[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 13 (Wednesday, February 5, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S994-S1015]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the hour of 3 p.m. 
having arrived, the Senate will now proceed to the consideration of 
Senate Joint Resolution 1 for debate only. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A joint resolution (S.J. Res. 1) proposing an amendment to 
     the Constitution of the United States to require a balanced 
     budget.

  The Senate proceeded to consider the joint resolution.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.


                        Privileges of the Floor

  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Manus 
Cooney, Sharon Prost, Shawn Bentley, Paul Larkin, Larry Block, Steve 
Tepp, Troy Dow, and Paul Joklik be permitted privileges of the floor 
for the duration of the debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, today we begin one of the most important 
debates that has ever taken place in the U.S. Senate or in the Congress 
of the

[[Page S995]]

United States. The subject matter goes to the very heart of our 
Founding Fathers' hope for our constitutional system--a system that 
would protect individual freedom through the maxim of limited 
Government.
  In the latter half of this century, however, the intentions of the 
Framers of the Constitution have been betrayed by the Congress' 
inability to control its own spending habits. The size of this Federal 
leviathan has grown to such an extent that the very liberties of the 
American people are threatened.
  I just stood at a press conference with our Democratic cosponsors of 
this amendment, and there was a huge table filled with unbalanced 
budgets since 1969.
  History was made in the 104th Congress when 300 of our courageous 
colleagues in the House of Representatives, both Democrats and 
Republicans, approved a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. 
Unfortunately, the same measure was defeated in this Chamber by one 
solitary single vote.
  This year we begin a new Congress following an intensive fall 
campaign in which people in every State across this Nation made 
unmistakably clear their insistence that we put our fiscal house in 
order. The eyes of the people, now more than two-thirds of whom favor a 
balanced budget amendment, now turn to us to follow through on our 
promises.
  I am pleased to be joined by 61 of my colleagues, including every 
Republican Senator in the U.S. Senate and 7 bold Democrats who have 
done exactly that in sponsoring Senate Joint Resolution 1, the balanced 
budget constitutional amendment. Madam President, as we begin the 
debate on Senate Joint Resolution 1 proposing an amendment to the U.S. 
Constitution to require balanced annual Federal budgets, I want to 
summarize why I feel this amendment should be added to the basic great 
law of this great Nation.
  Let me say that as a lifelong student of the Constitution and having 
served on the Judiciary Committee in this body during my tenure here of 
20 years, I do not lightly suggest amending our founding document. Yet, 
all other avenues having failed us, I believe it appropriate to take 
recourse to our basic charter to rein in an abused power of the purse--
as has been done in similar situations in our history since the Magna 
Carta--in order that we might save future generations from the heavy 
burden of irresponsible Government borrowing.
  Madam President, let me just summarize the reasons I believe the 
proposed balanced budget amendment should be presented to the States 
for ratification. We have to have a two-thirds vote in both of the 
bodies and submit this amendment to the States, and we have to get 
three-quarters of them to ratify the amendment before it can be entered 
into the Constitution. It is a tough process. It ought to be a tough 
process.
  These are some of the reasons why I believe this amendment should be 
presented to the States for their ratification:
  No. 1, integrity and accountability. It will bring immediate 
credibility to our current budget process and negotiations, and it will 
restore a measure of integrity and accountability to our Government.
  No. 2, our children's future. Passing the balanced budget 
constitutional amendment is a vote for our children's economic freedom.
  No. 3, family financial security. Passing the balanced budget 
amendment will improve the economic health and stability of all 
American families.
  No. 4, economic strength. The stabilizing effect the balanced budget 
amendment will have on the economy is clear, and it will enable us to 
rein in the level of our country's foreign-held debt.
  No. 5, retirement security. If we pass this balanced budget 
constitutional amendment it will literally save Social Security. It 
will stabilize the economy which will benefit all current and future 
retirees. Without it, all of these programs will be placed in jeopardy.
  Now let me describe these reasons in more detail. On the issue of 
integrity and accountability, our national debt is rocketing out of 
control and the American people are paying a very heavy price for it. 
As you can see by this chart, the debt was relatively stable for many 
decades, up to about 1970, a little bit before 1970. In recent years 
the debt has increased at alarming rates under the watch of both 
political parties. The fact is, our deficits have been structural and 
they will not be eliminated in the long run without the discipline of a 
balanced budget constitutional amendment.
  They really shot up in the 1980's, right on through the 1990's, and 
still that arrow is going almost straight up, even today, even with the 
efforts and actions that have been taken.
  Since 1978, there have been no fewer than five major statutory 
schemes or regimes enacted which promised to deliver balanced budgets, 
and these include Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. But there has not been a 
single balanced budget since 1969, which was the only balanced budget 
since 1960.
  While I support the steps we have taken to pass the balanced budget 
plan, I question whether, without the weight of a constitutional 
requirement to balance the budget, we will achieve balance by the year 
2002. Without a balanced budget amendment, every year Congress has to 
act, and we have seen the lack of will to do what's right around here. 
For this reason, I feel passage of the balanced budget amendment is 
critical.
  Let's just acknowledge what every American citizen knows. In recent 
decades, Washington has been biased to spending, without feeling any 
constraints by the amount of money it actually has on hand. Washington 
has lost the habit of prioritized spending options. Any ideas with 
political appeal get enacted regardless of cost. We borrow the money if 
we run short. That is what we have been doing for most of the last 60 
years. Those listening could try this thinking on their own budgets at 
home. Buy any item that looks appealing next time you are at the mall. 
Just put it on the card. What happens to your budget? Something like 
this chart probably, but hopefully not quite so high.
  Washington, however, is not as constrained as the average American. 
Washington spends in this way, and when the bill comes, it signs the 
debt over to the American people. In addition to paying their own 
bills, the American people have to pay Washington's bills in the form 
of higher taxes, of course, and accumulated debt. They also pay them in 
the form of higher interest rates on their homes, their cars, or 
student loans. They pay in the form of lower job growth, lower wages, 
and they even pay in the form of decreased services from the Government 
because more of the budget is being spent on interest rather than on 
education, health care, job training, child care, the environment, et 
cetera.
  The point is that Americans are getting fed up with Washington 
because they feel the pinch put on them by Washington's spendthrift 
ways. They know they have to make hard choices about how they will 
spend their own money, but they feel that Washington does not feel 
constrained to make hard choices about spending priorities. It's not 
even Washington's own money that it's spending so freely; it is the 
American people's money. No wonder the American people are tired of it.
  Besides being dismayed by Washington's free spending habits, the 
American people also believe that Washington is not accountable for its 
decisionmaking. The balanced budget amendment responds to both of these 
concerns. On this chart is the actual text of the balanced budget 
amendment before the Senate at this time. This balanced budget 
amendment will require Washington to make tough choices about spending 
priorities within the constraint of the amount of money it has, or it 
requires Members of Congress to go on record for its borrowing and 
taxing decisions. There will be no more voice votes when it comes to 
raising taxes. There will be no more voice votes when it comes to 
raising the deficit. You are going to have to stand up and vote. This 
amendment will see to that. It also requires Congress to achieve some 
measure of increased consensus about spending priorities if it is going 
to finance that spending by borrowing.
  The concept is simple: Don't borrow, unless a significant number of 
Members are willing to go on record as saying this spending is such a 
priority that we must borrow to do it. That would go a long way toward 
letting Americans know that their Government is deliberating about its 
spending

[[Page S996]]

habits, making choices among competing options, and only spending 
beyond its means when it really needs to in order to achieve a goal so 
important that a supermajority of Members could agree. The balanced 
budget amendment will go a long way toward restoring the people's faith 
in the integrity of our budget process and in the accountability of 
Washington for its decisions.

