[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 86 (Wednesday, June 12, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6131-S6136]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 1997--CONFERENCE
REPORT
Mr. HOLLINGS. I yield myself 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the explanation of the conferees has
come to my attention. It is a joint explanatory statement of the
committee of conference on this particular conference report, and on
pages 32 and 33, starting at the bottom of page 32, it reads:
The first use of reconciliation was for legislation that
reduced revenues. In 1975, the applicable budget resolution,
House Concurrent Resolution 466, provided an instruction to
both Ways and Means and Finance to report legislation
decreasing revenues. Notwithstanding the fact that the
authors of this 1974 Budget Act were neutral as to the policy
objectives of reconciliation, since 1975, reconciliation and
reconciliation legislation has been used to reduce the
deficit. The cited conferees notes while this resolution
includes a reconciliation instruction to reduce revenues, the
sum of the instructions would not only reduce the deficit but
would result in a balanced budget by the year 2002.
On the last point, of course, Mr. President, we only have to turn,
once again to the facts. This is almost getting to be an exercise in
futility. Somehow this is the only place in America where the truth
cannot be recognized, even when they print it for you in black and
white.
I refer specifically to the concurrent resolution on the budget for
the fiscal year 1997. At the top of page 4, you will see where they
have listed deficits for the purpose of the enforcement of this
resolution. ``The amounts of the deficits are as follows,'' and it
lists fiscal years 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, and for the fiscal
year 2002, where the distinguished conferees, and particularly the
chairman of the Budget Committee, is using the expression ``balanced
budget,'' his own document, for fiscal year 2002, shows a deficit of
$103,845,000,000.
Reading further down the page to section 102 on page 4, you will find
that in the fiscal year 2002, the amount of the increase in the public
debt, subject to limitations, are for that year $130 billion. So how do
you balance the budget by the year 2002, and yet you have to go out and
borrow $130 billion?
My point here is to change this record with respect to
reconciliation, because the truth, as stated by the distinguished
Senator from New Mexico at that particular time--is shown here on page
S. 15351 of the Congressional Record of the U.S. Senate dated December
3, 1980--not 1975. And I read the words of the distinguished chairman,
now chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Domenici of New Mexico:
I think it is fitting that that last event signifies the
possibility of a new beginning because, as a matter of fact,
this is the first time in the history of our country that we
will send a bill to the President that is called a
reconciliation bill, and that means that some of the laws of
this country have been reconciled with the budget. That means
that they have been changed so that they come more into sync
or more harmonious with a budget that is left unchanged. That
is what reconciliation means. With all the years that our
distinguished Republican leader, Senator Bellmon, has spent
patiently working with the institution to bring some real
support for this process into fiscal restraint reality, I
think it is at least reaching fruition when we have a
reconciliation law that will go to the President. I hope
after the Senate votes today I commend him for that. Also
obviously, it is an extremely fitting event for Senator
Hollings. He did not have the privilege of being chairman of
the committee for very long, but he worked on the committee
for years, and I think he must feel very good today knowing
that under his leadership, this first reconciliation act will
become a reality.
That is the record made by the now chairman of the Budget Committee
in 1980 and not 5 years previous thereto in 1975.
Specifically, Mr. President, in 1975, and I read from page 40297,
dated December 12, 1975:
Mr. Mansfield. Mr. President, for the information of the
Senate, I have a few announcements. At 12 o'clock today, we
will be proceed to the consideration of the conference
report, of the defense appropriations conference report.
After that, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
Senate proceed to the consideration of the tax bill, H.R.
5559 that is to be laid before the Senate and be the pending
business.
The majority leader called it a tax bill. A wrangle ensued. My good
and very clever friend Senator Long, the former distinguished chairman
of the Finance Committee, was trying to limit debate and limit
amendments. He very liberally referred to it as a reconciliation bill,
but it was not a reconciliation. It was a tax bill.
At that particular time, the former chairman of the Budget Committee,
Senator Muskie, was momentarily misled trying to back Senator Long. But
if you will read the Record, they finally ended up, Mr. President, by
calling it a tax bill and entering into a unanimous-consent agreement
requiring that all amendments be germane except for one nongermane
amendment to be offered by Senator Hartke, the then-Senator from
Indiana. The Record is clear that the bill was a tax bill despite the
erroneous use of the word ``reconciliation.''
