[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 88 (Friday, June 14, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6280-S6281]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 FISCAL YEAR 1997 GOP BUDGET RESOLUTION

  Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I rise today to briefly discuss my 
opposition to the fiscal year 1997 budget resolution.
  In voting against the balance budget amendment last week, I stated 
that I did not believe Congress needed a mechanism in the Constitution 
to balance the budget and that I believed Congress had the will to 
reach a balanced budget on its own. If nothing else, I can say that at 
least my colleagues across the aisle proved me right on that point.
  However, I voted against this budget proposal because I am in 
considerable disagreement with the way they propose we achieve 
budgetary balance.
  Their budget resolution, passed yesterday on a party-line vote, calls 
for discretionary spending cuts to programs vital to our Nation's 
future--like education and research--while offering a tax cut that 
forces larger and deeper cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. But more 
important, Mr. President, this budget does nothing--nothing--to 
fundamentally reform our entitlement programs which continue to consume 
a bigger portion of the Federal budget each year. I also point out that 
this resolution raises the deficit for the first time since the Clinton 
administration took office.
  Mr. President, I support the goal of a balanced budget and have 
fought, am fighting and will continue to fight to achieve it. Recently 
my colleagues and I--Senators Simpson, Brown, Nunn,  and Robb--proposed 
a provision that would have reformed long-term entitlements. Mind you, 
we did not tinker around the edges, but instead took on some serious 
budgetary dilemmas without using gimmickry or short-term measures as a 
solution.
  For our efforts we received 36 bipartisan votes--unprecedented 
support for this type of long-term entitlement reform. Our proposed 
changes to current laws would have caused taxpayers very little concern 
in the short-term as these changes would be phased in and have no 
effect on anyone over the age of 50 and would save the Nation billions 
of dollars in the long term. As well, the Senate recently voted on the 
centrist budget plan, which addressed a number of budgetary problems 
including long-term entitlement reform, and provided a balanced budget 
in seven years. This plan garnered 46 bipartisan votes--22 Democrats 
and 24 Republicans.

  I only wish my colleagues on the other side of the aisle chose a 
similar path.
  A balanced budget by 2002, which this resolution offers, is still of 
little solace because it ignores the most important fiscal challenge we 
face: the rapid growth in entitlement spending over the next 30 years.
  I cannot stress enough the year on which we ought to be focused is 
not 2002, but 2008, when the baby boomer generation begins to reach 
eligibility age for retirement. This will place a severe strain on the 
Federal budget. Our biggest fiscal challenge is demographic, not 
political, and the budget before us does not address it.
  Unfortunately, and conveniently, this demographic challenge is kept 
from our view by a budgeting process that discourages long-term 
planning. A six-year span is completely inadequate when the most 
difficult budget decisions we need to make deal with problems we will 
face 20, 25, and 30 years down the road, when the aging of our 
population propels entitlement spending out of control. The most 
important recommendation of the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement 
and Tax Reform was that we begin to look at the impact of budgets over 
30 years rather than just 5 or 7. The reason is that our country looks 
very different, and our current budgets look very different, viewed 
over that span.
  We can see the trend even in the short term. Entitlement programs--
which included Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Federal 
retirement--will consume 66 percent of the budget this year. By 2002, 
it will be 73 percent. By 2005, the number is 78 percent. Those numbers 
are straight from CBO, and if we project further, Mr. President, we see 
that by 2021, mandatory spending and interest on the national debt will 
consume every dollar we collect in taxes. By 2013, we will be forced to 
begin dipping into the surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund to 
cover benefit payments, a practice that will go on for not more than 16 
years before the trust fund goes into the red.
  These trends have to do with the simple fact that our population is 
getting older while our work force gets smaller. My generation did not 
have as many children as our parents expected, and, as a consequence, 
the system under which each generation of workers supports the 
preceding generation of retirees simply will not hold up.
  Indeed, Mr. President, long-term entitlement reform coupled with a 
reasonable reduction in spending would alone reduce interest rates and 
bring balance to the budget.

[[Page S6281]]

  The result is a question of fairness between generations. Today there 
are roughly five workers paying taxes to support the benefits of each 
retiree. When my generation retires there will be fewer than three. 
Unless we take action now, the choice we force upon our children will 
be excruciating: Continue to fund benefits at current levels by 
radically raising taxes on the working population or slash benefits 
dramatically.

  In 1981, Congress--backed by the Reagan administration--passed a tax-
cut for the American people hailed as a boon to the national economy 
and a panacea for combating an overreaching Government. However, the 
tax cuts proposed and passed were coupled with unrivalled Government 
spending, which created the enormous deficits we now confront in this 
body daily. Nobody believed in 1981 or 1982--save a small few--that 
what was happening was the creation of large, grave deficits the likes 
of which this country had never seen, even after the then Majority 
Leader Howard Baker at the time called this budgetary strategy a 
``river boat gamble.''
  Mr. President, until Congress can agree on a budget that addresses 
the unsustainable growth of entitlement programs and avoids gimmickry 
and short-term fixes, anything else is simply a river boat gamble.
  I will continue to oppose resolutions such as the one we voted on 
yesterday because I do not wish to commit our Nation's fiscal integrity 
and the hopes of future generations to a gamble, no more than I would 
try to balance my family's checkbook by heading to the slot machines 
with a pocket full of quarters. This Nation and our children deserve 
better.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kyl). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________