  A vote for the balanced budget amendment is a vote for integrity and 
accountability in Washington.
  Now, our children's future. Our national debt now tops $5.3 trillion. 
That averages out to about $20,000 in debt for every man, woman, and 
child in America. That is what our fiscal insanity has brought us to. A 
child born in America today comes into this world $20,000 in debt--and 
that is going up. Do we have the right to spend our children's future 
for our own comfort today?
  Over time, the disproportionate burdens placed or imposed on today's 
children and their children by a continuing pattern of deficits could 
include some combination of the following: Increased taxes, reduced 
public welfare benefits, reduced pensions and Social Security benefits, 
reduced benefits or expenditures on infrastructure and other public 
investments, diminished capital formation, diminished job creation, 
diminished productivity enhancement and less real wage growth in the 
private economy, higher interest rates, higher inflation, increased 
indebtedness to and economic dependence on foreign creditors, and 
increased risk of default on the Federal debt.
  Madam President, I have said this in the past. This is ``fiscal child 
abuse'' and it must end. It is our children's future versus 
Washington's spending addiction. I hope the Senate of the United States 
will come down overwhelmingly on the side of our children's future by 
passing this amendment.
  A vote for the balanced budget amendment is a vote for our children's 
economic security.
  Now, what about family financial security? It is not just our 
children that we hurt with these outrageous deficits. We are 
suffocating our own families. The impact of higher interest rates, 
higher taxes, lower wage and job growth, and higher mortgages are felt 
at kitchen tables all across America. The Concord Coalition has 
estimated that the interest payments on our mountainous debt amount to 
$5,360 a year for a family of four. Just to pay the interest against 
our national debt, it's $5,360 a year.
  Chairman Kasich of the House Budget Committee has pointed out that 
three of the causes of the ``middle class squeeze''--high taxes, 
counterproductive Government spending policies, and anemic wage 
growth--are at least partly caused by continued borrowing by the 
Federal Government. He points out that the baby boom generation pays 
taxes that are at least 50 percent higher than those paid by their 
grandparents. Real per hour wages inched up just one-third of 1 percent 
annually over the past 4 years, which is one-seventh the rate of growth 
in the period between 1960 and 1974, and productivity over the past 4 
years grew at only one-fifth the rate of that same period. Economist 
Lester Thurow noted that the one-earner middle-class family is extinct 
and explains that almost one-third of all men between the ages of 25 
and 34 make less each year than is required to keep the average family 
of four above the poverty level. These combined pressures tear at the 
very fabric of our Nation and our families.
  By contrast, implementing the balanced budget amendment will lower 
interest rates, making it easier for our families to pay their 
mortgages, their car loans, and their student loans. Economist at DRI-
McGraw-Hill estimate that a balanced budget rule would result in a 2-
percent drop in interest rates. Now, DRI-McGraw-Hill is one of the best 
econometric groups in the country. A balanced budget rule would mean 
annual savings of $1,230 on a middle-class family's home mortgage, $216 
each year for an average student loan, and $180 each year on the 
average car loan.
  The good effects of our overall economic health will help family 
budgets in many other possible forms, such as a higher paycheck, more 
job opportunity or security, lower taxes in the future, and a greater 
ability to save and invest for the future. The Joint Economic Committee 
has estimated that the average American family would have an additional 
$1,500 a year if we implemented a balanced budget rule. A balanced 
budget amendment will make it easier for American families to afford a 
house, a car, or to send a child to college. This offers a real way to 
relieve the pressure on American families who are struggling to stay 
together and get ahead. A vote for the balanced budget amendment is a 
vote for the economic health and stability of American families.
  Now, economic stability. Economists from all over this country agree 
that the balanced budget amendment should pass. They agree that ``we 
have lost the moral sense of fiscal responsibility that served to make 
formal constitutional restraints unnecessary.'' Hundreds of economists 
support the balanced budget amendment as being good for the national 
economy by increasing both investor and business confidence, both 
foreign and domestic.

  Some economists are against us on the balanced budget amendment. As a 
general rule, they are academics who depend upon the Government in many 
ways for their moneys and in many respects love the spending practices 
of the Federal Government. Not all--some sincerely worry about the 
amendment. But there are also many, many who worry that if we do not 
pass the amendment we are really going to be in trouble, and economic 
stability will be threatened.
  If the Government would stop borrowing so much money, interest rates 
would come down and money would be available for businesses to invest 
in creating jobs and paying higher wages. The Director of the 
Congressional Budget Office, June E. O'Neill, has testified recently 
that ``balancing budget will induce favorable changes in the economy,'' 
and among those favorable changes she specifically pointed to 
``interest rates, economic growth, and the share of GDP represented by 
corporate profits.'' All of this can put real money in the pockets of 
real people, including small business owners and employees.
  CBO Director O'Neill has also suggested that taking action now to 
balance the budget can assure greater budgetary stability in the 
future. Greater budget stability means greater tax stability. And that 
means that Americans, and their families, and the businesses they own, 
can plan for the future better, with less risk that shifting tax policy 
will wipe out their plans in unforeseen ways. At the very least, this 
will save Americans substantial amounts on tax attorneys. But long-term 
planning, with less risk from shifting tax policy, can pay dividends 
throughout the economy.
  Decreasing our dependence on debt to finance Government activities 
will also increase our national economic sovereignty. Interest payments 
on our debt are increasingly leaving the country. This chart, based on 
Treasury Department statistics, shows that from 1992 to 1995, the 
portion of our debt held by foreign interests has increased 28 percent. 
That is money that leaves the United States, thus weakening our 
national economy, and perhaps slowly jeopardizing our national 
independence. It has been said, ``It is tough to get tough with your 
banker.'' The less we borrow from foreigners, the less dependent we are 
on foreigners, and the more independent we will be as a nation.
  By returning honesty to budgeting, the balanced budget amendment will 
improve our economy and our economic independence.


                          retirement security

  The balanced budget amendment is important to current and future 
retirees.
  This is a very important chart because this chart is based on the 
Social Security trustees' intermediate projections. As you can see 
here, while we run modest yearly surpluses until the year 2015--down 
here is the 2015, and the green shows the moderate surpluses above 
zero, we get to 2015. The long-term projections are mammoth annual 
deficits--the red line--mammoth annual deficits that start about the 
year 2015, if we are lucky. That is assuming a rosy economic picture 
over the next 19 years. The long-term projections are for mammoth 
annual deficits projected at current dollars at as much as $7 trillion 
for today's children when they retire.