Having worked on that budget, having been a part of the process
during the 1970's, having helped Senator Muskie on budget conferences,
we know that the first reconciliation bill in the history of the United
States was in December 1980.
That is not only supported by the statements made by the Senator from
New Mexico, but also by the statements made by our House colleagues. I
could refer to what Congressman Dick Bolling called it, Congressman
Latta, Congressman Panetta, and others as well.
So the precedent relied upon by the Parliamentarian which we had to
appeal quite simply misrepresents what actually happened. I hope that
it will not have any standing whatsoever in this body because when they
look at the facts, the truth will have out that reconciliation
throughout its history has always been used as a budgetary tool to
reduce the deficit, not increase the deficit.
My point is, Mr. President, that under this reconciliation bill, the
Republicans have perverted the process in order to cut taxes somewhere
between $122 and $180 billion. It is very difficult to estimate it at
this particular point.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be yielded 2 more
minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, what they have in mind is to split up
the reconciliation bill. To use the process for political purposes in
sending the President a legislation that combines Medicaid and welfare
reforms to pay for tax cuts. Even the casual observer should be able to
see what's going on. The Medicaid cuts will have to be vetoed by the
President because they take away the fundamental protection that we
give children in the United States of America. Even the Governors do
not want to do that.
Then it comes down to September and last of three bills that they
will call a reconciliation bill. And in the heat of a national
presidential campaign, they will come forward with the political gift
of a tax cut.
But a tax cut for wealthy corporations, or for the poor, or for the
rich, or for the middle class, or for anybody is sheer nonsense.
We are running deficits right now, according to this conference
report that we are going to vote on. I started to say, they know no
shame. But I have to amend that comment for the simple reason that the
House Members know some shame. I say that because somebody over there
has held the budget up that we were going to--bam, bam--put through the
House, put through the Senate, and finish this afternoon. The reason we
do not have it this afternoon--it increases deficits.
Under this conference report, for the year 2002, the Government will
run, under a best case scenario, a deficit of $103.8 billion.
In sum, Mr. President, we do not have the luxury of revenues to cut.
We cannot go in two different directions at once, but that is exactly
the road that this conference report takes us down.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 more
minute.
[[Page S6132]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HOLLINGS. We have to pay the bills. We have to stop playing games
and telling the people that somehow you can get tax cuts, when the
resolutions says that next year we will be running deficits in excess
of $227 billion.
Mr. President, it is obvious this is just a sordid political game
that is totally shameless. They come in here with these political, long
pass plays. Let us get rid of the gasoline revenues--but just
temporarily until after the Presidential election.
Nobody ought to appear in the U.S. Congress where we are supposed to
be responsible with that kind of nonsense. But they come in here with
that. Now with deficits projected at $227 billion for fiscal year 1997,
they say, ``We can get a tax cut and balance the budget.'' I yield the
floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, the sole issue before the U.S. Senate that
is being debated this afternoon and voted on at such time as the House
has completed action, is whether or not we accept a budget resolution
agreed to by a majority of conferees on the budget.
Once again, we are engaged in debate in which the opponents of this
resolution, without exception, give lip service to a balanced budget.
But as has been the case this year, last year, in 1994, in 1993, and
every year back through the 1970's, it is always a different balanced
budget, not this one, not the resolution we have before us right now.
More taxes, says the Senator from South Carolina; more cuts in
defense says another Senator; less in the way of a restriction on
entitlement growth, says a third.
Mr. President, I am convinced that it is that kind of ``I'm for a
balanced budget, but not this one, not now, not this year, not this
way,'' that causes us to have a national debt that exceeds $5 trillion.
If I had my way, Mr. President, this would not be the balanced budget
that we would be adopting. If the Presiding Officer had his way, this
would not be the balanced budget we would be adopting. If my close and
distinguished friend, the Senator from New Mexico, who chairs the
Senate Budget Committee, had his way, it would not be this balanced
budget that we would be adopting.
But I believe that each of us has said, even though he has not gotten
his own way as against 99 other Members of the Senate, it is more
important to take this step and to move forward in a correct and
responsible direction than it is to say, ``Not now, not this year, not
this way. Do it my way or don't do it at all.''
