[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 81 (Wednesday, June 5, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5868-S5869]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     EXPLANATION OF SELECTED VOTES TO THE SENATE BUDGET RESOLUTION

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, similar to last year's 
consideration of the budget resolution, the Senate considered a near-
record number of amendments this year, many of which were offered after 
time had expired and voted upon without debate. Since time was limited 
then, I want to spend a few moments now to offer explanations for 
several of the more critical votes.
  As with last year's budget, several amendments were offered which 
targeted increased spending to certain areas of the budget. These 
included a Boxer amendment to increase by $18 billion Medicaid 
spending, a Byrd amendment to increase domestic discretionary spending 
by $65 billion, and a Kerry amendment to provide $7.3 billion in 
increased funding for the EPA, national parks, NOAA, and other areas. 
In all three cases, these spending increases were offset with increased 
taxes.
  Mr. President, while I strongly support many of the programs targeted 
by these amendments, it will be extremely difficult for Congress to 
balance the budget if we choose to raise taxes every time we want to 
fund additional programs. By opting to tax and spend our way out of 
tight budgets, we are simply putting off the difficult choices which 
must be made. For this reason, I opposed these amendments.
  Another amendment I opposed was the Domenici amendment to provide an 
additional $4 billion in domestic discretionary outlays for next year. 
I applaud the chairman of the Budget Committee for working hard to 
restrain spending and I support many of the programs that this 
additional funding would assist, including education funding. But while 
the actual programs benefiting from this amendment are undefined, it 
definitely moves us away from our goal of restraining the growth of 
government spending and balancing the budget. As was pointed out during 
the debate, this amendment would raise domestic discretionary spending 
$17 billion above the level that was called for in last year's budget 
resolution. In my mind, that is simply too much.
  Another amendment dealing with taxes was the Wellstone amendment 
expressing the sense of the Senate that, once the $500 per child family 
tax credit had been adopted, the next priority for the Finance 
Committee should be legislation to provide a tax deduction of up to 
$10,000 for higher education tuition expenses.
  Mr. President, this amendment does not debate the propriety of 
enacting tax cuts. Instead, it focuses upon who is best suited to 
decide what American families should do with their hard earned money--
the families themselves or the Federal Government. In effect, Senator 
Wellstone is saying, I will let you keep more, as long as you use it 
for college expenses, because that is my priority. On the other hand, 
Republicans say, We are going to allow you to keep more of what you 
earn to use it as you--not the government--thinks best. We should not 
only give Americans a tax break, we should also give them the freedom 
to set their own priorities with their own money.
  The final amendment targeting tax cuts was one I supported--the 
Ashcroft amendment to allow taxpayers to deduct payroll taxes from 
their income when calculating their income taxes. Once again, this 
amendment presented Senators with a clear-cut choice: Do we allow hard-
working men and women to keep more of what they earn so they can spend 
it as they see fit, or do we take their money and invest it in more 
government. While I did not support all the offsets included in the 
Ashcroft amendment, I believe there is an overwhelming case to be made 
for significant tax cuts at this time. Not the least of these is the 
record tax burden currently shouldered by American families. According 
to economist Bruce Bartlett, combined local, State, and Federal taxes 
now consume a record percentage of the total national income. This is 
entirely too much, and I support reasonable efforts to help reduce this 
burden.

