

  For many years, I have believed, as have many Members of Congress, 
that the way to reverse this misguided direction of the Federal 
Government's fiscal policy is by amending the Constitution to mandate, 
except in extraordinary circumstances, balanced Federal budgets. The 
Congress should adopt this proposal and send it to the American people 
for ratification. The balanced budget amendment is a much needed 
addition to the Constitution and it would establish balanced budgets as 
a fiscal norm, rather than a fiscal abnormality.
  Mr. President, the tax burdens which today's deficits will place on 
future generations of American workers is staggering. Future American 
workers are our children and our children's children. We are mortgaging 
the future for generations yet unborn. This is a terrible injustice we 
are imposing on America's future and it has been appropriately referred 
to as fiscal child abuse.
  Our third president, Thomas Jefferson, stated, and I quote:

       The question whether one generation has the right to bind 
     another by the deficit it imposes is a question of such 
     consequence as to place it among the fundamental principles 
     of government. We should consider ourselves unauthorized to 
     saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay 
     them ourselves.

  That is a quote of Mr. Thomas Jefferson.
  Mr. President, it is time we show the fiscal discipline advocated by 
Thomas Jefferson and adopt a balanced budget amendment. Mr. President, 
I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I, of course, rise in support of 
passage of the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. I enjoyed 
very much listening to the remarks of the distinguished senior Senator 
from South Carolina as he outlined the benefits and the necessities of 
passing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
  You know, one of the things that leaves me perplexed about this 
entire debate is the fact that what we are talking about here is having 
the Congress ratify and send to the States the opportunity to engage in 
a broad national debate with regard to the passage of a balanced budget 
amendment. Those who rise in opposition seem to want to prevent the 
several States from engaging in this very valid, very important 
national debate. For myself, I have total confidence that the States 
deserve and need and will appropriately manage this debate.
  Remember, for it to become a true amendment to the Constitution it 
will require that three-fourths of those States ratify this concept. So 
this concept will not come into place without massive public attention 
in all of the 50 States.
  Surely, if three-fourths of the States conclude this is the right 
thing to do, then, indeed, it is the right thing to do. Yet those on 
the other side do not want it to get to the States. They want to lock 
it down here, very repeatedly, in Washington, whereas we have just 
heard in the last 36 years we have had 35 budgets that were not 
balanced, and one that was, which is, of course, why

[[Page S5804]]

the vast majority of Americans understand and know that we need this 
discipline, that the wise founder Thomas Jefferson warned us about. We 
need this provision of discipline in the Constitution.
  I do not know how much evidence it takes. You count them off, 36 
years, and we balanced the budget once, and 35 times we failed to do 
so, might suggest to the average American that something is a little 
bit out of whack, a little bit out of whack, and they are paying, oh, 
are they paying the price for it.
  I see my colleague from Indiana is on the floor and I will yield the 
floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, once again we are debating the balanced 
budget. We should not, any longer, be debating the balanced budget. We 
should be living by a balanced budget. Americans have lost their 
patience with this endless, fruitless process of debating the issue and 
our failure to achieve the issue. The question now before us, again, is 
simple: How do we finally make this commitment real, make it lasting, 
and make it binding?
  The Democrats have argued--and I am not referring to the 13 Democrats 
that supported this effort in that close, almost historic vote that 
took place over a year ago; I am referring to Democrats because no 
Republicans are arguing against a balanced budget in this debate--
Democrats have argued in the past that a balanced budget amendment is 
unnecessary. ``Let's not amend the Constitution,'' they say, ``just 
simply balance the books ourselves.'' Last year, during debate on this 
amendment, the minority leader stated, ``The budget is not going to be 
balanced in 2002 unless the responsible people in 1995 start to focus 
on their share of the work.'' Senator Kerrey added, ``Let Senators get 
to work to show Americans we have the courage this amendment presumes 
that we lack.''
  Now, that argument had some credibility when we made this debate in 
1995, although it has been argued now for more than a decade, but it 
did have some credibility at the time. It is our responsibility. It is 
our job to keep the Nation's fiscal house in order and to not spend 
more than we take in. Of course, we fail in that job year after year 
after year and there is always another excuse, there is always another 
program that needs to be preserved. There is always an argument why we 
cannot do it now.
  Today, that argument does not have credibility. Democrats, both the 
President and Members of Congress, have shown little courage and have 
not lived up to their share of the work. Every tough question, every 
tough vote we have had, especially on entitlements, has been exploited 
for partisan advantage. Democrats have talked of balanced budgets, 
while refusing to pay the cost of courage. It is a cynical display. It 
is a hypocritical display to say we must go forward on our own, and 
then put every roadblock in the way to accomplishing what they say we 
must do.
  What lessons have we learned in this past year? If you make hard, 
necessary choices, the President and Democrat leaders will undermine 
you. If you carefully and responsibly confront runaway entitlements, 
they will vilify you. The President and his party are trying to create 
a Washington culture that rewards cowardice and compromises our future.

  What do we do about it? How can we change that culture? How can we 
require Washington to make the difficult choices and turn our easy 
words into reliable results? The answer, Mr. President, is a balanced 
budget amendment to the Constitution. We have simply exhausted all 
other avenues in arriving at this goal.
  We are back where we started. Congress must be mandated to do what it 
has consistently refused to do. No argument could be more clear and 
more compelling than our experience of this last few months. If 
balancing the budget is not a matter of constitutional principle, it 
will not be accomplished. It must no longer be subject to shifting and 
cynical political tactics. Our first duty as legislators, to preserve a 
strong and solvent Nation for the next generation, that commitment 
should be burned into our conscience and written into our most basic 
law, the Constitution of the United States or it will not happen.
  Once again, we are here and we have the choice to make that happen. 
The success of this effort will depend on one thing: The President 
needs to persuade just 2 Democrat Senators to join 13 of their 
colleagues who voted for the balanced budget last year, to support this 
attempt at balancing the budget. The outcome is pretty much in his 
hands. If he refuses to act, he, then, is going to have to share the 
responsibility of the failure of this Congress to address what I 
believe is one of the most fundamental issues of our time. This is not 
a normal, everyday political debate we are engaged in. It concerns the 
very first principles of American Government and one of the most basic 
principles of morality. Endless debt is not just a drag on our economy, 
it is a burden on our national conscious.
  I have quoted Thomas Jefferson on this topic before but his argument 
is worth hearing again:

       The question of whether one generation has the right to 
     bend another by the deficit it imposes is a question of such 
     consequence as to place it among the fundamental principles 
     of government. We should consider ourselves unauthorized to 
     saddle posterity with our debts, and be morally bound to pay 
     them ourselves.

  Let me repeat that: Thomas Jefferson said, a long time ago, but it 
holds true today in a way that it never has before.

       We should consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle 
     posterity with our debts, and be morally bound to pay them 
     ourselves.

  What we are debating here is one of the most important and one of the 
most basic moral commitments between generations. It has always been 
one of our highest ethical traditions for parents to sacrifice for the 
sake of their children. It is the depth of selfishness to call on 
children to sacrifice for the sake of their parents. It violates a 
trust and it betrays a duty. When Americans view our actions, they see 
past the numbers to a set of principles. They see more than a matter of 
right and left. They see a matter of right and wrong.
  One thing is increasingly obvious: We will not reliably consistently 
balance our budget until the Constitution requires it. The tug of quick 
political benefit is still too strong. The voice of vested interests is 
too loud. Buying votes by placing burdens on the future is still too 
easy. This amendment will force us, as a Congress, to make a choice. 
Will we preserve our ability to run up deficits or will we part with 
this destructive power once and for all?
  Never has the choice been more stark or more important. It is the 
difference between false promises and real commitments. It is the 
difference between public relations and public accountability. We will 
never be restrained until we formally and forcefully restrain 
ourselves.
  President Clinton's current budget is example No. 1, a case in point. 
It is a political charade, not a serious budget plan. It increases 
discretionary spending every year until 2001 and 2002--conveniently 
beyond the time when President Clinton will no longer be President. 
That is when he proposes to cut his spending level by $67 billion. 
Everybody knows this is absurd. It is an absurd proposal to say we will 
not make the hard choices, but we will force them onto the next 
President.
  Such cuts in those outyears, after Bill Clinton has retired to Hope, 
AR, will be impossible. They will be too sudden and too steep--in 
education, the environmental, and veterans programs. But President 
Clinton does not mind, because all the tough decisions would be made on 
someone else's watch. It is another shining example of the Washington 
culture of cowardice.
  The time for these kinds of gimmicks and maneuvers is over. Americans 
have been disappointed too often. We have the ability to clear away 
decades of decision with one clear, sincere, moral commitment--that is, 
that we will no longer steal from the future, that we will pass a 
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, we will leave a legacy 
to our children other than a monumental debt. We will leave them a 
legacy of courage and responsibility.
  What Member wants to serve in this body and leave here looking back, 
having had the opportunity, but failed, to rectify this extraordinary 
imbalance in our Nation's fiscal affairs? What Member wants to think 
back on their time, as they have been privileged to serve in the U.S. 
Senate, and say, well, I was

[[Page S5805]]

there, I had an opportunity to deal with one of the most fundamental, 
important issues this Nation has ever faced, to set a legacy for the 
future that will determine the prosperity and posterity for our 
children and grandchildren and generations to follow; yet, I passed on 
that opportunity because, you see, I did not want to make that a 
mandatory effort. I did not want to make us bound to fulfill that 
promise because the situation might change, or a program that I really 
favored might be impacted. And so, therefore, we put it off until the 
future, and we will ask the next Congress, or the next President to 
deal with that problem, and we forfeited our ability to deal with it 
now.
  I do not want to have that as my legacy. But we have been talking 
about this ever since I have been here. There has always been an excuse 
not to go forward. There has always been some reason. As soon as we 
address the reason of the moment that is put up, then another one is 
raised. There is always a reason why we cannot go forward. We are just 
a few votes away from beginning that legacy.
  The President, in his rhetoric, has supported balanced budgets again 
and again. Now he can prove himself a partner or partisan. It is his 
choice. I hope he will pressure his own party to support a 
constitutional amendment that nearly 83 percent of the American public 
supports. I hope he will abandon unfair attacks on the people making 
the hard, necessary, and courageous budget choices. I hope he will 
begin to bargain in good faith for a change. I hope for all these 
things, Mr. President. Unfortunately, I am not confident that we will 
see any of them, and that is a shame because it is a missed opportunity 
that may not come again. and I expect the American public, in just 5 
months, will remember.

  The moment has come to send a balanced budget amendment to the 
States. Let us begin a national debate, in every State legislature in 
this country. Americans have waited decades for this opportunity. And 
they have waited long enough.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Will the Senator yield for a moment?
  Mr. COATS. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. COVERDELL. The Senator has very eloquently described the 
responsibility, through the Thomas Jefferson quote, that each 
generation has for the future, and that any time a generation consumes 
the future's resources for their own satisfaction, they are abrogating 
the freedom of the future.
  My question is this: Is it not true that if we were successful in 
passing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution requiring 
balanced budgets, there would be immense benefits for the present, that 
interest rates would drop, job lines would be shorter, there would be 
new businesses, and that the net effect would be that an average family 
in my State and yours would have the equivalent of making $3,000 to 
$5,000 of immediate new income in their checking accounts in the form 
of reduced home mortgages and loans, so that they could get about the 
business of getting America up, getting it housed and fed and ready to 
be the leaders of the future?
  Mr. COATS. The Senator makes an excellent point and one that has not 
been made enough. We have a responsibility to future generations. 
Clearly, the one thing we can do that would most benefit the future of 
this country, our children and grandchildren, and succeeding 
generations of Americans, is to enact within the Constitution a 
responsibility that each of us ought to take on, but we have been 
unable to take on as a majority. But it will have immense benefits for 
the present, as the Senator has suggested.
  The Federal Reserve Chairman has indicated that if we could put a 
real balanced budget in place, we can pretty much count on an interest 
rate reduction of 2 percentage points. And 2 percentage points is an 
immense economic benefit to the present generation. For all those 
seeking to buy a new home, it means, over the lifetime of mortgage 
payments on that home, tens of thousands, if not more, of dollars in 
their pockets that otherwise would be paid in interest. It means, for 
those who own a home now and have a mortgage, the opportunity to 
refinance that home and put money right directly into their 
pocketbooks, into education for their children, into meeting the needs 
of their families.
  So there is an immediate benefit for all Americans and for American 
businesses that have to go out and raise the capital to expand, which 
provides jobs for Americans, and on and on it goes. A number of figures 
have been thrown out in terms of what this means. A balanced budget 
over the next 6 years, according to some who have studied this, 
indicates that it would add to the United States economy $32 billion in 
real disposable income, $66 billion in new purchases, $88 billion in 
new investment, and over 100,000 new housing starts. That translates 
into jobs, jobs, and jobs--real jobs, not minimum wage jobs.
  The best thing we can do for people looking for work or seeking to 
improve their position and their jobs is to jump-start this economy in 
a way in which we can expand opportunities for Americans to work. 
Average Americans will save, it is estimated, $2,388 a year on mortgage 
payments on a house with a $75,000, 30-year mortgage. Those of us who 
live in urban areas, or occupy areas where housing costs are much 
higher, obviously, are going to save much more than that. And it would 
be $1,026 saved over the life of a 4-year car loan. Every 3 or 4 years, 
we go out to buy a new car. Most Americans do not have the cash to 
purchase those cars and, therefore, put a 4- to 5-year car loan on it. 
We are talking about $1,000 or more in the pocket of every American who 
buys a new car back into their wallet to spend for other purposes, or 
to save, that they otherwise would pay in interest. And $1,891 interest 
over the life of a 10-year student loan, for all those parents and 
families--and I am one of them, as my third child will go off to 
college in a month and a half--those of us that need to borrow money to 
help finance that education are going to be borrowing it at lower 
interest costs, and it will save us the average, over a 10-year student 
loan, of nearly $2,000.