[[Page S997]]

  The word ``trust'' in the Social Security trust fund refers to the 
trust retirees repose in the Government to meet its future obligations. 
We will be hard pressed to meet our obligations if we do not get our 
debt under control now and force ourselves to avoid the growth of debt 
in the future. The balanced budget amendment will force and empower us 
to meet these future obligations.
  In addition, the economic benefits of the amendment will benefit 
current and future retirees who are increasingly relying on private 
financial investments for retirement security. There are 34 million 
households that have invested in the stock market in some form. As 
financial expert Jim Cramer notes, if you have a pension, it's likely 
that it's invested in stocks. If you have a 401K plan, it's probably 
invested in stocks. Worth magazine's Ken Kurson points out that in 
1996, 34 percent of households headed by someone under 35 had some sort 
of mutual fund. Simply put, many Americans are relying less on 
Government and more on themselves and their own investments for their 
retirement security. The balanced budged amendment will strengthen the 
markets and the investments these Americans are relying on.
  No matter the source of retirement security, the balanced budget 
amendment will benefit current and future older Americans.
  Some have argued that we should take Social Security out of the 
purview of the balanced budget amendment. They argue that we should 
take the highest items in the Federal budget and the most important 
item in the Federal budget out of the budget because they think that 
might protect Social Security. Give me a break. That is not going to 
protect Social Security. It is going to jeopardize it, because what 
happens is that if we take it out now, even the President has admitted 
that you cannot balance the budget by the year 2002 if you do not keep 
Social Security in the total unified budget.
  So it is a gradual way that we get there, and if we get there, then 
Social Security will be much more stable. When we get to these years 
when it starts to drop off, we have to take care of it, and, frankly, 
we have to do it within reasonable constraints and do it right.
  The fact is that some argue that we should keep Social Security in 
the amendment until the year 2003 and then all of a sudden take it out 
when all of these deficits occur. The reason they want that is so they 
can keep spending. As far as everybody knows, if we take Social 
Security out of the purview of the balanced budget, we would be 
creating the biggest loophole in the history of this country and they 
could spend anything they want by simply labeling it Social Security.
  Madam President, this scares me to death. It is true. These are the 
trustees' estimates here. That is assuming a fairly rosy economic 
picture. If we hit a recession or depression during this period of 
time, it is going to be worse. And the deficits might actually start 
before then. But that is the best analysis that we can get at this 
time.
  Madam President, only the force of the Constitution can balance out 
the incentives for irresponsibility that dominate the Congress, and 
only the balanced budget amendment can save this country from being 
swallowed in debt.
  A vote for the balanced budget amendment is a vote for a stronger and 
a freer future for all Americans.
  When we began this debate, we had at least 68 Members of the Senate 
who committed and promised that they would vote for this amendment. We 
need 67. So we believe the votes should be here. We believe people are 
honorable and will honor their commitments when they ran for office and 
when they appeared before their families and friends and voting 
constituents within their respective States. They all knew at the time 
that this was the only amendment we could possibly pass. They all knew 
at the time that this is a bipartisan consensus amendment brought about 
by both Democrats and Republicans, and that we have worked for over 20 
years on this amendment. They all knew at the time that this was the 
one time in history when we could really get this done. And I hope we 
do. I believe we will because I believe our fellow Senators will live 
up to the word that they gave to their constituents.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEAHY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I wonder if I could ask the distinguished 
senior Senator from Utah a question. Shall we vote now?
  Mr. HATCH. We would be happy to do it, if the Senator wants to.
  Mr. LEAHY. Shall we call the roll?
  Mr. HATCH. Sure. That would be fine with me.
  Mr. LEAHY. It would be fine with me.
  Mr. HATCH. I do not think it would be fine with that side, but it 
would be fine with me.
  Mr. LEAHY. I suspect that you probably have at least one leader on 
that side who might not be in favor.
  Mr. HATCH. I will clear the way.
  Mr. LEAHY. Why not talk with him while I give my opening statement to 
see if we want to do that.
  Mr. HATCH. Let us let everybody say what they want to say about this 
on both sides, and at a reasonable time we would like to----
  Mr. LEAHY. If the Senator would like to this afternoon----
  Mr. HATCH. I will be happy to do it.
  Mr. LEAHY. Why not talk with him.
  Mr. HATCH. I will.
  Mr. LEAHY. And see if it could be cleared here, too.
  Madam President, last night in his State of the Union Address, the 
President of the United States spoke of the difference between taking 
action to balance the Federal budget and the political exercise of 
considering a constitutional amendment on balancing the budget. I 
mention this because the American people know there is a big difference 
between talking about a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, 
a big difference between talking about what you might or might not do, 
and actually doing it. Here is what President Clinton said.

       Balancing the budget requires only your vote and my 
     signature. It does not require us to rewrite our 
     Constitution. I believe it is both unnecessary and unwise to 
     adopt a balanced budget amendment that would cripple our 
     country in time of economic crisis and force unwanted 
     results, such as judges halting Social Security checks or 
     increasing taxes.

  Listen to what the President said. Balancing the budget requires only 
the vote of the Congress and his signature.
  This from a President who in the 22 years I have been here is the 
only President who has brought the deficit down 4 years in a row--the 
only President who has done that. In fact, if we were not paying the 
interest on the deficits run up during Presidents Reagan and Bush 
administrations, we would have a surplus today and not a deficit.
  In fact, I believe he is probably the only President in my lifetime, 
Republican or Democrat, who has 4 years in a row brought the deficit 
down and certainly the only one since the last President, a Democrat, 
who had a surplus. That was President Johnson. Deficits have run since 
then, and only President Clinton has brought them down four times in a 
row and is about to submit a budget which will bring the deficits down 
for the fifth time in a row.
  That is a record which certainly in modern times, certainly the 
postwar time, no President, Democrat, or Republican, has done and is a 
marked contrast to the two Republican Presidents who preceded him who 
tripled the national debt, who took all the debt from 200 years and 
tripled it in just 12 years.
  So President Clinton is committed to signing a balanced budget that 
protects America's values, honors our promises to seniors and our 
veterans and fulfills our responsibilities to the disadvantaged and the 
young. If this Congress, the 105th, will join him for the good of the 
Nation and the future, we can, in fact, be the Congress that finally 
balances the budget.
  Madam President, I would like to be part of that Congress, and I 
would like to see Democrats and Republicans work together to bring 
about that kind of a balanced budget. But that would mean each one of 
us, every man and woman in this body and every man and woman in the 
other body, will have to stand up and cast votes that are politically 
unpopular--not a vote that sounds very popular but does not cut a 
single program and does nothing to balance the budget.

[[Page S998]]

  My good friend from Utah has talked about the public opinion polls 
that say how popular a balanced budget is. I support a balanced budget. 
I voted for more deficit reduction than most of the Members of this 
body. But wanting it and voting it can be sometimes two different 
things. It is easy to stand up, as we all do, in town meetings back 
home and say we want a balanced budget. It is very difficult to come 
back and face special interest groups on the right and left and say we 
are going to cast votes to achieve balance.

