[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 81 (Wednesday, June 5, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5830-S5851]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION

  The Senate continued with consideration of the resolution.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the amount of time 
the Senator from Texas used not count against the total remaining time 
Republicans have on the balanced budget debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, for a good number of hours today the Senate 
has been involved in what is an important debate, the issue of a 
balanced budget amendment to our Constitution.

[[Page S5831]]

  Before I begin, I want to acknowledge the hard work and leadership of 
several Members of the Senate and the House who have devoted many years 
of effort on behalf of this legislation. These have included Senator 
Thurmond, Senator Hatch, and of course the distinguished majority 
leader, Senator Dole, on our side of the aisle; Senator Simon, who is a 
true statesman and friend, and Senator Heflin, on the other side; and 
Congressmen Stenholm and Schaefer, the House authors of this amendment.
  This legislation has come a long way. In 1982, the Senate voted 69 to 
31 to pass a balanced budget amendment. It fell 46 votes short in the 
House. Last year, the House passed it by 300 votes to 132. It lost here 
in the Senate by a single vote. Of course, we know that Senator Dole 
changed his vote to preserve the right to move for reconsideration.
  We are now in reconsideration of House Joint Resolution 1. That was 
after six Democrat Senators switched their vote and opposed the same 
language that they had voted for 1 year earlier. This is an issue, Mr. 
President, that is not going to go away. If it is not going to be this 
Congress, it certainly is going to be the next Congress or another 
Congress very soon that has to deal with this issue.

  There is a very simple reason why it will not go away, because we are 
not here to decide whether there will be a balanced budget amendment to 
the Constitution, we are here to decide whether the American people 
ought to have a right to express their will on this issue. In other 
words, under article V of the Constitution, we in Congress may only 
propose amendments to the States for ratification.
  That is what we are here to do. The reason I think, Mr. President, 
this will not go away is because in 1982, 63 percent of the American 
public said this was an issue that ought to be addressed by Congress 
passing a balanced budget amendment and sending it to the States. In a 
Gallup Poll just within the last week, by 83 percent to 14 percent--a 6 
to 1 margin--they said they support the balanced budget amendment and 
it is time we deal with this issue. In other words, the American 
people, by a very large majority now, say to the Congress of the United 
States, ``Give us the right to choose.''
  Tomorrow when we vote on this, it will be Democrats on the floor of 
the U.S. Senate that will refuse the American people the right to 
choose whether to ratify this amendment. Those who oppose the 
amendment, those who seek to postpone the day of reckoning when this 
Government must deal with this issue are simply not recognizing their 
moral obligation to respond as they should to this issue.
  Why is it happening now, that the Senate will not pass this 
amendment? Why will some in the opposition not stay true to where they 
were on this issue over the last good many years? By that, I mean, Mr. 
President, acting in a bipartisan way. Why does this issue appear to 
have become so partisan?
  The balanced budget amendment to our Constitution has always been a 
bipartisan issue. It is now clearly partisan. The President put 
tremendous pressure on Democrats in 1995. That is why six Senators 
switched to ``no'' votes from their previous history of ``yes'' votes. 
We know that. The record ought to be awfully clear that is what 
happened. Up until that time, we always had that strong bipartisan 
majority in support of the amendment. Last year, for example, 72 
Democrats in the House voted for it; 14 Democrats in the Senate voted 
for it.
  I think, Mr. President, it is truly sad and certainly frustrating 
when you think you have agreement on such a fundamental principle of 
government, only to see Senators change their votes. This is not a 
partisan issue but, I think, a moral issue, a moral imperative, a 
responsibility of this Senate, to at least allow the American people to 
express their will. Now we find the only response is that the welfare 
state mentality of this administration, and tragically enough, those 
who now oppose this amendment, now want to politicize it. I am afraid 
that is how the vote will come out.
  There are two reasons why the balanced budget amendment was defeated 
in this past year. In this 104th Congress, the party whose majority and 
leadership opposed the balanced budget amendment no longer had control 
of the Congress. They could always manipulate the vote in the past. 
They could always assure it would not pass. This year, by a change in 
the electorate, the American people, and most importantly, the 
Congress, and always the interest groups involved, knew the Congress 
was firing with real bullets. The liberal special interest groups who 
are feeding off big Government spending and sending the bill to our 
children realized we were the closest ever to sending a balanced budget 
amendment to the States.
  That is when the President said to his friends here on the other 
side, ``You have to block this. You have to stop this.'' That is why 
six Senators who had been with us before backed off, changed their 
tune, found an excuse to say something different, switched their vote 
from a yes to a no. This President, who had never really been for a 
balanced budget, was able to call the tune. Tragically enough, he and 
his colleagues denied the American people an opportunity to choose. The 
President who sent us a so-called balanced budget with an $81 billion 
deficit in the year 2002 is the one that is now denying the American 
people their constitutional right to decide this issue.
  I simply call on President Clinton to release his hostages, if you 
will, to release the ``BBA 6'' that once were with us, the Balanced 
Budget Amendment Six, who once sat on the other side, proud to vote for 
a balanced budget amendment.
  I say, Mr. President, let our colleagues go. Let the American people 
have a chance to decide. That is really what this effort is all about. 
Congresses do not enact constitutional amendments; they only propose.
  But you would think, from the debate you heard today, that the vote 
to be cast on the floor of this Senate tomorrow will be the deciding 
factor that crumbles the Government, destroys the budget.
  No, it will not be that at all, Mr. President. What passing this 
amendment would do is launch one of the most important national debates 
in the history of our country--a debate that would occur in every 
capital city in every State in our Nation among the legislators of that 
State, as to whether this Government balances its budget, and whether 
the people have a right to tell us to do so--as I think they ought to 
have.
  Those six flip-floppers--those who voted against the amendment when 
they previously had all been for it--used a very interesting word, a 
neat little three-letter word, the ``but" word. They used that three-
letter word something like this: ``I am for balancing the budget, but 
not this way.'' ``I am for a balanced budget amendment, but not this 
one.'' ``I was for a balanced budget amendment last year, but''--but--
``I discovered a new reason to be against it this year.''
  Mr. President, the amendment was not any different in March 1995 from 
what it was in March 1994. Why did they change?
  The politics changed. The politics changed dramatically in the fall 
of 1994, and, as I said, they knew that we were now firing with real 
bullets, and the chance to send a balanced budget to the American 
people was, for the first time, truly a real likelihood.
  Members of this body may have read a book written a few years ago by 
a former staffer of the Democrat Speaker of the House, a book on 
``Inside-the-Beltway Political Gamesmanship.'' It had an entire chapter 
devoted to the following rule, Mr. President:
  When you are losing the argument, concede on the principle and 
continue to fight over the details.
  The balanced budget amendment opponents, obviously, have read the 
book, memorized that rule, and are today implementing it on the floor 
of the U.S. Senate.
  Now we have at least 72 Senators who say that they agree on the 
principle of a balanced budget amendment. But fewer than the 67--the 
two-thirds necessary--that will ever vote for the passage of one.
  Now there appear to be 90 or 100 Senators who say, ``Well, now, we 
agree on the principle of a balanced budget.'' But there are more than 
enough votes to sustain the President's veto when, in fact, he vetoes a 
real balanced budget. In other words, when you are losing the argument, 
concede on the principle and continue to fight on the details.

[[Page S5832]]

  Mr. President, I respect the sincerely held opinions of those who 
have come to the floor and oppose any balanced budget amendment. That 
is different. There are Senators who do that. Senator Bob Byrd of West 
Virginia says he opposes any balanced budget amendment. It is my 
understanding that he has been consistent in not voting for one. He 
holds true to his conviction. He does not now agree ``in principle'' 
and say, ``But something is wrong with the details.'' Well, I have to 
respect that. That is fair.
  What frustrates me, and will increasingly anger the American people, 
is how so many in this body, or the other, say, ``Oh, I am for a 
balanced budget amendment in principle,'' but, Mr. President, their 
actions imply differently, as shown in their votes versus their words.
  It is a time-tested trick in this business called ``political 
gamesmanship'' to make the perfect the enemy of the good.
  If you want to kill a proposal like the balanced budget amendment, 
instead of saying you are against it, when 83 percent of the American 
people are for it, you simply say that it is not good enough, not quite 
the way we want it, and if we can only shape it a little differently, 
then we would have it the way it ought to be.

  Now, that is nitpicking in the highest form, Mr. President. You make 
up the exceptions that would gut the amendment, and you say, ``This is 
an improvement because I cannot vote for it the way it is.'' The result 
is, you kill the amendment because you want to preserve the status quo.
  All this nitpicking and all of the blamesmanship really misses the 
point. The one central question before us is this:
  Would this country be better off, would the lives of American 
citizens be improved, if we placed the Government under a balanced 
budget amendment to our Constitution?
  Would our children have a better life now and in the future? Would 
working men and women have better jobs? Would our senior citizens be 
more secure in the Government's ability to keep its promises to them? 
Would homes and education be more affordable?
  Over the long run, would there be more money left over for charities, 
families, and Government to care for the poor, the sick, and the needy?
  These are all variations of one question. And, of course, the answer 
to that question is undeniably yes. We know that, and the American 
people know that. We know of the huge amount of money, the economic 
vitality, that the debt of the Government now consumes.
  Balanced budget amendment opponents say, ``We will not vote for a 
constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget until we see your 
actual plan to balance the budget, because we know we can produce 
one.''
  You and I both know, Mr. President, we have produced a balanced 
budget, in answer to that argument, over the last 12 months.
  We, in fact, produced a balanced budget and did not touch Social 
Security. We increased spending and increased consumer choices for 
every senior citizen in Medicare. We preserved the safety net for the 
needy and cut the redtape to make it easier for Federal-State 
partnerships to help them. And we continued to be responsible in 
protecting the environment.
  All of those things were done in the context of a balanced budget. We 
answered their charge, and we answered their call.
  And the President vetoed it.
  Now we understand a great deal more about this debate. Without the 
extraordinary discipline that our Constitution will bring us, we 
probably will find it very difficult to get to a balanced budget, or 
even a nearly-balanced budget, unless we can, in fact, get a 
constitutional amendment that requires, in the supreme law of the land, 
that this body and the other respond every year with a balanced budget.
  Here is an example of why I think that argument makes so much sense. 
Here is the record about the goodwill and the intent of Congresses and 
Presidents of the United States when it comes to balancing the budget:
  The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, also called the Anti-
Deficiency Act, was intended to keep the budget balanced. The Revenue 
Act of 1964 was supposed to balance the budget. The Byrd amendment of 
1978--offered by Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia--required balanced 
budgets. The Humphrey-Hawkins Act of 1978 called for balancing the 
budget. The Revenue Act of 1978 was supposed to balance the budget. The 
Debt Limit Increase of 1979 included language to balance the budget. 
The Bretton Woods amendment of 1980, as amended by a second Byrd 
amendment, required a balanced budget. The recodification of title 
XXXI, in 1982, with an amendment better known as Byrd III, called for a 
balanced budget. The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act--act No. 1--of 1985 
required a balanced budget. The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act of 1987--act 
No. 2--required a balanced budget. The Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 
was supposed to balance the budget.
  Why, then, do we have a debt of the kind we have today, of $5.13 
trillion dollars? Why are we spending hundreds of billions of dollars 
on interest, after all of that exercise, from 1921 to 1990, in which 
the specific language and the direction of the public policy of this 
country was to balance the Federal budget, and why do we not have a 
balanced budget?
  The reason is very simple. We do not have an amendment to the 
constitution. We do not have in the organic law of the land a 
requirement that says to the Congress and the President that you cannot 
pass ``go,'' you have to make the tough choices, you have to do it.
  As a result of that, the tough choices were never made. The American 
public was played to. There was good intent in many of those instances. 
But Congresses and Presidents simply could not face the kind of 
decisionmaking that the people expected of responsible leaders.
  Now, I have heard today the flip and the flop of the red herring so 
many times coming from that side that it has been most difficult to 
hold a straight face.
  What am I talking about? I am talking about Social Security. Let me 
say for the Record they are wrong. It is a false argument, and they 
know it. But once again the safety for the status quo is in fighting 
over the details.
  If you do not want to face up to balancing the budget, and if you 
really do not want a balanced budget amendment, then you find a new 
argument. Just this year alone, after those six Senators were always 
with us, when the President said to them, you cannot be with the 
amendment's supporters, find a way out, they found a way out. They 
found a new argument. That new argument was Social Security.
  At best, those making the argument--while one might wonder about 
their intention, and I trust that it is good--I must agree with Members 
on our side that they are tremendously misinformed.
  At worst, there are big special interest groups with deep pockets 
using mass mail scare tactics to frighten innocent seniors, with one 
goal and one goal alone, and that is to destroy the idea of a balanced 
budget amendment.
  Senior citizens I have talked to in my State of Idaho--and I am sure 
that you have also, Mr. President, in your State of Michigan--know 
perfectly well that a bankrupt Federal Government will not have the 
ability to send any Social Security checks out to anybody.
  No checks will go out, if our Government is bankrupt. By killing the 
balanced budget amendment, opponents are killing the only way--the only 
true way--to save Social Security and other seniors programs.
  Robert J. Myers, the former chief actuary and former deputy 
commissioner of the Social Security Administration, has said this. We 
have had him before hearings. He has publicly testified and made these 
comments. He says,

       ``Regaining control of our fiscal affairs is the most 
     important step we can take to protect the soundness of the 
     Social Security trust fund. I urge Congress to make the goal 
     a reality, to pass a balanced budget amendment without 
     delay.''

  That is a former chief actuary of the Social Security system. He says 
the only way you save Social Security is to balance the budget.
  Mr. President, we keep hearing about raiding Social Security. No one 
is raiding the Social Security trust funds. That is false rhetoric. It 
is wrong for them to use it, and they know it. But it gives them their 
excuse for opposing the amendment.

[[Page S5833]]

  There are two things happening.
  First, ever since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Democrat, 
created Social Security in the 1930's, any surplus funds have been 
borrowed by the Federal Treasury and invested in Federal bonds.
  Why? So that the money not needed immediately to pay out benefits 
could earn interest safely and soundly.
  Second, ever since President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, put the 
Government on a unified budget in the 1960's, annual Social Security 
surpluses have been counted as reducing the overall Federal deficit in 
that year.
  It is simply a matter of bookkeeping. Many believe it is bad 
bookkeeping. But in all fairness, it is no ruse. It is only 
bookkeeping.
  Those are facts. They are reality. There have been no games played. 
That is the law.
  Ever since our last balanced budget in 1969, these borrowing and 
bookkeeping practices have been happening with Social Security. Under 
20 budgets passed by Democrat Congresses, under six budgets passed by 
divided Congresses, and so far for one budget resulting during a 
Republican Congress, this has been the law, and this has been the 
reality, this borrowing, and this bookkeeping.

  The reality is that every budget submitted by President Clinton in 
the last year, the House Democrat blue dog budget in the last year, the 
Conrad substitute budget, and the Chafee-Breaux budget--all of them use 
this kind of borrowing and bookkeeping.
  So let us not play games with the record of the Congress, with the 
record of the Senate, with the minds of the American people. The 
reality is in the answer to the question, Are you for or are you 
against a balanced budget? If you are for one, you will allow the 
American people to engage in this debate, to become actively involved.
  Treasury borrowing from Social Security would continue under the 
balanced budget amendment, and under any and every substitute--the ones 
offered by Senator Hollings, Senator Wyden, Senator Dorgan, Senator 
Feinstein, Senator Reid, whomever--the reality is, under their 
alternatives, they continue to borrow from the trust funds because the 
laws of the 1930's require it.
  Their alternative does nothing to change or stop the Treasury from 
borrowing Social Security surpluses.
  Why do they not tell us this? In other words, get honest and get 
real. Quit playing the mind game with the American people.
  There is only one way to change Treasury borrowing from Social 
Security, and it has nothing to do with a balanced budget amendment.
  The only way to make surplus Social Security funds unavailable to the 
Federal Government is to pass a law that requires Social Security 
surpluses to be invested somewhere else outside of the Federal 
Government.
  Has that been proposed today? It has not. Will it be proposed by any 
one of these Senators? We will see, but I doubt it. And if that bill 
were proposed, and if it became law, that law would have exactly the 
same effect under our amendment or their amendment.
  So, to those who are suggesting that their opposition to the balanced 
budget amendment is because of Social Security, I say, You do not quite 
argue the whole argument. Bring forth your bill to change the system 
for investing in Treasury bonds, if that is what you believe. But stop 
hiding behind this ridiculous, absolutely false claim that the balanced 
budget amendment somehow does anything to harm the Social Security 
system.
  Every alternative to the balanced budget amendment the opponents have 
put forth dealing with Social Security has loopholes in it that you 
could drive nearly any amount of spending through it, as long as you 
call it Social Security. They are more loophole than law.
  Their proposal would allow Social Security to run unlimited deficits 
and would allow future Congresses to raid Social Security trust funds 
to spend for anything and everything they wanted.
  Has that question been asked of them today? No, it has not. I ask it 
now. Is that what you are proposing--to allow unlimited deficits in 
Social Security to allow borrowing for other purposes? Of course, they 
would say no, but that is what their language would allow. But they do 
not seem to want to talk about it.
  A flatout exemption for Social Security in the balanced budget 
amendment would mean more borrowing and more debt. It would mean Social 
Security would go bankrupt to pay for all this other spending, or there 
would have to be a huge tax increase to stabilize it.
  Several Senators have had serious discussions to see if there was a 
way to protect the surpluses of Social Security trust funds from being 
used for other purposes, without creating loopholes.
  Senator Simon, whom I have worked with for years on this issue, 
Senator Domenici, and Senator Hatch spent an awful lot of time, and I 
have, too, trying to find out if there was a clean, responsible way to 
protect the surpluses Social Security trust funds in the context of the 
argument put forth by Democrats.