  Add all that up, and it amounts to nearly $75,000 of savings for the 
average family--that is, raising kids, paying for transportation, 
putting a mortgage on their house, trying to save some money to send 
their kids to college to get an education beyond high school. We are 
talking about real dollars. So the appeal to the American public is not 
just our moral responsibility and the legacy we leave for future 
generations for this country, but also direct economic benefits that 
can flow directly to this economy and to Americans in this generation.
  So, Mr. President, the question from the Senator from Georgia is a 
pertinent and relevant question to this discussion which I want to just 
briefly address.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield so I can find out 
what the time parameters are? As I understand it, at 1 o'clock Senator 
Exon gets the floor. I ask him if I could have 5 minutes.
  Mr. EXON. I am happy to yield 5 minutes to the Senator from 
California.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I will honor that and wrap up my remarks so 
we can keep some semblance of time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Nebraska is to be recognized at 1 o'clock.
  Mr. COATS. I thank the Chair for the time.
  I thank my friend from Georgia for yielding.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mrs. BOXER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California is recognized 
under the time of the Senator from Nebraska.
  Mrs. BOXER. Thank you very much, Mr. President. I thank my friend 
from Nebraska. I am delighted to speak for a brief period of time. I 
greatly appreciate his yielding me that 5 minutes.
  (The remarks of Mrs. Boxer pertaining to the introduction of S. 1837 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I think we are going along the same path 
on which we have already gone. Do we want to really balance the budget, 
or do we want a figleaf? Clearly a discussion and vote on a 
constitutional amendment debate is a figleaf when we can have the real 
thing. The President

[[Page S5806]]

was very clear. He said to the Republican leadership, ``Please, come 
into to my office and let us get it done.''
  Every single Member of this body has voted for a balanced budget, a 
real one, not a figleaf. I voted for two. I voted for the Democratic 
plan, and I voted for a bipartisan plan. If those Republicans who were 
so anxious to have a balanced budget would come over and support the 
bipartisan plan, we would have a balanced budget. We would not have to 
have a figleaf. We could have the real thing.
  That is important. That is what it would take. It is not up to the 
President. It is up to this body to come together either around their 
own plan and get enough votes to do it or around a bipartisan plan. I 
think that is the issue. The issue is not about a figleaf; it is about 
reality.
  Sometimes I think the public is confused about this because they are 
told that people oppose an amendment to the Constitution because they 
do not want to balance the budget. In fact we have had very, very tough 
votes to do it. You do not need an amendment to the Constitution to 
balance the budget.
  Mr. President, in my remaining time, I hope we get back to the issues 
that matter to people. No. 1, agreement on a real balanced budget; No. 
2, the Kassebaum-Kennedy bill which will protect people who need health 
care; No. 3, the minimum wage. Then I would like to see us take up 
pension security, and in the few minutes I have remaining I want to 
call my colleagues' attention to a front page story in the Wall Street 
Journal today entitled ``Frittered Away--Some workers find retirement 
nest eggs full of strange assets. Losses can be serious.'' It goes very 
painstakingly through a tragedy that has befallen employees of a 
company headquartered in Texas with many stores in my home State of 
California which invested about 85 percent of its 401(k) plan assets, 
which belong to employees. Employees put their hard-earned money into 
that particular company plan. The employees now find out that the 
company has gone bankrupt, hundreds of them have lost their jobs, and 
they may have lost their retirement.
  If you want to do something on the floor of the U.S. Senate that 
impacts the lives of people, get a real balanced budget through, get 
the Kennedy-Kassebaum legislation through so employees can have health 
care, so it can be portable, get the pension bill I introduced today 
through so employees know that the same rules that apply to defined 
benefit pension plans apply to their 401(k)'s.
  The Wall Street Journal article talks about how some employers have 
taken the hard-earned pension contributions of their employees and put 
them into worthless investments. Some of them have decorated their 
offices with these so-called investments. The investments are worth 
nothing, and the employees are left holding the bag. We can make a very 
easy change here by applying the same protections to 401(k) plans as we 
already apply to other plans.
  When we are here for 3 days talking about a constitutional amendment 
to balance the budget, I know the Senator from Nebraska has supported 
it in the past, but I think he will explain his frustration with this 
measure. We on the other side want to balance the budget. But the first 
thing they do is repeal the gas tax and put that money into the pockets 
of the oil companies. Then they talk about a huge tax cut.
  It gets a little frustrating. If we really care about the people of 
this country, start debating a real balanced budget. Start debating the 
issues that matter to people.
  I hope my colleagues will support my pension bill because it would 
protect workers from losing their 401(k) plans that they worked so hard 
to put their money into.
  I say to my friend, I thank you very much for yielding. I look 
forward to his remarks.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Faircloth). The Chair recognizes the 
Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. EXON. I thank the Chair. I thank my friend from California for 
her kind remarks.
  Mr. President, I am very disappointed by this constitutional balanced 
budget amendment charade staged by the majority. My colleagues know 
that I am a staunch and dogged supporter of a balanced Federal budget 
and a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. I have not changed 
in my resolve but quite obviously others have. There is something to be 
said for consistency and political honesty even during a political 
campaign. Up until very recently, I thought that if you favored one, 
you had to support the other. They clearly go hand-in-hand. But that 
was before the political shenanigans evidently brought about by 
election-year politics.
  But watching the majority leader and the majority party become the 
new high priests of what George Bush called voodoo economics has caused 
me to question whether the Republicans sincerely want a balanced budget 
at all or just a meaningless campaign issue. Advocating a balanced 
budget amendment while advocating fiscal policy that makes it 
impossible to function is ludicrous.
  One minute, the majority leader calls for passage of a balanced 
budget amendment. But in nearly the same breath, he simultaneously 
pushes massive tax deductions that would reduce revenues by 
multibillions of dollars such as deductibility of Social Security 
payroll taxes, repeal of the gas tax, and a laundry list of other tax 
breaks too numerous to mention. On the spending side, he calls for a 
$50 billion plus revival of star wars that would additionally worsen 
the deficit. All of this fiscal nonsense--it is fiscal nonsense, Mr. 
President--has caused me to conclude that I will not be a party to this 
hypocritical enterprise that falsely promises to balance the budget 
down the road, but avoids every hard vote to cut the deficit here and 
now and actually reach balance by 2002 when supposedly the 
constitutional amendment would kick in.
  I find the about-face by the majority puzzling, to say the least. The 
National Review once quoted Bob Dole calling supply-side economics a 
``magic formula that would give us lower taxes, all the benefits voters 
clamor for, and every weapons system on the military's wish list.''
  Doesn't that sound rather familiar now?
  The majority leader was known for many years as downright hostile to 
supply siders, including his former nemesis, Jack Kemp. He once chided 
that Mr. Kemp liked to preach painless ways to reduce the deficit, and 
I quote Mr. Dole, ``while some of us do all of the dirty work.'' 
Perhaps the majority leader does not want to get his hands dirty 
anymore. Why do you suppose that is so?
  During one of his previous Presidential runs, the majority leader 
said that the American people ``are ready for bitter medicine'' to 
reduce the deficit, but now he has become the tax cut candy man.
  The majority leader also liked to joke that he had good news and the 
bad news. Once again I quote the majority leader. ``The good news was 
that a busload of supply side economists had plunged off the cliff. The 
bad news was that there were three empty seats.''
  Mr. President, no one is laughing today, not the American people who 
will be stuck with a new deficit bill because of the Senator's 11th 
hour conversion to supply side economics.
  Jokes aside, I cannot fathom how anyone who had a perch so close to 
the unholy economic mess that supply siders created could now become 
their standard bearer.
  Former OMB Director David Stockman recanted, at least, from the 
deficits that he helped create. He wrote:

       The real root problem goes back to the July 1981 frenzy of 
     excessive and imprudent tax cutting that shattered the 
     Nation's fiscal stability. A noisy faction of Republicans 
     have willfully denied this giant mistake of fiscal governance 
     and their own culpability in it ever since. Instead they have 
     incessantly poisoned the political debate with a mindless 
     stream of anti-tax venom while pretending that economic 
     growth and spending cuts alone could cure the deficit.

  Mr. Stockman was right and everyone in this Chamber, including the 
majority leader, knows it. But the majority leader was already agreeing 
with this assessment years ago. In January 1982, he told the Washington 
Post:

       I do not subscribe to the fantasy that if we do nothing, 
     deficits will disappear. Some of those in Congress who are 
     the most vocally leading the fight against tax increases 
     propose nothing to bring spending under control. It is hard 
     to conceive a worse economic or political path to follow.


[[Page S5807]]


  There is another revealing quote of the majority leader in the New 
Republic of January 7, 1985: ``I never thought growth would deal with 
the deficit.'' To continue the quote from Dole, ``Mondale's view of it 
was all right. He was the wrong salesman.'' At least now we know 
where's the beef.
  The majority leader also told the New York Economic Club in January 
1984:

       Unlike some who believe we can sit on the sidelines and 
     allow economic growth to balance the Federal budget, I 
     believe that Congress and the administration must earn its 
     redemption.

  I say to the distinguished majority leader, so do I. We can earn some 
redemption today by pulling this travesty off the floor of the Senate.
  Mr. President, I have spent many an hour advocating a balanced budget 
amendment to the Constitution. No one has been more intent on this 
endeavor. I went even further than some of my colleagues would dare. I 
took the debate from a philosophical discussion to a level where it 
really counts. I tried to get Congress to abide by the very policy 
statement set out in the balanced budget amendment.
  At the beginning of this Congress, I offered an amendment that would 
have created a point of order against considering any budget resolution 
that fails to comply with the requirements set out in the balanced 
budget amendment.
  But my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who were white hot 
in their passion for a balanced budget amendment, were curiously cool 
to that amendment.
  You hear all of these pious speeches about how we want to balance the 
Federal budget, but if we had a dollar for every Senate speech in favor 
of a balanced budget we would have had a budget surplus long ago.