I listened with great sympathy to my friend on the other side of the
aisle, the distinguished Senator from North Dakota, and I listened to
him with great sympathy because of his obvious and evident dedication
to reaching this goal. He and I and the Senator who is now presiding
all were a part of the bipartisan group to which he referred.
We worked for months on a proposal which would balance the budget and
which could join together Republicans and Democrats. In spite of the
opposition of the leadership in both parties and the President of the
United States, we got 46 votes for our proposal. But 46 is not a
majority of 100 Senators.
I believe that was superior to the resolution that is before us now,
but I do not believe it was perfect. As the Senator from North Dakota
pointed out, each of us who was involved in that set of negotiations
gave up something for the greater good.
But we do not have that proposal before us right now. I must say that
I am disappointed in my friend from North Dakota because the question
is not whether or not there is a better way to do this--each of us can
find something that he or she would use to improve this proposition--
the question is whether or not we are going to do something that moves
us decisively in the right direction or nothing at all.
I regret to say that, I guess, Mr. President, in the ultimate
analysis we may do nothing. Oh, yes, we are going to pass this
resolution. This is a responsible resolution which allows American
working families to make at least a slightly greater judgment over how
they spend the money they earn than they can do at the present time by
lowering taxes on those families. That moves modestly, though not
decisively enough, in the direction of reducing the growth of
entitlement programs which are destroying the fiscal stability of this
country and eating the heart out of the futures of our children and our
grandchildren, and a resolution that deals responsibly with our need to
fund something else through this Government than just a handful of huge
income transfer programs and entitlements. We have that choice on one
side, perhaps too modest on entitlements, too modest on tax relief for
American working families, I think perhaps too stringent on much of our
discretionary spending.
Nonetheless, we have a choice of doing that or saying, ``Oh, no, this
is not perfect. We will vote against it. We will do nothing. We will
leave it until next year.'' Almost inevitably, a President of the
United States running for reelection is going to end up vetoing all of
the formal major statutory changes that would move us in this
direction.
I can only be reminded in connection with his actions, most
regrettably, Mr. President, by the supposed comment of Louis the XV of
France on his deathbed: ``After me, the deluge.''
The President sees a Medicare trust fund report that says that the
Medicare hospital trust fund will go bankrupt in the year 2001, and
even if he is reelected President of the United States, that is after
his watch is over. So we do not need to do anything now. We can
continue on the status quo road, at least until after this next
election. It is exactly that attitude, which certainly is not
exclusively held by the President of the United States, ``Let's wait
until after the next election,'' that has given us this $5 trillion in
debt.
I hope against hope, Mr. President, of course, that in addition to a
degree of responsibility of party discipline on this side of the aisle,
we will have Members of the other party who say, ``This is not exactly
what I wanted, but it certainly moves us in the right direction as a
country. It certainly provides a degree of relief for this Nation. It
will certainly help generations who are going to come after us who
cannot vote in the elections of 1996. So I will swallow some of my
reservations, and I make that move in the right direction.''
I hope against hope that the President will believe that is at least
as advantageous as demagoging the issue. I will hope next year we come
closer to doing something like the bipartisan budget that failed by so
narrow a margin. I hope for all of those things, Mr. President, the
only actual duty that I have right now and that every other Senator has
right now is to say yes to this proposal that moves in the right
direction, or, no, we can go another year without doing anything at
all, letting the situation get worse and worse and worse.
Mr. President, the overwhelming argument is in favor of the passage
of this budget resolution.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President I ask to be recognized for 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, my distinguished colleague from
Washington, who I have the privilege of serving with not only on the
Budget Committee but on the Commerce Committee, and for whom I have the
greatest respect, says that what we are hearing now is nothing but lip
service from people who do not want to do anything. People who say,
``Not this way, not that way.''
The truth of the matter is, Mr. President, he knows otherwise. This
particular Senator, his colleague, voted for a balanced budget in 1968,
offered a freeze that they still refer to as the ``Fritz freeze,'' and
coauthored Gramm-Rudman-Hollings with cuts across the board. We passed
that, got President Reagan to sign it. We followed that up in the
Budget Committee with a bipartisan proposal to increase taxes because
we found out that you could not choose this way or that way, but rather
needed all of the above. We needed to freeze spending, we needed to
make cuts, we had to withhold new programs, and we had to increase
taxes in order to get a balanced budget.