  We know that can be done, but we have not been able to accomplish 
agreement with those who say that is what they want.
  We said, let's prohibit Social Security surpluses from being counted 
to make the deficit look smaller. Let's balance the budget without 
using the Social Security surplus. But, when Social Security starts 
running deficits around the year 2019, let's make up those deficits, 
let's keep the lid on Federal borrowing, and let's shore up Social 
Security with funds from the rest of the budget.
  Unfortunately, the opponents once again agreed with us on principle, 
but not on the details.
  Let's get back to the most important point in this Social Security 
debate. And it is something very, very simple. If you balance the 
budget and if you quit creating debt, you in fact strengthen and 
stabilize Social Security. You solve the problem now by creating fiscal 
responsibility and economic growth in this country, and you accomplish 
that by balancing budgets and moving along the process that sets this 
economy free.
  Deficit spending and a mounting national debt are taking a tremendous 
toll on real people, on real families. And if we do nothing, it will 
only get worse.
  The President's own budget for fiscal 1995 said that unless things 
change, Mr. President, future generations face a lifetime total tax 
rate of nearly 82 percent. A new analysis by the Congressional Budget 
Office says that rate actually may be around 84 percent.
  The National Taxpayers Union estimates that unless things change, a 
child born today will pay an extra $180,000 in taxes just to pay 
interest on the national debt. And the President and some Democrats in 
the Senate will not allow the American people to create the mechanism 
that will stop the growth of that kind of debt structure.
  The Concord Coalition says that the existing Federal debt already has 
reduced the typical American family income by 15,000 spendable dollars 
a year.
  On the other hand, who benefits if we balance the budget?
  The kids benefit, the future benefits, and everyone who wants a job, 
who wants to buy a home, who wants a good education, wants to buy a 
car, wants the kind of economic growth that will provide his or her 
children the future opportunities that they had at their age when they 
were young.
  That is what this whole debate is about--about a $2,400-a-year 
reduction in a mortgage payment on $75,000, 30-year mortgage. Or it is 
about a $1,000 reduction in interest on the life of a 4-year car loan. 
Or a family saving $1,900 on a 10-year student loan. And it's about 
creating 6 million new jobs by the year 2002.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. CRAIG. I am happy to yield to the chairman of the Budget 
Committee.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I heard you say balanced budgets are good for the 
children and it is good for the future. It is good for senior citizens, 
too, is it not?
  Mr. CRAIG. If the senior citizens want a strong and stable system of 
economic security, you are darned right it is good. There is something 
else. Senior citizens live on fixed incomes. The best thing in the 
world for them is a very strong economy that allows them to live and to 
not have their money exploited by inflation.
  Mr. DOMENICI. It seems to me that almost everybody who has looked at

[[Page S5834]]

the Social Security system over time has said the most significant, 
positive thing that can happen for that Social Security system is to 
have a strong, growing, robust American economy with low inflation. I 
thought one of the big reasons we were all working on this balanced 
budget is because it is more apt to produce a strong, robust growing 
American economy than deficit spending of the type we have been 
undertaking for the last 40 years.
  Am I correct in that?
  Mr. CRAIG. The Senator is correct. A year ago we were challenged on 
this floor by those who opposed a balanced budget amendment and who 
said you can balance the budget without an amendment.
  The chairman of the Budget Committee met that challenge responsibly 
in the way that it ought to be met and produced a balanced budget 
amendment, one that brought us to balance. The chairman produced a 
budget that honored the critical policy priorities of this country and 
sent it to a President, this President, and he vetoed it.
  And now it is this President who is twisting the arms over here on 
the other side to assure that a balanced budget amendment does not pass 
and that the American people do not get to exercise their 
constitutional to debate whether to ratify it.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator very much.
  Mr. CRAIG. So the chairman is absolutely right.
  Mr. President, let me try to close soon. My colleague from Alaska is 
here to debate this issue. Here are some other statistics that are just 
so darned important for all of us to understand.
  The gross Federal debt now tops $5 trillion--that is more than 
$19,000 for every man, woman and child in this country. The gross 
interest payments this year are around $344 billion.
  Here is what that says to all of us who try to deal with these 
monstrously big numbers that nobody really understands.
  That $344 billion in interest payments this year amounts to $1,300 
for every American. In other words, the average American household will 
pay $3,400 in taxes this year, not for roads or education or defense, 
but to pay interest on past Federal debts.
  Gross interest payments this year will be equal to 54 percent of all 
the individual income taxes collected.
  Gross interest payments on debt will be just $4 billion less than 
what we will spend on the entire Social Security bill for the year; $77 
billion more than we will spend on all domestic discretionary programs 
put together; $79 billion more than we will spend on defense, the 
second largest Federal program; $145 billion more than all Federal 
means tested poverty programs put together; $148 billion more than we 
spent on all Medicare, the third biggest Federal program.
  What is the message here? The message is that slowly but surely 
because this Senate has been unwilling to grapple with the true issue 
of getting to a balanced budget--and that is the balanced budget 
amendment--over the years we have seen this debt grow in proportion to 
the budget and the economy, and today's interest on debt is literally 
consuming the Federal budget and the assets of the American people.
  The Economic and Budget Outlook just released by the Congressional 
Budget Office contains a truly frightening chapter on the long-term 
budget outlook. It says, if we do nothing, our children face a grim 
future.
  Today, we are suffering from historically slow economic growth. 
Unless we change things, in one generation, the economy will start a 
real decline and our children will face a permanently declining 
standard of living.
  If we do not pass this amendment, I fear for our children and I fear 
for our country.
  If we do nothing:
  In less than two generations, the debt burden will grow so huge that, 
in CBO's words, it ``would exceed levels that the economy could 
reasonably support.''
  Our children will reach the prime of their life and then retire in a 
nation in the grip of a permanently worsening recession.
  Our grandchildren will raise families in a declining Third World 
economy. Or--and I do not say this lightly--there will be a revolution.
  On the other hand, these same CBO projections show what will happen 
if we do the right thing today:
  If we balance the budget permanently beginning in 2002, real incomes 
for the next generation will be one-third higher than they are today.
  Our path is clear.
  The worst thing you can say about the balanced budget amendment is 
that maybe Congresses and Presidents will have the courage and vision 
to do the right thing without it.
  The bitter experience of history suggests otherwise.
  The best thing you can say about this amendment is that it guarantees 
we will pass on the American dream to our children and that they will 
continue to have the opportunity for a better life; that our seniors 
will be more economically secure; and that Americans today and tomorrow 
will have more and better jobs.
  I certainly hope we can arrive at that magic two-thirds vote 
tomorrow. I certainly hope the President would free his balanced budget 
amendment hostages over on the other side and allow them to vote their 
true conviction as they have over the years under the leadership of the 
Senator from Illinois, Paul Simon, who has worked so hard to keep this 
a balanced, bipartisan issue. I am so disappointed that this issue has 
become a partisan-type issue. But I remain hopeful, because the 
balanced budget amendment will not go away. The people want it. The 
future needs it. And our nation deserves it.
  Mr. President, I now yield----
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Ten minutes.
  Mr. CRAIG. Ten minutes to the Senator from Alaska.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair indicates to the Senator from Idaho 
he has exactly 10 minutes remaining under his time.
  The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Chair. I thank my colleague from Idaho. I 
thought his comments were certainly appropriate. Let us reflect a 
little bit about the vote we are going to cast tomorrow. That vote will 
really determine the economic stability and the vitality of this Nation 
as we enter the 21st century.
  Mr. President, I am going to vote for this balanced budget amendment 
because I believe nothing short of amending the Constitution is going 
to change our addiction to spending and living beyond our means.
  I was a commercial banker during my previous life outside this body. 
I recall back in 1962 the Federal Government's budget reached $100 
billion. By 1971, it had doubled to $200 billion. By 1977, it had 
doubled again. In 1983, the Federal budget topped $800 billion. The 
budget for next year, fiscal year 1997, will be more than $1.6 
trillion.
  We have heard concerns expressed on the other side relative to the 
Social Security issue. It has been commented that somehow a balanced 
budget will have a detrimental effect on our obligation to meet our 
Social Security commitments.
  Just think for a moment. How can we meet our obligation to our 
seniors, how can we meet the obligation of coming generations if our 
fiscal house is not in order? It has already been suggested as to what 
the increased tax burden will have to be on future generations.
  We have been spending far in excess of revenues. That is like 
carrying an overdraft or carrying your accounts on your credit card 
knowing you cannot pay them off. So what have we been doing? We have 
been increasing the amount that we are spending for interest. I think 
it is somewhere in the area of $240 billion today. That is nearly 
$1,000 for every man, woman, and child in America. What does it do? It 
pays interest on the Federal debt.
  Now, not too many people talk about the Federal debt, but we have 
increased the Federal debt authorization now to $5 trillion. It seems 
as if we go through a budget process, we add up what we need, we take a 
look at the revenue that we have, and instead of either increasing the 
revenue or cutting the expenditures we simply take what we need and add 
it to the accumulated national Federal debt, which is over $5 trillion.
  This interest cost must be paid. I have said it on this floor time 
and time again. Interest is like owning a horse that eats while you 
sleep. It goes on and on and on. What is the exposure with the 
increased amount that we have to pay? As everyone knows, interest rates 
fluctuate. I am often reminded of what the prime rate was in

[[Page S5835]]

December of 1980. The prime rate was 20.5. You can imagine the interest 
cost on $5 trillion if, indeed, we were in that range again, and this 
could happen. It happened before.
  After years of trying, last year this Congress came within one vote 
of sending a balanced budget constitutional amendment to the States. 
The amendment passed the House of Representatives on January 26 when 
House Joint Resolution 1 was approved by a vote of 300 to 132, easily 
exceeding the necessary two-thirds majority. The Senate added an 
amendment restricting the power of the courts to enforce the amendment 
and defeated many weakening amendments, but then on March 2 the Senate 
failed by one vote to adopt the proposed constitutional amendment.
  We have the opportunity to address this again tomorrow.
  If we look at history, we will realize that for more than one-third 
of a century--35 of the last 36 years, the Government has been running 
a continuous and unending string of deficits. Even if we adopt this 
amendment, it is an absolute certainty the deficits will continue into 
the year 2000.
  I have reflected on the debt being more than $5 trillion. In 10 
years, Mr. President, that debt is going to rise by 80 percent up to 
what? Nine trillion dollars. Put another way, in the year 2006, every 
man, woman, and child in America will owe Uncle Sam $32,700. For a 
family of four, that is $131,000.
  What are we thinking of here? There should be absolutely no question 
that we do not have the self-discipline in this body to address a 
balanced budget process. With a constitutional amendment, it will 
mandate that process.
  We have not been blind to these deficits. For the last 11 years, 
Congress and the President have sought to find solutions, remedies. We 
passed statutes and reconciliation bills, all in the name of reaching a 
deficit of zero. On three occasions over the past 10 years, legislators 
on both sides of the aisle sat down with the President and tried to 
hammer out some workable solutions to solve the deficit. On every 
occasion the promise of a zero deficit has evaporated.
  Congress did not have the discipline or the political courage to do 
the one thing that would bring down the deficit, reduce spending. Yes, 
we voted to raise taxes on more than one occasion, but have we ever cut 
or frozen spending? No. It was only last year that we finally had the 
courage to face up to the challenge of runaway entitlements. Today, 
those entitlements account for 55 percent of Federal spending and will 
grow to 59 percent by the end of this century. There is not going to be 
any discretionary spending left.
  The American public witnessed, I think, an unprecedented spectacle 
when the President vetoed the only creditable balanced budget proposal 
ever to be written by Congress.
  Then--we got blamed for it--but he shut down the Government because 
of his refusal to give up the taxing and spending policies that have 
brought us to the brink of national bankruptcy and placed blame on 
Congress because we attempted to responsibly address the deficit.
  Had this amendment been incorporated in the Constitution, the 
President would have been in violation of his own oath of office to 
preserve, to protect and defend the Constitution--which he refused to 
abide by vetoing a real balanced budget.
  We are basically broke. Any CPA or banker can look at the Federal 
statement and find $5 trillion in debt; interest of 14 percent of the 
budget would tell you that. We can no longer labor under the assumption 
that business as usual in Washington assumes that every year we can run 
those deficits of $150 billion, $250 billion, $350 billion--$350 
billion. This accumulation of debt has brought us, today, to the point 
where, for the first time in our history, we are forced to borrow from 
the credit markets for the sole purpose of paying interest on the debt.
  Think of that. We are borrowing to pay interest on the debt. We are 
not borrowing just out there to fund our programs. We are having to 
borrow to pay the interest. That is why we are broke. It may surprise 
some people to know that over the next 10 years we would be running a 
surplus, we would be running a surplus in this country in the Federal 
budget if every year we did not have to pay that $200 billion to $400 
billion annual interest bill that has resulted in our chronic inability 
to bring revenue and spending into balance.
  I said we are broke. We are borrowing just to cover those interest 
costs. That is fiscal irresponsibility. We all know it. We are subject 
to the shifting winds of international investment flows, where a minor 
change of economic policy, not in this country, but in Bonn or London, 
or an earthquake in Japan--those are the people who are financing, if 
you will, a portion of our debt--could have a direct effect on what 
this United States Government has to pay for money to finance its debt. 
Can anyone imagine what would happen if the owners of our debt--18 
percent of which, I might add, is owned by foreigners--if they felt 
there was a sudden loss of confidence in the U.S. economy, and they 
called in the debt, they called in just $300 billion or $500 billion of 
our debt? How would we pay the owners off? We could not unless we 
inflated our dollar to the point that what a dollar buys today would 
actually be worth 50 cents or less. That is how it is done.
  The only way to get out of this sea of red ink is to adopt a simple 
mandate because we do not have the discipline to do it--we have proven 
it time and time again--and adopt the balanced budget amendment.

  The public knows that no family or business can survive very long 
when, year in and year out, the principal of its debt grows and all its 
borrowing is dedicated to paying off the debt holders.
  When future generations look back on the decisions that we made in 
the last decade of the 20th century, I know they will appreciate the 
wisdom of the people in the Congress in adding the balanced budget 
amendment to the Constitution. For this amendment stands for the 
proposition that future generations are entitled to economic freedom, 
unburdened by the financial debt of past generations.
  It is our responsibility to end the practice of sending unpaid bills 
to our children and to our grandchildren. That is a principle that 
belongs in the Constitution in the same sense as the freedom of speech 
and the freedom of press belong to the Constitution.
  Let me just repeat that because I firmly believe that. It is our 
responsibility to end the practice of sending unpaid bills to our 
children and grandchildren. That principle belongs in the Constitution 
in the same sense as the freedom of speech and press belong in that 
document.
  I urge my colleagues to adopt this amendment, send it to the States 
where it can be debated by the people. Give them a chance to render 
their judgment.
  Mr. President, I would like to introduce a bill.
  (The remarks of Mr. Murkowski pertaining to the introduction of S. 
1844 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced 
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, we are talking this evening and voting 
tomorrow on whether to add another amendment to the Constitution of the 
United States. Our Constitution has had 27 amendments added to it in 
209 years. If you do not count the Bill of Rights, the first 10 
amendments, then it has been amended 17 times in about 205 years. That 
is not very many times.
  Most times that we have amended the Constitution it has been when it 
has become an absolute necessity. We do not revise this sacred document 
otherwise.
  I support the balanced budget amendment that is before us. I had a 
chance to vote on it last year, when it failed by one vote. I supported 
it in 1994, when it failed by two or three votes, I believe. I voted on 
it in other versions in previous years. I very much support the 
principle of having a constitutional amendment and to have our 
Constitution then say that Congress should live within its income. I 
think this is very, very good discipline that results from such a 
constitutional provision, a discipline that we see in State legislative 
bodies. I think about 46 States have such requirements. Their 
requirements make legislative bodies, whether controlled by liberals or 
by conservatives, fiscally responsible. Fiscally responsible is mainly 
interpreted as living within your annual income. As families must live 
within that income, as businesses live within that income, the