  Then comes along a Presidential election, and all of a sudden 
Senators are falling all over themselves to cut taxes. I heard one 
Senator say, well, this was not the first tax that he would have cut, 
but it was an opportunity to cut taxes, and he was not going to miss 
it. It is a transparent political ploy, and this Senator, for one, has 
had enough of it.
  Last year, the Senate had a thoughtful and measured debate on the 
balanced budget amendment. I did not particularly savor the outcome, 
but I was proud of the manner in which the Senate conducted the 
people's business. We were thorough, we were thoughtful, we were fair, 
and we acquitted ourselves with repute.
  But today's action by the majority wreaks of partisanship and 
election year politics. It is not serious or sound public policy. It is 
more like a sound bite. This is a crass and appalling public relations 
stunt concocted and orchestrated by the Republican majority and the 
Republican National Committee. Their motives are as obvious as their 
tactics are unseemly. Mr. President, I will not dance to their piper. I 
deplore their tactics.
  Using Congress as a backdrop, the majority will do their very best to 
embarrass the President and divert attention away from their 15 months 
of failed leadership. They will grasp at every thin reed to win back 
the White House, even this trumped up attempt to pass a balanced budget 
amendment to the Constitution that everyone knows in advance will fail.
  I suppose they feel they have no choice. The majority needs and wants 
to shift the attention of the public away from their flash-in-the-pan 
agenda and their inability to produce a fair balanced budget behind 
which the American people can rally.
  Mr. President, that reminds me of an article I once read. In August 
1985, David Stockman, President Reagan's OMB Director, presented 
Senator Bob Dole with a supply side birthday cake. According to the 
press, the Senator chortled with glee to find that under the icing the 
cake was hollow. I say to the majority leader, so is this attempt to 
win votes in November.
  The Senate majority leader, 20 points or so behind in the race for 
the Presidency, has come up with a gimmick to reduce the gas tax by 4.3 
cents, which, if maintained until the magical year of 2002, could cost 
the Treasury $34 billion in revenues when we are already far short of 
any attainable goal to meet the constitutional guaranteed balance by 
that date. No matter the fact that the price of crude oil has fallen 
back to its low late in February.
  According to the Wall Street Journal, the majority leader is also 
advocating of a $500 a child tax credit and a $500 annual credit for 
individuals contributing to charities. His key advisers are urging a 
15-percent across-the-board tax cut. Billionaire Steve Forbes and 
adviser Jack Kemp are pushing a flat tax reduction. Meanwhile, 
President Clinton is inching toward more tax cuts as well. Where will 
it end? When will the tax bidding stop? When are we all going to 
recognize that we are on the road to bankruptcy?

  I have criticized President Clinton for his tax cut proposals as 
well. But, by comparison, he is a piker. One thing is certain, 
President Clinton will not be around when the heavy lifting starts 
after the year 2000. At best, Bob Dole would be approaching 80 years of 
age, in his second term as President. What an exciting prospect for 
keeping promises.
  I ask my colleagues on both sides, how on Earth can we debate a 
constitutional amendment to balance the budget and then have a host of 
tax cuts in the wings that will worsen the deficit? And, yes, I say 
worsen the deficit, because the offset that the majority cobbles 
together or attempts to cobble together to pay for the tax cut will, in 
all likelihood, be something we are already counting on to help balance 
the budget. You cannot spend the same dollar two or three times.
  So, if Senators want to cut taxes and then ask me to join them to 
support a balanced budget amendment, they will soon find this Senator 
unwilling to go with them down that crooked road of no return. It is 
madness. It is unconscionable. It is the biggest flimflam in history.
  The American people should understand that if a constitutional 
amendment to balance the budget by 2002 is followed by the tax cuts 
proposed or waiting in the wings by the majority, including a huge $180 
billion tax giveaway in the reconciliation bill, then future Congresses 
will face by far the largest tax increase ever imagined. Such a 
happening would be the height of fiscal and budget irresponsibility, 
and would saddle future Presidents and future Congresses with an 
unworkable fiscal dilemma.
  In conclusion, if the distinguished majority leader is indeed earnest 
about reopening a serious debate on a balanced budget amendment to the 
Constitution, he will find a strong and willing ally in this Senator, 
as he has in the past. He knows that. I will not, however, be a party 
to this partisan charade. The numbers simply do not add up. We must 
repudiate this partisan sham. The honest, fiscally conservative vote on 
the Dole initiative is no.
  Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time and I yield the 
floor.
  Mr. BENNETT addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Campbell). The Chair recognizes the 
Senator from Utah.
  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I have listened with some interest while 
my colleague from Nebraska has spoken. I am sure it will come as no 
surprise that I disagree with just about everything he has had to say, 
particularly with respect to the majority leader and his position. But 
I will not speak for the majority leader. He is more than capable of 
speaking for himself. I would like to get a few facts on the record 
that I think need to be part of this debate.
  Fact No. 1: Money does not come from the budget. I know that comes as 
a great surprise to this body, but money comes from the economy, and if 
the economy is growing and vibrant, there is lots of money in the 
Treasury. If the economy is shrinking or depressed it does not matter 
how much the budget projected would be there, it will not be there. So 
the one thing that frustrates me the most, coming from the business 
world into the Congress, is this insistence upon making projections, 
all neat and balanced down to the last dollar, and then assuming that 
is the way things will turn out.

  It is like a businessman who says at the beginning of the year, ``I 
project we will have so much revenue from our business this year. 
Accordingly, I will adopt a budget for x amount to spend that much 
revenue.'' I have been in that circumstance. We made projections for a 
business that I was CEO of. As it turned out, we fell 10 percent short 
of our projections.

[[Page S5808]]

  That should not bother too many people. Ten percent is not that much 
money. The problem is, our spending was based on the projection of 
revenue, and we had to change the spending pattern midyear, indeed 
midmonth, when it became clear to us we were not going to make as much 
as we thought we were going to make. We had projected a 100-percent 
increase in that business, and we had been doing that every year up to 
that point. As it turned out, we only had a 90-percent increase. As I 
say, we missed it by 10 percent. We had to adjust immediately or we 
were headed for a loss year. We do not do that around here. We say oh, 
no, the budget projects such and such, so we will spend such and such, 
regardless of what happens in the real economy. Let me give the Senate 
an example.
  We stood here, my first Congress, the 103d Congress, and heard 
projections of how much money would come from the tax increase that 
President Clinton proposed. We heard numbers, hundreds of billions of 
dollars will come if this is done and we need to do this to balance the 
budget. The deficit is so much, we are going to get so much, this is 
how this is all going to work out. I put in the Record before, so I 
will not do it again, an article by Marty Feldstein, one of the more 
distinguished economists of this country, who, looking back after 2 
years, said, in terms of actual revenue, the Clinton tax increase 
produced only one-third as much money as was projected.
  Why? Simply because the economy reacted. People were faced with tax 
increases in one category of their investments so they switched 
investments to someplace else to avoid taxes. You do not have to be, 
really, very smart to figure out how that happens.
  So President Clinton proposed a tax increase. It was passed by the 
previous Congress, and then the results came in and the results were 
that we only got one-third as much revenue as the President had 
projected we would. People changed their behavior.
  It is very hard to convince a computer that is what is going to 
happen. The computers are programmed around here to assume the static 
analysis, on and on and on. The Senator from Nebraska heaped great 
scorn upon the supply-siders and carried on with the kind of rhetoric 
we have heard before in this Chamber about how it was the terrible tax 
cuts under Ronald Reagan that produced the runaway deficits we are all 
living with. That has been repeated so many times that people are 
beginning to believe it.
  Mr. President, I do not have the time to give this argument again. I 
have given it before, but I have discovered in the Senate there is no 
such thing as repetition. But I will do my best to summarize it.
  In 1989, which was the last fiscal year we operated under the tax 
structure that was created by Ronald Reagan, income taxes produced 8.6 
percent of gross domestic product coming back to the Government. So, 
however big the economy was, 8.6 percent of that came back to the 
Government in revenue. Then said those: ``Oh, no, the terrible Reagan 
tax cuts have caused us to not have enough revenue. Tell you what we 
are going to do, we are going to have first the tax increase that 
occurred at Andrews Air Force base and then the Clinton tax increase 
that came in the 103d Congress.''

  And with those two successive tax increases, what did we get in 
fiscal 1995? The tax increase hit in 1993. What did we get in fiscal 
1995? If we got only 8.6 percent of gross domestic product under the 
disastrous Reagan proposals, should we not be expecting 9, 9\1/2\, 
maybe even 10 percent? The fact is, instead of going up, revenues went 
down. Yes, down. In fiscal 1995, income taxes produced 8 percent of 
gross domestic product, almost 10 percent less of gross domestic 
product than was the case before.
  It is very clear that the tremendous deficits that we have heard 
about and we have talked about and we spend time on did not come as a 
result of the Reagan tax cuts. Federal revenues went up every single 
year under President Reagan. The economy grew rapidly. Once we came out 
of the recession that occurred at the beginning of Reagan's term, we 
had the longest period of economic expansion peacetime in our history.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 
to continue for 3 additional minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BENNETT. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, money does not come from the budget. Money comes from 
the economy, and we have to learn in this body and the other body and 
in the White House to pay attention to the results from the economy 
instead of spending all of our time reviewing the numbers of the budget 
and listening to the computers of the budget who project blindly into 
the future without making the midcourse adjustments.
  The record is very clear. The tax program that was followed during 
the Reagan years produced record revenues--not reduced revenues, record 
high revenues. The problem of the deficit occurred on the spending 
side, and it occurred on the spending side because of the changing 
demographics in the country and the growing spending on entitlements.
  Nobody is to blame for that except the elderly who do not have the 
courtesy to die with the same regularity that they used to, and I, for 
one, do not want to call upon them to start doing that now just to 
balance the budget.
  But that is the new reality of the marketplace, that is the new 
reality of the economy, and we must adjust our rhetoric to that reality 
instead of trying to go back and fuzz the factors of the past and say, 
somehow, President Reagan is responsible for all of our difficulties.
  No, our difficulties are rooted in the changes that are occurring in 
the country. We must recognize that fact, and we must put in place the 
structural discipline that will force us to recognize that fact in the 
form of the balanced budget amendment.
  I thank the Chair. I did not want to leave the statements made by the 
Senator from Nebraska unresponded to, responding to in my own name, 
recognizing, as I said, that the majority leader is more than capable 
of responding in his own behalf.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time from 1:30 
p.m. to 3:30 p.m. will be under the control of the Senator from 
Wyoming, Senator Thomas.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
allowed to speak for 5 minutes out of the time of the Senator from 
Nebraska [Mr. Exon].
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, I rise to oppose this balanced budget 
amendment, recognizing that some of the people in this Chamber, for 
whom I have the most respect, are for it. But I oppose it to a large 
extent because of what I call the dilemma of enforceability.
  My colleagues will recall that when this amendment was up earlier in 
this Congress, we had tremendous amounts of debates on whether the 
courts ought to be able to enforce this amendment. I made speeches 
against the difficulties that courts would have, the constitutional 
crisis that it would put this country in, and how terrible it would be 
in a democracy to have nonelected, appointed-for-life judges who are 
not available to the public making decisions about increasing taxes or 
cutting Social Security or cutting Medicare or cutting programs across 
the board, judges who have no feel for these programs, who have no 
background in the programs, no staff to understand the programs coming 
in and making an order and saying, ``We're going to increase your 
income tax,'' or ``We're going to cut your Social Security,'' or cut 
your Medicare programs, or name a thousand other different Federal 
programs.

  I think it would be terrible, Mr. President. I think it would just be 
terrible. I think it would be the stuff of revolution, as people would 
say, ``How did we get in this situation?''
  Indeed, as we outlined these difficulties of this bill earlier when 
it was being discussed, finally the sponsors of the resolution agreed, 
at least they agreed to the extent they accepted an amendment. Some 
would say they accepted the amendment just to get the necessary votes; 
others would say they accepted the amendment because they knew it was 
the right thing. But in any event, the amendment, as I understand it--
the Nunn amendment which is now part of this--states as follows:


[[Page S5809]]


       The judicial power of the United States shall not extend to 
     any case or controversy arising under this article, except as 
     may be specifically authorized by legislation adopted 
     pursuant to this section.