[[Page S6133]]
That brings me to the point. Do not come here and blame the
President, saying that he has put off the tough decisions until after
the next election. In December 1994 the leaders of the new Republican
majority appeared on ``Meet the Press'' and said the President was
irrelevant, they didn't care what he said. But as this conference
report lays bare, the Republicans have their sights set on the White
House in 1996. That is why almost two-thirds of the tough choices under
their plan are deferred until the Presidential election in the year
2000.
So the 7 year, ``do nothing in two Presidential elections'' approach
was what the contract crowd proposed. That was the arrogance of the
whole thing. This debate is not about President Clinton. In 1993, he
proposed a budget that did something about deficits--the only President
that has reduced the deficit in the past 30 years. He cut the deficit
$500 billion. He taxed Social Security and gasoline. He cut Medicare
$57 billion. And he did it without a single Republican vote.
The unmitigated gall of those who will stand on the floor of the U.S.
Senate and say the President is tricky or the President backloads or
the President does not care about deficits. There ought to be ashes in
their mouths. They are the ones that caused this fiscal cancer.
President Clinton has moved us in the right direction.
We are trying to get together and get something done. But to come and
call this a balanced budget, where their own document shows that they
have a deficit of $103.8 billion in the year 2002, is a pure sham. It
is all politics.
It is sordid legislation they are bringing up here in the months
before the election. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.
I yield the floor.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum, to be
equally charged.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kempthorne). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I might say to Senators--I am sure
Senator Exon would agree with this statement--the hour of 3:30 is going
to arrive and the House will not have sent us the resolution, so we
cannot vote. The unanimous consent said we would vote at another time
tomorrow, to be established by the majority leader in consultation with
the minority leader.
I think, for Senators who might want to speak this afternoon, we are
trying to get off of the resolution at 3:30, which was when we were
going to vote, and then have a reasonable amount of time left, by
agreement, for when we bring it up tomorrow. So, if other things have
to get done, they can today. Clearly, there is no reason to sit here
without the resolution and using the Senate's time.
Mr. President, I think Senator Hollings, the distinguished former
chairman of the Budget Committee and ranking member for some period of
time, has in his own way attempted to make a case against one of the
reconciliation instructions in this budget resolution.
Frankly, I now have in my hands the second concurrent resolution on
the budget for fiscal year 1976, Mr. Muskie, chairman, conference
report. I just want to read it, and perhaps I might engage with the
current Parliamentarian in a few parliamentary inquiries about the
content of this resolution and what some of the content has been
construed to be by the Parliamentarian. I do not know that it is earth-
shaking that we are doing three reconciliation bills. I do not believe
we are going to change our mind. And I do not believe we have done
anything to dramatically alter reconciliation or to offend the Senate
and its processes in some irrevocable way. So we are going to continue
down our path.
I am having a great deal of difficulty understanding how my good
friend, Senator Hollings, can say we have never heretofore reconciled a
committee to reduce taxes when I read from a conference report that,
among other things, says, ``The Congress determines and declares
pursuant to section 310(a) of the Budget Act of 1974 that for fiscal
year beginning July 1, 1975''--and then I will move down to paragraph 4
and read the following:
The recommended level of Federal revenues is $300.8
billion, and the House Committee on Ways and Means and the
Senate Committee on Finance shall submit to their respective
Houses legislation to decrease Federal revenues by
approximately $6.4 billion.
Now, there are other provisions, but I am just going to read that
one. I think I am going to ask now, if I might, the Parliamentarian, if
he has that language before him and the precedence of the Senate.
Parliamentary inquiry. Was that provision not construed in that year to
be a reconciliation instruction?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. DOMENICI. You were not the Parliamentarian then, but is it
recorded in the precedence of the Senate as a decision regarding a
reconciliation instruction, Mr. Parliamentarian?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
Mr. DOMENICI. What does the precedent say with reference to that
parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On December 15, 1975, the Senate began
consideration of H.R. 5559, which as passed by the House was not a
reconciliation bill, and which contained only one substantive
provision: to exclude from income certain earnings derived from
payments by common carriers for use of railroad rolling stock owned by
foreign corporations. After the Senate began its consideration, and the
chairman of the Finance Committee asserted that the bill as reported
with a substitute was intended to carry out the reconciliation
instructions contained in the most recently adopted concurrent
resolution on the budget, the Chair stated that there would be 20 hours
debate on the bill, 2 hours on first-degree amendments, 1 hour on
second-degree amendments and motions, and that amendments, except those
specified in an earlier unanimous consent agreement, would have to be
germane. These were the conditions specified in the Budget Act for the
consideration of reconciliation bills.
Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Chair and the Parliamentarian.
Mr. President, I want to just take one more opportunity, while we
wait for others who might want to speak and wait for clearance on the
proposal that I have just stated to the Senate that we might try to
accomplish--that is, try to get off of the resolution at 3:30 and save
a reasonable amount of time, hopefully 1 hour on a side, for the time
preceding the actual vote, which would be determined for tomorrow by
the joint leadership.
I want to speak just about two issues one more time. Mr. President,
in this budget resolution, there are discretionary appropriations for
the Defense Department and discretionary appropriations for all of the
rest of Government, the domestic portion of our Government. When I say
discretionary appropriations, what I am talking about is program
authority that must be passed upon and enacted every year. That is the
way the current law is. So if you appropriate $286 billion for the
defense of our country, it is for 1 year. Come the next year, you have
to appropriate again. Likewise, in the 10 predominantly domestic
discretionary appropriations bills, whether it is the Treasury-Postal
bill, the energy and water bill, the Labor, Health and Human Services
bill, this is a 1-year appropriation of money. It lasts for 1 year. It
must be passed every year. Without it, there is no money to spend for
any of those programs and activities.
Now, last year, we got into a very big debate with our President over
the domestic discretionary budgets, these various subcommittees that I
have described. There were two big problems. One was that in both
Houses we had put riders on the appropriation bill, which is not an
uncommon thing.
Second, in some instances, some programs were cut more than the
President wanted, and we got ourselves into a political hiatus, and
Government was closed down and reopened and closed down and reopened
and closed down and reopened.
Now, what we have done in this budget resolution is we have asked the
Congressional Budget Office how much money do we need to have a freeze
on
[[Page S6134]]
all of these domestic accounts--no cuts, a freeze. They gave us the
dollar number that we needed in these bills to continue, without any
cuts, a freeze on all of these domestic programs that require
appropriations this year, for the fiscal year beginning October 1,
1996, through the end of September 1997.
So this budget does not propose any significant cuts in domestic
programs. It proposes a freeze. What does the President propose? The
President proposes in his 6- or 7-year budget that in 1997 those
appropriated accounts go up $15 billion. So while on the one hand we
talk of balancing the budget, the President produced a budget that said
let us spend $15 billion more than we spent last year. Obviously, that
gives the President for 1 year the latitude to say he is increasing
education, he is increasing this, he is increasing that. We say freeze
them, if you are serious about a budget. You can take a freeze, if you
are serious about a balanced budget.
What is interesting about the budget differences--we do not have the
President's budget before us because it was voted down in the Senate.
Nonetheless, what is interesting is that the President's increases
continue only for an election year and then start down. Then he
produces two budgets, not one. He produces one using his own numbers,
his own economics, and he says, ``This is what I am going to do over
the next 7 years.'' And it comes tumbling down in the last 2 years, and
this is where you have the argument that Senator Bond is making that
since the President wants to spend even during that downturn more money
for certain areas like education and others, it is inevitable that the
veterans' function gets cut dramatically. Many others programs get cut
dramatically. The space program is disassembled for all intents and
purposes. But the Cabinet members run around telling the constituency
``We are not bound by that. The President has told us we will take it
one year at a time.'' That is one budget. The President has another
budget. That budget is the one, the second one, that permits him to
say, ``They told me to do it their way, and I have done it their way. I
have a balanced budget.'' It is the same kind of balance as Congress
has excepting that in that budget he has to really cut. He has to
really cut the veterans. He has to really cut the domestic accounts,
except you wait until the last 2 years and then cut $67 billion out of
those accounts. But that is not the budget he is telling the people
about. He is telling them about the easier budget, the one where he
uses his own economics and his own assumptions which is kind of the
rosy scenario budget. Then in turn Cabinet people send out to our
respective States how much has to be cut under our budgets with silence
about how much has to be cut in theirs; in fact, disavowing that
anything necessarily has to be cut because, if asked, they say, ``We
will take it one year at a time.''