[[Page S5836]]

same discipline ought to apply to the Federal Government.
  Many of our early constitutional Framers, early statesmen, and early 
political leaders, believed in that principle so strongly that they did 
not feel it had to be put in the Constitution. For maybe 170 years, 
living within our means, was really not much of a problem. But in the 
last generation, the Congress and even leaders in the executive branch 
have gone hog wild on spending money. They have not cared about 
building up a tremendous debt that puts an obligation on future 
generations. They failed to consider it an immoral obligation that we 
have given to other generations.
  Living beyond our income is an expression of materialism that is too 
rampant in American society. Living beyond one's income, in and of 
itself, is a major problem. Possibly, the Federal deficit is just an 
expression of our societal excess. But to some extent, maybe the lack 
of leadership shown by us in the Congress of the United States on the 
principle of not balancing the Federal budget is an example of not 
living within our income and has fed that base materialism of the 
American people. I see our discussion today and the amendment we are 
dealing with as an effort to reject that sort of fiscal policy and 
reject the materialism that it promotes within our American society.
  So we have another chance on this vote for a balanced budget 
constitutional amendment. Who knows, maybe some think this is the last 
chance. I do not think it is the last chance if we do not pass this 
tomorrow. This is not going to go away, so people might as well realize 
that eventually the wisdom of the American people is going to win out. 
Their wisdom is that Government ought to live within its income, just 
like families must live within their income and businesses must live 
within their income or otherwise go bankrupt.
  When is the day of bankruptcy for America? Maybe we cannot predict 
it. It might be next year, or it might be 10 years from now, but there 
is always a day of reckoning when you are not fiscally responsible. The 
same principles apply whether it is Government or whether it is 
families or businesses.
  I am thankful for Senator Dole's wisdom in reversing his vote so that 
he could file this motion to reconsider the balanced budget amendment 
and we can have another opportunity to do right what we did wrong last 
year. He gave us another vote on this important amendment.
  Of course, I am also thankful for the U.S. Constitution, including 
all of its inherent imperfections. It may be imperfect, but our 
Constitution has continued longer than any other written form of 
government. I believe that this is because it is a living, breathing, 
and evolving document. Indeed, it is evolution that we seek.
  Originally, it sought to fulfill the promises of the Declaration of 
Independence, and that declaration grew out of our Nation's ordeal that 
we remember as the Revolutionary War. People at that time were, 
literally, bleeding for a crusade of liberty that they believed in. 
They knew the oppression of a distant authoritarian monarchy. They had 
a yearning to be free. They believed that freedom was bestowed upon 
them by their creator, and the Constitution reflects that.
  The Declaration of Independence was a promise of liberty. The 
Constitution--this Constitution that I hold in my right hand--is a 
fulfillment of that promise. It continues to fulfill the promise not of 
politicians, but of the hearts of the people of our Nation.
  I believe that American people, again, sense themselves oppressed by 
a distant authoritarian power. That authoritarian power is Washington. 
It has evolved, as such, since the Constitutional Convention of 1787. 
The oppression that the American people feel is an ever-increasing 
national debt and the heavy hand of big government. That big government 
comes as a result of more laws and more expenditures and more programs 
that are not paid for on a current basis. Rather, they are left to our 
children and our grandchildren.
  Big government, aided and abetted by Congresses and Presidents, 
appropriates the future liability and promissory notes of our children 
and our grandchildren. History teaches us that modern day Presidents 
and Congresses cannot resist the temptation to spend us into oblivion. 
Those who oppose this balanced budget amendment speak with little 
credibility when they propose with sanctimony some alternative way. We 
have tried their alternative way, and it failed.
  In last year's debate, Mr. President, we were told we did not need 
this constitutional amendment, because if you want to balance the 
budget, you could just go do it without it being required by the law of 
the land. So we worked 8 months, in 13 committees, on a 1,800-page 
Balanced Budget Act of 1995. We sent it to the President around 
Thanksgiving time. The President vetoed our work on December 5, 1995. 
We received not one bit of help from people who said we did not need a 
constitutional amendment. They thought that we could just do it, but 
they were wrong.

  How many times did we hear on the Senate floor, just do it, and we 
did it without the constitutional amendment, without the help of people 
who said, just do it. Then, we got a veto from a President who says now 
he believes in a balanced budget. At the time of the veto he had not 
presented a balanced budget. We still do not have it, and we will not 
know if we will have it, even though we are going through the process 
of resolving to balance the next fiscal year's budget.
  I have come to the conclusion that the only viable alternative is 
with a congressional commitment to a balanced budget through the 
constitutional amendment that we have before us. Living within our 
means must be the law of the land. Americans must know that we current 
legislators, and those who follow us, cannot enslave future generations 
to distant creditors. If there is any inalienable right, Mr. President, 
surely it is the one to know that you are not burdened for the cost of 
something that you did not have any opportunity to enjoy.
  In 1775, Alexander Hamilton said something pertinent on this issue. 
He said:

       The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for 
     among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as 
     with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the 
     hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or 
     obscured by mortal power.

  Mr. President, this means that the people's will is the law, and the 
Constitution only becomes the law as enumeration of the people's will. 
It tells us that sooner or later the American people will again have 
their balanced budget, like they did for most of the first 170-year 
history of our country. The people will not ultimately be oppressed by 
our spending habits. If we do not show a commitment to a balanced 
budget, the people will balance the budget with a future Congress. 
Their first step toward that balance will be to replace the current 
Congress with its irresponsible spending habits. Our first step to 
avoid being replaced should be to pass a resolution for this amendment 
and send it to the States for their review.
  The key to passing a balanced budget amendment is its abundant 
grassroots, bipartisan support. This support reflects the fact that 
Americans support the amendment by very, very large margins. It should, 
therefore, have passed this body a long time ago by equally large 
margins, but it has not. It has not because some Members of the other 
party have decided to play politics. Some want to try to deny any 
victory to Republicans for purely political reasons.
  I think the American people deserve better. I think that the American 
people deserve a Government that responds to the will of the American 
people. They deserve a Government that spends only what it takes in; in 
other words, a Government that does what simple, common sense dictates.
  Somehow, common sense eludes us. In the past, year after year, 
Members of one Chamber or the other voted down this constitutional 
amendment, and year after year, the budget deficit increased. 
Meanwhile, year after year, our children have been saddled with 
increasingly larger debt.
  The American people, I think, expressed their desire to eliminate the 
burden when they elected a Republican Congress in 1994 for the first 
time in 40 years.
  A balanced budget would mean a stronger economy, good Government, and 
more jobs produced by that stronger economy. DRI-McGraw Hill, which

[[Page S5837]]

has been called the world's leading nonpartisan economic analysis and 
forecasting firm, has concluded that the balanced budget amendment 
would add credibility to budgeting.
  This credibility would lead to lower interest rates and a stronger 
economy. Mr. Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, says 
that for individuals balancing the budget would yield $2,300 less 
interest on a 30-year home mortgage, $603 less interest per year on a 
student loan, and $150 less per year on car loans. So we are talking 
about real economic benefit coming from our passing something like the 
failed Balanced Budget Act of 1995. Possibly we will succeed this year.
  This same firm found that the lower interest rates resulting from the 
balanced budget amendment could create half the necessary savings 
needed to balance the budget in the first place. This is because 
interest on the debt is such a large portion of our Federal budget. 
Lower interest rates then mean lower payments.
  I believe that the American people are willing to do their part to 
prevent future generations from being saddled with an unconscionable 
amount of debt. They are willing to do so even if it means that some 
Federal spending they support would be affected. This is especially 
true if our budgeting is done fairly.
  I am reminded by a constituent of mine who told me he was a lifelong 
Democrat. He now votes Republican because he is certain that if we do 
not stop spending more than we take in, we will be the ruin of our 
children and grandchildren.
  That is what this debate is all about today. It is about passing on 
the American dream to our children and our grandchildren. Americans of 
all political persuasions are realizing that the role of the Federal 
Government must be limited. Even the people of the other party are 
taking that view now in this town. So messages from the grassroots, 
expressed in the last election, are getting through, not only to 
Republicans, but to Democrats as well.
  They know that all Federal programs have not delivered what had been 
promised. They also know that the sums of money that are spent on these 
costly programs are tremendous. Many of these programs have failed or 
are filled with waste and abuse.
  I hope that the Senators who may have supported this amendment in the 
past, particularly in 1994 when it was the same wording as it is now--
they changed their mind last time because of pressure from the White 
House--will come back to the original position they had when their 
party controlled the Congress. That was a time when their President was 
not fighting the language of this amendment.
  It seems what was OK in 1994 should have been all right in 1995. 
Senators have one more opportunity in 1996 to correct that mistake. I 
think the reason to do it is because our children's future is too 
important for us to ignore this opportunity.
  I have spoken before about my first involvement in legislation to 
balance the budget. It was not a constitutional amendment. It was a law 
to require a balanced budget. There was a Senator by the name of Harry 
F. Byrd from Virginia at that time. I think it was in 1978. I was a 
Member of the other body. I worked with Senator Byrd to pass a simple 
law that says, ``The Federal Government shall not spend more than it 
takes in.''
  That was a very well-intentioned but law. Quite frankly, as I look 
back on it, it unfortunately was a very weak response to a very serious 
problem that was a lot less serious then than it is today. Because 
under our Constitution, as you know, succeeding Congresses can 
obliterate anything that a preceding Congress has done.
  I learned an important lesson from that Byrd-Grassley legislation. 
Congress needs help with self-discipline. Each of the prior efforts to 
balance the budget, whether it was the Byrd-Grassley law or whether it 
was Gramm-Rudman I, Gramm-Rudman II, or other budget agreements in the 
1990's, have all failed because they can be changed so easily.
  Pure and simple, big government is addicted to big spending and the 
big debt that results therefrom. That is why a constitutional amendment 
is necessary. A constitutional amendment, though difficult to get 
adopted in the first place, is also difficult to change. It cannot be 
changed like Gramm-Rudman I or II was changed. So it would not be 
changed by a simple unwillingness of legislative bodies to follow its 
mandate and bite the bullet.

  We take an oath to uphold this Constitution every 6 years when we are 
sworn into the Senate. We see the effective restraint that a 
constitutional provision brings to the States, as I have spoken of 
already. Because State legislatures that are controlled by conservative 
Republicans or liberal Democrats take a similar oath, the rule of law 
that follows it applies and is strictly adhered to.
  So only the balanced budget amendment that is before us will 
ultimately restrain runaway Government spending. A new day will come 
when we have a constitutional amendment disciplining our spending 
appetites. The Senate's passage of the balanced budget amendment would 
show the public that we have decided to get serious about protecting 
the American dream and passing that dream on to our children and 
grandchildren. It is in doubt today with big debt, high interest rates, 
and a growth in the economy that is slower than it takes to sustain the 
American dream for our expanding population.
  Because of high interest rates and high taxes, there are 3 million 
jobs that have not been created in the present recovery since 1992 that 
would have been created in other normal recoveries since World War II.
  Our beloved, but imperfect, Constitution has allowed us to endanger 
the American dream because we have not yet added the written philosophy 
that our forefathers had in their hearts and practiced in the Congress. 
They did not put it into the Constitution because they did not think it 
was necessary. Now, 209 years later, we find it absolutely necessary to 
protect our way of life. We have an imperfect document except that the 
Framers gave us article V so that the people can change the 
Constitution when necessary.
  The people are now asking us to vote to allow them the opportunity to 
amend the Constitution. Amending the Constitution is a prescription for 
protecting the American dream. So this vote that we have tomorrow is 
referendum in giving our constituents, particularly the younger ones, 
the right to preserve the American dream. In my view, that is an 
absolute necessity. It is a very clear choice between responsible 
spending or losing the American dream and our way of life. I yield the 
floor.
  Mr. SIMON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of this amendment. 
I want to pay tribute also to Senator Hatch, Senator Craig, and Senator 
Thurmond, who have been among the leaders on the Presiding Officer's 
side, and former Senator DeConcini on our side, as well as Senator 
Heflin and Senator Bryan.
  The charge is made that we are talking pure politics. I would be 
naive if I did not admit there is some politics in all of this. 
Obviously, Bob Dole is a candidate for President, and he wants to 
stress this. I have to say, in fairness to Bob Dole, this is not a 
phony position on his part. This is a stand he has taken all along. I 
am supporting Bill Clinton for President, but I appreciate Bob Dole's 
stand on the balanced budget amendment.
  To my Democratic friends, if you want to depoliticize it, pass it. To 
my friends on the other side who are opposed to a minimum wage, you 
want to depoliticize the minimum wage? Pass it. It will be eliminated 
from the election. And the same on the balanced budget amendment.
  The Presiding Officer is from New Hampshire where in the woods and 
the trails of New Hampshire, prior to the Revolution, there was talk 
about ``taxation without representation.'' My latest grandchild is now 
2 months old. Nicholas Simon, 2 months old, does not know anything 
about the taxation that has been imposed upon him. Talk about taxation 
without representation, that is what we are doing to future 
generations. Listen to the Democratic platform of one century ago, 
1896.

       We are opposed to the issuing of interest-bearing bonds in 
     times of peace.

  Incidentally, no other country in history in times of peace has moved 
from being a creditor nation to being a debtor nation. Not only have we 
done that,

[[Page S5838]]

we have moved from being the No. 1 creditor nation to being the No. 1 
debtor nation. It is like moving from Super Bowl champ to the very last 
place.

  We have a lot of Jefferson-Jackson dinner parties. I assume the 
Presiding Officer has never been invited to one of these. Andrew 
Jackson said, ``I am one that does not believe a national debt is a 
blessing but rather a curse.'' Thomas Jefferson was not in the United 
States when the Constitution was written. He was over in Paris, 
negotiating for us. When he came back, he said, ``If I could add one 
amendment to the Constitution, it would be to require a balanced 
budget.''
  It is very interesting, Laurence Tribe, a professor at Harvard who 
opposes the constitutional amendment, says this in testimony last year:

       Despite the misgivings I expressed on this score a decade 
     ago, I no longer think that a balanced budget amendment is, 
     at a conceptual level, an ill-suited kind of provision to 
     include in the Constitution.

  The Jeffersonian notion that today's populace should not be able to 
burden future generations with excessive debt does seem to be the kind 
of fundamental value that is worthy of enshrinement in the 
Constitution. In a sense, it represents a structural protection for our 
children and grandchildren.
  There is, as the Presiding Officer knows, a lot of cynicism toward 
Government, much more so than in Western Europe, where the taxes are 
much higher than they are in the United States. I believe a fundamental 
reason for that is that, with the exception of Israel, no modern 
industrial State spends as high a percentage of its tax dollars on 
interest and on defense as does the United States. The average citizen 
does not see much for that. They do not see much in the defense area. 
Clearly, we have to spend money in defense. For interest, all we get 
out of the huge debt is higher interest rates. That is it.
  Now, I have heard some of my colleagues say they cannot vote for this 
because of Social Security. My friends, that is a fig leaf. It would 
make more sense to say, ``Your astrologer advised you not to vote for 
this.''
  The reality is, this provides more protection for Social Security 
than Social Security will have without this. Those who say, ``Well, 
let's make it 2002 excluding Social Security,'' not one offered an 
amendment to the budget to do that when that was up. Yet, they suggest 
we should enshrine it in the Constitution.
  I, frankly, worked with Senator Hatch in trying to fashion something 
that over a period of years--and worked with Senator Domenici--over a 
period of years would slide into that, because you cannot do it from 
2002 that quickly. That would harm the economy.
  It is very interesting that the chief actuary for Social Security for 
21 years, Bob Myers, says it is essential for Social Security that we 
do it. Now, why is that the case? As Adam Smith warned us in ``The 
Wealth of Nations,'' a classic document, he said that the history of 
nations is that you keep piling up debt and then you eventually debase 
the currency.
  That is where we are headed--there is just no question about it--as 
you look at those long-term projections. We are going to keep piling up 
the debt, and then at some point the order will be made, ``Start the 
printing presses rolling; we are going to print the money. We are going 
to debase the currency. We are going to do what the economists call 
`monetize the debt.' ''
  I get a publication that has a very limited circulation, I am sure, 
called Grant's Interest Rate Observer. It comes out every week. Here is 
the most recent. You will be interested in these figures: May 17, 1995, 
foreign bank holdings of treasuries, $444 billion. May 15, 1996, a year 
later, $553 billion. It goes up and up and up. And Lester Thurow, the 
distinguished economist, says the question is not ``if'' foreign 
governments and people in other countries are going to stop buying our 
bonds, the question is ``when.'' We have to face up to this.
  I heard Senator Murkowski speak just a little bit ago in which he 
said 18 percent of our bonds are now held beyond our country. In fact, 
the figure is larger than that because a lot of it is hidden. Many 
countries prohibit their citizens from buying bonds from other 
countries.
  Just take the 18-percent figure. If you take the $344 billion that is 
the gross interest expenditure that CBO now says it will be, take 18 
percent of that--if my math is correct, I just calculated it here 
quickly--that is $62 billion that will be sent overseas for interest 
this year.
  Now, there are some who believe if you help the wealthy, it will 
trickle down and help everybody. I do not happen to believe there is 
much validity to that. But there sure is not much validity to sending 
that $62 billion to wealthy people in Great Britain or The Netherlands 
or Saudi Arabia or Japan. That is not going to trickle down to American 
working men and women. That just does not make sense.
  Mr. President, $62 billion abroad is four times what we are spending 
on foreign aid. In other words, we are spending four times as much on 
foreign aid to the wealthy as we are on foreign aid for poor people. 
That just does not make sense.