  I suppose that is the present state of the amendment. What does that 
mean, Mr. President? It means this whole thing is a sham. It is either 
enforceable, and enforceable by the courts, so that the Supreme Court 
tells you what the size of your taxes are or what the amount of your 
Social Security payment is, or else it is not enforceable, and it is a 
sham.
  People say, ``Well, make your choice, Senator. You can't argue on the 
one hand against the courts enforcing it and on the other hand argue 
that if they don't enforce it, it's a sham.'' The fact of the matter 
is, that is the truth. Either horn of that dilemma is not breachable by 
this amendment.
  There is really only one way to balance this budget and to do so in a 
way that makes sense to the American people, and that is for the 
Congress to do it. That is because the Congress, in every district in 
America, has an elected Representative who can come and represent the 
people, go back home in town meetings and communicate with the people, 
be on television, receive letters, respond to letters, communicate with 
the public and, in fact, represent the people in the most fundamental 
decisions that this country is made of; that is, what is the size of 
your taxes, what are the amounts of your benefits, and what are the 
functions of Government.
  That is central to a democracy, that is central to our country, Mr. 
President, and the public ought to be entitled to be heard on that. 
That is why I think to try to get this automatic pilot, this 
constitutional amendment just will not work.
  We tried it before. We tried it with Gramm-Rudman. I voted against 
the Gramm-Rudman because there is no magic automatic pilot. There is no 
substitute for elected Representatives making decisions in the interest 
of the public.
  I remember when we passed Gramm-Rudman.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, may I be allowed 3 additional minutes?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 3 additional minutes.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. We had a provision in Gramm-Rudman called 
sequestration. My colleagues will remember that well. If the budget was 
not balanced, or if we did not meet the target provided in Gramm-
Rudman, there was to be this automatic guillotine that fell. There was 
going to be a chopped-off spending by a prearranged formula, and it was 
all going to be arranged and that was going to substitute for the 
backbone of Congress.
  Of course, what happened, we got right up to look at that gleaming 
guillotine which was going to cut off spending, and the Congress, 
predictably, said, at least the opponents of Gramm-Rudman said, it was 
going to be this. We said, ``No, stay the guillotine, stay the 
sequestration, don't do it.''
  Here we are with a different kind of guillotine. Either we are going 
to have a permanent block in the guillotine, which is what the Nunn 
amendment says, nonenforceability, or we are going to go back to the 
old guillotine.
  Mr. President, can you imagine what the American public would say if 
the Supreme Court made an order that said, ``We're going to increase 
your income tax by 50 percent?'' Why, there would be rioting in the 
streets. You say, ``Oh, the Supreme Court wouldn't do that.'' Oh, no?
  How is the Supreme Court supposed to balance this budget? You know, 
they have to do it quickly. Do you think they can go through every one 
of these little programs, thousands of programs, and snip each one? 
They cannot do that. They do not have that knowledge.
  Can they cut them across the board? You cannot cut programs across 
the board, Mr. President. There are contractual arrangements. You take 
one of the budgets I have something to do with, the Corps of Engineers, 
they go out and make contracts. You cannot come in and say, ``Well, 
we're going to pay you 95 percent or 80 percent of that which you're 
entitled to under the contract.'' You cannot do that constitutionally. 
You cannot do it in good sense. So you cannot cut things across the 
board. You have to have big amounts of money. So where do those big 
amounts of money come from? Two places--taxes or entitlements. You 
spell entitlements ``Social Security'' or ``Medicare.''
  So, Mr. President, if anybody around here thinks that you can easily 
give the Supreme Court of the United States the power to raise your 
taxes and raise them big time, or to cut your Medicare and to cut your 
Medicare big time and raise these costs for our senior citizens, or do 
the same thing with Social Security, you have to be kidding, Mr. 
President. People have not thought this through if they think the 
American people would accept that or if they think that is sound 
Government or good policy.
  The other horn of the dilemma is, if you make it nonenforceable, it 
does not mean a thing except for a campaign speech. It is a good 
substitute for real policy, which means that you really frustrate the 
goal of the balanced budget. I mean, if you have this thing where you 
say, ``Look, don't ask me to cut these programs. I have already voted 
for the balanced budget amendment,'' then that is a good substitute for 
real policy. The only thing we need to do, Mr. President, is exercise 
real backbone, exercise real representation.
  I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired. Who yield 
time?
  Mr. THOMAS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming Mr. [Thomas], is 
recognized.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise to continue this discussion on the 
balanced budget amendment. It has been a long discussion. It is not a 
new discussion. It is one that has gone on for years. Unfortunately, it 
is one that is going to go on for a number of more years.
  Let me comment for a moment on the presentation of the gentleman from 
Louisiana. I respect him very much. Certainly he is one of the most 
polished and dependable Members of this body.
  I disagree with him in this instance. I disagree on the notion that 
somehow the courts will inject themselves into this and this will not 
work. I cite the fact that some 35 States, mine included, has it in 
their constitution. We have not had the problem with the involvement of 
the courts.

  The courts in some instances can come to the legislature, can come to 
the Congress and say, ``What you have done is unconstitutional, and you 
need to redo it.'' That is a legitimate function of the court. They may 
do that, I suspect, in the spending area, but not to establish what you 
are going to spend. ``What you're doing is not right, and you have to 
do it again.'' There is a substantial amount of evidence that that does 
work.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Would the Senator yield?
  Mr. THOMAS. Sure.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Is the Senator aware of the huge amount of experience 
in the States where they have either constitutional provisions 
requiring a balanced budget or prohibiting the incurment of debt, or 
other constitutional provisions with respect to the raising of money 
under which legislatures, by clever schemes, get around these 
provisions?
  I cite, as one of those, legislation that I was involved in, I mean, 
both legislation and litigation--I hate to make this question too 
long--involving the dome stadium in Louisiana where the law said, ``No 
bond issued under this amendment may bear the faith or credit of the 
State,'' and where the legislature and the Governor came in with a 
clever artifice and got around that, and you ended up with bonds which 
bore the faith and credit of the State. Or, more recently, where the 
Louisiana Constitution said it takes a two-thirds vote to raise taxes, 
and they created a special taxing district by majority vote which 
raised the money and raised the taxes and got around the constitutional 
provision.
  I cite those two examples as being typical of what has happened all 
across this Nation in avoiding the effect of those. Is the Senator 
aware of those?
  Mr. THOMAS. Yes, of course. Let me give you an example. The Senator 
has been here for 20 years, or whatever, and we have not balanced the 
budget in the time the Senator has been here.

[[Page S5810]]

  The Senator points to some areas--I do not mean this personally--but 
this has not been done. The Senator points to some possibilities that 
might happen under a constitutional amendment. Look at what has 
happened without one.
  So I say to the Senator that--he talks about a sham. The sham is that 
we have gone on for 25 years here and we have spent more than we have 
taken in. Every time we talk about it, everyone who gets up in this 
place says, ``I'm for balancing the budget. I'm going to balance the 
budget.'' What is the evidence? The evidence is you have not.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. The last 4 years we have cut down the deficit by more 
than 50 percent.
  Mr. THOMAS. By raising taxes, the largest tax increase in history, I 
agree. I did not vote for it. The Senator did, did he not?
  Mr. JOHNSTON. No.
  Mr. THOMAS. I am sorry. I do not think that is the way to do it. I 
think we are looking for some sort of discipline. We just have an 
honest disagreement about this. I think that the constitutional 
amendment provides the discipline within which this body or other 
legislative bodies can work.
  Obviously, the Senator mentioned Gramm-Rudman. It did not work 
because there was not the discipline. This body found its way to go 
around that, did they not? They said this is an appropriations but did 
not score it under Gramm-Rudman.

  Mr. JOHNSTON. Well, if the Senator will further yield?
  Mr. THOMAS. Sure.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Should it be enforceable or not enforceable?
  Mr. THOMAS. Of course, enforceable.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Of course, enforceable?
  Mr. THOMAS. Yes.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. The Nunn amendment is part of it at this time.
  Mr. THOMAS. I am not sure.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. I am advised it is part of this, which makes it 
nonenforceable, save for an act of Congress. Then you have the Supreme 
Court. I mean, should the Supreme Court be able to raise your taxes?
  Mr. THOMAS. I claim my time back here. We can stand here, as we do, 
and as has been going on now since I have been here, in the House for 5 
or 6 years, and particularly this year, and think of all these reasons 
why it cannot be done. ``Oh, so Social Security is there.'' ``Oh, it's 
not enforceable.'' ``Oh, the courts are going to get into it.''
  But, you know, you really come down to the bottom line. And the 
bottom line is this year, for the first time in 25 years, the Congress 
sent to the President a balanced budget. The President promptly vetoed 
it. So I think you have to ask yourself, is it morally and fiscally 
responsible to balance the budget? Do we have a responsibility as 
representatives of our constituency to say, ``Look, we're not going to 
spend more than we take in except in an emergency?'' I think that is 
reasonable. I know the Senator would agree to that. But that has not 
happened. So we go into all these reasons and all these excuses why we 
cannot do that.
  First of all, all we are doing is we are sending a constitutional 
amendment to the States. The folks will have another chance to look at 
this, which I think makes some sense. But I feel very strongly that we 
have tried the other things.
  Some say, ``Well, you shouldn't tamper with the Constitution. The 
Framers didn't put that in there.'' I do not think the Framers also 
expected that you would have the largest line item in the budget being 
interest on a debt that has been built up because we do not balance the 
budget.
  I think we are making some progress. I have to tell you that part of 
the largest tax increase in history helps do that. I think on the other 
side of the aisle you found, for the first time, some people willing to 
reduce spending, cut that back some. The combination of those two 
things are moving us in the right direction. There are two different 
points of view on it. That is why we are going to vote one of these 
times.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. I will not prevail upon my friend to yield further. I 
thank him for yielding. I appreciate his courtesy.
  Mr. THOMAS. I thank the Senator very much.
  In any event, I just think it is time we have to take a look at what 
we are doing. Certainly a balanced budget amendment is something most 
people have thought was a good idea. A number of people on that side of 
the aisle thought it was a good idea a couple years ago; now, in the 
last time we voted, did not. Of course it takes two-thirds. It is a 
difficult thing to do.

  Mr. President, one of the things that we ought to talk about a little 
bit, and I think about a great deal, is, why is it important to me as a 
citizen in Casper, WY, why is it important to anyone who pays their 
taxes, and is part of this Government? It seems to me that is where we 
ought to start.
  First of all, I think a balanced budget has a great deal of impact on 
our lives. We have gone for a very long time with an unbalanced budget 
and we did not think much about it. There were no great discussions 
about it until fairly recently. Why? Because the debt has gotten so 
large that very likely next year the largest line item in the budget 
will be for interest of $260-some billion, which will not be available 
to spend in other areas.
  People have made the good point that if we did not have the interest 
payment, the budget would be balanced. But we do. I have heard others 
say, ``Let's get rid of the debt. It is just Government debt.'' That is 
not true. You and I own Treasury notes. It belongs to people. It is a 
real debt. We have to pay that interest. That is part of it.
  Another is, if you did not take all that money out of the economy, we 
would have, I think, a strengthened economy. We would have more jobs. 
Interest rates will be lower with a balanced budget. We have seen that 
happen fairly recently as we move toward that. Those are things that 
affect you and me as we live at home and work.
  This is not some esoteric exercise about budgets, about legislation. 
It is a very real thing. Interest rates are lower on your home, on your 
school costs for your kids, on your car. It is very real. It makes a 
great deal of difference for the economy to be stronger, and jobs make 
a great deal of difference.
  Furthermore, and maybe just as important to most of us, is that there 
is a moral and fiscal obligation with our Government to not spend more 
than we take in. That applies to everyone else. But we say, ``Well, if 
we want something and we do not have the money, we will charge it to 
our kids, our grandkids.'' That is what we have done.
  This business of reducing the deficit, which is terribly important, 
has nothing to do with the corpus of the debt. We still have $5 
trillion out there that we have not even started to do anything about. 
We are still trying to reduce it. Over this 6-year period, as we move 
toward a balanced budget, the debt continues to grow, the interest 
continues to grow.
  Mr. President, I think it is fairly easy to get up here politically 
and go into great economic ideas and so on, but the facts are pretty 
basic. That is, that it strengthens this country. It strengthens 
families. It is responsible. It is morally right. We have not done it. 
We need to do something different. The idea that you continue to do the 
same thing and expect different results is simply not a realistic 
expectation.
  Mr. President, we have asked for some time--``we'' being the freshman 
class--for the next 1\1/2\ to talk about this issue. I suppose some of 
us take a little different view than others in this body in that we all 
came through the last election. We are very conscious of what our 
voters said to us 2 years ago. Most of us would agree that one of the 
strong messages was the Federal Government is too large and costs too 
much and we need to do something about that. If you talk about 
balancing the budget in my State, it is one of the highest priorities 
of anyone there. I think those of us who have just been here now for 
less than a year and a half have a little bit of special interest in 
it. That is why we have asked for some time as freshmen, to have a 
special order on balancing the budget.

  I yield to my friend and associate from Pennsylvania.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Santorum] 
is recognized for 7 minutes.
  Mr. SANTORUM. I thank my friend from Wyoming, I thank the Presiding 
Officer, and I thank my friend from Minnesota, who is ready to talk.