I believe it is only fair that we set the record straight here. We
are going to deliver appropriations bills--it is not my responsibility
except for one subcommittee--but our distinguished chairman, Senator
Hatfield, I am certain with the cooperation of Democrats is going to
produce these bills that are very close to a freeze in every case. I am
very hopeful that the public understands that it is really kind of
phony to say we ought to spend $15 billion more because this is an
election year only to find as soon as the election is over we will
start reducing them and actually 2 years after this President would
leave office, even if he is reelected, is when we get serious about
making some real cuts. So I think the freeze is fair.
My second point has to do, just for a minute one more time, about
Medicare and the huge misrepresentation in the President's Medicare
proposal. So let me tell Americans one more time how the President is
handling Medicare.
First of all, I repeat that Medicare is going broke. I do not say
this with any joy. I did not do the estimating. My committee staff did
not. Three Cabinet members and the head person of Social Security are
four out of the five people who review it annually and tell us the
truth. Three of them work for the President. One of them is appointed
by the President. What did they say? They said things are getting worse
since last year when you did nothing and the fund is going to be
bankrupt in 5 years. Let us throw out that word ``bankrupt'' and let us
say what it means.
Each year the trust fund is spending more for seniors who are
entitled to the coverage than the taxes coming in. There was a surplus,
Mr. President. So we are still able to pay the bill. The surplus is
disappearing and the money coming in is not enough to pay the bills
going out. So in the fifth year they now say--5 years--there will not
be any money to pay the bills. How else can we say it? Everybody's
paycheck keeps having that money taken out of it for Medicare and it
keeps going in. Nobody is cheating in terms of putting it in there.
One of the most enforced laws around is that for withholding for
Social Security and Medicare. These trustees told us in the following
language, and I do not quote but I paraphrase: It is imperative that
you make the fund solvent by restraining and curtailing the costs of
the program. What did the President do? The President finds a magic
asterisk of $55 billion, a master stroke of magic. He says let us take
$55 billion of the expenditures for our seniors and let us just take it
out of there. Let us not spend it for seniors, $55 billion. And the $55
billion happens to be the fastest growing account in Medicare, home
health care.
Now, watch, when this becomes an issue, and it is getting there,
there will be some kind of argument. The argument will be, ``Well, home
care should never have been in there to begin with.'' The point of it
is, when the trustees write about this fund going bankrupt, they are
writing about the fund and the expenditures and programs of today. It
just happens we are paying home health care and hospitalization out of
that trust fund; point No. 1.
Point No. 2, if that fund is going broke, the fastest contributor to
it going broke is the home health care costs. So, is it not
interesting, magically take out those costs and put them someplace else
and, of course, you can say Medicare just got $55 billion more solvent.
What happens to home health care costs of $55 billion and growing? The
President says let the average taxpayer pay for it. He did not just
kind of slip it through and say whatever you have been paying,
taxpayers--struggling, working, both of you with a job, trying to make
ends meet--whatever you were paying taxes for, I just decided to add
$55 billion more to that tax burden.
Frankly, I do not think that is right. I do not think the President
ought to be able to say he has fixed Medicare without having to change
the cost structure and save real money, just slip the payment over,
change it around, move it someplace else onto the already burdened
taxpayer and abracadabra, magic, the fund is now more solvent.
We had to do what the trustees told us to do. We had to restrain
those costs, so instead of growing at 10.5 percent, they are growing at
7 percent. They are not getting cut, they are growing at 7 percent. We
will be spending $7,000 per capita under Medicare in 6 years, and it is
$5,200 now. It is not less, it is $1,800 more. But we will reform the
system, offer options, change the way we pay the various providers, and
create a new, modern program where cost containment and restraints will
benefit the senior in that the fund will become solvent as will the
taxpayer, in that you will not switch $55 billion of the program to the
taxpayers of America.
I think it is imperative that everybody begin to understand the
situation. Second, the second part of Medicare is an insurance policy.
Back yonder, perhaps under Lyndon Johnson or somewhere around there, we
said we ought to give seniors more than hospital coverage, so we gave
them an optional insurance policy. When we started it we said we will
pay 50 percent, the senior will pay 50 percent. We got generous some
years ago and said let us make it 75 percent taxpayers, 25 percent
seniors.