  This is not one of those tough votes. This proposed constitutional 
amendment is unnecessary, it is unwise, it is unsound, and it is 
dangerous.
  First, it demeans our Constitution. It will destabilize the power 
among our three branches of Government. That balance of power between 
our three branches of Government gives this, the greatest and most 
powerful democracy in history, its greatest protection. It would head 
us down the road to minority rule and undermine our constitutional 
democracy. It would likely result in a shifting of burdens, 
responsibilities and costs to State governments. Whether my own State 
of Vermont, the State of Maine, the State of Utah, or any other of the 
50 States, these State governments are ill-equipped to assume the vast 
burdens of the Federal Government.
  Both because of what it would do and what it would not accomplish, 
adoption of this proposed 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution would 
be wrong. Treasury Secretary Rubin testified that the proposed 
constitutional amendment would ``subject the Nation to unacceptable 
economic risks in perpetuity. It would be a terrible, terrible mistake 
for this country.''
  Treasury Secretary Rubin commands the highest respect of both 
Republicans and Democrats and certainly within the financial community, 
and when he speaks of the unacceptable economic risks in perpetuity we 
ought to stop and listen to him. We should also listen to the 11 Nobel 
laureates in economics who joined 1,000 other economists who condemn 
the proposal as unsound and unnecessary. It is what the Los Angeles 
Times calls a false political star.
  Now, there are responsible ways to reduce our budget deficit, but 
focusing our attention on this proposed amendment only delays us from 
making progress on what are some very tough choices. This is the same 
old sleight of hand that we have witnessed around here since 1982 when 
people began voting for a constitutional amendment on the budget rather 
than to vote to balance the budget. A lot of people stood up to say, 
``Yes, I voted to amend the Constitution to balance the budget.''
  Hurrah, hurrah, how brave they are, but they cannot quite step up 
here and vote on these tough issues that actually do balance the 
budget. There is no magic in the proposed constitutional amendment. The 
magic is hard work. Reducing the deficit will take hard work, and it 
will require hard choices.
  Some may even use a ``feel good'' vote for this proposed amendment as 
the excuse to sit back and await the ratification process in the 
States, and then they would sit back and await the consideration of 
implementing legislation. Then they would sit back and await the 
consideration of budgets consistent with such implementing legislation. 
Then maybe, just maybe, they would start making the necessary cuts.
  Madam President, it is like some of the people who stand on the floor 
of this body or the other body and say that we have to amend the 
Constitution and have term limits. There are those who stand up and 
say, ``I have been arguing for term limits for 20 years,'' some who 
have been arguing term limits before some of the Members of this body 
were born, and they will keep on into the next century saying we have 
to have a constitutional amendment for term limits.
  I heard one Member of the House, who has been here, I think, 14 
terms, say, ``If I do nothing before I leave here, we are going to get 
term limits--if it takes me another 14 terms to get term limits.''
  What makes more sense, instead of looking for bumper sticker 
amendments and bumper sticker politics, is to cast votes that will cut 
the deficit now. Do not wait until the next century. I want to continue 
to lower the deficit now, not wait for two more election cycles to pass 
before balancing the budget sometime after the year 2002, which, 
incidentally, is the earliest date this amendment could be effective.
  We showed in the last two Congresses we could make progress in 
undoing the mistakes of the deficits-building decade of the 1980's 
without having this proposed amendment in the Constitution. For the 
first time since Harry Truman was President, the deficit has declined 4 
years in a row and with the help of President Clinton we have reduced 
the deficit 63 percent over the last 4 years. We have reduced the 
deficit, as a percentage of our economy, from 4.7 to 1.4 percent. These 
may seem like just numbers, but what we have done is we have reduced 
the deficit as a percentage of our economy to the lowest among the 
world's industrialized countries. Instead of constantly standing up 
supporting this because it might sound like good politics, let us be 
honest with the people we represent. We have done better than any 
industrialized country in the world.

  As part of our efforts we passed legislation that saves tens of 
billions of dollars of taxpayer-financed Government programs. These are 
tough votes. For example, the distinguished senior Senator from 
Indiana, Senator Lugar, and I sponsored legislation that reorganized 
the U.S. Department of Agriculture to become a more efficient and 
effective agency. The Leahy-Lugar bill passed Congress at the end of 
1994. It will result in saving over $3 billion, but it has to close 
1,200 USDA field offices including, should anybody ask, a large number 
of offices in my home State of Vermont.
  What the distinguished Senator from Indiana and I did was not just to 
talk about it, we actually put together a piece of legislation which 
means in every single State in this country somebody is going to feel 
the pain. I know because I got letters from all over the country about 
it. But we passed it.
  Maybe some of the same people who so eagerly support this 
constitutional amendment should ask themselves, are they responsible 
for the huge and unprecedented budget deficits of the Reagan and Bush 
years? Many are. I am one of only five remaining Senators in this body 
who voted against the 1981 Reagan budget package that increased defense 
spending by a huge amount while cutting taxes by a huge amount and 
which, of course, caused our debt to explode. The 12 years following 
Reaganomics have left us with over $2.6 trillion in additional debt.
  Do we have a deficit today? Of course we do. If we did not have to 
pay the interest on the debt run up during President Reagan and 
President Bush's terms, we would have a surplus today. I commend, 
again, the President, who, while inheriting a huge national debt, a 
huge deficit, and a huge debt service when he came into office, has 
brought the deficit down. President Clinton has, four times in a row, 
brought the deficit down and is about to do it a fifth time in a row, 
something that none of us in our lifetime have seen.
  But this proposed constitutional amendment remains now what it was 
then: political cover for the failed policies of the 1980's and their 
tragic legacy. Those mistakes continue to cost our country hundreds of 
millions of dollars every workday in interest on deficits run up during 
the last two Republican administrations. Think of that--hundreds of 
millions of dollars every single workday just on interest alone based 
on the deficits of those years. As I said before, were it not for the 
interest on this debt, we would have had a balanced budget in each of 
the last several years.
  The proposed constitutional amendment contains no protection against 
the Federal Government seeking to balance its budget by shifting costs 
and burdens to the States. That is the ultimate budget gimmick--pass 
the buck to the States. The proposed constitutional amendment would be 
a prescription for disaster, especially for small States that are ill-
equipped to handle the extra load. We know what happened in the 1980's; 
Federal contributions to State and local governments fell sharply, by 
about a third. During that same decade, my home State of Vermont had to 
make up the difference. We had to raise the State income tax rate from 
23 to 28 percent. In addition, State and local property taxes and taxes 
of all kinds had to be increased.
  I remember talking to so many people in my State of Vermont, hard-

[[Page S999]]

working men and women, people who bring home a weekly paycheck and pay 
the mortgages, set money aside for their children to go to college. 
They keep our economy going. I said, ``Have you felt these huge tax 
cuts that we read you have gotten under Reaganomics?'' Except for a 
couple of my friends who, frankly, Madam President, make a heck of a 
lot more money than I do, they had not. In fact, what they had seen, 
the average person had seen their taxes go up. They saw Social Security 
taxes go up, they saw their local taxes go up, they saw their State 
taxes go up to cover the differences.