[[Page S5811]]

  This is an important debate. It almost is anticlimatic. The fact is 
that it is widely reported in the press that we do not have enough 
votes to pass the balanced budget amendment, an amendment that passed 
the House of Representatives, that this is just an exercise. 
Unfortunately, it has been minimized as a result of that.
  I think it is important. I am glad the Senator from Wyoming has been 
our leader on the floor on these issues, has taken the time to get the 
freshman on the Republican side--the freshmen Members are all 
Republicans; I guess that would be the Republican side--to get up and 
talk about why we think this is important and why the public should be, 
again, focused on this issue.
  I do not think there is anything more fundamental for the Government 
to do than to run an operation that is balanced. Almost every State 
government runs an operation that balances the budget every year. It is 
incumbent upon Government to act in a responsible fashion with the 
taxpayers' dollars and do so in setting priorities. It is hard to do. 
You have heard a lot about all the money that needs to be spent on a 
lot of different programs. There are a lot of things we need to do.
  I see the pages down here and young people up in the gallery. I 
visited high schools and colleges just over the last week during the 
break, and it is hard to look into the faces of the young people in 
this country and say to them, ``Look, it is much more important for us 
to get reelected. It is more important for us to have an issue to scare 
people on things like Medicare and education spending. It is more 
important for us to play politics, for our political career, than it is 
to solve the problems that face this country that are going to be 
burdening you to even a greater degree than it is burdening this 
generation of Americans.''
  I think we need to do a little soul searching at this point. One 
thing I found when I got in the Congress, you can always find a reason 
to vote no. There is always something in every piece of legislation, 
even if it is one sentence, you can always find a reason, an excuse, to 
be opposed to something and walk away from taking the responsibility.
  I remember when I was in the minority in the House, it was very easy 
to walk away and say, ``I am in the minority. It is not really my job 
to move legislation here. Yes, it is a good bill, but maybe I will take 
a pass on this because I am afraid of one little political twist.'' 
That is what we have done here on the balanced budget amendment. We 
found there are several Members who have found a reason to vote ``no''. 
That is the Social Security issue. That is the reason to vote ``no'' on 
something they say they are for. And they protest, ``We want a balanced 
budget,'' but it is the Social Security issue holding us back.
  I think that balancing the Federal budget is bigger than any one 
single program in Washington. A lot of great programs have passed here, 
a lot of not so good programs have passed here, but nothing rises to 
the level of doing the basic fundamental requirement of any government, 
and that is to balance its books.

  For those who hide behind Social Security, I say to them: Where were 
you and where are you when it comes to doing something for these young 
people on Social Security? Where are the brave souls who stride to the 
well and say, ``We need to do Social Security reform because these 
young people who are paying taxes right now have absolutely no hope of 
seeing Social Security payments when they retire.'' Where are the brave 
people who want to preserve Social Security, not as a political issue 
for their next election, but as a real issue for the next generation?
  I ask everyone who is hiding behind that issue, and I ask all the 
people who are listening right now, to examine those Members and 
examine the people who are using this issue and find out how truly they 
want to protect Social Security. I believe this is just a political 
issue they can hide behind so they can vote no on something they really 
do not want to do, which is the bottom line, balance our books, 
constrain Government spending.
  I am hopeful at some point we will pass this. I have a lot of faith 
in the American public that when elections come around in November, 
they will send more Members to the U.S. Senate and Members of the House 
of Representatives, who will support a balanced budget--hopefully, from 
both parties. They will send a clear message that, yes, we understand 
that tough decisions have to be made, but that is why we sent you to 
Washington--to make the tough decisions to move this country forward.

  So I am not discouraged at all. This is something that is going to 
happen. We are going to balance this budget. We have passed one 
balanced budget, which was not signed by the President. We passed major 
entitlement reform. Twice we passed welfare. We passed Medicare reform 
and Medicaid reform. We have done the heavy lifting to balance the 
budget. People say that we can do it today. We have done it today. We 
passed the balanced budget. So do not talk to me about we do not need 
this balanced budget because we can do it already. We did it already, 
and the same people who said we do not need the balanced budget 
amendment voted against the balanced budget proposal we sent to the 
President. The same President who says we do not need a balanced budget 
amendment vetoed the balanced budget resolution that we sent to him, 
which was the act to do that.
  So, again, if you look at the Social Security issue, you know, it is 
just, we are for it, but we are going to hide behind Social Security. 
The other argument is that we do not need the balanced budget amendment 
because we can do it ourselves. We did it ourselves, and they were 
against that, too.
  So I think we just have to question what the real motive is here. Do 
these people really want to balance the budget, or do they just want to 
tell you they want to balance the budget? I think the answer is pretty 
clear. When the rubber hits the road, when it is either ``yes'' or 
``no'' on a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, the answer 
is ``no,'' and their excuse is Social Security. When it comes to 
reforming Social Security, the answer to reform is, ``No, we cannot do 
that, we cannot touch it.'' The other excuse is that we do not need 
this because we can balance it ourselves. When we put one on the floor 
specifying where the changes need to be made in order to put the budget 
in balance, the answer was ``no.''
  So it is ``no'' to a constitutional amendment, ``no'' to Social 
Security reform, ``no'' to a balanced budget act. But, ``Yes, we are 
for it. In general, we are all for this.''
  Well, you cannot be for it and vote ``no,'' ``no,'' ``no'' when it 
comes time to put your words into actions. I hope that at some point we 
do put the words into actions and that we do it soon.
  Mr. GRAMS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gregg). The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I also may 
proceed under the time set aside for Senator Thompson.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, I am proud to be here today and to join 
with my freshman colleagues as we stand firmly together in our support 
for a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Sixteen 
months in the Senate have not dulled our enthusiasm for its enactment. 
We are more committed today than ever before.
  Mr. President, it is a rare occasion in life when a person is granted 
a second chance, an opportunity to right a wrong. When those moments 
come along, we hope that we have learned from our mistakes and that 
when we are given that chance to approach things differently, we will 
step forward and do the right thing.
  My colleagues and I have an opportunity this week to do that right 
thing and repair a wrong made within this Chamber a year ago when we 
denied the American people, by a single vote, the balanced budget 
amendment that they have repeatedly called upon us to pass.
  The balanced budget amendment lies at the heart of what I believe to 
be the defining issue of the 104th Congress: deciding the priorities of 
the Federal Government and its budget.
  Naturally, there have been disagreements over where these priorities 
lay. Each of us have different ideas about how the Government should--
and, more importantly, should not--spend the taxpayers' money. But even 
with

[[Page S5812]]

these disagreements, there are several basic principles on which we 
should all agree. The balanced budget amendment embodies these common 
areas of agreement because it deals with the future of our children and 
grandchildren, and, therefore, it deals with America's future.
  After all, that future is what our efforts to ensure a balanced 
budget are all about. In order for our children to enjoy the same 
economic security that we inherited from our parents, we must begin the 
process of controlling our Federal spending. Our parents and 
grandparents did not leave us a debt to pay--even after financing such 
major undertakings as World War II. They paid those bills and did not 
pass that debt on to us. But this generation has compiled a $5 
trillion-plus debt that we are now going to be asking our children and 
grandchildren to pay, and we cannot even reach an agreement on 
balancing the budget so we do not continue to do that.
  With a balanced budget, then and only then, can we hope to pass on to 
our kids an inheritance of prosperity rather than a lasting legacy of 
debt. Right now, that future does not look so bright if we do not 
change our ways.
  This year, the national debt has surpassed the astounding figure of 
$5 trillion. It is increasing at an average of $650 million every day. 
Even today, we are spending more on our interest payments than we are 
spending to defend this Nation.
  By the way, as of 12 o'clock this afternoon, every child born in this 
country today already owes $19,357.86 as their share of the national 
debt. The moment they are born, they are $19,000-plus in debt. Over his 
or her lifetime, that child can expect to pay over $187,000 in taxes 
just to cover the interest on that debt. That is about $4,700 a year, 
or more than $400 a month that they are going to pay just to cover the 
interest on that debt.

  To meet its annual interest obligations, Congress has repeatedly 
raised the taxes of working Americans. As a result of an overwhelming 
burden of taxes, families now are having a tough time raising their 
children, paying their bills, and trying to make ends meet.
  The Congressional Budget Office projects that spending on mandatory 
expenses, such as interest on the debt, will exceed 70 percent of total 
Federal outlays by the year 2003--meaning that less than 30 cents of 
every tax dollar will be available for education, environmental 
protection, crime prevention, and highways.
  Is that the legacy that we want to leave to our children? For that 
reason, we should all agree that balancing the budget without raising 
taxes must be the foremost goal of this Congress.
  It is our responsibility and duty to ensure the American children of 
this generation and the next a strong economy, a good education, a 
clean environment, and a debt-free future, but also that they have the 
ability to have their own dollars in the future to continue the efforts 
and not just to pay interest again on this Congress' mistakes.
  A constitutional amendment mandating a balanced budget is perhaps our 
best hope. There are those who question the need for an amendment 
requiring a budget that is balanced. After all, they argue, should a 
responsible Congress not be able to balance the budget without the need 
for a constitutional requirement? Yes, we certainly should. Congress 
should have the backbone to limit its spending and set priorities, just 
as every Main Street American family has to do.
  If a family in my State of Minnesota wants to buy a house, it works 
out a mortgage and a payment schedule that fits the family budget. 
Eventually, that debt is paid; it is not passed on to the next 
generation. That is what the vast majority of Americans do when they 
make a major purchase. But that is not how the Federal Government 
operates. It borrows the money, without any kind of schedule for paying 
it back, except to go and raise taxes, or borrow it in the name of our 
children, and that debt continues to build, and the payments keep being 
deferred. And the debt, again, is passed down to our kids.
  We often hear the argument of the need for borrowing and spending 
today to help our kids. Those short-term arguments will, in fact, in 
the long-term, harm the very people that those arguments say they want 
to protect.
  If that family in Minnesota decides it needs to tighten its belt, it 
does. Congress simply punches another notch or two in the leather. 
Congress simply does not have the backbone to restrain itself; it never 
has and maybe never will.
  Look at the facts. Congress has spent more than it has taken in for 
55 of the last 64 years. We have not bothered to balance the budget 
since 1969. But for my colleagues who sometimes get lost in statistics, 
here is the reality of what our fiscal irresponsibility means to 
average Americans. Today, every family of four owes $3,500 on the 
interest on the national debt. That means $3,500 less to care for our 
kids, $3,500 less to keep our families fed and clothed.

  A balanced Federal budget would actually put those dollars back into 
the family budget. Economists have universally predicted the positive 
effects achieved with a balanced Federal budget. By the time 6 years 
have passed and the budget is brought into balance:
  GDP will grow by an additional $10.8 billion than it would under 
current law, interest rates will drop, and Americans will boost their 
spending power through an additional $32.1 billion in real disposable 
income.
  A decrease of just four-tenths of a percent in the mortgage rate 
would save the buyer of a $100,000 home some $10,000 over the life of a 
30-year mortgage, and there are estimates that interest rates could 
fall a full 2 percentage points, which would create even greater 
savings.
  An additional 104,000 family homes would be built, and 600,000 more 
automobiles would be sold. That is good for the economy, that is good 
for jobs, and that is good for everyone.
  Job providers would be empowered to create new jobs and pay higher 
salaries for those jobs, as many as an additional 6.1 million new jobs, 
by some estimates.
  Makes the minimum wage increase look petty, does it not? So what does 
all this really mean on Main Street? Well, for an average American 
family with two kids, a mortgage payment, car and student loans, a 
couple of pets and lot of monthly bills, a balanced Federal budget 
would put nearly $1,800 a year back into the family bank account by the 
savings that we would reap from a balanced budget. Let people earn 
more, and then let them keep more of that money. There are those in 
this Congress on this Senate floor who say no, that Americans need to 
give Washington their money, and then come ``hat in hand'' begging for 
our compassion as Washington then sits in judgment of who gets what. 
And who are they going to take that money from to pass it out?