Six years ago we said let us let the senior pay a little bit more, 31
percent and the taxpayers pay the rest. It has now come back down to
25, because that number of years that we made the change has now
expired. And we contend, in order to make that a reliable program, we
must save $44 billion over 6 years. Interestingly enough, the President
says we need to do 44 billion dollars' worth, too. He does it one way,
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we do it another way, but there is no argument on how much has to be
done.
So, as we began to look at one of the major issues, and this is one,
instead of an issue of making this solvent and getting rid of this
disaster that is pending right around the corner, it has become the
political issue that is who is doing best by the seniors, who is making
the fund more solvent for a longer period of time, and who is doing it
most fairly.
I submit it is pretty easy to fix the Medicare fund if you just want
to take away its responsibilities and its liabilities and the costs
imposed and just take them out, take them away and let somebody else
pay for them like the general tax coffers, general taxpayers. That is
essentially a substantial portion of the way the President chooses to
solve it.
I believe a freestanding bill in this place, and in the U.S. House,
and thoroughly aired across America, that said do you want the general
taxpayers to pay $55 billion of the health trust fund for seniors or do
you want to continue with the trust fund and the payroll situation we
have now--I do not believe very many people would vote to take general
tax dollars and put them in that trust fund. We are doing it, kind of
by just a slip of the pen here, just a turn of the page and write in
something on a budget that says it is all changed.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Quickly, Mr. President, because the hour of 3:30 is
arriving, the Senator from New Mexico and the Senator from South
Carolina do not have a differing view with respect to the Finance
Committee bringing out a tax reduction bill. There is no question they
can do that, subject to the instructions, particularly back in 1975
where we had several budget resolutions. But not the reconciliation
process, that is exactly what it was and that is what they stated.
Mr. Mansfield said, ``I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to
the consideration of the tax bill, H.R. 5559'' on December 12. Then, on
December 15, as the distinguished Senator referred, the assistant
legislative clerk read as follows: ``A bill, H.R. 1559, to make changes
in certain income tax provisions of the Internal Revenue Code of
1954.''
However, it was clearly obvious from the full Record, and we can make
that Record here as a part of this Record if we wish, that Senator Long
was trying to limit debate and not have the Hartke amendments, which
were not germane. And in that discourse, even though Mr. Long had
called it reconciliation, the chairman said, and I quote Mr. Hartke:
The chairman of the Finance Committee can make a statement
but that does not make it the situation. The Committee on
Finance has not acted upon this being a reconciliation bill.
There is no record of its being a reconciliation bill. There
is no mention of it in the report as being a reconciliation
bill. Therefore, I think the point of order would not be well
taken in regard to any amendment because it is not a
reconciliation bill. This is a tax reduction bill.
And finally, Senator Muskie, the chairman, and the rest of them,
after a long debate, including Senator Dole who was on Finance and
supporting the position taken by Senator Hartke, allowed the Hartke
amendments. And somewhat in defeat, when he finally was there, on
December 15, Mr. Muskie said, ``I wonder if I might not yield the
floor. I think I have made whatever contribution I can with discussions
of the problem.'' And he yielded to the whole thing whereby they
brought the amendment up.
Now, Mr. President, I would hope the Senator from New Mexico would
agree with his own words. We know Mr. Ullman, I have here; Mr. Panetta,
Mr. Bellmon, Mr. Regula, Mr. Bolling and the numerous Senators on this
side, but particularly Senator Domenici. I quote, on December 3, 1980,
where 5 years hence, and I quote him:
And also obviously it is an extremely fitting event for
Senator Hollings. He did not have the privilege of being
chairman of this committee for very long, but he worked on
the committee for years and I think that he must feel very
good today, knowing that under his leadership this first
reconciliation act will become a reality.
It was the first. And all reconciliation, as Mr. Pickle from Texas
and everyone else pointed out--reconciliation was the process to bring
the deficits down, bring the spending down into a particular budget
target, not to increase deficits with tax cuts.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an article by Bill
Dauster, dated May 30, in Roll Call entitled ``The Day the Senate Died:
Budget Measure Weakens Minority'' be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From Roll Call, May 30, 1996]
The Day the Senate Died: Budget Measure Weakens Minority
(By Bill Dauster)
The Senate died last week. At the very least, it suffered a
blow that leaves it clinging to life.