  That is not the way to cut the Federal deficit. It is the Federal 
deficit. You do not cut it by simply shifting the burdens to State and 
local government and telling them to raise the taxes on their people. 
Working people cannot afford tax increases any more just because they 
are imposed by State and local authorities and not by the Federal 
Government.
  While we passed unfunded mandates legislation last Congress, even 
that legislation offers insufficient protection. My concerns extend 
beyond new legislation that the lawyers determine include legally 
binding obligations. I am concerned as well about those programs that 
respond to the basic needs of individuals.
  Human needs are no less real because they are not set forth in a 
Federal statute. Hunger, cold, illness, the ills of the aged--these do 
not need statutory definition to cause suffering. With or without 
definition, they do cause suffering. If we try to balance the Federal 
budget by scaling back services, we are just as surely going to be 
shifting the costs and burdens of these unmet needs, as well as Federal 
mandates, on State and local governments.
  I know the people of Vermont are not going to let their neighbors go 
hungry or go without medical care, and I expect people elsewhere will 
not either. As much as our churches and synagogues and our charities 
and our communities will contribute, a large part of the problem and a 
large share of the costs are still going to fall to State and local 
governments.
  The distinguished majority leader in the other body, Richard Armey, 
said in 1995 that he did not want to spell out the effects of this 
constitutional amendment before it is passed because he is afraid that 
Congress would not vote to pass it if it knew what it would do. He 
later reinforced his remarks by warning supporters not to reveal where 
the necessary cuts would be made because knees would buckle.
  If we are going to be asked to consider this constitutional 
amendment, let us find out what the impact is likely to be. Certainly, 
before any State is called upon to consider ratification of such a 
constitutional amendment, we ought to know what the impact is going to 
be. Every State ought to be able to look at the debate here and our 
actions here and know what the impact is going to be if they ratify. 
Each State should be advised of the likely effects on its economy and, 
in particular, on personal income levels and job losses in that State. 
Let us get some of the answers. Let us know where we are headed.
  In fact, I believe this proposed constitutional amendment would 
invite the worst kind of cynical evasion and budget gimmickry. The 
experience of States that do have balanced budget requirements only 
bears this out. My State, which has one of the best credit ratings in 
the country, takes care of its budget without having in its State 
constitution a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. Because 
we know we have good times and bad times, we have provisions to set 
aside a rainy day fund. We know that there are things that we have to 
do in our small State economy at a time of recession to help.
  But look what happens with States with a balanced budget requirement. 
Many that do achieve compliance do so only with what the former 
comptroller of New York State calls dubious practices and financial 
gimmicks. These gimmicks include shifting expenditures to off-budget 
accounts, postponing payments to school district suppliers, delaying 
refunds to taxpayers, deferring contributions to pension funds, and 
selling State assets. The proposed constitutional amendment does not 
prohibit the Federal Government from using the same and other dubious 
practices and gimmicks.
  With Congress facing a constitutional mandate, the overwhelming 
temptation will be to exaggerate estimates of economic growth and tax 
receipts, underestimate spending, and engage in all kinds of accounting 
tricks as was done before the honest budgeting efforts of 1993. The 
result will be that those who do business with the Government may never 
be certain in what fiscal year the Government will choose to pay up or 
deliver, and those who rely on tax refunds can certainly expect 
extended delays from the IRS.
  Passing a constitutional directive that will inevitably encourage 
evasion is only going to invite public cynicism and scorn, and not just 
toward the Congress. That, Madam President, does bother me, since we 
represent one of the three branches of Government. What bothers me far 
more is cynicism toward the Constitution itself.

  None of us in this body owns the seat that we are in. We are all here 
for 6 years at a time. Some day we will leave, as we should, either by 
our own choice or because we are given an invitation to do so by the 
voters of our State. But while we are here, we have a responsibility to 
the institutions of this country, and certainly to our Constitution, an 
oath that we each take solemnly and without any reservation.
  (Mr. CRAIG assumed the chair.)
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, we are, in some ways, an unprecedented 
country. No nation, no democracy has achieved the power that we have. 
In fact, in history, no country, democracy or otherwise, has had the 
great economy and the great power of the United States. But no other 
country has had a constitution like ours, a short constitution, a 
simple constitution, an understandable constitution. Since the Bill of 
Rights, it has only been amended 17 times. In one of those cases, it 
was amended for prohibition and then to repeal prohibition.
  I mention this because I think there is a definite connection between 
the greatness of the United States, the fact that we maintain our 
democratic principles and, notwithstanding our enormous power, a 
respect for Government and a respect for our Constitution based on the 
knowledge of that Government and that Constitution and not because a 
dictator and army tell us we have to.
  But that has meant that the men and women who have occupied these 
seats that we only temporarily occupy, the men and women who have 
occupied the seats in the other body that were only temporarily 
occupied, were wise enough--even though there were hundreds and 
hundreds of proposals over 200 years--were wise enough not to amend the 
Constitution willy-nilly, especially for those things that can be taken 
care of legislatively. As the President said last night, it only 
requires our vote and his signature for a balanced budget, not a 
constitutional amendment.
  Our predecessors on both sides of the aisle and our predecessors on 
both sides of the aisle in the other body were wise enough to refrain, 
no matter how popular it sounded or no matter how much it helped them 
in their elections, from amending the Constitution willy-nilly, 
especially for those things they knew they could do legislatively.
  It is one thing to amend the Constitution to limit the terms of 
Presidents or to set up successions when there is a vacancy in the Vice 
Presidency or the Presidency itself. Those are of constitutional 
import. But something we can do simply legislatively, why amend the 
Constitution? Let's not debase our national charter with a misguided 
political attempt to curry favor with the American people by this 
declaration against budget deficits. Let us not make the mistake of 
other countries and turn our Constitution into a series of hollow 
promises.
  We are too great a nation for that. We are too great a democracy for 
that, and the loopholes in Senate Joint Resolution 1 already abound. 
One need only consult the language of the proposed amendment and 
majority report for the first sets of exceptions and creative 
interpretations that will allow Congress to reduce the deficit only so 
far as Members choose to cast responsible votes. The Judiciary 
Committee reports that the Congress will have flexibility in 
implementing the constitutional amendment. It will leave the critical 
details to implementing legislation.

[[Page S1000]]

  This proposed constitutional amendment uses the seemingly 
straightforward term ``fiscal year.'' But according to the committee 
report, this time period can mean whatever a majority in Congress wants 
it to mean. It has no immutable definition. It may mean one thing this 
year, and we may decide the next year it means something else. It can 
be shifted around the calendar as Congress deems appropriate. Watch out 
for the shifting of fiscal years in order to juggle accounts when 
elections are approaching.
  This proposed amendment gives congressional leeway to rely 
on estimates to balance the budget, to make temporary self-correcting 
imbalances and to ignore very small or negligible deficits. But what is 
temporary? What is self-correcting? What is small? What is negligible?

