[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 82 (Thursday, June 6, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5929-S5930]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO BALANCE THE BUDGET

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to comment 
briefly on the vote earlier today rejecting the constitutional 
amendment for a balanced budget. I supported that amendment, as I have 
on a number of occasions during my tenure in the U.S. Senate. I was 
disappointed to find the amendment failed today in light of the 
repetitive speeches on the floor of the U.S. Senate about the 
importance of balancing the budget.
  It is true that, if discipline could be imposed in the Congress of 
the United States, a balanced budget amendment would not be necessary. 
But the historical fact is unmistakable that the kind of discipline 
necessary is simply not present, given the nature of our system where 
there are so many demands for programs to spend and where there is such 
an aversion, understandably, to increases in taxation. So if there is 
to be a balanced budget, it is mandatory that it be a requirement of 
law which would rise to constitutional proportion.
  Every other unit of government has the requirement for a balanced 
budget. My State, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, has such a 
requirement. Cities have such a requirement. Townships have such a 
requirement. Counties have such a requirement. On an individual basis, 
all of us must live within our means or we wind up in the bankruptcy 
court.
  The issue of a balanced budget came into sharper focus for me 2 years 
and 4 months ago when my wife Joan and I had our first grandchild. It 
would be absolutely unthinkable, as individuals, for us to purchase on 
a credit card for young Sylvie Specter or her sister

[[Page S5930]]

Perry Specter. But that is precisely what we are doing as a nation in 
building up deficits in the range of $200 billion a year and a national 
debt which now exceeds $5 trillion. There has been a unique opportunity 
to deal with this in an institutional way to achieve a balanced budget. 
That is through a constitutional amendment.
  There are many subjects which are talked about on the Senate floor, 
repetitively, where it is very hard to find out which philosophy is 
correct and which political party is at fault. I suggest, Mr. 
President--and I do not do this often--that there is a defining 
difference between the philosophy of the Republicans and the philosophy 
of the Democrats on this subject. That has been continuously 
demonstrated by the votes on this subject.
  Today's vote was 64 to 35. So the Senate fell three votes short of 
the two-thirds necessary to have a constitutional amendment. Among the 
53 Republicans, 52 voted in favor of the constitutional amendment for a 
balanced budget. Among the 46 Democrats who voted, one Democrat being 
absent, 12 Democrats voted in favor of the constitutional amendment for 
a balanced budget and 34 voted against.
  President Clinton has stated his position in being in opposition to a 
constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. Senator Dole, the 
presumptive Republican nominee, has led the fight for a constitutional 
amendment for a balanced budget.
  I believe that this is very similar to the Clinton health care 
proposal as a defining issue as to where the parties stand. The Clinton 
health care proposal was a very drastic change to put the Government 
into the health care business.
  When I read the Clinton proposal in September 1993, I started to make 
a list of all the agencies, boards, and commissions which were created. 
I found I could not tabulate them all and asked an assistant to make me 
a comprehensive list. My assistant, instead, made a chart instead of a 
list. I am sparing C-SPAN viewers showing again the chart. It has been 
fairly extensively shown with boxes in red showing more than 100 new 
agencies, boards, and commissions under the Clinton health care plan, 
and the boxes in green, 50, giving additional tasks to 50 existing 
bureaus.
  Bob Woodward of the Washington Post said that chart was the critical 
fact to defeat the Clinton health care plan. A picture is worth 1,000 
words. A chart in some situations is worth 1,000 pictures and perhaps 
worth more than $100 billion in this case.
  I believe that the health care program that President Clinton 
proposed was a defining issue, just as this vote today on a 
constitutional amendment for a balanced budget is a defining issue.
  I am convinced that the budget can be balanced with a scalpel and not 
a meat ax. I serve as chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on 
Labor, Health, Human Services and Education. The allocation to that 
subcommittee was reduced from $70 billion last year to $62 billion.
  Senator Tom Harkin, my distinguished ranking member on the Democratic 
side, Senator Harkin and I worked collaboratively, as we did when he 
was chairman of the subcommittee and I the ranking minority member, and 
we structured a budget that handled it with a scalpel and not a meat 
ax.
  We found that budget would not meet the President's requirements, and 
we came back on the floor of the U.S. Senate this spring. Senator 
Harkin and I offered an amendment which added $2.7 billion. It was like 
threading a needle to find a way to reach an amount which was 
satisfactory to the President, which would pass muster with the House 
committee in conference. After 20 hours of negotiations, the House 
Members approved the compromise by a vote of 6 to 5 and we got it done. 
This year, Senator Harkin and I looked at the budget resolution, saw 
that we were still going to be short of a mark which would be 
satisfactory, and we structured another amendment for $2.7 billion. 
This time, Senator Domenici, chairman of the Budget Committee, came in 
and added another $2.3 billion for a total of $5 billion in excess of 
what his committee had reported to the floor, so that we would have a 
realistic figure to do the job.
  I cite that as an illustration. If you examine the fine print and 
look at the semicolons, there would be agreement that it was done 
within our confines, moving toward the balanced budget, and done with a 
scalpel and not a meat ax. I believe that we can establish priorities 
to have a balanced budget and do it carefully, preserving the important 
programs and eliminating those that are unnecessary, cutting those 
where cuts can be made.
  I am personally convinced that the American people are prepared to 
have shared sacrifice to have a balanced budget if the cuts are 
uniform. As I said on this floor last year before we took up the budget 
resolution, I thought as much as I would like a tax cut I was opposed 
to it, because while you can justify the cuts if they are fairly made, 
if there is a tax cut at the same time it simply is unacceptable--some 
will be favored for a tax cut, with some of the proposals favoring 
those in the $100,000 category while others at a much lesser figure had 
to have the reductions. If the reductions are fairly stated, I think 
shared sacrifice is something that the American people are prepared to 
accept. That is the concept of a balanced budget.
  It is my hope that this issue, like the issue of health care, will be 
dealt with by the American people in November. I thought it a mistake 
when the Government was closed down last November, not something I am 
saying for the first time on June 6, 1996. I said it back on November 
14, as the Congressional Record will show during the first shutdown. 
That was an opportunity to crystalize the issue for the November 
election.
  I think this is a watershed, a landmark signal issue on today's vote. 
When you take a look at the party alignment, with President Clinton 
leading the Democrats and 34 out of 46 voting Democrats in the Senate 
today voting ``no'' on the balanced budget amendment, and 52 out of 53 
Republicans voting ``yes'' on the balanced budget amendment, that is an 
issue which ought to be submitted to the referendum this November. I 
yield the floor.

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