  Several amendments were targeted at federal education efforts. One 
was the Kerry amendment to add $56 billion to the education function 
and offset that increased funding by reducing the tax cuts called for 
in the bill. In the words of Senator Kerry, this additional funding 
would provide enough money to be sufficient to keep pace with student 
enrollment and inflation over the next 6 years.
  Mr. President, last year I worked extensively with Senators Snowe, 
Kassebaum, and others to ensure that our efforts to balance the budget 
did not hurt students. I support effective education programs. What 
this amendment proposes, however, is to eliminate our ability to pass 
tax cuts for families with children, and spend that money instead on 
education bureaucrats who, in some cases, oversee programs as wasteful 
as any in the Federal Government. Given the choice between bureaucrats 
and families, I chose families.
  There were also several amendments that focused on Republican efforts 
to reform our entitlement programs. The most broad-based of these was 
the Kerry amendment on long-term entitlement reform. This amendment 
would express the sense of the Senate that Congress should enact a 
broad set of entitlement reforms, including raising the retirement age 
and adjusting the Consumer Price Index, to ensure the long-term 
solvency of Social Security and other entitlement programs. Senator 
Kerry has been an outstanding leader on the issue of entitlement reform 
and I applaud his efforts. Nevertheless, I believe that adjusting the 
Consumer Price Index should be done only after the special commission 
created to study the CPI's accuracy has an opportunity to publish its 
findings.
  This was also the principle reason I opposed the Chafee-Breaux 
substitute budget, which received 46 votes. The substitute budget made 
many of the same tough choices as the underlying Republican budget, 
including welfare reform, slowing the growth of Medicaid, and tax 
relief for families. On the other hand, the amendment would have saved 
$91 billion from a .5-percent reduction in the Consumer Price Index. 
This reduction would have meant lower benefits for seniors, and higher 
taxes for families. It also meant the bipartisan budget could spend 
$117 billion more in discretionary spending over the next 6 years. 
While there was much to like in this alternative budget, I could not 
support the decision to cut

[[Page S5869]]

benefits and raise taxes solely in order to fund additional spending.
  Another amendment focused on entitlement was the Kennedy amendment 
expressing the sense of the Senate that any reconciliation bill will 
maintain the existing prohibitions against additional charges by 
providers under Medicare. For the existing Medicare system, I agree 
this prohibition against so-called balance billing makes sense. On the 
other hand, the current Medicare System is going broke, and it makes 
little sense to tie the hands of the Finance Committee when they search 
for innovative ways to preserve the current system while providing new 
options to seniors. In effect, the Kennedy amendment is an attempt to 
forestall Medicare reform. As such, it is irresponsible and I voted 
against it.

  Finally, there were several miscellaneous amendment which deserve 
comment. The first of these was the Graham-Baucus amendment to create a 
60-vote point of order against efforts to divert savings which result 
from health care fraud and abuse programs from the Medicare HI trust 
fund to be used for other purposes.
  First, it is important to note that this amendment would have no 
impact on the solvency of the Medicare trust fund. As a trust fund with 
a dedicated source of revenues, funding for Medicare part A cannot be 
diverted for other uses. Nor can savings resulting from Medicare 
reforms be used for any purposes other than to make the trust fund more 
solvent. Simply put, this amendment would have no real impact on 
Medicare whatsoever.
  Second, this amendment violated the Budget Act by creating a point of 
order outside the jurisdiction of the Budget Committee. It is simply 
against the rules for the budget resolution to create points of order 
against legislation originating from other committees. For these two 
reasons, I opposed this amendment and supported Chairman Domenici's 
point of order against it.
  One amendment dealing with foreign policy was the Lott amendment 
expressing the sense of the Senate that the United States should be 
reimbursed for expenses related to U.N. actions in Iraq. The amendment 
calls on the United States Ambassador to the United Nations to modify 
the recent U.N. resolution which permits Iraqi oil sales to be used for 
reimbursing U.N. humanitarian expenses. I supported this amendment.
  The bottom line is Iraq--through the revenue derived from its recent 
U.N. oil sales--should reimburse the United States for money expended 
during Operation Southern Watch and Provide Comfort--whereby United 
States troops protected Kurdish and Shiite Muslims from Saddam Hussein. 
The U.S. expenses were of a military nature, but were made to satisfy a 
U.N. humanitarian policy. As such, these efforts should not be financed 
from the pockets of American taxpayers, but rather from the purses of 
the belligerent government that made them necessary in the first place.
  The last amendment I would like to comment upon is the Roth amendment 
to take .5 cents of the mass transit gas tax--which is 2 cents total--
and apply it toward Amtrak. While the issue of Federal subsidies is for 
interstate passenger rail service is extremely contentious and 
involved, using the highway trust fund to support Amtrak clearly 
undermines the integrity of the fund and should be opposed. If Congress 
chooses to continue its support for Amtrak, it should be done through 
general revenues and subject to the same review process to which other 
discretionary spending is subject.

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