  With apologies to one of our distinguished predecessors, the Senator 
from Illinois, Senator Everett Dirksen, a billion here, a billion 
there; after a while, it does not add up. This is a lawyer's dream.
  What is negligible? We think a billion is negligible, and somebody 
sues, or a whole lot of people sue. My guess is that unless it becomes 
a political bone of contention between political parties as we approach 
an election, we could go a long time without Congress declaring itself 
in violation of this proposed amendment.
  What happens if the President of the United States says, ``Well, here 
are my estimates. My estimates are we are going to receive x number of 
dollars and my estimates are we are going to spend x number of 
dollars,'' and it turns out he is wrong? What do we do? Sue him?
  What happens if the Congress does the same thing? We estimate in our 
budget resolution we are going to receive x number of dollars and spend 
x number of dollars. What happens if we are wrong? Do all 535 Members 
go to jail or just those who voted for it?
  This proposed constitutional amendment could be economically ruinous. 
During a recession, deficits rise because tax receipts go down. But 
various Government payments, like unemployment insurance, go up. By 
contrast, the amendment would demand the taxes be raised and spending 
be cut during a recession or depression. It is almost like when 
President Herbert Hoover, as we started into a slight recession, said 
the thing that would give the most confidence to the country would be 
to force through a balanced budget. He did, and we went through the 
worst depression in this century.
  As Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin testified in the Judiciary 
Committee, ``the balanced budget amendment would turn slowdowns into 
recessions and recessions into more severe recessions or even 
depressions.''
  Economic policy has to be flexible enough to change with a changing 
and increasingly global economy. But the requirements of this proposal 
would tie Congress' hands to address regional, national, and 
international problems. We should not hamstring the legislative power 
that is expressly authorized in article I, section 8, of the 
Constitution. Let us not undo that which our Founders wisely provided: 
flexibility.
  This proposed constitutional amendment risks seriously undercutting 
the protection of our constitutional separation of powers. No one has 
yet convincingly explained how the proposed amendment would work and 
what role would the President play and what role would the courts play 
in its implementation and enforcement?
  I can just see the new law school courses all over the country. How 
do you sue under the constitutional amendment?
  When you put the budget in the Constitution, economic policy would 
inevitably throw the Nation's fiscal policy into the courts. That is 
the last place issues of taxing and spending should be decided. 
Basically what it does is it destroys this delicate balance between the 
three branches of government: the executive, the legislative, and the 
judicial.
  I cannot understand why Members of Congress want to give up their 
powers to the judiciary, because the effect of the proposed amendment 
could be to toss important issues of spending priorities and funding 
levels to the President or to thousands of lawyers in hundreds of 
lawsuits in dozens of Federal and State courts.
  If approved, the amendment would have let Congress off the hook by 
kicking massive responsibilities for how tax dollars are spent to 
unelected judges and the President. Judge Robert Bork warned of the 
danger more than a decade ago. Again, Mr. President, why--why--would we 
give up the constitutional powers we have had for 200 years and give 
them over to the courts who do not want them and have not asked for 
them?
  So instead of creating future constitutional questions, let us do the 
job we were elected to do. Let us remember what the President said last 
night: You vote it, I sign it; we have a balanced budget. Simple as 
that. But it means we have to make the tough choices and cast the 
difficult votes and make progress toward a balanced budget.
  I worry, Mr. President, that perhaps some, because it is a lot 
easier, just vote for a constitutional amendment which has huge 
popularity. It is a lot easier to do that than to vote against a whole 
lot of programs where your vote is not popular.
  It is not popular to actually cast the votes to balance the budget. 
It is easy to cast the vote for the constitutional amendment. It is 
sort of like saying, ``I will vote today to eliminate cancer.'' Who 
disagrees with that? Or the person says, ``I'm against cancer. I don't 
want to give up smoking, but I'm against cancer.'' It is the difficult 
steps.
  This proposed constitutional amendment undermines the fundamental 
principle of majority rule by imposing a three-fifths supermajority 
vote to adopt certain budgets and raise the debt limit.
  Again, has anybody read a history book in this body? Has anybody 
found out how this country started? Go back to our Founders. Our 
Founders rejected such supermajority voter requirements on matters that 
are within Congress' purview. Alexander Hamilton described 
supermajority requirements as poison. I sometimes wonder if anybody 
around here even knows who Alexander Hamilton or Thomas Jefferson, 
George Washington or these people were.
  Hamilton observed that:

       Supermajority requirements serve to destroy the energy of 
     the Government and to substitute the pleasure, caprice or 
     artifices of an insignificant, turbulent or corrupt junto to 
     the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable 
     majority.

  These supermajority requirements are a recipe for increased gridlock, 
not more efficient action. If there are some in here who have not read 
The Federalist Papers, just recall the lessons of the last 2 years when 
the Government was shut down by a determined minority intent on getting 
its way. The Nation was pushed to the brink of default when a group 
pledged that, no matter what, they would not vote on raising the debt 
limit, they were going to let the Government be shut down. Whether it 
was political or they went out the wrong door in an airplane or 
whatever, they shut down the Federal Government.
  That cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. It certainly 
cost everybody in private enterprise in this area, just about any area 
in the country, hundreds of millions of dollars more. We looked 
ridiculous to the rest of the world. But all because a minority made 
that determination.
  Such supermajority requirements reflect a basic distrust, not just of 
Congress, but of the electorate itself. I reject that notion. I have 
faith in the electorate. I am prepared to keep faith with and in the 
American people.
  Mr. President, we have also said that ``The devil is in the 
details.'' I believe Emerson first said that. The proposed 
constitutional amendment uses such general terms even its sponsors 
concede that implementing legislation will be necessary to clarify how 
it is going to work.
  So we ask, what will the implementing legislation say? Well, we are 
not going to find out until we see the implementing legislation. 
Basically this says, ``Trust us. Pass this. And we'll tell you 
afterward what it means.'' That is kind of like somebody saying, ``I'll 
sell you this business. Would you sign this contract in blank? Give me 
all your money, but I will fill in the terms afterward.''

  I am a Vermonter. We just do not quite do it that way back home. We 
trust each other, but we kind of like to see the details. The questions 
raised by this proposed constitutional amendment still lack 
satisfactory answers.

[[Page S1001]]

 For example, what programs are going to be off budget? What role will 
the courts and what role will the President have in executing and 
enforcing the amendment? How much of our constitutional power do we 
give up? What is really compliance with the amendment? How much of a 
deficit may be financed and then carried over to the next year? There 
are a lot of questions like these that are critical to our 
understanding of this amendment. And they have not been answered.
  Should Congress be asked to amend the Constitution by signing what 
amounts to a blank check? I disagree with that. No Congress should be 
asked to do that. Nor should each State be asked to ratify a pig in a 
poke.
  In the interest of fair disclosure, Congress should first determine 
the substance of any implementing legislation as it did in connection 
with the 18th amendment, the other attempt to draft a substantive 
behavioral policy into the Constitution. Let us go look at the 
implementing legislation first.
  In my view, this amendment does not meet the requirements of article 
V of the Constitution for proposals to the States because it is not 
constitutionally necessary. It is only with resolve and hard work that 
we make progress. Neither is evident in the proposed constitutional 
amendment.
  I have heard some of the speeches about why it would be good 
politics, popular politics to vote for this. Politics--good, popular or 
otherwise--have no place when we are dealing with the Constitution of 
the United States. We inherited a great legacy from those who went 
before us because they resisted the temptation to play politics and to 
amend our Constitution willy-nilly.
  As a result, we are the greatest and strongest democracy history has 
ever known. The bedrock of it is our Constitution, which sets up three 
branches of Government, with powers that make sure there are checks and 
balances. This amendment destroys so much of what this country has 
rested on for over 200 years.
  So instead of a bumper sticker for the Constitution, what we need is 
the wisdom to ask what programs we must cut, and the courage to explain 
to the American people that there is no procedural gimmick that can cut 
the deficit or the debt. There is no nice, easy self-serving item. 
There is only hard work. But I think the American people would rather 
have the hard work than have us fool around with our Constitution.
  Yesterday the Wall Street Journal printed an editorial titled 
``Constitutional boondoggle'' in its editorial page. The editorial 
says:

       We do need to get the national debt declining . . .