  The head of the IMF has complained that the wealthy United States 
goes into the financial markets and raises interest, and poor countries 
have to pay that high interest. Prof. David Calleo of Johns Hopkins 
University calls that action obscene.
  Now, to the credit of Senator Domenici and Congressman Kasich and 
people in this body who voted to say we will balance the budget in 7 
years, to your credit on that side, you led the way on this. I voted 
for it in the Budget Committee, but you led the way.
  Let me say, in all candor, we are not going to have a balanced budget 
in 7 years unless we have a constitutional amendment. We are putting 
all the tough decisions in the last years. That is true in the 
Democratic proposal; it is true in the Republican proposal. Those of us 
in public life like to do popular things. We need the discipline of a 
constitutional amendment.
  We have great interstate highways today. President Eisenhower 
proposed issuing bonds to pay for it. A Senator by the name of Albert 
Gore, Sr., said, ``Let's not have deficit financing. Let's increase the 
gas tax and pay for it on a pay-as-you-go basis.'' His amendment, 
fortunately, prevailed. We saved hundreds of billions of dollars. That 
is what we have to do, put Government on a pay-as-you-go basis.
  I heard Senator Hollings earlier today, and I have great respect for 
him, talking about the need for some changes in our tax structure. Let 
me tell you, fundamental changes are not going to happen without a 
constitutional amendment.
  I hear people complaining about Alan Greenspan and what the Federal 
Reserve Board is doing. Our primary problems--and sometimes I differ 
with Alan Greenspan--but our primary problems are fiscal, not monetary. 
The $344 billion we will spend this year on interest is 11 times what 
we will spend on education, 22 times as much as we spend on foreign 
aid, and twice what we are spend on our poverty programs.
  The Concord Coalition--cochaired by former Senator Warren Rudman from 
the State of the Presiding Officer, cochaired by Paul Tsongas, which 
also has Paul Volcker on its board--did an economic analysis. The 
deficit, in the last 20 years, is costing the average American family 
$15,500 a year in income. I do not know of any families in Illinois or 
New Hampshire or Oklahoma who would not welcome that kind of an 
increase. But it takes some discipline to move us in the right 
direction. We have shown that we do not have it on our own. We need the 
discipline of a constitutional amendment.
  We need to have, real candidly, political cover. We ought to do it on 
our own, but we are not doing it. We need to go back to whatever State 
we are from and say that we really hated to cut this program, we really 
hated to increase these taxes, but the constitutional amendment forced 
us to do it.
  If there is anyone in this body who is not certain how to vote--and 
there probably is not--I suggest that they look at their children, look 
at their grandchildren. Forget who you might offend in this body and 
what they think. Look at those children and grandchildren and simply 
ask: How do we build a better future for them? If you ask that 
question, then the vote will be in favor of a constitutional amendment.
  I yield the floor.

[[Page S5839]]

  Mr. INHOFE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, if I thought, 10 years ago, I would be 
making this statement, I would say someone is out of his mind. But I 
have to say now that it comes from the heart when I say this. There is 
no loss in the history of the institution of the U.S. Senate as great 
as the loss that will be incurred when Senator Simon submits his 
retirement and is no longer in this body. I say that in a very sincere 
way because Senator Simon and I have a few things in common, but 
certainly political philosophy is not one of them. He is a liberal. I 
am a conservative. But he is very honest about his liberalism, and he 
is one who puts his priorities first. His statement about his children 
and grandchildren is very touching indeed.
  Mr. President, I think that the vote we are going to be casting 
tomorrow will be the second most significant vote, perhaps in the last 
decade, but certainly in this session of the legislature. The first 
most significant vote happened yesterday when we made a decision in 
this country not to defend ourselves from nuclear missile attack. It is 
something I think we made a grave mistake on, because many of the other 
things are not significant now when you think about the threat that is 
out there.
  What we are going to do tomorrow is certainly significant. I decided 
that a way to approach this would be to take, verbatim, the arguments 
that have been made in opposition to a budget balancing amendment to 
the Constitution and address each one of them.
  There are ten arguments. I will read these:
  Proponents have refused to lay out a detailed plan to get a balanced 
budget.
  How can you tell if it would be good for the country if you do not 
know the details? Senator Simon talked about a figleaf. This is a 
figleaf. I can remember when we lost this earlier--I guess last year--
by one vote, and they tried to kill it in a way that they would not 
have to vote against it by putting an amendment on called the ``right-
to-know amendment,'' which would outline everything that we are going 
to appropriate, everything that we are going to fund, every tax we are 
going to increase or decrease, for the next 7 years. Obviously, you 
cannot do that.
  In a minute, I will show you the political philosophy of those 
individuals who voted for the right-to-know amendment, because those 
individuals, each one of them, voted against the final bill, and there 
is a common thread there that we need to look at.
  I can tell you what we do know, which is that the status quo is bad--
bad for the country. Business as usual cannot continue. We are to the 
point where we have to make a change. We did not have that luxury last 
year, or 10 years ago, even though we are working on this as a problem. 
I will say this. Those individuals who are going to vote against our 
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution tomorrow are liberals, 
but they do not go home and campaign that way. They are not politically 
honest with the people back home on their philosophy. How many times 
have you heard someone on the stump stand up and say, ``Vote for me and 
I will increase your taxes, I will increase spending, and I will 
increase the deficit''? You do not hear it. Yet, that is exactly what 
happens.
  You cannot give a detailed plan as to how it is going to happen. Back 
in May 1961, President Kennedy decided that it was in our Nation's 
interest to have a man on the Moon in 10 years. He did not say what was 
going to happen, or how. He did not map out the details. We could not 
do it yet because the rockets were not built, the spacecraft was not 
designed, and the astronauts were not trained. Nobody said how we were 
going to do it. But we committed ourselves to it, and we did it.
  Here is another one, argument No. 2: Proponents want to treat people 
like children, hiding the hard truth from them.
  I can tell you that is not the case. My wife and I have been married 
for 37 years. We are into grandchildren now. One time, our No. 2 son 
was out learning to ride a bicycle. He was a very young child. I went 
out there and pushed him, and he got balanced. Finally, he was able to 
go all the way around the block. When he came back, he said, ``You 
know, Dad, I wish the whole world was downhill.''
  The whole world is not downhill. What we are embarking upon, if we 
are successful in doing it, is not going to be easy. It is something 
that we have to do. We do not have a choice. We are out of time. We all 
know that the world is not downhill. We have to pedal uphill. It will 
take sacrifice. But for our children's sake and future generations, we 
have to do it.
  Third is that proponents say they are tired of Washington telling 
people what to do--the Washington-knows-best mentality--and that the 
balanced budget amendment is the ultimate Washington mandate.
  My response to that is, no, they have it backward. Those who oppose 
the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution are the guys who have 
been running this show for the last 40 years, who have created this $5 
trillion debt. They are arrogant in saying that we know what is better. 
Yes; future generations are going to have to pay for this. But that 
Washington-knows-best attitude is what got us where we are today, that 
continuing business as usual for all these years. They say that despite 
the fact that 70 to 80 percent of the people in America support a 
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Why? Because they know 
that without that fiscal discipline forcing them to do it, we are not 
going to do it.

  I think the public spoke loudly and clearly in the elections of 1994. 
It was, in fact, a Republican year, and in a minute I will document 
this and show this to you. A lot of people that are going to be voting 
against this will not be around much longer. In a way, the balanced 
budget amendment is a mandate for fiscal responsibility on Congress, 
and it will not mandate unwanted regulation on the States or the 
people.
  Argument No. 4: All these Governors who are boasting about cutting 
taxes in their States should know that the balanced budget amendment 
will require them to impose huge State tax increases.
  Well, that simply is not true. I think the Governors know it. The 
Governors are supporting this. In fact, let us keep in mind that if we 
are successful in passing this at noon tomorrow, three-fourths of the 
States are going to have to ratify this. It is not something we can do 
unilaterally. I agree with the statements made about the sanctity of 
the Constitution. That is why the Founding Fathers made it so 
difficult. The States will have to make the decision, and if they think 
it will increase taxes, they are not going to support it. They know it 
will not do that. These States that have been cutting tax rates are 
actually enjoying increasing revenue. History has shown that is the 
case. You can increase revenue by cutting tax rates. President Kennedy 
once said, ``We have to have more revenue, and we are going to cut 
taxes,'' and it worked. Look what happened in the United States of 
America. In 1980, our total revenues were $517 billion. In 1990, 10 
years later, it was over $1 trillion. It doubled in that period of 
time. That was a period of time when the tax rates took the largest 
cuts we have had in any 10-year period in history, from the marginal 
rates. In 1980, it was $244 billion that was derived from income taxes. 
In 1990, it was $466 billion. That was after tax reductions.
  But this mentality we have in the White House and the administration 
does not agree with that. They do not look at history. They are too 
smart for that. Laura Tyson, the chief economic adviser to the 
President of the United States, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal 
on December 30, 1992.
  She said:

       In direct contradiction to the 12 years of Republican 
     ideology, there is no relationship between the level of taxes 
     the Nation pays and its economic performance.

  Of course, if you believe that, they just keep raising taxes. We know 
better. The people of America know better. The balanced budget 
amendment will require a rate of increase in Federal spending to be 
slowed down. The States will rejoice when they can do this, and three-
fourths of the States have already said it shall be no problem at all 
in ratifying this.
  Three-fourths of the States have a balanced budget amendment to their 
State constitution. In 1941, my State of Oklahoma had a balanced budget 
amendment. These same arguments

[[Page S5840]]

they are using today were the arguments they were using back then, and 
it has worked since 1941, and it has worked in the rest of States.
  Argument No. 5: The balanced budget amendment is a pig in a giant 
poke.
  I do not know what this means. I do not know that anyone else does. 
But I would say this: That the real pig in the poke was pointed out to 
me by someone who called me up. I was called up after that statement 
was made by a young lady, a beautiful young lady professor at the 
University of Arkansas, the home State of our President. She called up 
and had seen that apparently on C-SPAN. Of course, in Arkansas they 
know something about pigs. They have the Arkansas Razorbacks, and they 
use the pigs and the hogs and the hogs and the Razorbacks kind of 
interchangeably. This young lady was Dr. Molly Rapier on the staff at 
the University of Arkansas. She said the pig in the poke is in 
Washington--not outside of Washington. It is those individuals who are 
spending more and more and more and getting to the trough first.
  The sixth argument that has been used: The balanced budget amendment 
will give the politicians license to cut and slash and burn needed 
programs.
  This is the big argument they use to make it appear as if we are 
going to be slashing Government programs, and then they zero in on 
either the elderly or veterans or somebody else to make them think that 
we are going to be cutting programs.
  The Heritage Foundation came out with a study. This was conducted by 
economists and Ph.D.'s from all over the country from major 
institutions. They came up with the conclusion--this is a couple of 
years ago--that we could actually reduce and eliminate the deficit in a 
much shorter period of time merely by putting growth caps on. I called 
to get an update from them today. They said if we had growth caps on 
all Government spending of 1.5 percent we would balance the budget in 7 
years including the major tax cuts that the Republicans are asking for 
to stimulate the economy. These are the economists that are saying 
this.
  So we know that this argument is being used, and it is another 
figleaf, as has been so articulated and presented by the distinguished 
senior Senator from Illinois, Senator Simon. I think that it would do 
one thing, and that it would cause a counterpressure.
  A study was made not too long ago about all the people who come to 
see Members of Congress in the House and the Senate. Over 98 percent of 
them are in there to get more money for some cause. Some are lobbyists, 
some are citizens, and some are employees that are in for more money 
for their causes. So there is nobody out there speaking for that 80 
percent of the people who want to reduce the size of the cost of 
Government. This would do this.

  I remember one of the best speeches I ever heard was way back in the 
1960's when a great communicator, Ronald Reagan, gave a speech, his 
first political speech, called ``Rendezvous With Destiny.'' He said, 
``There is nothing closer to immortality on the face of this Earth than 
a Government agency once formed.'' I think we have learned it is true. 
It is very difficult with the political pressures to cut the size of 
Government.
  The seventh argument is:

       Senators are sent here to make intelligent and well-
     informed decisions on the people's behalf.

  I have heard this so many times from liberals--saying, ``We do not 
need that because that is our job. We are elected to balance a 
budget.'' We have not done it. We have proven that we are incapable of 
doing it for 40 years. So we have been forced to do it.
  That is exactly what this would be. This is not anything that is a 
new idea. Thomas Jefferson said when he came back from France during 
the development of our Constitution that it could have been improved by 
having something in there to stop the Americans from going into debt.
  I can remember a guy named Carl Curtis from Nebraska back in 1974, 
Mr. President. I was in the State Senate of Oklahoma at that time. He 
had an idea. He was a great conservative from Nebraska. He said, ``I 
know how we can balance the budget.'' He said, ``We can get three-
fourths of the States to preratify, and then we could use this an as 
argument saying this is a mandate from the States.'' So I introduced a 
resolution in the State senate in 1974, and it passed to preratify the 
Constitution. It is something that has been around for a long time. It 
is something that we have an opportunity to achieve tomorrow.
  In response to the opinion polls, a statement was made not long ago 
on this floor by one of the Senators who is opposed to a balanced 
budget. He said, ``The proponents talk about public opinion.'' Years 
ago Talleyrand said, ``There is more wisdom in public opinion than 
there is to be found in Napoleon, Voltaire and all the ministers of 
state present or to come.''
  But this is true only to the extent that public opinion is informed 
opinion. In the case of a balanced budget amendment it is not informed 
opinion. I have to tell that very distinguished Senator in all respects 
that he is definitely wrong.
  I would submit that the people of America know that we cannot 
continue on the road that we are on. I would submit that Talleyrand was 
exactly right when he said, ``There is more wisdom in public opinion 
polls than there is. . .''--and to bring it to up today's vernacular, 
``. . . to be found in the President, the President pro tempore, and 
all the ministers of the Clinton administration and the liberal 
Democrats who are lobbying against the balanced budget amendment.''
  Let us keep in mind Talleyrand, who was there during the Napoleon 
reign, also had another quote which was ``Throw mud, throw mud. Some of 
it may stick.'' That is exactly what has been happening during this 
debate.
  The ninth argument was:

       The 1990 and 1993 budget deals worked. The way to deal with 
     the deficit is to continue the successful deficit reduction 
     effort for the last 5 years. Since 1990, we have achieved 
     over $900 billion in deficit reduction.
  I do not know. There was an article in the Reader's Digest not long 
ago called ``Budget Baloney.'' They talk about how we are saying things 
here to make people think we are doing something constructive by 
eliminating the deficit. The debt has grown and grown during this 
administration.
  I will have to say this. I do not want to sound like I am blatantly 
partisan. In 1990, when George Bush was President of the United States, 
he caved in to the liberal Democrats that were controlling Congress at 
that time, and he agreed to a tax increase. It was the wrong thing to 
do. I voted against it. I spoke against it when I was serving in the 
other body with the distinguished Presiding Officer. I can remember 
being on ``Nightline'' as one of the few people to stand up against his 
own President because it was wrong. In 1993 when President Clinton had 
control of both the House and the Senate it was ``the largest single 
tax increase in the history of public finance in America or anyplace in 
the world.'' Those are not the words of conservative Republican Jim 
Inhofe. Those are the words of Patrick Moynihan who was the chairman of 
the Senate Finance Committee at that time. But in both cases the 
results belie the claims of success.
  If these two huge, painful budget deals were successful in reducing 
the deficit, then Heaven help us. Just look at the figures. This is the 
President's own budget book. Under his plan, by 1998 our debt will 
increase by $1.1 trillion. These are the President's figures. By the 
year 2000, $1.1 trillion. That is something that we cannot afford.
  The last one that I want to mention is to quote the argument:

       The balanced budget amendment is nothing more than a 
     slogan, an empty promise. Most Senators who support it will 
     not even be here in the year 2000 when it will take effect.