  Coupled with the $500-per-child tax credit that makes up the 
cornerstone of our balanced budget legislation, a typical family of 
four would reap a balanced budget bonus of $2,791 every year.
  Yes, the concept is simple enough, and those practical statistics 
should be all it takes to convince anyone of the need for a balanced 
budget. But our internal battles over the past year have demonstrated 
just how difficult it is to carry out such a seemingly simple idea. We 
have proven, more than ever before, the need for a balanced budget 
amendment.
  Through the commitment of this Congress to eliminating the deficit 
and erasing our debt without raising taxes on middle-class families, we 
were able to move $40 billion closer to a balanced budget last year by 
controlling the growth of government spending and rooting out a great 
deal of waste and inefficiency. But as each of my colleagues will 
remember, it was a battle that took every ounce of our energy.
  Because of the opposition of the President and my colleagues across 
the aisle to even these modest, sensible spending reductions, we 
endured 2 protracted Government shutdowns, 14 temporary spending 
measures to keep the Government from running out of money, 3 
Presidential vetoes of our appropriations bills, and a final veto of 
our actual balanced budget legislation. At the end of the day, we had 
moved closer to a balanced budget. I am proud of our efforts. We must 
not stop working for a balanced budget amendment, however.
  Under the leadership of a Republican Congress, each and every person 
is

[[Page S5813]]

dedicated to achieving a balanced budget by the year 2002. If this 
Congress could not force the big spenders in this body and the White 
House to mend their money-hungry ways and balance the budget through 
simple legislation--just as past Congresses could not do in 1964, 1976, 
1978, 1979, 1980, 1985, 1987, and 1990--what chance do future 
Congresses have without the moral authority of the U.S. Constitution to 
back them up?
  The American people know it will never happen without a balanced 
budget amendment, and they are calling on us--overwhelmingly--to pass 
it. Again, if we pass this balanced budget amendment, all we are doing 
is going to give the States and the voters of those States the 
opportunity to say yes or no. We do not make that decision on this 
floor. We are saying we are going to give the American people the 
opportunity to say yes or no to a balanced budget. But there are some 
that do not believe the American people can make that decision.

  A Gallup Poll published just 2 weeks ago in USA Today showed that an 
astounding 83 percent of the American people support this amendment. It 
was the most popular item surveyed, and why should it not be? It makes 
perfect sense.
  In Minnesota last year, just days before the Senate voted on the 
balanced budget amendment, I was joined at the capitol in St. Paul by 
members of my State's House and Senate delegations, elected officials 
from both sides of the aisle who were less interested in party labels 
than ensuring America's economic security. On behalf of working 
families who cannot understand why Washington refuses to get its 
finances under control, on behalf of families who are terrified by the 
legacy of debt we are building for our children and grandchildren, we 
signed a petition urging Congress to immediately pass the balanced 
budget amendment and send it to the States for ratification.
  Together, we sent a strong, unqualified message to all Minnesota 
taxpayers that we heard their message and were no longer willing to 
accept business as usual from the Congress.
  Today, we are all a year older, a year wiser, and just as committed 
to our purpose as we were 1 year ago.
  Unlike the Federal Government, which has managed to amass a $5 
trillion debt, Minnesota does not rack up debt year after year.
  Unlike the Federal Government, Minnesota does not spend beyond its 
means, building deficits that will take years to wipe away.
  Unlike the Federal Government, Minnesota does not promise the Moon, 
while mortgaging the stars in order to deliver.
  Why is it that Minnesota has succeeded where the Federal Government 
has failed? Why have 48 States abided by a balanced budget every year? 
Because the Minnesota State Constitution requires that we balance our 
budget, as do 48 other States.
  Not only does Minnesota and 48 other States have to balance their 
budgets, but families and individuals have to balance their budgets, 
too. Businesses that cannot balance their budgets soon find themselves 
out of business. The only place where a balanced budget is not the rule 
is in Washington. That is what we are here to change.
  As support for a balanced budget amendment grows among the public, 
the fear of what it will mean to those who have built their careers so 
recklessly spending the taxpayers' hard-earned dollars have 
intensified. As we move closer and closer to enacting this critical 
legislation, they see the writing on the wall, and frankly, they are 
scared, so scared, I have been told there may be colleagues of mine who 
would change a vote they made on behalf of this legislation a year ago 
to vote ``no'' this time around.

  Well, the public should be outraged that there are those to whom a 
piece of legislation so vital as the balanced budget amendment is 
nothing more than a game, and their vote nothing more than a political 
poker chip, to be traded at will when the stakes begin to rise.
  I would remind those colleagues of mine who speak out against this 
amendment that we would not be having this debate were it not for 30 
years of deficit spending by this body. If we let the American public 
down again--as we did on March 2 of last year, when this Chamber turned 
back the balanced budget amendment--we will feel the anger of the 
people at the polls in November, and I believe they will speak with an 
even louder, more unified voice than they ever have before.
  As I conclude, I turn to the words of President Thomas Jefferson, a 
leader who understood the importance of economic freedom in a free 
society, and the dangers of imposing our fiscal burdens onto our 
children.
  He wrote:

       The question of whether one generation has the right to 
     bind another by the deficit it imposes is a question of such 
     consequence as to place it among the fundamental principles 
     of government. We should consider ourselves unauthorized to 
     saddle posterity with our debts, morally bound to pay them 
     ourselves.

  Mr. President, those words are just as relevant today as they were 
when penned by Jefferson nearly 200 years ago, during the founding days 
of this Republic.
  For all our differences--in beliefs and purposes--we should all share 
the common goals of building a better economic future for the coming 
generations, and giving them the freedom to seek success unfettered by 
any constraints we may impose. As we debate the merits of the balanced 
budget amendment, let us not lose sight of that goal. I urge my 
colleagues to support this amendment, and to do it for the sake of our 
children and our grandchildren.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. THOMPSON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, we continue down the road toward 
bankrupting our country. The fact that I keep repeating this, and that 
others keep repeating this and perhaps we get used to hearing this, 
does not make it any less true. It cannot be repeated often enough. And 
behind closed doors Democrats, Republicans, people in the Congress, 
people in the White House, all admit what has to be done to keep from 
turning this country into one that is second rate when we leave it to 
our kids.
  The most frustrating part of the last year and a half that I have 
spent in the U.S. Senate is witnessing close up the fact that we do not 
have the ability or the willpower to do what we all know is necessary 
and what we all know is the right thing to do. That is why I believe 
that our last clear chance to do so is undoubtedly a constitutional 
amendment to require us to balance the budget.
  We all know that Medicare is on its way to insolvency. We all know 
that Social Security is on its way to insolvency. We claim to have 
reached a consensus in this country that we need a balanced budget--not 
only that but that we need to balance it with real numbers and not 
phony numbers; and, not only that, that we need to do it in 7 years.
  But with all of this knowledge and all of this consensus and 
agreement behind closed doors and all of this coming together in terms 
of what needs to be done, we cannot take the first step. We have spent 
the last year to year and a half proving to the American people that we 
cannot really take the first step toward doing what we know has to be 
done. And yet there are those among us who continue to say we do not 
need a balanced budget amendment. Of course, we need to balance the 
budget, but we do not need a balanced budget amendment to require us to 
do so. All we have to do is to do the right thing.
  I challenge anyone to give any evidence over the last year, year and 
a half that we have shown any ability or will to do the right thing. It 
does not exist.
  We talk about a 7-year balanced budget. The President has a proposal. 
We have a proposal. Under the best of circumstances, even if either of 
these proposals were adopted, it is doubtful that it would be carried 
out; the proposals are back-end loaded. The President has some 60 
something billion of cuts in the last 2 years of that 7-year time 
period. It is extremely doubtful, to say the least, that those cuts 
would actually be made when the time came. It is a matter of rolling 
our sins forward for yet a few more years when most of us are out of 
office and do not have to face the consequences and under the 
assumption that future Congresses will have the courage that we do not 
have except we are making their

[[Page S5814]]

job tougher than the one we have today.
  Even if it does happen, even if we get everything we want, for 
example, on this side of the aisle, we are looking at the end of that 
road at a $6 trillion debt. We are looking at the end of that road at 
the imminent retirement of the baby boomers. And the people who keep up 
with the demographics point out to us what that is going to mean.
  By the year 2030, there will be twice as many people over the age of 
65 as there were in 1990 and only 20 percent more workers, so those 
people paying in those FICA taxes for those retirement programs are 
going to be dwindling in number while the retirees are expanding. We 
all know what the results of that are going to be.
  We all know we cannot continue down this road, and yet it is another 
election year and so the President vetoes our attempt to balance the 
budget. He opposes our attempt to pass a constitutional amendment, and 
our friends on the other side of the aisle fall in in lockstep.
  Mr. President, this is not an esoteric economic issue. It is about 
the future of this country and the kind of America we are going to 
leave and what it is going to look like to our kids. What it is going 
to look like is astronomical tax rates they are going to be paying if 
we continue the spending pattern that we have had. It is going to mean 
astronomical interest rates that they are going to be paying. It is 
going to mean more and more reliance on foreign money and foreign 
investment coming into this country to help us pay the interest on the 
debt.
  It is going to mean diminished savings. We already have the lowest 
savings rate in the industrialized world, the United States of America 
does, one of the lowest investment rates in the industrialized world in 
the United States of America. That is why we are looking at such low 
growth rates. You add to that the taxes that are going to be necessary 
to finance this astronomical debt as it goes out here, the interest 
rates that are going to come from that, and you are talking about 
economic disaster that is facing us. There is really not any serious 
debate about that. And all those people who complain about any kind of 
effort to balance the budget because they are looking out for the kids, 
they are looking out for the elderly, they are looking out for the 
young folks, what are you going to say to those young folks then when 
they cannot even go out and buy their first home when they start their 
families? What are you going to say when they cannot even buy a car 
because of the interest rates? And the tax rates they are going to pay. 
It will not make sense to work any more under those circumstances.

  Yet we heard in the last couple days now the latest bid in the tax 
cut game from the President is to finance 2 years of college for 
people. I can only say we can debate that issue later, but we better be 
financing maybe 10 or 15 years of college for people because they 
better stay in college. There are not going to be any jobs out there 
for them at the rate we are going. Everybody cannot go to college and 
stay forever. There has to be a work force out there, and they have to 
have reasonable interest rates to pay when they go to buy the items to 
build their family. They will have no need to buy a home. We are making 
it so they will not be able to do that.
  We are the first generation in our history that even considered 
borrowing against our kids and those yet unborn to finance our own 
consumption. That is shameful. That is what we are doing. And yet we 
continue to say we do not need a constitutional amendment; we just need 
to do the right thing, when today, even today, every man, woman, and 
child is paying $1,000 a year just to finance the interest on the debt.
  Some say, well, we are making progress. We passed the largest tax 
increase in the history of the world, and we temporarily reduced the 
deficit, knowing that when the baby boomers start retiring in the next 
few years, it looks as if a rate that is slowing down is going to go 
off the charts in an upward direction.
  We say, well, look at what we did last year: We cut $23 billion from 
the budget from the year before. A drop in the bucket, Mr. President. 
We did not touch any of those areas that are increasing, some at the 
rate of 10 percent a year, that are going to have to be reformed if 
there is any hope of saving them.
  Yet now we hear all of the same old arguments against the balanced 
budget amendment--we should not be tinkering with the Constitution. And 
I certainly think we should not be tinkering with the Constitution. But 
the Founding Fathers assumed that changed circumstances required us to 
seriously address our Constitution from time to time.
  I would say the circumstances have changed. Thomas Jefferson and 
George Washington never thought about the possibility of bankrupting 
the next generation before they were even born. Those are the changed 
circumstances we are looking at today.
  I would also say, Mr. President, if we have an economic meltdown in 
this country, there are going to be changes in regulations, there are 
going to be changes in statutory law, and, yes, there are going to be 
changes in the Constitution that are worse than our worst nightmares 
right now about what those changes might be. So the answer to that is 
to make some reasonable changes to get us on a flight path that shows 
some possibility of saving ourselves from ourselves.