You may be forgiven if you missed it. It happened while the
Senate considered the budget resolution, a budget whose
fiscal priorities pretty much repeat last year's endless
budget failure.
But while most observers of Congress yawned, the Republican
majority used the budget process to fundamentally alter the
way the Senate works. From now on, the Senate will conduct
much of its business at its hallmark deliberative pace only
if the majority wants it that way.
It is the Senate's deliberative pace that has distinguished
it from the House of Representatives and other parliaments.
Yes, the Senate does apportion its membership by state
instead of by population, but its true uniqueness flows from
the way its rules preserve the rights of determined
minorities.
Once the presiding officer has recognized a Senator, the
Senate's rules allow the Senator to speak as long as humanly
possible, unless 60 Senators vote to end the filibuster. The
mere threat of filibuster--called a ``hold'' can detain
legislation.
As well, when the Senate is considering one subject,
Senators have the perfect right to offer amendments on
entirely different subjects. These powers to debate and amend
make every single-United States Senator a force to be
reckoned with. They give dedicated groups of Senators
substantial power. And they give 41 Senators the absolute
right to kill a bill.
All that changed last week. Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM), the
Budget Committee chairman, brought to the Senate floor a
budget resolution that markedly expanded the use of a
procedure called ``reconciliation.'' The reconciliation
process creates bills that the Senate considers with only
limited debate and limited opportunities to amend.
Because reconciliation bills limit debate, Senators cannot
filibuster them. A simple majority can pass them. Because
Senators may offer only germane amendments to reconciliation
bills, Senators must stick to only the subjects chosen by the
majority in the committee process. Because of the
reconciliation process's power, the Senate has limited it
solely to deficit reduction through the ``Byrd Rule,'' named
after the Senate's parliamentary conscience, Sen. Robert Byrd
(D-WVa).
This year's budget will generate an unprecedented three
reconciliation bills--on welfare, Medicare, and tax cuts--
designed to maximize partisan confrontation with the
President. And in a marked departure from past practice, the
Republican budget resolution devotes one of the three
reconciliation bills--the one to cut taxes--solely to
worsening the deficit.
On May 21, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD),
backed by Sens. Jim Exon (D-Neb), Emest Hollings (D-SC), and
Byron Dorgan (D-ND), formally challenged the procedure. The
Republican-appointed Parliamentarian gave it his blessing.
In a series of exchanges with the presiding officer,
Daschle demonstrated that the new procedure has few limits.
Daschle appealed the ruling, but the Senate sustained the
procedure on a straight party-line vote.
From now on, the majority party can create as many
reconciliation bills as it wants. And the majority can use
them to increase spending or cut taxes, worsening the
deficit. From now on, the majority can use the reconciliation
process to move its entire legislative agenda through the
Senate with simple majority votes and few distractions.
The old Senate is dead. Some may say, ``Good riddance.''
After all, as a Democratic Member of Congress once said, ``In
the Senate, you can't go to the bathroom without 60 votes.''
If a simple majority can now pass important legislation in
the Senate, perhaps a lot more will get done. Democrats will
recall their frustration with Republican filibusters. Indeed,
then-Budget Committee Chairman Jim Sasser (D-Tenn) once tried
to convince Byrd to allow the Senate to consider the Clinton
health care reform bill using the reconciliation process.
Byrd did not want that done.
Also, the Parliamentarian at that time advised that it
would not be in order for a budget resolution to instruct the
creation of a reconciliation bill that solely worsened the
deficit.
One can think about efficiency and Congress in two ways.
The current conventional wisdom thinks in terms of
legislative efficiency: How many bills become laws?
But as Nobel Prize-winning economist James Buchanan has
argued, societal efficiency may be better served by a
Congress
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that has hard time enacting laws. Under those circumstances,
laws would change less often, less frequently disrupting
peoples' lives, less often intruding into them. If you agree
with Thoreau that the best government is that which governs
least, then the most societally efficient government is the
one with the most checks and balances.
The Republican majority may thus have served legislative
efficiency at the expense of societal efficiency. Good or
bad, the Senate has changed.
As Daschle warned on May 21, ``What goes around comes
around.'' Democrats will remember the lessons the Republicans
have taught them of how to use the power of the majority.
So say ``bye, bye'' to this slice of American pie. This'll
be the day that it dies. This'll be the way that it dies.
Mr. HOLLINGS. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further
proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________