  You know the problem is that the Members of Congress who are 
responsible for creating this burdensome national debt will not be here 
when our children have to pay for it. It has been said several times on 
this floor. The Congressional Budget Office figures support the fact 
that a person born today, unless we change it, will have to spend 82 
percent of his lifetime income just to support the Government's 
extravagance that we are guilty of today.
  So let me just mention that talk is cheap. There are those who oppose 
it. Those individuals who oppose the balanced budget amendment, they 
are the ones--the same ones as I suggested earlier in my talk. I 
suggested that those individuals who voted against a balanced budget 
amendment the last time

[[Page S5841]]

and are planning to vote it against it this time, even though they will 
not go home and tell the people they are going to do this, are the 
liberals.
  How do you know if they are liberals or conservatives? You do it by 
looking at how they are rated. You do not want to stand up and call 
people names. There are ratings organizations out there. The National 
Taxpayers Union rates as to how we vote. If we are big spenders they 
say we are. Of those 33 individuals who voted against the balanced 
budget amendment when it was up last time, all 33 voted for the largest 
tax increase and the largest spending increase in the history of public 
finance. All 33 of them got either a ``D'' or an ``F'' by the National 
Taxpayers Union. That is incontrovertible. They are liberals. They will 
not say that at home. But they are. And I suggest there is something 
else that is incontrovertible; that is what has happened in the past. 
Those individuals who were voting for the large spending increases and 
the tax hike and who received a ``D'' or an ``F'' are the individuals 
who either were defeated or who retired in the 1994 election.
  So I think it is something we need to look at, and I am hoping that 
those individuals--as the distinguished Senator from Iowa [Mr. 
Grassley] said, a lot of the Senators who are voting for this because 
they want to go the party line instead of voting with the people at 
home better really stop and think about it before noon tomorrow because 
the people at home are not going to forget.
  I can suggest to you that we have had several people who are going to 
be voting against it who have actually made these statements at home. 
The Senator from North Dakota, [Mr. Dorgan], said in the Congressional 
Record March 1, 1994: ``This constitutional amendment, no matter what 
one thinks of it, will add the pressure that we reconcile what we spend 
with what we raise.'' And he will most likely vote against it. If not, 
the resolution will pass.
  Senator Hollings said, ``I can offer my colleagues 3.5 trillion 
reasons for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. It ought 
to be a minimal moral obligation of our National Government. So let us 
debate, pass and ratify the balanced budget amendment. By writing a 
balanced budget amendment into the basic law of the land, we will 
compel Washington to do its job.'' That is Senator Ernest Hollings, 
March 1, 1994.
  Then we had our very, very distinguished minority leader, Senator Tom 
Daschle, from South Dakota, who said on February 28, 1994: ``Too much 
is at stake for us to settle for the status quo. A balanced budget 
amendment will provide the fiscal discipline our Nation must have in 
order to meet the needs of the present generation without bankrupting 
those in the future.''
  I only say that not to embarrass my colleagues because they are all 
very distinguished, but they certainly had a change of heart between 
the time they were making these statements and what will happen 
tomorrow. I am hoping that two out of three of these individuals who 
made the statement will turn around and remember what they said in 1994 
and will vote for it, and we will pass a balanced budget amendment to 
the Constitution.
  Lastly, Mr. President, Senator Simon talked about his grandson, 
Nicholas Simon, and I think that is really what it is all about. Kay 
and I have a bunch of kids, and our No. 3 child, Molly, just last 
January 9 called me up and said, ``You know, Daddy, I'm about a month 
overdue, and they are going to force labor today. Would you come 
over.'' And I was right over there. She said to me, she said, ``Daddy, 
would you like to come in the delivery room when we deliver Baby 
Jase.'' Nowadays they peek. They know what it is. Back when we were 
having kids, they would not let you in the hospital, let alone the 
delivery room. And so I said, ``Yes, I want to do it.''
  I went in there and stood behind the bed, and we made it through this 
process. It made me appreciate my wife a lot more than I did before. 
And finally Baby Jase was born, Baby Jase right here was born. This is 
on January 9. And he had taken his first breath. He was not even a 
minute old when she handed him to me. She said, ``Daddy, would you like 
to hold Baby Jase?'' I held Baby Jase, and I looked at him, and the 
thing that came to my mind at that time was, as we were speaking at 
that very moment, Baby Jase was inheriting $19,000 as his share of the 
national debt; that if we do not do something to change it like we are 
proposing today, if we do not pass this balanced budget amendment, then 
Baby Jase is going to have to spend 82 to 84 percent of his earnings 
paying it.
  What do you think he did to deserve that? He did not do anything. 
That is why I say, Madam President, this is not a fiscal issue that we 
are considering. It is probably the most serious moral issue we have 
dealt with since I have been in the Senate.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. SHELBY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hutchison). The Senator from Alabama is 
recognized.
  Mr. SHELBY. Madam President, Webster's dictionary defines the term 
``red herring'' as ``something that distracts attention from the real 
issue. [From the practice of dragging a red herring across a trail to 
confuse hunting dogs].''
  The reason I share this definition with you tonight is because most 
of the arguments we have heard in objection to the balanced budget 
amendment amount to little more than red herrings. The objections, I 
believe, are simply distractions from the real issue before us.
  The real issue before us is that Federal spending is out of control, 
make no mistake about it, and unless we pass a constitutional amendment 
to control spending, our children and grandchildren will never know the 
America we take for granted.
  The United States has a current national debt of more than $5 
trillion, and based on projections under President Clinton's latest 
budget it will be more than $6.7 trillion by the year 2000. I have said 
it before and I believe I will say it again tonight, Madam President: 
Debtors are never free; they are only subject to the dominion of their 
creditors. That is the real issue here.
  Throughout the debate on this issue, we have heard no less than five 
red herrings repeated time and again. I ask you to listen carefully as 
I go through them one by one and explain why they are just distractions 
from the real issue.
  Red herring No. 1 I will share with you. Red herring No. 1: ``The 
balanced budget amendment would raid Social Security and put the burden 
of balancing the budget on the elderly.''
  Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that there is no 
Social Security trust fund--no Social Security trust fund. The surplus 
of which many speak is actually a form of IOU. The purpose of the 
balanced budget amendment is to ensure the solvency of the United 
States so we can protect the living standards of Americans and pay our 
creditors. I believe if you truly care about the elderly and clearly 
understand the issue at hand, I see no other option than to support the 
balanced budget amendment.
  Proponents of a balanced budget amendment know that protecting our 
Nation's economic solvency will do far more to protect the standard of 
living of every American than to rely on blatant political halfhearted 
remedies that, in the end, do more harm than good.
  Red herring No. 2 I will share with you. Red herring No. 2 is that 
``the balanced budget amendment is not enforceable. The amendment would 
curtail the authority of and respect for the U.S. Constitution.''
  Again, there is no truth in that. The amendment speaks for itself. 
Section 2 of the amendment requires a three-fifths vote to increase the 
debt ceiling. If you consider that insignificant, I ask you, why do we 
vote every year to increase the debt limit? Why does the President 
submit his budget by the first Monday in February every year? Neither 
of these procedures are identified in our Constitution. Indeed, these 
budget procedures are based on statute.
  As U.S. Senators, we are obligated to abide by the law. To suggest 
that Members will arbitrarily disregard the Constitution at best 
undermines the role Congress plays in our participatory democracy.
  Red herring No. 3 I will share with you. What is it? They say, ``The 
balanced budget amendment will have dire consequences on the elderly 
and the children.'' Nothing could be farther from the truth. Again, on 
the one hand,

[[Page S5842]]

the opponents of the constitutional amendment to balance the budget 
will say that the balanced budget amendment will lead to draconian cuts 
in very critical programs. According to them, every old person, young 
person, and poor person will be hurt by balancing the Federal budget. 
But, red herring No. 2 claims that the balanced budget amendment is not 
enforceable. No amendment will be able to force the President and 
Congress to balance the budget. Who is going to sue them, they ask?

  Which is it? Are we going to experience draconian cuts or are we not? 
The arguments against the balanced budget amendment contradict each 
other, they say. Since the logic is inconsistent, opponents will try to 
paint a dreadful picture to the American people, hoping this will 
elevate opposition to the balanced budget amendment.
  I have a frightening picture I would like to share with the American 
people. Imagine a day 30 years in the future as your children are 
planning to retire. They have worked all their lives, spent frugally, 
and saved religiously. Yet the Federal Government has continued to run 
massive budget deficits, piling up an unconscionable amount of debt. 
One day your children wake up and find that the rest of the world no 
longer believes that the United States is able to meet its financial 
obligation. Thus, the value of the dollar crashes in financial markets. 
The Federal Reserve cannot stop the falling dollar. And, in response, 
the Treasury prints money. Suddenly--yes, suddenly--your children's 
assets are worth half of what they were a day before. Inflation is 
rampant and we are reduced to a Third World country. Everything your 
children have worked for has been taken from them because some Members 
of this body did not think that addressing the debt was important.
  We know it is important. In order to pass the America we know on to 
our children, we must restrain ourselves from passing our bills on to 
our children and to our grandchildren.
  Red herring No. 4. You have heard this. The opponents say, ``The 
balanced budget amendment is just some popular idea we are voting for, 
brought about by the Contract With America. We need time to think about 
a balanced budget amendment.''
  Do we? The fact of the matter is that the balanced budget amendment 
is not a new idea at all. It has been debated right here in the U.S. 
Senate. One of Thomas Jefferson's well known sayings is, ``If I could 
add one amendment to the Constitution, it would be to prohibit the 
Federal Government from borrowing funds * * * We should consider 
ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts and morally 
bound to pay them ourselves.''
  In 1936, Congressman Harold Knutson of Minnesota proposed the first 
constitutional amendment to balance the budget. Since then, a number of 
balanced budget amendments have been proposed. We have held hearings as 
far back as 1979, and even voted on the amendment. Indeed, the issue 
has come up several times since then. Several of the Senators opposing 
the balanced budget amendment today have been around for many of those 
debates. The balanced budget amendment is not a new idea. We know the 
issue all too well. We are not rushing to judgment.
  Red herring No. 5, that I will share with you. The opponents say--we 
do not believe it, but they say: ``Federal accounting does not allow 
for capital budgeting. Federal accounting would throw chills down the 
spine of any business executive.''
  Trying to confront the arguments against the balanced budget 
amendment is like following a bouncing ball. When they are defending 
Social Security, the books are fine, they are in surplus. However, when 
we discuss the tremendous deficits and debt of the United States, the 
Federal accounting is somehow inept. Once again, there is an 
inconsistency in the opponents' reasoning. If you maintain the argument 
that Federal accounting is flawed, then one must take another look at 
the books of the Social Security trust fund. The bottom line is there 
is no fund, there is no surplus. According to accounting rules used by 
business executives, liability exceeds assets. By definition, that is 
not a surplus.
  In addition, I hear analogies being made between the Federal budget 
and the homeowners who enter into substantial debt when they purchase a 
house. The difference is that homeowners do not buy a house this year, 
next year, and the year after that. A homeowner pays down the principal 
each month, each year. The Federal Government, on the other hand, never 
gets to this point because it has to borrow just to pay the interest. 
It is a perpetual problem that all of us are familiar with, that feeds 
itself.
  The balanced budget amendment opponents have used every red herring 
imaginable, hoping just one of them will distract for a moment the 
American people from the issue at hand. But the fact is, Madam 
President, the trail of debt now tops $5 trillion, as I said earlier. 
The red herrings of a balanced budget amendment will not convince 
anyone on Wall Street or Main Street. The hunting dogs were not 
confused. The time has come for a balanced budget amendment to the 
Constitution of the United States of America if we are going to save 
anything for our children and our grandchildren.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. FEINGOLD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin is recognized.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Madam President, I note a little over a year ago this 
body rejected this proposed amendment. A great deal has happened since 
then, but none of the fundamental flaws of the joint resolution have 
been corrected. It still raises serious problems related to the role of 
the courts and the power it might confer on unelected judges to set our 
national budget policy. It remains a serious and real threat to Social 
Security. It continues to risk expansion of Presidential impoundment 
authority.
  Madam President, all of these faults are still there, they still 
remain. But there have been significant events in the last year that do 
bear on the proposed constitutional amendment, and they go to the very 
heart of the arguments put forward by the proponents of the 
constitutional amendment.
  The central reason offered by the proponents of the amendment is that 
without this constitutional mandate we will not balance the budget. 
That argument was appealing but ultimately unpersuasive a year ago. It 
remains unpersuasive today.
  Prior to the vote in 1995, President Clinton and the 103d Congress 
had just finished cutting the deficit in half--the first time for 3 
years in a row that the deficit had gone down, and not just by a little 
bit, but by half. The effects of the deficit reduction package we 
enacted brought the deficit down from what would have been nearly $300 
billion in this fiscal year to what is now projected to be $145 
billion, or even, based on the very most recent estimates, $130 or $120 
billion. In far less than just one Presidential term, what would have 
been a $300 billion deficit is now something in the range of only $125 
or $130 billion. It is a tremendous achievement in the right direction, 
one which I bet almost no one would have predicted could have happened 
in this short a time.

  We were clearly on the road to balancing our Federal budget. Since 
that time we have seen a number of different balanced budget proposals 
offered by Republicans, and then others offered by Democrats, and still 
others offered by bipartisan coalitions. Of course, the President has 
become the first President in many decades to submit a budget that is 
actually balanced. All of those plans were drafted without the presence 
of a constitutional mandate. In fact, I firmly believe those plans 
would not have been proposed and would not have been forthcoming but 
for the failure of either party to find political cover in the adoption 
of a constitutional amendment. Without the ability to hide behind a 
lengthy, multiyear ratification process, this Congress had no excuse. 
The Congress, in effect, by not having a balanced budget amendment 
being considered by the States for several years, is really being 
forced every day to try to live up to all the rhetoric that has spilled 
on this floor in the name of balancing the budget.
  I proposed a specific plan to balance the budget in 5 years when I 
was running in 1992, and I am especially pleased to be able to say that 
several dozen of the provisions of that plan have already been enacted 
into law in some form or another. They are part of the progress that we 
have made in reducing the deficit by more than half

[[Page S5843]]

since 1992. I will continue to push individual provisions from that 
balanced budget plan, as well as add other ideas to it.
  Madam President, I believe a majority of both Houses strongly 
supports a balanced budget and is willing, even today, to set aside 
partisan differences to accomplish this most important of our economic 
goals. But that is not what this proposed constitutional amendment is 
all about. What the proposed constitutional amendment is about, or at 
least the idea of having this vote at this time, tomorrow, is all 
about, is politics.
  Does anyone doubt that the outcome of this vote will be any different 
than the vote taken last year? Nobody has said that on either side. 
Then why have we returned to this issue right now? The answer is clear. 
This vote is being taken for purely political purposes. The drive for 
the constitutional amendment in my view has largely been political from 
the beginning.
  We should not be shocked by that. Congress, by its nature, is a 
political institution. That is understood and to be expected in such an 
institution.
  What is disturbing, though, Madam President, is the willingness of 
some to risk our Constitution in this manner to gain temporary 
political advantage. The so-called balanced budget amendment is only 
one of many constitutional proposed changes. Too many of them, I think, 
are again for largely political ends. I think each of them is 
unnecessary; some of them are grossly irresponsible.
  As I noted earlier, the call for this constitutional amendment 
certainly cannot stem from the lack of discussion and effort and 
consideration of the issue of balancing the budget. There are a 
sufficient number of plans to do that now, and though the plans do have 
some significant differences, I think there is a broad middle ground on 
which a consensus plan that achieved balance could be enacted.
  No, Madam President, for a majority of the supporters of this 
proposal, the constitutional amendment is more of a political device, 
pure and simple. It is one of a series of political statements that is 
repeated over and over that those folks hope will gain them the 
advantage with the voters. How else can one explain the almost 
incredible contradiction of voting for a constitutional amendment to 
balance the budget and saying that is your top priority and then at the 
same time insisting on the fiscally irresponsible deficit increasing 
tax cuts?
  As I have noted previously on the floor, we are in the middle of a 
stampede of proposals for tax cuts: Gasoline tax cuts, adoption tax 
credits, a whole slew of new business tax cuts, apparently tacked on to 
the minimum wage bill in the other body, and, of course, a $122 billion 
tax cut in the current budget resolution which was passed by this body 
just prior to our recess.
  The chairman of the Budget Committee in the other body was purported 
to have suggested the tax cuts provided for in the tax resolution might 
even total $180 billion. Let me note that not everyone who supports 
this proposed constitutional amendment has advocated these tax cuts, in 
fairness. Some of its advocates supported efforts to strip the $122 
billion tax cut from the budget resolution and instead dedicate the 
savings toward deficit reduction. But, unfortunately, Madam President, 
those people who both supported the balanced budget amendment and were 
willing to forego the tax cuts--a consistent position--were just too 
few in number.
  The overwhelming majority of those who support this amendment to our 
Constitution have consistently supported tax cuts over deficit 
reduction when it came to a vote last month. And I have said it many 
times on this floor, and I will say it again: What is wrong with that? 
What is wrong is that you cannot spend a dollar twice. You cannot spend 
it on deficit reduction and spend it on tax cuts. You can only spend it 
once, but the folks who say they want the balanced budget amendment and 
want tax cuts want you to think you can spend it twice, and you cannot.
  The overwhelming majority of those who support this amendment to our 
Constitution also supported the absurd parliamentary ruling that 
endorsed the special reconciliation rule for a measure that is intended 
not to reduce the deficit--not to reduce the deficit--even though that 
is what supposedly the budget resolution is about, but to increase it 
by having more tax cuts when we cannot afford them.