  Is that a pitiful situation or not? Of course it is. It should not be 
that way. But we have given ourselves now ample opportunity under all 
kinds of circumstances to so-called do the right thing, and yet here we 
are a year, a year and a half later. Every time somebody makes a 
proposal, the other side goes on television with 30-second attack ads 
to make sure we do not do anything responsible, because this is an 
election year. And yet they say we do not need a constitutional 
amendment. I say we need to do whatever is necessary to keep from 
handing this country over to our kids in a way that we would certainly 
not want our parents to have handed it over to us, and they, in fact, 
did not.
  The other argument we hear, of course, is one that the opponents of 
the balanced budget amendment want to protect Social Security. Mr. 
President, in my brief time here I have learned that if you want to 
stop something, if you want to throw a roadblock in the way of 
something being accomplished, you run out the old Social Security red 
herring and try your best to scare the elderly, because if you can 
scare the elderly, you can create enough temporary political confusion 
that you can prevent any kind of reform.
  This is, of course, what has happened again. Six of my colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle in 1994, when there was no chance of a 
constitutional amendment for a balanced budget passing, voted for the 
amendment. Last year, when we had a real good shot at getting it 
passed, we fell one vote short. One Senator switched back and voted 
against the constitutional amendment. And the reason for that is they 
discovered that it might have endangered Social Security in some way.
  The argument goes that because we include the receipts that go into 
Social Security and the expenditures that go out of Social Security in 
the entire budget, in some way that is endangering that program, and if 
we somehow pulled it out and set it over here to the side, that in some 
way would protect it. Of course, it is an appeal to fear. It is an 
appeal to ignorance. It has no relationship to reality.
  It has been pointed out on this floor by my Republican and Democratic 
colleagues alike. Senator Simon of Illinois just the other day, of 
course, pointed it out as a fig leaf that some will try to hide behind 
because they do not want a constitutional amendment to balance the 
budget. Time magazine called that argument ``mendacious nonsense,'' the 
idea that the constitutional amendment to balance the budget would 
somehow endanger Social Security.
  The fact of the matter is, only if we get the reforms necessary to 
keep from bankrupting this country can we protect and preserve Social 
Security. So the contrary of that argument is the case. Not to mention 
the fact that all we are doing is treating it the way that we have been 
treating it for three decades in this country, Democrat and Republican 
administrations alike.
  President Clinton's last budget kept it all together, just the way we 
have always done. We did not hear any cries from our friends on the 
other side of the aisle when that happened. They voted for it. They 
voted for that budget, to keep all Government revenues

[[Page S5815]]

and all Government expenditures together. You are not looking at a 
realistic situation if you do not consider them together. We all agreed 
on that. So the Johnny-come-lately argument.
  Not to mention the fact that if, in some way, Social Security was 
sequestered from the entire budgetary process, that would make, of 
course, balancing the budget impossible because it would require $360 
billion more cuts than what we have to make now. We have shown we 
cannot do what is necessary now, but if the income and the outflow of 
Social Security were taken out of it, we would have to cut programs 
another $360 billion. The opponents of the balanced budget amendment 
know this. They know it would make it absolutely impossible to be 
workable under those circumstances. We strained and fought for a year 
and a half. We got $23 billion in cuts--not $360 billion, but $23 
billion.
  But the point they make is that Social Security is now in surplus, so 
if you put it all together in the general budget, the general budget is 
getting the benefit of Social Security because it is in surplus and it 
makes the deficit look smaller. And it is true. It is true. That is the 
way the books are kept, and that is true, when you talk about for the 
next 15 years, for the general budget.
  You know, those are Americans, too, getting the benefit of the 
general budget. Many of the same people who get the benefit of Social 
Security get the benefit of the programs in the general budget. But for 
the next 15 years, the numbers on the Social Security side will assist 
on the general budget side. And that is true.
  But typical of the way that we think in Washington, DC--which is, if 
we are lucky, a couple of inches past our nose--we are not looking down 
the road. We are not caring about anybody but ourselves. We are not 
even caring about our own children. Because look at 16 years out. 
Social Security is in surplus now, but along about 2011, Social 
Security goes into the red, and we will be paying out more in Social 
Security, at a steeper and steeper rate, than we are taking in. So, by 
being a part of the general budget, under those circumstances Social 
Security gets the benefit of that, because where is the money going to 
come from to make the Social Security payments if not from the general 
budget?
  Nobody, no opponent of this measure, is coming here and saying we 
need more Social Security taxes. Nobody wants to advocate this. So 
where is the money going to come from?
  The point is, approximately $850 billion annually will be needed by 
the year 2030 to fund Social Security, to pay current the liability 
over and above payroll tax receipts. So, by the year 2030, Social 
Security is going to need $850 billion from somewhere. We are in 
surplus now, but here is what it is going to look like starting about 
2011. But by 2030, we have dug a real big deep ditch for ourselves. 
Nobody wants to talk about that.

  Mr. President, just to repeat, the so-called saving Social Security 
by not going along with the bookkeeping entry that we have done for 
three decades, Democrats and Republicans, is a total red herring, a 
figleaf to hide behind by those who do not want to stop the culture of 
spend, spend, spend, and hopefully elect, elect, elect in a campaign 
year.
  Mr. President, in conclusion, I urge we take what I referred to 
earlier as this last clear chance that I believe we have this year to 
take that first step--it is not a solution; goodness knows we are a 
long, long way from a solution--but to take this first step toward 
doing something responsible so we can hand this country over to our 
kids and to our grandkids in halfway decent shape, the way our parents 
and forefathers did for us.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes from Senator 
Thomas' time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, the question I fear most as a Senator 
is not a question from a news reporter, it is not a question from a 
constituent visiting my office, it is not a question from a constituent 
at home; it is the question that I fear my grandchildren will ask me, 
and it is this. ``If you were a Senator back then, why didn't you do 
something? Why didn't you balance our budget, so my family would be 
able to have jobs and afford an education?'' Mr. President, that is the 
question I fear the most.
  A great-grandparent, born in 1900, paid about 24 percent of the 
family income in Federal, State, and local taxes. That is after the 
benefits were taken out. A 26-year-old mother today, who may be working 
in an office or raising her children at home, will pay at least 34 
percent of the family income in taxes after benefits. That is already 
one of the highest levels in our country's history. But if we do not 
change our ways, the real bad news comes for her children. Her young 
baby will pay 84 percent of lifetime income in taxes if we do not 
balance the budget in this country. That is what it will take to 
continue our current policies for Government spending. Our 
grandchildren cannot support such a burden of spending, debt and 
interest. At 84 percent, they will not be able to find jobs at all, 
much less pay their bills.
  I do not ever want to be asked why I did not change the course of 
this country. I did not come to Washington to support the status quo. I 
came to change the way they do business in Washington, DC. I came to 
get Washington off the backs of the hard-working American people so 
they can earn more and keep more of what they earn. That is the 
American dream.
  With a balanced Federal budget, the Joint Economic Committee 
forecasts that interest rates will fall by 2 percent. Let us look at 
what that means for the American family.
  Senator Phil Gramm came up with this chart to talk about what it will 
mean to each family to have interest rates lowered by 2 percent. Our 
children's education? We would save $1,369 on a 10-year student loan 
because interest rates would be 2 percent less. There would be a $680 
saving on a car loan over 4 years. For a small business, it would mean 
a savings of $4,716 on a 8-year loan.
  Farms that are struggling right now, especially in my home State of 
Texas, where we have a terrible drought, nevertheless have loans to 
pay. A 2-percent drop in interest rates would save the farmer $2,067 on 
a 6-month loan.
  What most Americans pay the most interest on is homes. On a home 
mortgage, 30 years, a 2-percent drop in interest rates would create 
$1,880 per year in savings--almost $2,000. That is like saying we are 
going to cut your taxes $2,000 just by balancing the budget. So, with 
more interest kept in our pockets instead of paid to the bank, we will 
be able to send more of our children to college, give more of our 
children jobs in small businesses, and earn enough to pay for our homes 
and cars.
  Yesterday, my office got a letter addressed to all Senators signed by 
91 interest groups asking us to oppose the balanced budget amendment. 
It was signed by all sorts of groups: Labor unions representing 
teachers, postal workers, Government employees and auto workers; the 
American Association of Retired Persons; the League of Women Voters; 
the Americans for Democratic Action, several environmental groups; and 
several churches of many different faiths.
  Why did 91 of these groups come together? What is their common bond? 
They are asking the hard-working people of America to work for their 
priorities. Many of these groups balance their budgets every year on 
the backs of the American taxpayer, the same taxpayer who goes to work 
every day hoping to earn enough money to do a little bit better for 
their children.
  These groups had the nerve to say, ``The American public has a right 
to know how a balanced budget will be achieved before a balanced budget 
amendment is enacted. Which important programs--education, health care, 
Social Security, transportation, job training--will either be 
dramatically cut or eliminated threatening America's vital interests?''
  That was the question asked by these 91 groups. Where have they been? 
Where have they been for the last 2 years? For the first time since 
Government careened out of control, we have done exactly that. We have 
told the American people exactly how we will balance the budget over 7 
years, and we are asking for a constitutional amendment that will 
assure that once we do

[[Page S5816]]

the work to balance it, that never again will a Congress be able to rob 
from our future generations to pay for what we are going to do today.
  This Republican Congress has passed a balanced budget twice. It 
balanced a budget last year that did not touch Social Security, that 
allowed for increases in Medicare and Medicaid, that funded education, 
the environment, job training and transportation, and protected our 
children by cutting taxes on their parents and providing their futures 
will be deficit free.
  But, what happened? President Clinton vetoed the balanced budget. So 
we have delivered a balanced budget in writing, and if they are looking 
for the details, they can look in President Clinton's wastebasket. And 
while they are there, maybe they will look at some of the promises that 
have been made by the President, because 4 years ago yesterday, June 4, 
1992, President Clinton told the American people on television that if 
he was elected, he would present a 5-year balanced budget plan. He went 
back and forth on that over the last few years, but then when he did 
submit what he called a balanced budget to Congress, he did it by 
saying that all the tough cuts would come after the year 2000 when he 
would be gone, if he is elected to a second term.
  I think that is the difference between the President and the 
Congress. The President has said one thing and made those promises and 
he has done something entirely different. Congress said what they would 
do in 1994, and they have kept their promises to the American people. 
We have set our priorities, and we have kept our promises.
  So when the interest groups line up to oppose change, I think they 
should really consider what they are doing to their own members. Do the 
auto workers want to lower interest rates so they can build and sell 
more cars? Do the Government employees want lower prices on their homes 
so they can afford their part of the American dream? Do retirees want 
to leave a better world to their grandchildren? I know they do, because 
they contact my office all the time saying that they do.
  To make this happen, we must change the way we do business in 
Washington. We must stop the deficit spending and make sure that no 
future Congress does it again.
  To stop the deficit spending, we need a permanent constitutional 
protection so that we will not be able to go out and borrow money on 
our children's future. The more the population ages, the more economic 
growth stagnates from high tax, slow growth policies the more urgent 
our problem will become.
  I urge my colleagues to vote with me to take action now to protect 
our country's future for our children by passing the balanced budget 
amendment and sending it to the States for ratification. We will be 
better remembered by our grandchildren if they have the same kind of 
America that we have been privileged to grow up in. And, Mr. President, 
I do not want to face my grandchildren 20 years from now and have them 
ask the most dreaded question: ``If you were a Senator back then, why 
didn't you do something?''
  We can take action on the balanced budget amendment this week, and we 
can set the future course for our country and for our children and for 
our grandchildren.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I am authorized to yield such time from 
Senator Thomas' time as I may need.
  Mr. President, in a free country, some questions are never answered 
finally and definitively but must be addressed anew by each generation. 
It is, I think, for that reason that the words of Thomas Jefferson at 
the beginning of our Nation's history are so apposite today. Thomas 
Jefferson said:

       To question whether one generation has the right to bind 
     another by the deficit it imposes is a question of such 
     consequence as to place it among the fundamental principles 
     of Government. We should consider ourselves unauthorized to 
     saddle posterity with our debts and morally bound to pay them 
     ourselves.

  That method of phrasing the question in Thomas Jefferson's time is 
every bit, if not more, applicable today during the course of this 
debate as it was almost two centuries ago.
  This debate is most fundamentally about a moral question, about our 
right as Members of Congress, as representatives of the people of the 
United States to spend money, to advance programs--however well-
intentioned, however successful--for which we are not willing to pay 
and to send the bills to our children and our grandchildren.
  The question is practical as well as moral: Constant deficits, the 
increase in the burden of debt, the increase in the rate of interest 
which the Federal Government must pay on that debt and, equally 
significant, the interest rates individuals must pay when they purchase 
homes or automobiles, that businesses must pay when they wish to expand 
and give more opportunity.
  Burdens--the burdens of regulation, the burdens of a large 
Government--are enhanced by unbalanced budgets, by the creation of 
bureaucracies, agencies, rules and regulations for which we are 
unwilling to pay but are willing to undertake only because we can send 
the bill to someone else.
  Mr. President, there are a series of objections to this proposal. I 
hope it is not oversimplifying it by saying in some connections, they 
come from those organizations and those individuals who simply fear for 
the survival of their programs if present-day taxpayers are required to 
pay for those programs. Those fears are perhaps well-founded.