  I agree.

       We do need to restrain federal spending.

  Again, Mr. President, I agree.

       We do need to resolve the Medicare crisis . . .

  Mr. President, I agree.

       We do need to look beyond the year 2002.

  Mr. President, I agree. But then they said:

       But these battles have to be fought one by one, and [they] 
     can't be solved by amending the Constitution.

  Once again, Mr. President, I agree.
  The Wall Street Journal editorial concludes:

       The concept embodied in the proposed [constitutional] 
     amendment measures nothing useful; it is at best a 
     distraction, and at worst, causes confusion that makes the 
     right things harder to do, not easier.

  I ask unanimous consent the Wall Street Journal editorial be printed 
in the Record immediately after my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Faircloth). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, think back again to last night's State of 
the Union address. The President said all it takes is for us to cast 
the votes and for me to sign the bill to balance the budget. Many of us 
who cast those tough votes to cut programs, to bring the deficits down, 
have faced in the short term the wrath of our constituents but in the 
long term a realization that we have done the right thing for the 
country.
  I am proud that I have voted for budgets that have now, 4 years in a 
row, brought down the deficits, something that has not happened 
certainly in the last 15 years or so. We have had a President who has 
had the courage to give us four budgets in a row that bring down the 
deficits. They have meant tough votes.
  Some Members who voted to bring down the deficit have probably lost 
elections because of those tough votes. How much better they have been 
to themselves, to their children and their children's children because 
they resisted the temptation, as Senators and Representatives have for 
over 200 years, to amend our Constitution unnecessarily.
  So let us not proceed to a view of short-run popularity but with a 
vision of our responsibilities to our constituents and the Nation in 
accordance with our cherished Constitution.
  Mr. President, first and foremost I am going to cast votes on this 
floor to protect that Constitution, popular or otherwise. I take my 
oath of office seriously. I appreciate the privilege the people of 
Vermont have given me to represent them in this body. There is nothing 
I will ever do in my life that will make me as proud as being in this 
body representing the people of Vermont. As I have told the people of 
Vermont in each one of my elections, I will protect the Constitution 
first and foremost. As I told them in my last two elections, I will 
vote against this constitutional amendment because it does not protect 
our country, it demeans the Constitution, and it lets us off the hook 
from doing the things that we really should do.
  I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

              [From the Wall Street Journal, Feb. 4, 1997]

                       Constitutional Boondoggle

       With President Clinton about to deliver his State of the 
     Union Address and new budget, this is an apt moment to say 
     that the President is right and the Republicans are wrong on 
     item one of the GOP Congressional agenda. The balanced budget 
     amendment is a flake-out.
       The notion of amending the Constitution to outlaw budget 
     deficits is silly on any number of counts. Politically it's 
     empty symbolism. Legally it clutters the Constitution with 
     dubious prose. Today's lesson, though, concerns economics and 
     accounting. You can't measure economic rectitude by any one 
     number, let alone the ``deficit,'' however defined, let alone 
     the deficit projections the proposals will inevitably involve 
     in practice. The attempt to enshrine such a number in the 
     Constitution is bound to prove a snare and a delusion.
       The proposal passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee says 
     that outlays (``except for those for repayment of debt 
     principal'') shall not exceed receipts (``except those 
     derived from borrowing''). While this concept sounds simple, 
     in fact it reflects neither accounting principles nor 
     economic reality.
       If you can balance your family budget, the thinking goes, 
     the government can balance the federal budget. But applying 
     the budget amendment's principles to households would outlaw 
     home mortgages, which have proved a boon to countless 
     families and the general economy. What a family balances is 
     its operating budget, a concept foreign to the federal 
     accounts. In corporate accounting, similarly, the health of 
     an enterprise is measured by careful distinctions such as 
     accruals or depreciation. Even the balanced budget restraints 
     of state and local governments exclude spending on capital 
     improvements financed by bond issues approved by voters.
       The reality is that borrowing money is not a sin; it 
     depends on how much money, and in particular on the uses of 
     the borrowed funds. Even the amendment itself recognizes this 
     by allowing Congress to waive the amendment by majority vote 
     when war is declared or when a joint resolution declares ``a 
     military conflict which causes an imminent and serious 
     military threat to national security.'' Other emergencies 
     would presumably be dealt through the provision that Congress 
     could approve borrowing by a two-thirds vote.
       Republicans back the amendment because it scores well with 
     focus group participants, who don't understand the 
     difficulties, and with Ross Perot, who doesn't care. They 
     also hope that limiting the government's power to borrow will 
     force it to limit spending. Democrats seem pretty much to 
     agree, and want to voice support for the amendment to appease 
     focus groups while also killing it to avoid a spending 
     straitjacket. We're not so sure.
       For one thing, we've observed how European politicians, 
     even supposedly conservative ones, have been behaving toward 
     the budget-deficit requirements they imposed on themselves in 
     the Maastricht agreement. To get within the numerical 
     criteria, the Italians are taking their railroads off and on 
     budget; the French government, in return for an infusion of 
     funds this year, assumed pension obligations running into the 
     far future. Governmental accounting, you see, simply counts 
     formal government debt; it ignores unfunded governmental 
     promises.
       This is a loophole enormous enough that Rep. Fernand St 
     Germain could drive half of

[[Page S1002]]

     the S&L crisis through it in one night in 1980, when he 
     doubled deposit-insurance limits. Another enormous loophole 
     is the government's ability to offload, or ``mandate,'' costs 
     on corporations, individuals and state and local governments 
     without running any receipts or outlays through the 
     Washington books. And when the bill for Rep. St Germain's 
     coup suddenly came due in 1989, would it really have been 
     better to avoid borrowing and put the rest of the government 
     through a temporary wringer?
       These imperfections might not matter if the amendment did 
     no harm, but it's easy enough to imagine scenarios in which 
     it would keep us from doing the economically right thing. 
     Take the proposals by the most conservative bloc in the 
     recent Social Security Commission. They would allow current 
     taxpayers to personally invest part of what they owe in 
     payroll tax, giving them a better return. But meeting 
     obligations to those retiring before their benefits were 
     funded would require a big issue of government debt. The new 
     debt would merely formally recognize current obligations, and 
     the privatization would dramatically reduce future 
     obligations. Though this transaction would plainly improve 
     the federal fisc, the balanced budget amendment would outlaw 
     it.
       Or for that matter, take the Reagan defense build-up, which 
     led to victory in the Cold War. The balanced budget amendment 
     would have allowed a majority to vote for borrowing if 
     fighting broke out, but not for expenditures to deter it. Is 
     this what we want?
       And take the Reagan tax cuts, which in combination with 
     Paul Volcker's tight money, led the country out of 1970s 
     malaise, conquering inflation without an extended recession. 
     Clearly, deficit projections would have prevented the tax 
     changes.
       Yes, this policy mix gave us deficits, but the 1980s 
     deficits are themselves a large part of the reason we have a 
     new concern with budget discipline today. Indeed, it seems to 
     us that history argues that discipline comes from forcing 
     governments to borrow, and pay interest--instead of raising 
     taxes or making unfunded promises or issuing unfunded 
     mandates. Yet in the form passed by the Finance Committee, 
     the amendment says you need a majority to raise taxes, a 
     majority to declare a military emergency, but two-thirds to 
     borrow.
       What President Reagan understood is that if you limit 
     taxes, spending will sooner or later have to follow. For 
     permanent budget discipline, the best idea now on the table 
     is Rep. Joe Barton's proposal, up for a vote in the House 
     April 15, simply to require a two-thirds vote to raise taxes. 
     If that should pass, nature will take its course.
       We do need to get the national debt declining as a per cent 
     of economic output. We do need to restrain federal spending. 
     We do need to solve the Medicare crisis, as Senator Phil 
     Gramm notes alongside. We do need to look beyond the year 
     2002. But these battles have to be fought one by one, and 
     can't be solved by amending the Constitution. The concept 
     embodied in the proposed amendment measures nothing useful; 
     it is at best a distraction, and at worst spreads confusion 
     that will make the right things harder to do, not easier.