  Madam President, I will make the following not very bold prediction: 
Before the summer is out, an overwhelming majority of those who support 
this amendment to the Constitution will be leading the rally behind a 
massive tax cut plan that will be even larger than those we have seen 
today. The tax cut frenzy is only beginning to gather steam. There is 
only one plausible explanation for that inconsistency, and, gee, it 
looks a little bit like political expedience.
  For the sake of avoiding a politically difficult stand, the 
overwhelming majority of those who support this joint resolution will 
accede to only what can be called, in my view, a reckless tax cut plan 
that severely undermines the very goal they maintain requires this new 
constitutional protection. Of course, there will be economic gymnastics 
to accompany a tax proposal, and we will all be told that plus is 
minus, that up is down by the same crowd that helped us get into this 
fiscal mess in the first place with trickle-down economics. And I 
suspect that because they desire a political victory here, some will 
actually come to believe their own rationale, despite the clear 
evidence that it did not work before.
  A little over a year after failing to get sufficient support for the 
proposed constitutional amendment, the supporters of the joint 
resolution will, once again, get what they desire, and that is a vote, 
a vote they can use for political ends, promoting themselves or 
attacking others. The age of the 30-second television commercial and 
the 2-minute news story really does reward this kind of gesture. We all 
know it.
  If you say you are for a balanced budget amendment, a lot of people 
think you are saying you have come up with a plan to actually balance 
the budget, even though the two things have very little to do with each 
other. It has spawned dozens of constitutional amendments, and it will 
produce more. We may live in a political world in which it is 
uncomfortable to do the right thing, but, Madam President, I do not 
think we were elected to be comfortable.
  Our Nation's Founders wisely incorporated the two-thirds threshold to 
protect against just this kind of politically motivated abuse of our 
Constitution. I earnestly hope that one-third plus one in this body 
will tomorrow and in the future continue to have the political will 
necessary to stand up for that great document and give the American 
people the kind of Government they truly do deserve: a Government that 
is focused not on short-term political expedience but on the long-term 
solutions to our problems and, in particular, the true effort to do 
what we can and should do here without sending this to the States, and 
that is a topic and priority of our country to balance the budget 
within the next very few years.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. SMITH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire is recognized.
  Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Madam President. A famous President not too 
long ago, Ronald Reagan, said, ``Here we go again.'' Here we go again, 
back with the same debate we heard last year in November, that somehow 
we do not need a balanced budget amendment, because all we have to do 
is balance the budget, show the political will, get the job done, make 
the tough decisions. That is what we hear over and over and over and 
over.
  As has been said all day in this debate, the truth of the matter is, 
in spite of the rhetoric, the political will is not here, and it has 
not been here, which is why we must have the amendment.
  I have just been fascinated, since I had the opportunity to be around 
the floor for the last couple of hours, both as a presider and just 
listening, to hear some of this rhetoric regarding the balanced budget 
amendment, the number of excuses as to why we do not need the 
amendment. It is incredible. There is one right after the other: We do 
not need it; it is unnecessary; we can balance the budget, make the 
tough decisions; just need the political will.
  Yet, when it came down to doing it, we put a balanced budget on the 
desk

[[Page S5844]]

of the President of the United States and he vetoed it. We have not 
been able to get a balanced budget passed. So we need the amendment. It 
is as simple as that.
  When the balanced budget amendment was before the Senate in 1995, we 
were told then that an amendment to the Constitution was not necessary, 
as we had been told many times before, if Congress did its work. 
Congress is not doing its work, and, therefore, we need the amendment.
  It is interesting as to just what this amendment does. I think the 
American people should understand, and it has been said on the floor 
before, but we are simply asking people to vote tomorrow to let the 
States and the people decide whether they want to amend the 
Constitution of the United States.
  No amendment passes here tomorrow. We do not have an amendment if the 
Senate gets 67 votes. That does not happen. What happens when we vote 
here tomorrow is that this will then go to the States where three-
quarters of the State legislatures would have to agree.
  That is all we are asking to do. We are simply asking this Congress, 
who at times appears to have this know-it-all attitude, to send this 
back to the States. Let the States decide whether they want to amend 
the Constitution. If they say no, there is no amendment.
  I campaigned for a balanced budget when I first ran for political 
office in 1980. The national debt was nowhere near $5 trillion then. 
And 16 years later--16 years later--we are still debating the proposal, 
trillions and trillions of dollars added to the debt since that time.
  To hear the rhetoric in here, you would think it was not important, 
it did not matter, we do not need an amendment. Why would anyone like 
myself and others devote more than a decade of time to fight for this 
balanced budget amendment or to fight for a balanced budget, either 
one? The answer is very simple.
  I am going to take a different approach here. We have heard a lot of 
speeches today. If some people have listened all day, they have 
probably heard a lot of things repeated. I am going to take a different 
approach. This is going to come from the people, not from this Senate, 
not from this Senator, not from some bureaucracy in Washington. I want 
to say what impact this amendment to the Constitution will have on the 
people of this country, ordinary men and women, all over America. I 
want everyone to know what balancing the budget will do to their lives, 
the lives of every single American man and woman in a very real and 
very tangible way.
  The Senator from Oklahoma, Senator Inhofe, had a picture here of his 
grandson on the floor moments ago. That child has an $18,000 debt 
today. There will be hundreds of children born here in America during 
my remarks on the Senate floor today. Each one will be born $18,000-
plus in debt. That is their share of the national debt. Is that fair? 
Is that fair to that child? Is that fair for us to do that?
  I was listening very carefully to the Senator from Wisconsin a moment 
ago. Is it really so unfair of us to ask that the people who are 
suffering the brunt of this debt have the opportunity to say whether or 
not they want an amendment? Is that so bad? I cannot understand why 
those with this know-it-all attitude in Washington would take that 
position.
  Again, I repeat, no amendment becomes an amendment because we vote 
for it with 67 or more votes tomorrow. All we are asking is that that 
little child who really cannot vote yet that the Senator from Oklahoma 
referred to moments ago, through his family, have the right to say 
through their State legislature in Oklahoma and 49 other States whether 
or not they want to amend the Constitution because the politicians are 
not getting the job done. That is all we are asking. It is very clear 
that we understand that. That is all we are asking.
  I just announced recently for reelection to the U.S. Senate, a great 
honor. My seat in this Senate does not belong to me. It belongs to the 
people of New Hampshire. Right over there on the floor--I am not using 
it at this moment--is Daniel Webster's desk. Daniel Webster's desk is 
one of the few original desks in this Senate Chamber. I often speak 
from it. I often write on it, write letters to constituents on it. I 
think about the fact that I am just a temporary steward at that desk, 
just a blip on the radar screen of eternity. That is all we are.

  Sometimes we think that we are a big deal in here, we are in the U.S. 
Senate and we are very important people. But you know, in the scope of 
things, we are really not all that important. In the radar screen of 
life, of eternity, we are a blip, a very small blip at that.
  Daniel Webster stood at that desk on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 
the old Chamber and gave some of the greatest speeches of all time. 
Webster and Calhoun and Clay were some of the great orators. He stood 
at that desk. But, again, Daniel Webster was a blip on the radar screen 
of eternity.
  So we have an obligation. We are only here a brief time. But think 
about what we are doing to the children and the grandchildren and their 
grandchildren. The distinguished Senator from Illinois, Senator Simon, 
who spoke while I was in the chair, gave a very eloquent speech. He 
said in jest, the Senator from New Hampshire probably had never been 
invited to a Jefferson dinner or a Jackson dinner because they were 
usually chaired by the Democrats, who obviously look at Jackson and 
Jefferson as heroes. I look at Jackson and Jefferson as heroes. I am 
not a Democrat, but I would not hesitate to go to a dinner honoring 
Jackson or Jefferson.
  But this party that leads the defeat of this amendment is not the 
party of Jackson and Jefferson, I can assure you. Jackson and Jefferson 
would be for the balanced budget amendment. Jefferson already, early in 
his life, right after the Constitution was formed and written and the 
Government was formed, spoke out saying he felt it was a mistake that 
we did not have an amendment to balance the budget.
  So I am often asked what is it like, what I do like the most about 
being a U.S. Senator. Boy, I could say a lot of things. I have met 
Presidents. I have met foreign leaders. I walk around here with some of 
the great Senators of our time. You can really get an ego about that if 
you want to, but I do not. I really do not. You know, without 
hesitation, when I am asked that question --and I am asked it often--I 
say every time, I like being a Senator because I enjoy helping people. 
That is the truth.
  We get a chance to help people get through this maze of bureaucracy, 
whether it is an immigration case or perhaps some other matter where 
somebody is having a tough time with the Federal Government, perhaps a 
veteran or whatever.
  I think about what does that have to do with this debate on the 
balanced budget? We can help people. We can help people by balancing 
this budget more than a million cases that we might resolve in our 
offices, more than 10 million cases that we might resolve in our 
offices. We can help the American people, like little Jason, whose 
picture was on the floor here with Senator Inhofe a moment ago, and 
millions of others, men, women and children, because the Joint Economic 
Committee estimates that a balanced budget would create 4.25 million 
jobs, new jobs in America, upon its passage.
  That is 4 million people working, 4 million people feeding their 
families, not on welfare--obviously, taken off welfare if they were on 
it--providing revenue to the U.S. Treasury, to provide funds to do 
something good, hopefully, for someone else. That is 4.25 million new 
jobs if we pass the balanced budget. Those are not Government jobs, my 
colleagues. They are not here in Washington. They are jobs all across 
America as a result of the spurt in economic activity that would occur 
because that amendment passed.

  The American people do not want a Government handout. They never 
have. They want to work hard. They want the opportunity to earn a 
decent living and be left alone. ``Leave us alone. Let us earn our way 
through life. We don't want you to give us handouts. We want you to get 
out of the way. You are here to protect us, to defend us. And you're 
not protecting us and you're not defending us when you run us into debt 
and you give it to our children, $5 trillion.''
  That is today. If you think of debt today as a hockey stick, the 
first 200 years of our Nation was the toe of that hockey stick, and the 
next 10 or 15

[[Page S5845]]

were the handle of the stick. It goes up like this. Then the next 10 or 
15 we are going to go so far out of the way, $10, $15 trillion, that, 
as others have already said many times today, we will file the 
equivalent of chapter 11, bankruptcy. It will happen. Then what happens 
to our grandchildren?
  The debate is about our grandchildren and their children. It is about 
simply asking those young folks and their parents and relatives to have 
the opportunity to vote through their legislatures to pass or reject a 
constitutional amendment. That is all this debate is about on the 
Senate floor. Anybody who says anything else is simply not accurate.
  What else does a balanced budget do for those people out there who 
work, those whom we represent? How about our sons and daughters who go 
to get a good education in college? I have a daughter who just 
graduated from Lafayette College in Easton, PA, on May 19. The cost was 
roughly $100,000 in 4 years.
  In higher education, whether it is public or private, it is not 
cheap, obviously. It is going up.

  Now, think about those 21-22-23-year-olds who earned their diplomas 
last month, or perhaps a few this month. Many of them are facing, 
today, an uncertain job market. Why is it uncertain? Because of the 
fiscal irresponsibility of this Government, for one thing. I have 
already mentioned how a balanced budget can help in their job search 
because we can create another 4.25 million jobs. Maybe they would get 
one.
  Assume for a moment one of the graduates is fortunate and finds a 
good job, and he or she probably has a few student loans that need 
repayment. Lower interest rates from a balanced budget would save on 
the average 10-year student loan for a 4-year private college, an 
average figure, a 10-year student loan, get the loan for 10 years, 
going to a 4-year private college, if the budget were balanced, the 
lowering of interest rates that would occur from balancing the Federal 
budget would save that recipient of that loan nearly $9,000 in that 10-
year loan--$8,885 to be exact. When the American people are told about 
cuts in education or informed of a new proposal to provide a $1,500 tax 
credit for tuition, they should take the news with a grain of salt. The 
President vetoed a balanced budget that would reduce student loan costs 
by $9,000. That is what he vetoed. To atone for the veto, the President 
then says we will give everybody a $1,500 tax credit so they can go to 
college. If these kids paid off their student loan, and they could pay 
them off faster with $8,000 or $9,000 less, there is more money 
available to the student loan pot to those coming along.
  Bill Cosby, in a graduation speech at my daughter's graduation, said, 
``Pay off your student loans.'' That was his advice. Pay off the 
student loans. If you do, others will follow you and they will have the 
opportunity to get an education. If you had $9,000 less in interest on 
those loans you could pay them off a heck of a lot faster. That is what 
the balanced budget amendment means to them.
  A balanced budget will do more for education in America than any 
tuition tax credit, any Government loans, or, frankly, Goals 2000. It 
is 9,000 bucks in the pockets of that young man or woman, just from 
passing balancing the budget.
  I used to be a schoolteacher. I think I know about education. I was a 
schoolteacher, a school board member, and a father for 21 years. I 
think I know a little bit about education. Do not take my word for it. 
Ask any students who graduated a few weeks ago and they will tell you 
the same thing. A balanced budget will dramatically improve the lives 
of those young men and women who are just getting started in life.
  That is why we were elected, to help people. This helps people. This 
is not a vague, opaque kind of mysterious concept we are debating here 
on the floor of the Senate today. This affects every man, woman, and 
child in America directly. There are many families in New Hampshire 
working two or three jobs just to make ends meet, as I am sure there 
are in Oregon, Texas, and everywhere else. They do it to put food on 
the table and pay the mortgages. The mortgage payment comes due every 
month, rain or shine, sickness or health. It is the largest bill most 
Americans ever pay. Think about this for a moment. That is the biggest 
line item in your entire family budget other than the money you pay to 
the Federal Government in taxes.
  A family in New Hampshire with an $80,000 mortgage, and you can put 
this in any other State, $80,000 mortgage, would save $107 each month--
each month--if the Federal books were balanced. Over the life of a 30-
year loan, that family would save $38,653. Now, if someone could tell 
me what Government program or what act we could take here on the floor 
of the Senate today that would provide $38,000 in the pockets of the 
American people, better than that, I would like to know what it is. 
That is the positive spinoff of balancing the Federal budget--helping 
people.

  Again, we are talking about dramatically improving the lives of 
people, not just residually, dramatically helping improve the lives of 
the American people with a balanced budget. What Government program 
could do as much for the American family as a balanced budget? 
AmeriCorps? I do not think so. Funding for the arts? Peanut subsidies? 
I am afraid not. Battling the budget is what we need to do. That helps 
people.
  Madam President, there is another point that is often lost in this 
debate. The question before the U.S. Senate is whether or not we should 
send this budget to the States for ratification. Amendments to the 
Constitution are not just sent down Pennsylvania Avenue for a 
Presidential signature or for a veto. I alluded to this earlier but I 
want to say it again, they are sent to all 50 States, 38 legislatures, 
three-quarters of them must pass identical language, identical 
language, before this amendment becomes a part of our Constitution. 
Should the decision be made in Washington, DC, or Concord, NH, or 
Butte, MT, or wherever else--how should that decision be made? Where 
are the families sitting around the table? It is not here on the Senate 
floor in Washington, DC, where they are working their budgets out and 
worried about how they will make their payments. It is in the small 
towns and cities all over America, where families live and work and try 
to earn a living and want the Government to help them, but to stay out 
of their way.
  The balanced budget amendment is not a debate about accounting. It is 
not a debate about politics. It is not a debate about anything except 
real people. That is what this debate is about. What you have to ask 
yourself when you come down here on the floor tomorrow to vote, you 
have to ask yourself three or four major questions: If I vote ``no'' on 
the balanced budget amendment, do I help the college graduate 
struggling with student loans? Do I help him or her? The answer to that 
question is, no, you do not. You hurt them. Second, do I help the 
single mother who is having trouble with her mortgage payment? The 
answer is, no, you hurt her. I have heard people on this Senate floor 
on the other side of the aisle talk about their compassion for single 
parents and the difficulties that young women with children at home 
have as they try to go through life working and taking care of those 
children. I had a single mother because my dad died when I was 4 years 
old. I know what it was like. Believe me, I know what it was like for 
her. And it was tough. I know what it was like, and I know how much 
that would have meant to her to have that much more money in real 
income in her mortgage and perhaps to help me with my college loans had 
she been able to have a balanced budget.
  Do you help create a job for a laid off mill worker if you vote 
``no?'' The answer is no, you do not. You insure that he or she will 
probably be laid off a little bit longer. There is no compassion there. 
Do you let these people and their elected representatives in the States 
have the opportunity to debate the merits of amending the Constitution? 
Do you allow them to have that opportunity? The answer is no, you do 
not if you vote ``no.'' You say, ``I am sorry, we do not want you to 
have that opportunity. We don't want it to leave here. (A) we do not 
want to balance the budget; (B) we do not want to help people; and (C) 
we do not want you to have the opportunity to talk about that in your 
State legislature.'' That is what you say when you vote ``no.''
  What do you really say, though? Here is what you do say: Washington 
knows

[[Page S5846]]

best. We have all the answers here. We can get 66 votes or less and we 
can beat you and you cannot get the opportunity to vote in your State.
  My colleagues, in conclusion, the choice is very clear. There has 
been a lot of emotion on the floor here these last few hours, but the 
choice is very clear. You want to help people? You want to really help 
people without a Government handout? Vote for this constitutional 
amendment to balance the budget because it will not get done, the 
budget will not be balanced without it, and you know it. I yield the 
floor.
  Mr. BURNS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana is recognized.
  Mr. BURNS. Madam President, we have all listened with a great deal of 
interest all day as this debate has gone on. We look at it from 
different angles, I guess. There are some of us who come to this body 
and engage in this debate, and we take a look at the world from 
different angles. I happen to look at it from the bottom up. I have 
been pretty much one of those people at the working end of the American 
spectrum, I guess. I came up the hard way. You know, for once, I had an 
idea that this year maybe common sense would prevail. I really had 
hopes of that. I am not a lawyer, not highly educated.
  When you think about how simple this little debate is, it is just 
about sending an idea to be considered by the people who live in our 
respective States. That is all it is about. It is not about pain, or 
hurting, or what we are going to do. If we had a constitutional 
amendment that said we have to balance the budget, do you think it 
would cut down on the little squabbles we have in our debates on the 
budget? No, I do not think so, because everybody has a different set of 
priorities. But the idea is just to send it to the States, to let 
America take a look at it, and to let the citizens turn over in their 
own minds whether we need an amendment to force Congress to balance the 
budget.
  You know, Americans watch us every day, and folks at home say, ``Why 
do you not get along better up there?'' ``Why do you have these heated 
debates?'' I guess I have listened to the Senator from Arkansas and his 
speech regarding mining. I have listened to that for 7 years now, 
almost 8. It never changes. And some who do not really understand the 
issue sometimes get confused. As we talk about this issue, this issue 
of a balanced budget--and, remember, it is no sin to oppose it. In 
fact, it may be good that some would oppose it because that adds 
something to the debate. You have the right to oppose, but you do not 
have the right to distort the facts.
  We are talking about passing a proposed amendment to the Constitution 
of the United States and sending it to the States for ratification. My 
friend from Illinois had it right. As Americans watch us, he said, ``Do 
it.'' Do we have the courage to do it? We have heard all of the 
arguments. Of course, if common sense is not going to take over, then 
we have to argue another end of it. Basically, I kind of come from the 
philosophy on taxation that, yes, a certain amount of Government is 
needed and desired by most Americans--in fact, I would say all of them. 
But we still have a responsibility to that earner to allow him or her 
to earn more and to keep more so they can do more for themselves and 
their communities. I do not have the right to jerk the future away from 
young people.
  I have a daughter that will graduate from medical school a year from 
right now. I do not have a right to jeopardize her future to practice 
her profession. I have a son that has the same kind of a future--a very 
bright future. But I, as a legislator or citizen do not have the right 
to jerk that future away from him. Do you know what? I do not think 
anybody else does either.
  You have the right to oppose this amendment. You do not have the 
right to distort. Last year, Congress passed a budget that would have 
balanced in 7 years. President Clinton vetoed it. In fact, in order to 
avoid a balanced budget, he forced a shutdown of the Federal 
Government--not once, but twice. Congress was finally able to pass the 
budget for the year, but it fell short of its goal and did nothing, 
fundamentally, to change the way Government spends the hard-earned 
money of our citizens.