  Clearly, if this amendment were a part of the Constitution of the 
United States, we would spend less on today's programs. We would be 
required to set priorities to determine which are the most important 
programs to a far greater extent than we do at the present time.
  A second objection which I have heard is, ``Oh, it won't be 
enforceable anyway. People will find escape valves, ways to get out 
from under the requirements of this constitutional amendment.''
  A third is that we are turning the entire proposition over to the 
courts of the land, that courts will be able to impose taxes or cut 
spending if the Congress does not do it itself.
  These are just some of the parade of horrible theories with which 
opponents regale us during the course of this debate. Some of them may 
or may not to a certain extent have a degree of validity.
  But the other half is reality, Mr. President. For all of the fine 
words about our balancing the budget without a constitutional 
amendment, no Congress and administration has done so in 30 years. Yet, 
there has hardly been a Member of this body or the other body during 
that three decades who has not given lip service to the proposition 
that a balanced budget is a good idea. It has just not been quite so 
important as some other idea which each of those hundreds, perhaps 
thousands at this point, of Members of Congress have had. Reality, in 
other words, Mr. President, speaks far louder than any words we can 
possibly state.
  I must admit that I was persuaded by some of those arguments a decade 
ago. I voted against a predecessor to this constitutional amendment 
based on the proposition that Congress ought to do the job itself. 
Well, Mr. President, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame 
on me. It had not happened before I came to this body; it has not 
happened since I came to this body.
  I simply leave off with the proposition that if we do not change the 
structure in which we operate, the same excuses, the same reasons will 
be presented a decade from now that are being presented here today, and 
it is very likely that we will be no closer to that balance, that we 
will continue to pile unjust burdens on our successors, that we will 
continue to fail the moral duty that Thomas Jefferson outlined for us.
  Just last year this constitutional amendment was defeated, largely by 
the votes of Members of this body who said, ``We don't need a 
constitutional amendment. We simply need the moral courage to pass a 
balanced budget ourselves.''
  We took up that challenge, Mr. President. The Presiding Officer was a 
part of it. I was a part of it. We did, in fact, in this body and in 
the House of Representatives pass a balanced budget plan that would 
have met the requirements of the constitutional amendment had it been a 
part of the Constitution. We did that for the first time

[[Page S5817]]

in 30 years. And we were faced with a veto by the President of the 
United States.
  In turn, the President of the United States then presented what he 
claimed to be a balanced budget, though all of the heavy lifting, all 
of the significant spending cuts would not take place until after the 
next President's full term had expired. That has not been accepted.
  As recently as 2 weeks ago, Mr. President, for the first time in 
several decades, a group of Members from both parties in this body, 
Democrats and Republicans, came together and came up with an 
alternative proposal for a balanced budget that significantly impacted 
the entitlement spending programs which are at the heart of our deficit 
challenge. But, Mr. President, they failed, even though they got 46 
votes out of 100 in this body. They failed. And they failed, among 
other reasons, because of the deafening silence from the President of 
the United States, a silence which communicated disagreement, 
disagreement based on the proposition that the President of the United 
States would no more have signed that bipartisan proposal than he would 
the Republican proposal of last December.

  So, Mr. President, why should anyone listening to this debate believe 
that what has not taken place for 30 years will take place if this 
constitutional amendment is defeated? Every element in our history 
tells us that it will not. Each individual Member is more committed to 
something that he or she considers more important than the balanced 
budget, absent the discipline this constitutional amendment will impose 
on us.
  So, Mr. President, I think this debate comes down to our own 
individual answers to a series of questions.
  Do we really want a better economic future for our children and 
grandchildren?
  Do we want them to be able to live in better homes because mortgage 
interest rates are lower?
  Do we want them to have greater opportunities and more choices of 
jobs in a more prosperous economy?
  Do we want their incomes to be higher because their Governmental 
burdens are less?
  The answer to each of these questions, of course, from everyone here 
is in the affirmative.
  But the fundamental question, Mr. President, is, do we want those 
goals for the future badly enough to do something about it, badly 
enough to take a difficult vote at this particular time?
  Do we, Mr. President, want to live up to the advice of Thomas 
Jefferson? Do we care enough about our ethical and moral 
responsibilities to those who come after us to say, ``The present 
system has not worked. We need a new system''?
  Only if we pass this constitutional amendment, only if we allow this 
debate to take place in 50 State legislatures, as they debate the 
confirmation of such a constitutional amendment, will we carry out our 
duties.
  History tells us, Mr. President, that we will not do it on our own. 
This constitutional amendment is needed. We hope for the endorsement of 
the President, which we are almost certain not to get. But we hope, 
even more significantly, for the courage, the concern for the future, 
the concern for our economy, the concern for our moral duties that can, 
in my opinion, only be carried out if this constitutional amendment is 
passed and submitted to the States for their ratification.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I yield myself such time from the time of 
Senator Thomas as I may consume.
  Mr. President, we are talking today about the balanced budget 
amendment that we will soon be voting on again. There have been several 
different kinds of comments made about the need for the balanced 
budget, probably the two most prominent being, No. 1, the fact that in 
the short-term we will all be financially better off if the Federal 
budget is in balance interest rates will immediately begin to come 
down. All economists agree that interest rates will drop once the 
market understands that we are going to balance the Federal budget. 
That 1-, 2-, or 2.7-percent drop in interest rates, depending on which 
economist you believe, means Americans will have more money to put in 
their pockets immediately.
  In my home State of Arizona, the average home mortgage is just under 
$100,000. The interest that would be saved as a result of balancing the 
budget for every Arizonan with that average home mortgage would amount 
to $2,655 every year--$2,655. This is real money. For the average 
student loan it is $547. So, if we here in the Congress can pass a 
balanced budget amendment and send that to the States for ratification, 
the markets will adjust, will lower interest rates, and all of us will 
benefit as a result of that, through immediate financial savings.
  There are many other ways this occurs. The Federal Government has 
borrowing costs which I will discuss here in a moment. Those borrowing 
costs are reduced. As a result, we do not have to pay as much in taxes 
to cover those borrowing costs. It applies all throughout the economy, 
both the private sector and the Government sector. Balancing the budget 
will reduce interest rates, and that will mean money in our pockets. 
That is an immediate benefit for all Americans, regardless of income 
status, regardless of where they live. It is very, very important.
  Second, Mr. President, the other primary argument about the balanced 
budget has been the valid observation that we owe our children and our 
grandchildren the promise of a future that will be as good for them as 
our lives have been for us. We want them to have as much opportunity as 
we have had. That will not be the case if we continue to run up the 
debt and then ask them to pay it in the future. It is very much like 
young people getting in over their heads with their credit cards. We 
know that credit card interest rates are pretty high. Soon after you 
have loaded up your credit card, you can hardly make the monthly 
payments. You have to sell one of the two cars you own. You have to 
maybe take out a second mortgage on the home, or in a case I know, 
someone had to sell their home to pay the interest accumulating on this 
debt. That is what we are asking our children and grandchildren to do 
if we keep increasing the Federal debt with annual Federal deficits.
  Until there is a balanced budget amendment this is not going to stop. 
How do we know that? Some of our colleagues who opposed the balanced 
budget amendment last year made the argument, ``If you just let us do 
it, we will do it. That is what we were elected to come here to do, to 
make the tough decisions.'' We said, ``All right, let's do it.'' For 
the first time in 26 years, Mr. President, we passed a balanced budget, 
on November 17, 1995. The problem is on December 7, 1995, President 
Clinton vetoed that balanced budget. Because of the impossibility of 
overriding his veto, we have not been able to agree upon a budget that 
would achieve balance. That is, until just 2 weeks ago, at which time 
the Republican Senate again passed a new budget that would be in 
balance after 6 years.
  This effort to ensure that our children and grandchildren have the 
same kind of future that we have had also has very real monetary 
consequences. I have a brandnew grandson, whose name is Jonathan. He 
owes the Federal Government $187,000. He is a year old. This is kind of 
a tough burden for him. That $187,000 is just to pay the interest on 
the Federal debt during his lifetime. That does not pay anything else. 
It does not pay for defense, for education, for health care, or for 
anything else; it just pays the interest on the debt. But that is how 
much he owes. It is unfair.
  One of the reasons that I ran for the U.S. Congress when I did was to 
try to ensure that when I finally left this world, I left it better off 
than I inherited it. I have now acquired a position of great honor and 
opportunity to try to do something about that commitment that I made. 
All of us have said the same thing in one way or another. If we are not 
committed enough to do something for these young children and 
grandchildren that we have, to guarantee that they have as good a 
future as we have had, then we are not doing our job. We understand 
that, without the

[[Page S5818]]

constraints that are required to comply with the Constitution, we are 
not going to balance the Federal budget, and those kinds of obligations 
are going to continue to be imposed upon our children.
  I said in the beginning that those were the two primary arguments for 
the balanced budget amendment. I do not see how anybody can argue that 
they should not call for the adoption of the amendment. I wanted to 
focus on a different aspect of it that still relates to this question 
of interest payments because I think it puts into perspective how far 
out of whack this has become.
  I want to relate some figures on how much in the way of interest we 
are paying. What is the interest we are talking about again? This is 
interest on the accumulated $5 trillion-plus in Federal debt. Each 
year, we have a Federal budget deficit that adds to that debt and, 
therefore, adds to the interest. Here is what the interest payments now 
amount to. Compare this first with 1965, 30 years ago. The Federal 
Government in that year paid $8.6 billion in interest. I remember a 
couple of days ago when I was presiding, and the Senator from Illinois, 
Senator Simon, who has been a very strong advocate of the balanced 
budget amendment and who, unfortunately, is going to be leaving the 
Senate at the end of this year, said--talking about the figure of $9 
billion--``Back then, $9 billion was a lot of money.'' It reminded me 
of one of his predecessors who represented the State of Illinois, 
Everett Dirksen, who was famous for saying, ``A billion here, a billion 
there, pretty soon you are talking big money.'' Here is what this $9 
billion in 1965 has come to. In 1995, 30 years later, instead of $9 
billion in interest, the Government paid $232 billion in interest. In 
just 30 years, it went from $9 billion to $232 billion.
  What does that mean in terms of the obligation of the average family? 
In 1965, that interest cost of a little under $9 billion amounted to 
17.6 percent of all individual income taxes paid. In 1995, the $232 
billion in interest cost was over 30 percent of income taxes. In other 
words, just think about April 15 when you paid your tax bill. Almost 
one-third of that was interest on the Federal debt. What did the 
Federal Government get for that? What did we get for that? Absolutely 
nothing. That is just interest on the debt. It did not buy a single 
airplane for defense, it did not buy anything regarding health care or 
education or support for the elderly, or any other Government program 
that is of interest to the people of this country. It just paid the 
interest on the debt.
  Now, let us compare it to a couple items in the Federal budget. Let 
us compare it to national defense. In 1965, 30 years ago, interest 
costs were 16.9 percent of the outlays for defense in that year. But, 
in 1995, this $232 billion in interest costs was almost 85 percent of 
all outlays for defense. In other words, here is the defense budget. 
Thirty years ago, we paid, in interest, about 17 percent of what we 
were paying for defense. Today, we pay, in interest, 85 percent of what 
we are paying for defense. In other words, it is almost getting up to 
the same amount that we pay for defense, which is the single largest 
component of our discretionary budget.
  So let us compare it to our discretionary spending. In 1965, interest 
costs were equal to 38.9 percent of all domestic discretionary 
spending. Domestic discretionary spending is the money we spend for 
agriculture, for subsidies, for health care, for defense, and all of 
the other things. But, in 1995, that interest cost was 92 percent of 
domestic discretionary spending. In other words, Mr. President, we paid 
almost as much in interest costs as we did for all of the domestic 
programs that were funded by the Federal Government.
  So, Mr. President, it is clear that this interest cost is huge, it is 
growing, it is not productive, and it takes money that could be spent 
for other things. As a result of reducing this interest expense, we 
would all be far better off, and it will not happen unless we pass an 
amendment to the Constitution to require a balanced budget.
  Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, is leader time reserved?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes.

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