  Eighty percent of Americans favor a balanced budget amendment. And 
the country is watching right now, this week, to see if this Congress 
caves in to the President once more. More than any other piece of 
legislation that we vote on this year, this constitutional amendment 
will have the longest and the most lasting effect that we will do in 
this 104th Congress. So I stand here as a supporter of it and ask my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to take a look. Just think, and 
use your good old common sense, and do the right thing.
  President Clinton proved one thing last year: One man can stand in 
the way of real progress, and he can stand in the way of real reform. 
Last year, the President pressured six Democrats, who already voted for 
the amendment in previous votes, to kill the amendment when we had a 
chance of passage. One vote. It proved that he alone was the man that 
stood in the way of success.
  Ironically, President Clinton used to support a balanced budget 
amendment to the Constitution. In 1985, when he was a Governor, he 
boasted about his work with the National Governors' Association, and he 
said, ``The NGA is on record in a resolution as supporting a 
constitutional amendment for a balanced budget, something Republicans 
could never have passed without the help of Democratic Governors, and I 
was one of them.'' He referred to his own State's constitutional 
requirement to balance the State budget as his own salvation.
  Now, does the President want a balanced budget? He says he does 
nearly every time he is asked. But I am wondering if his words are 
supporting his actions. But irrespective of that, do we, as Members of 
this Congress--irrespective of what the President thinks--do we have 
the courage and do we have the discipline to pass this amendment and 
send it to the States?
  Well, as I already mentioned, the President rallied the Democrats in 
Congress to kill the balanced budget amendment last summer. On top of 
that, only one of the record five separate budgets that President 
Clinton submitted to Congress even came close to balancing the budget. 
He vetoed the Republican budget and shut down the Federal Government, 
not once but twice, and the Republican budget would have created 
balance by the year 2002.
  Is it not ironic today, when we turn on the television and there are 
the trustees of the Medicare trust fund saying that we were wrong last 
year in saying that the trust fund will be completely out of money by 
the year 2002. We were wrong. It is going to be out of money in 2001. 
We have heard Senator after Senator stand on this floor and say, ``We 
can take care of it, and we do not need all of these draconian, these 
extreme measures,'' when actually we were allowing the trust fund to 
grow at around 7 percent a year. They called that a cut. This is the 
only town in America where that can happen. And because we did not have 
the nerve to deal with that situation a year ago, we are now a year 
behind in taking actions to make sure that the Medicare trust fund is 
solvent, is strong, and will be there for generations to come. Some 
chose to stick their heads in the sand and ignore the problem.
  If that sort of makes you a little bit mad, whoever is listening and 
watching, it is supposed to. We did not do our responsibility last year 
when we were told by the same set of trustees, three of which work for 
the President in his administration as Cabinet Secretaries--yes; they 
were on the television today telling us that we are in deficit spending 
now, and we will continue to be and will be broke and out of money by 
the year 2001. Despite the President's action, the public debate about 
the balanced budget has been won.
  Look at the polls. Look at the polling. One says that if you love 
this country, there are two kinds of freedoms, and the basic of all is 
economic freedom, because there can be no political freedom unless we 
have economic freedom under our system. We can change the system and 
all be ruled by a benevolent ruler. Even he operates the Treasury, and 
we all become servants and subservient to an all-powerful being.
  I think when our forefathers put together this great Constitution, I 
will say that as the debate went on, they would probably, the American 
people, if that had been televised, they would

[[Page S5847]]

have been a little bit cynical about Government then, because there 
were some great debates.
  What did our forefathers do when they put together the Constitution? 
I will tell you. They probably did not have the great vision of seeing 
America as it is today, but they had a very, very strong sense of 
history. And if we learn anything in the study of history, it is that 
those who forget it are damned to repeat it. When we revive history to 
make it suit our own taste or to be politically correct, then we are 
tinkering with the compass because we are going to make some decisions 
based on history.
  Those forefathers were products of a feudal system. They knew that in 
order for ``free men''--two words--to survive in self-government, it 
took about three things. It took education, it took discipline, and 
also it took those who studied history and do not forget it.
  I ask my colleagues by voting for a balanced budget amendment now, we 
are taking one of the many steps that is needed in order to secure a 
stable future for our children. We do not do anything in this body for 
immediate action. Maybe some of us do. We cast votes that make us feel 
good. It is not always good for the Nation, but it makes us feel good. 
Look what we have done. We do it because the effects of our action here 
come many, many years later. It is the foundation that was laid by our 
fathers and our grandfathers that enabled us to do the things today, 
what we have to do, and we have to protect that heritage and that great 
history, and pass it on to the next generation. We cannot continue to 
have runaway deficits and accumulate mountains of debt and expect to 
remain competitive and financially solvent in today's global economy.
  So we stand in support of a balanced budget. It is even more 
important today. Just think of the technology that we have today--three 
little inventions, three little inventions that have, in comparison, or 
relative to this building, brought the world down to the size of a 
basketball. We can talk and interact with anybody in any other place in 
the world, wired or wireless, in 5 seconds. Those three inventions are 
the transistor, the jet engine, and the silicon chip. It changed our 
whole life. We cannot go back to the old days. We cannot do it. And the 
only way that we stay a leader in a global economy is if we stay 
economically solvent.
  No other nation has the potential of leading the rest of the world 
than this country, the only superpower that is left. Yet, we would 
allow the power to be eroded by not being careful with our funds as we 
should be. Just because we have a balanced budget amendment does not 
mean that we are not going to have--my good friend, the Senator from 
Florida is on the floor, and he is going to have different priorities 
than I have. He just is. We would expect that, but we can work them out 
when both of us know that we have to solve problem No. 1 on the ground, 
and it has to be solved within certain parameters.
  My heavens, common sense may take over. Who knows? Sometimes in this 
town, though, they say there is a vaccine for that. It is called 
Potomac water.
  So I support the balanced budget amendment. I urge my colleagues to 
support it just from the standpoint that it is like good old Quaker 
Oats; it is the right thing to do.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, I support a constitutional amendment to 
balance the Federal budget. It is a sound and necessary approach to 
solving the severe fiscal crisis that is beginning to plague this 
country year after year.
  I believe that the force of a constitutional amendment is needed to 
mandate an end to profligate spending decisions that have hijacked the 
economic growth and security of this Nation over the past quarter of a 
century. Each year, when elected officials debate the Federal budget, 
responsible spending decisions are buffeted about by the winds of 
political rhetoric. There is no final arbiter to insure that sound 
economic decisions are made in the best long-term interest of the 
country. We need this constitutional amendment to force us to take the 
proper steps to repair and preserve the economic superiority of the 
United States of America.
  Mr. President, I am concerned about the future of this country, and 
about what failure to balance the budget today can do to burden the 
lives of our children and grandchildren tomorrow.
  For example, there have been a number of balanced budget proposals 
proffered in just the past year. The President has offered balanced 
plans, the House and the Senate have created their own balanced plans, 
and last week a bipartisan group of Senators offered yet another 
balanced budget plan. And yet, with all of these alternatives and 
professed commitment to a balanced budget, the Congress and the 
President have been not been able to reach agreement on a single one of 
them. Perhaps we need the force of the Constitution of the United 
States to give us the courage to stand up, take responsibility, and 
make the tough choices that balanced budgets require.
  Our burgeoning Federal debt is the greatest crisis facing our Nation 
today. It is devouring our savings, robbing our ability to invest in 
infrastructure and education, and saddling our children with an 
enormous bill that will eventually have to be paid. The interest 
payments on the debt consume dollars that could otherwise go for urgent 
needs such as infrastructure and education.
  In 1980, the cumulative Federal debt was $910 billion. A decade later 
the debt had tripled, and today it stands at $4.9 trillion. Simply 
limiting the Government's ability to borrow is not enough to achieve 
deficit reduction or to control the compounding interest on the 
national debt. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 
``significant deficit reduction can best be accomplished by legislative 
decisions that reduce outlays or increase revenues.''
  If we do not balance the budget today and continue on our path of 
irresponsible spending, what will happen? Here are a few examples:
  In the year 2000, annual interest payments on the Federal debt will 
grow to about $305 billion--an increase of over 50 percent in just 4 
years. Interest payments on the debt will surpass defense spending and 
become the largest Federal expenditure.
  In the year 2012, unless policy changes are enacted, projected 
spending on entitlement programs and interest on the debt will grow so 
rapidly that they will consume all tax revenues collected by the 
Federal Government.
  In the year 2012, unless changes are made, the Government could 
theoretically close all Federal prisons, national parks, the Pentagon, 
and eliminate spending on research and development, education, roads 
and bridges and still not have enough savings to eliminate the deficit.
  In the year 2030, to bring the deficit down to the current level, the 
Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform concluded that 
either all Federal taxes would have to be increased by 85 percent or 
all Federal spending programs would have to be cut in half.
  When I took the oath of office in 1983 as Governor of the State of 
Nevada, the Nevada State Constitution required a balanced budget. The 
necessary, excruciating task of balancing the State budget took strong 
executive and legislative leadership. Those tough decisions were made, 
and each year the State budget was balanced.
  Nevada is not alone in requiring a balanced budget, in fact, many 
States across the Nation require Governors to submit, and legislatures 
to pass, budgets that reconcile revenues and expenditures. It is time 
that the Congress and the President come together and make the tough 
decisions that are required for fiscally responsible governance.
  History has shown that nothing is more desired and nothing is more 
avoided than the will to make tough choices. The last time our Federal 
budget was balanced was 1969.
  Mr. President, we are sitting on a time bomb. Our obligation to 
finance the national debt eats away each year at our ability to address 
the critical needs of our population. Passing this amendment will 
signal to the American people that we are concerned about the solvency 
of this country, and it will demonstrate our commitment to preserving 
important government resources that are a lifeline for so many of our 
citizens. I strongly urge the passage of the constitutional balanced 
budget amendment.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, the United States of America was born of

[[Page S5848]]

dislike and disgust of taxation. Unfair and burdensome taxation was the 
impetus for the Declaration of Independence. You would think we would 
have learned a lesson from this.
  Unfortunately not. Government taxes on the American people have 
reached all time high, choking off economic growth. Working Americans 
now pay 41.3 percent of their income in taxes--a 1.3-percent increase 
since President Clinton came into office. We spend nearly as much for 
interest on the national debt as we spend on the defense budget and 40 
cents of every income tax dollar goes to interest. A child born today 
is destined to pay $187,000 in interest on the national debt during his 
or her lifetime.
  And these astronomical rates are not high enough to meet current 
spending needs. Future generations could see tax rates of up to 84 
percent, if we don't stop this profligate spending.
  We have tried over and over again as a deliberative body to stop the 
cycle of deficit spending. We had the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, then 
we had Gramm-Rudman II, and then we had the budget deals of 1990 and 
1993. Yet we have not been able to get one Senate to hold the next 
Senate on the path to a balanced budget.
  While one Senate cannot bind the next Senate, this Senate certainly 
shackles the next generation to this generations' debts. The result: 
the cost of current programs--from which we all now benefit--is being 
foisted upon the next generation. And that next generation of 
Americans, who haven't yet earned their first paychecks, can't vote--
they have no say in what we are doing. That is obscene; that is 
immoral; that is un-American.
  Beltway robber barons, elected and unelected, are addicted to 
spending. The only way to end this psychological dependence to pass the 
balanced budget amendment.
  The balanced budget amendment would outlaw deficit spending and force 
government to balance its books. It would return accountability to the 
Constitution and restraint on our spending --in short, integrity in our 
Government. It will rightly return the power of the purse to the 
people.
  The belief we can only control government by controlling its capacity 
to take our money is as old as the idea of democracy. Money was--and 
is--the source of the Government's basic power. The tale of history 
bears testament to this truth. The Magna Carta prescribed that the king 
could not impose taxes--except through the consent of the great 
council. Charles I was executed because he tried to govern without 
seeking the consent of parliament in spending public money.
  Congress today doesn't have to vote to raise more taxes in order to 
spend more money. Instead our legislature takes the debtor's path: 
spend and beg; spend and plead; spend and borrow. Our current system 
lets the Government spend on credit and sign the taxpayers' name on the 
dotted line.
  For too long this body has assembled to satisfy the appetites of 
narrow interests at the expense of the public. The American people are 
fed up with a Congress that spends the as yet unearned wages of the 
next generation. Thomas Jefferson was right when he proscribed in 1789, 
``no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the 
course of its own existence.''
  The balanced budget amendment is not a quick fix. It is real reform 
that will end deficit spending except in times of war. Constitutional 
measures that enforce a balance budget have worked at the State level 
and will work at the Federal level. I know, from my service as Governor 
in one of 49 States that require a balanced budget. As Governor, I 
balanced budgets 8 years in a row. Not only did we balance the budget, 
we put into place a cash operating reserve fund of several hundred 
millions of dollars. We established a rainy day fund because we knew 
there would be episodes of fiscal crisis and financial difficulty in 
the future that we would need to meet. And we knew, since we were 
required by our constitution to have a balanced budget, that we would 
need to prepare for it in advance. Experience has shown that State 
constitutional balanced budget provisions force legislatures and 
executives to prioritize and cut spending. Passage of the balanced 
budget amendment would do the same for the Federal Government.
  During this debate concerning a balanced budget amendment to the 
constitution, we have heard frequently and forcefully that there is no 
need for us to amend the U.S. Constitution. It has been argued the 
constitution gives Congress the authority to balance the budget--for 
the Federal Government to live within its means. Mr. President, 
Congress does not lack authority. Congress lacks self-restraint. 
Congress doesn't need permission to balance the budget, it needs to be 
forbidden from doing otherwise. When it's time to stand firm, when it's 
time to prioritize spending, when it's time to make tough choices--
Congress seems to experience a collective collapse of will.
  Mr. President, last year you and I and other Members of this Chamber 
endured a balanced budget amendment debate, and ultimately we fell one 
vote short. We fell one vote short in March 1995 because a number of 
Senators reneged on their promise to vote for the amendment. We fell 
one vote short because six Senators who voted against the balanced 
budget amendment who voted for it 12 months earlier. We fell one vote 
short because many of our colleagues said over and over again: ``All we 
need is the will and the courage, and the determination to balance the 
budget.'' Well, I am here to tell you that that was just one more lame 
excuse.
  This profligate spending must stop. In 1962, the Federal Government's 
budget reached $100 billion. By 1971 it had doubled to $200 billion. By 
1977, it had doubled again. By 1983, it had doubled again. The budget 
for next year, fiscal year 1997, will be more than $1.6 trillion--the 
budget doubled again. Of course, spending has far exceeded revenues, so 
much so that we have accumulated a Federal debt of over $5 trillion. In 
fact, we haven't seen a budget surplus for 25 years. And next year the 
Federal Government will spend around $240 billion just to pay for 
interest on the Federal debt--that is nearly $1,000 for every man, 
woman, and child in America.
  Mr. President, deficit spending is not only a threat to our 
prosperity and our children's future, it is the method by which 
Washington's imperial elite has circumvented the public, the law, and 
the Constitution. Deficit spending allows beltway robber barons to run 
this country without regard to the people. Whether it's pork projects 
or political payoffs, the Washington elite know how to play the game.
  That must end. A balanced budget amendment will compel the Members of 
this body to raise taxes if they want to spend more money--what better 
way to restrain spending than that. A balanced budget amendment will 
make clear to all that the special interest is rewarded when the 
citizen is penalized.
  What will a balanced budget amendment mean? Accountability to the 
Constitution and restraint on our spending--in short, integrity in our 
Government. It will rightly return the power of the purse to the 
people.
  The balanced budget amendment is not a quick fix, it is real reform 
and it will be felt. It will be felt first and foremost by an imperial 
elite who have long run this town. It will be felt by a brood of 
beltway barons--elected and unelected--who are robbing the next 
generation of their yet unearned wages. And most importantly, it will 
be felt by the American people who will have succeeded in restoring 
their right to self-governance.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, last year I presented three papers to 
the Senate urging opposition to this constitutional amendment. The 
first paper argued that the existing deficits were a recent event and 
marked a sharp departure from the fiscal problems of earlier 
administrations, which were directed primarily to the problem of a 
persistent full employment surplus, with its accompanying downward 
pressure on consumer demand. The second paper related the singular 
events of the 1980s, which led to huge deficits and a huge debt. The 
third paper explored the folly and danger of writing into the 
Constitution decrees concerning fiscal policy which would have been 
inappropriate to a small 18th century republic, and would be 
potentially destabilizing to a world power in the 20th century.
  In the FY 1973 budget, OMB Director George P. Shultz explained the 
``full-employment budget concept'' as follows:


[[Page S5849]]


       . . . expenditures should not exceed the level at which the 
     budget would be balanced under conditions of full employment.

  Which is to say that in the absence of full employment, as was the 
case in FY 1973, the Federal government should deliberately contrive to 
incur a deficit equal to the difference between the revenues that would 
actually come in at levels of underemployment, and those that would 
come in at full employment. Far from being inevitable and unavoidable, 
there were points in the business cycle where a deficit had to be 
created. Otherwise, surpluses would choke off recovery.
  The term ``full employment surplus'' had originated earlier. The 
January 1962 report of the Council of Economic Advisers explained that 
as the recovery from the recession of 1958 got underway, economic 
activity grew and so did the revenues of the Federal government. But 
Congress would not spend the additional revenue. As a result, the 
recovery stalled. This untoward event was ascribed to ``fiscal drag.''
  Beginning in 1980, the Reagan White House and Office of Management 
and Budget set about creating a crisis by bringing about deficits 
intended to force Congress to cut certain programs. In a television 
address 16 days after his inauguration, President Reagan said:

       There were always those who told us that taxes couldn't be 
     cut until spending was reduced. Well, you know we can lecture 
     our children about extravagance until we run out of voice and 
     breath. Or we can cut their extravagance by simply reducing 
     their allowance.

  Haynes Johnson wrote of this in Sleepwalking Through History: America 
Through the Reagan Years (1991). I will simply quote a footnote on page 
111:

       [Stockman's] former mentor Moynihan was the first to charge 
     that the Reagan Administration ``consciously and deliberately 
     brought about'' higher deficits to force congressional 
     domestic cuts. Moynihan was denounced and then proven 
     correct, except that the cuts to achieve balanced budgets 
     were never made and the deficits ballooned even higher.

  A balanced budget amendment would undo all that we have learned about 
economic policy over the past 60 years. There was enormous volatility 
in economic activity prior to 1945--volatility that would be considered 
unacceptable today. For example in 1906, output increased by 11.6 
percent, to be followed 2 years later by a decline of 8.2 percent in 
1908, and an increase of 16.6 percent in 1909. And in 1918, output 
increased by 12.3 percent to be followed by 3 consecutive years of 
negative growth including a drop of 8.7 percent in 1921. And then, of 
course there was the Great Depression. After increasing by 6.7 percent 
in 1929, output fell by 9.9 percent in 1930, another 7.7 percent in 
1931, and then a further devastating decline of 14.8 percent in 1932. 
After World War II all this changed, following a brief adjustment 
period, as the country converted from a wartime to peacetime economy. 
Since then, the largest reduction in output was 2.1 percent in 1982.
  In the 1970's I asked Council of Economic Advisers Chairman, Charles 
L. Schultze, what would happen if we had tried to balance the budget in 
the middle of the 1975 recession. He reported back that the computers 
at the Council ``blew up''. GDP--then called GNP--dropped another 12 
percent in an economy in which output was already 5 percent below 
capacity. During the debate on the balanced budget amendment last year, 
this simulation was repeated by the Treasury Department and by my own 
staff with the same results. A moderate recession in which the 
unemployment rate increases by 2-3 percent turns into a major 
contraction--may I say depression--in which unemployment soars over 10 
percent and output falls by 15 percent or more. In the entire post-
World War II era the unemployment rate exceeded 10 percent only for a 
brief 10 months during the 1981-82 recession.

  Let us not undo the progress we have already made--progress easily 
seen if we look at the facts.
  Last year, in my third paper opposing this constitutional amendment, 
I noted:

       As a result of the deficit reduction policies we have had 
     three straight years of deficit reduction--the first such 
     string of declines since the administration of Harry S. 
     Truman. Here are the numbers:
       FY 1992: $290.4 billion.
       FY 1993: $255.1 billion.
       FY 1994: $203.2 billion.
       OMB 1995 est.: $192.5 billion.
       CBO 1995 est.: $176 billion.

  With a year of hindsight I confess to being somewhat inaccurate. 
Remarkably, the deficit for fiscal year 1995 was even lower than 
projected: $163.8 billion compared to projections of $176 to $192 
billion. The fiscal year 1996 deficit will be even lower, resulting in 
4 consecutive years of deficit reduction.
  And the budget outlook improves almost monthly. While I was on the 
floor opposing a balanced budget amendment last February, the 
Congressional Budget Office was projecting a fiscal year 1996 deficit 
of $207 billion. By August 1995, CBO had lowered its projection to $189 
billion. And then again another reduction in December 1995 to $172 
billion. Even the latest CBO forecast of $144 billion released last 
month is outdated. Following new revenue estimates from the Treasury 
Department, June O'Neill, Director of CBO, indicated on May 20, 1996 
that her agency had lowered its estimate of the fiscal year 1996 
deficit to $130 billion.
  Some will note that the latest estimates incorporate the effects of 
both an expected fiscal dividend from a balanced budget and legislative 
actions that reduced discretionary spending.
  But the bottom line is even better than expected, so let's give a 
cheer.
  The deficit has been cut by more than 50 percent from $290 billion to 
about $130 billion in 4 years.
  The deficit is now about 1.7 percent of GDP.
  And we have a primary surplus--that is, excluding interest payments, 
revenues exceed outlays.
  Adopting a constitutional amendment to balance the budget--which I 
argued in 1981 in the Wall Street Journal is tantamount ``to writing 
algebra into the Constitution''--can only jeopardize the remarkable 
progress we have already made. We can and we will complete the job of 
balancing the budget without this amendment.
  I urge the Senate to once again reject this proposed balanced budget 
amendment to the Constitution.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, the distinguished majority leader, Mr. 
Dole, has scheduled for the Senate a reconsideration of the enormously 
important issue of amending the U.S. Constitution to require that 
Congress return to the principle of a balanced federal budget.
  One of my heroes, Thomas Jefferson, put it this way:

       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, Mr. President, tells it all, and that is one of the many 
reasons that I so strongly support the balanced budget amendment. It is 
indeed wrong--in fact, it is criminal, for Congress to mandate the 
Federal Government to spend more than it takes in. It is demonstrably 
destructive to the economy, and ultimately to our society. It is a 
horrible legacy to impose upon our children and grandchildren.
  The Congress has a moral duty to stop the charade of out-of-control 
deficit spending which has shackled future generations with a debt that 
causes wage stagnation and anemic economic growth. For too long, the 
Congress discarded its duty and responsibility, and has shamelessly 
supported bloated appropriations for political expedience.
  For a very long time, this institution has condoned the free-lunch 
syndrome, which has never existed, and never will. Mr. President, as of 
the close of business Tuesday, June 4, the Federal debt--down to the 
penny--stood at exactly $5,139,963,594,008.65, or $19,395.97 for every 
man, woman, and child in America.
  A deliberate debt of this magnitude, knowingly run up by Congress, is 
bizarre. It is, in fact, a con-game. And that is what the 1994 election 
was all about: restoring integrity and accountability to Government. To 
their credit, Republicans in Congress delivered on their commitment 
when the Balanced Budget Act of 1995 was enacted, cutting Federal 
spending by $961 billion over 7 years. And although the budget proposed 
annual increases in spending--over and above the $1.6 trillion 
appropriated for fiscal year 1996--President Clinton vetoed it because 
it didn't spend enough.

[[Page S5850]]

  Mr. Clinton, after having himself proposed a Federal budget that 
projected deficits as far as the eye could see, engaged in a comical 
series of proposed budgets that, he asserted, would balance the Federal 
budget in 10, 7, 9 or 8 years--take your pick. Even the Washington Post 
declared that the proposed Clinton budget ``relies on gimmicks that 
almost no one believes would survive.'' This illustrates why it's 
imperative to have the U.S. Constitution mandating a required balanced 
budget.
  On March 2, 1995, the Senate failed, by one vote, to approve this 
amendment. All but one of the Republican Senators supported it. But 
only 13 Democrat Senators supported it, which doomed the balanced 
budget amendment last year.
  Today we have one more opportunity to approve the amendment in this, 
the 104th Congress.
  Again, Thomas Jefferson said it best:

       To preserve our independence, we must not let our leaders 
     load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election 
     between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.

  Will the Senate heed Jefferson's wise counsel? We shall shortly see.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I appreciate this opportunity to conclude 
the debate on today of a balanced budget amendment. As the Presiding 
Officer said in his remarks, and as my friend from Montana reiterated 
in his, it has been a long day, filled with active debate and some 
emotion, on this important subject. I do not intend to keep the Senate 
long with my remarks, but I would like to make a few statements 
relative to the decision that we will make tomorrow.
  As I have in the past, I shall vote for the constitutional amendment 
to insert into the U.S. Constitution a provision requiring a balanced 
budget as a fundamental principle of our Nation's public policy. It is 
unfortunate that we have to vote on a constitutional amendment to force 
us to do something that we ought to do and that most Congresses 
throughout the history of this proud Republic have done. However, we 
have reached the point at which I have concluded that a constitutional 
amendment will be necessary in order to provide to this Congress and to 
future Congresses the necessary constitutional backbone in order to 
maintain a policy of a balanced budget.
  What does the passage of a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. 
Constitution accomplish? The passage of this amendment will not, as the 
Presiding Officer has stated, place this into the U.S. Constitution. It 
refers this matter now to the States, and it will be the responsibility 
of three-quarters of the States through their appropriate legislative 
process to make a determination as to whether this shall be added to 
the Constitution. Certainly the passage of this amendment will not 
result in a balanced budget or the diminishment by even a penny of the 
U.S. deficit. Rather, this is a statement of an objective and the 
provision of constitutional methods by which to give some assurance 
that that objective will be reached. This is not a substitute for the 
long road of difficult decisions that will in fact be required in order 
to reach a balanced budget.
  This amendment may make us feel patriotic. It may make us feel good. 
But it is not a cure-all for our budget woes. The budget deficit will 
not suddenly disappear because of the passage of this amendment.
  I reflect on a decision which this Senate made a few days prior to 
Memorial Day. I was part of a group which has worked over the past 
several months to develop a balanced budget plan, a plan which, within 
6 or 7 years, would bring our deficit into balance and would make those 
structural changes that would give us some confidence that once in 
balance, the budget would stay in balance past that 6- or 7-year 
period. This effort, which has been referred to as the centrist 
coalition or as the Chafee-Breaux coalition, was a serious effort to 
develop a proposal which would actually achieve the objective of a 
balanced budget.
  I think in the development of this proposal and in its disposition by 
the Senate that there are some important lessons. The first of those 
lessons is that this effort by the centrist coalition was bipartisan. 
It happened that the final proposal was developed by 22 Members of this 
Senate, 11 Republicans and 11 Democrats. It was not intended that it be 
so equally balanced, but that was how it finally evolved. I believe 
that there is an important lesson here, and that is that almost any 
serious effort in this Government which is intended to have a 
sustaining life must be based on a broad foundation of bipartisanship. 
There is an arrogance and an ignorance which is associated with efforts 
which assume that one individual or one party can carry a major reform.

  It has been said, and I believe correctly so, that the U.S. 
Constitution was the first time that the basic structure of a 
government was written with one of its fundamental objectives being 
that that government should not function efficiently. Our Government 
was designed to be difficult. Our Government was intended to be such 
that no government, by its alacrity and by its effective organization, 
would be able to trample on the rights of minorities or individual 
citizens. The very fact that it is difficult to accomplish anything 
with our form of government underscores the importance of starting the 
process of change with a bipartisan spirit.
  So, while there have been many speeches given in the last few hours 
about the heroic efforts to try to balance the budget which then 
foundered because of the Presidential veto, I suggest they had no 
chance of getting to the destination in the first place and were not 
serious efforts at getting to that destination because they failed the 
fundamental, initial test of an effort at serious bipartisanship. Our 
effort, the centrist coalition, was a serious bipartisan effort.
  What happened to our effort? Our effort failed. It failed by a vote 
of 46 yeas and 53 nays. It had 22 Republican votes and 24 Democratic 
votes, so its essential bipartisanship from the beginning carried 
through to the final vote. It was good news that the vote was as close 
as it was. Frankly, I was surprised that there were 46 Members of the 
Senate who would be prepared to put their names behind the very tough 
choices that were contained in that centrist coalition.
  The bad news was that in fact it did lose. That failure indicated 
that, for another year, we were not going to have a plan for a balanced 
budget. It also indicated the gap, the chasm, between the rhetoric and 
the actions of people who will stand and, with such flourish, indicate 
their commitment to a balanced budget but, when there is an actual 
opportunity to vote for a bipartisan bill, do not. This was a 
bipartisan bill which a significant number of Members of both parties 
were prepared to support and with some expectation that, if it were 
actually passed by the Congress, that the President would sign it into 
law. That it failed is an indication of the gap between rhetoric and 
the actual tough choices that we have to make.
  There have been a number of analogies on the floor in the past few 
hours. One of those analogies, which I think the Presiding Officer 
used, was of a hockey stick, to describe that we had an essentially 
balanced budget for most of our Nation's history and then in the last 
few years we have gone off the chart, in terms of deficits. If I could 
use that hockey analogy, and hockey is not a sport that is particularly 
well known to me, I would say that those who give speeches in favor of 
a balanced budget are like a hockey player at practice, where the net 
is empty and all you have to do is take the puck and, with your hockey 
stick, knock it into the net. If you are sufficiently skilled, that is 
not a particularly difficult thing to do.
  What happens when the actual game starts, when the full teams of both 
sides are on the ice? Then you might have somebody in the net with the 
skill of John Vanbeesbrook, who is the goaltender for the Florida 
Panthers. The challenge comes to be able to score when you have a 
difficult target to hit.
  That is the nature of the challenge we are going to face and which 
the passage of this constitutional amendment is not going to allow us 
to avoid.
  At some point, whether we pass this amendment or whether we do not 
pass this amendment, collectively, and in a bipartisan spirit, we are 
going to have to make some very tough choices. There has been lots of 
discussion about why we are doing this. We are doing it in order to 
help the people of America

[[Page S5851]]

be able to buy a home, get a job, pay off their student loans. We are 
doing it because it is our generation's responsibility. A frequently 
stated reason is we are doing it out of a sense of responsibility to 
our children or grandchildren. I want to join that chorus.
  Mr. President, this happens to be a picture taken of my wife and 
myself and our eight grandchildren. These three, who are triplets, were 
born approximately 14 months ago. I am pleased to report that one of 
those triplets, whose name is Adele Gibson, took her first steps 
yesterday, and I was there to observe her taking three of those first 
steps. She is ready to start her life of increased mobility and 
independence. It is for Adele and her cousins and the millions of other 
grandchildren of America for whom we take this action.
  This amendment will force us to make some of the tough decisions that 
we have become too accustomed to avoid. The passage of this amendment 
is not a time to exalt. Passing this amendment is not a victory. We may 
have, by passage of this amendment--should we be able to get the 
constitutional number to do so tomorrow--performed the equivalent of 
the hockey exercise of getting the puck into an empty, unguarded net.
  The challenge is going to be when we can do the tough work of scoring 
against the difficult opponent of inertia, the difficult opponent of 
special interest, the difficult opponent of people who have developed a 
set of expectations that are necessarily going to have to be challenged 
if we are to move in a different course. These choices will be 
difficult, and many of them will not be politically prudent. However, 
they must be made.
  So, Mr. President, I state again that it is my intention tomorrow to 
vote for the constitutional amendment which will establish as a 
fundamental policy of the Government of the United States of America 
that we will balance our budget. But I do not wish anyone who observes 
this process, and certainly none of us who will participate directly in 
it at noon tomorrow, to be under any delusions that we have done some 
heroic act by voting for this constitutional amendment. We have just 
stated that we are unable to make the tough choices without the threat 
of a constitutional crisis in failing to do so and, thus, are prepared 
to impose the shackles of that crisis upon ourselves and those who will 
serve here in the future.
  We have stated that while we have been unwilling to make the tough 
choices to date, that with those shackles we will be forced to do so.
  So this is a time of sober reflection on our failure rather than 
exaltation at a temporary success.
  I hope that my colleagues will provide the necessary constitutional 
margin to pass this amendment tomorrow, because without it, I do not 
see any evidence in our actions and actions as recently as the past 2 
weeks that give me cause to believe we will, in fact, make those tough 
decisions to balance the budget of the U.S. Government, achieve the 
benefits that will come from that and be faithful to Adele Gibson and 
the other grandchildren of America.

  Thank you, Mr. President.
  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. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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