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, Senator Thurmond, who has worked on the 
balanced budget amendment for all this time that he has been in this 
body, the imminent President pro tempore of this body, who deserves so 
much credit for even getting it up for us to vote on it, has asked that 
one of our new Senators from Nebraska be given the opportunity to take 
his place at this point. He wanted to defer to the distinguished 
Senator from Nebraska who will be giving his maiden speech on the 
balanced budget amendment in the Senate. I am proud of him for doing 
so. It is an honor to all of us that Senator Thurmond would do this.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the distinguished Senator from 
Nebraska proceed with his remarks, and then I ask unanimous consent 
that the distinguished Senator from Nevada be allowed to proceed.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, certainly the Senator from Nebraska, who 
has been waiting some time, should go next, but perhaps somebody on 
this side of the issue might go after the Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. HATCH. Let me amend my unanimous consent.
  Mr. LEAHY. The distinguished Senator from Utah and I have had enough 
bills on the floor. It might be good to go back and forth.
  Mr. HATCH. Senator Bryan would like to go after Senator Hagel, if 
there is not another opponent who wishes to speak.
  Mr. LEAHY. If we do not have another opponent, I am certainly willing 
to yield to the distinguished Senator.
  Mr. HATCH. I wanted to make it clear. We will finish here about 5:30 
today, I understand, and certainly we want to have both of these 
Senators give their speech.
  Mr. LEAHY. I assumed the excitement level would be at such a high 
level we might want to go on all night, but if the distinguished 
Senator from Utah wants to stop, I will contain my excitement.
  Mr. HATCH. We are only doing it to accommodate our friends on the 
other side who have a dinner. I would like to get the remarks in, and I 
particularly want to listen to these two Senators.
  I yield to the Senator from Nebraska.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the junior Senator from 
Nebraska.
  Mr. HAGEL. Thank you, Mr. President. Let me also add my thanks to the 
distinguished senior Senator from South Carolina, Senator Thurmond, for 
giving me an opportunity to take his place this afternoon in this 
debate over the balanced budget amendment.
  Mr. President, I rise today to add my strong support for Senate Joint 
Resolution 1, the balanced budget amendment. I believe Americans want a 
smaller, less intrusive Federal Government. They want more freedom from 
the burdens of Government. This is America, a country born from a 
desire to escape the yoke of oppressive government. Our Founding 
Fathers did not trust government. They trusted the people.
  As we approach a new century, we have again reached a turning point 
in America's history. We have been given a charge, as a nation and as 
representatives of the people, to work together to prioritize the role 
of Government, to redefine the role of Government in our lives. How 
much Government do we want? How much do we want Government to do for 
us? What do we want Government to do for us? How much Government are we 
willing to pay for?
  Reducing the role of the Federal Government will require tough 
choices. A balanced budget amendment will not make those tough choices 
and difficult decisions. It is the responsibility of those of us 
entrusted by the American people in leadership positions in this 
country to make those tough choices and those difficult decisions. 
However, a balanced budget amendment will force us to step up to these 
decisions and help make us better able and disciplined to make those 
choices necessary to ensure a strong future for this country.
  The American people are tired of political posturing and partisan 
rhetoric. They want action. They want results. They want us to do what 
we said we would do. We are not here to defend the status quo. We are 
here to solve problems. We are here to ensure that the taxpayers get 
the most efficient and effective use of their tax dollars. After all, 
the money we spend is not our money. It is not the Senate's money. It 
is not the President's money. It is the American people's money. They 
earned it. They work for it. It is up to us to spend it wisely. And 
right now the American people do not believe that Washington spends 
their money wisely. The American people want us to get control of this 
country's fiscal policy. They want fiscal responsibility.
  That is why a balanced budget amendment is so important. It will 
force discipline upon the Congress of the United States, a fiscal 
discipline that has been absent since 1969, the last time America 
balanced its budget; 36 of the last 37 budgets in this country have not 
been balanced. It will force us to be honest with the American people.
  As our former colleague, Paul Simon, a strong proponent of the 
balanced budget amendment, wrote just last week in the New York Times: 
``Elected officials like to do popular things, and there is no popular 
way to balance the Federal budget.'' The balanced budget amendment will 
give us the constitutional discipline to do the right thing.
  This debate is about accountability. This debate is about 
responsibility and leadership. It is about restoring the confidence and 
trust of the American people and their Government.
  We have all been called upon to provide leadership. There is no 
bigger challenge facing the future of this country than paying down our 
enormous national debt.
  During the debate on the balanced budget amendment there will be 
numbers and numbers and more numbers. But I ask you to focus on these 
numbers: America made gross interest payments of $344 billion in fiscal 
year 1996 on our national debt. That's $344 billion that was not used 
to improve our schools, strengthen our national defense, protect our 
environment, or

[[Page S1003]]

build new transportation systems. And that's just the annual interest. 
The only thing that we are doing is paying interest on the national 
debt. We are not even beginning to touch the principal. Each day, we 
add an average of $700 million to our national debt that already totals 
$5.3 billion. By the time we reach anyone's plan for a balanced budget, 
the national debt will be $7 trillion.
  The national debt that we are leaving for our children and our 
children and grandchildren is the real issue in this debate.
  What we are doing in cheating the generations that follow us is 
immoral. We must put our Government in a position to begin paying down 
our national debt. We must begin to put our fiscal house in order, or 
our next generation--and I see young people in the galleries today--
will face a disaster. They will have a limited future because they will 
have limited opportunities. This debate is about their future, the 
future of America, the future of our children and their children.
  It strikes me as ironic, Mr. President, that opponents of the 
balanced budget amendment argue that it will cause cuts in education, 
Social Security, Medicare, and other programs. What they fail to tell 
the American people is that if we do nothing--if we fail to act--
deficits and our debt will continue to rise until there is nothing left 
in the Federal budget for education, entitlement programs, national 
defense, or any other programs--including Social Security.
  The real threat to Social Security is the national debt. If we don't 
act to balance the budget and stop adding to that debt, then we are 
truly placing the future of Social Security in jeopardy.
  Furthermore, exempting Social Security from the balanced budget 
amendment would actually make Social Security more vulnerable. We are 
all well aware that Social Security will begin to run a deficit of 
trillions of dollars early in the next century. Taking Social Security 
off budget would put it out on a plank all by itself when that time 
comes. Including Social Security in our total unified budget 
calculations ensures that Congress will have to deal with this crisis 
before it hits. How can we take America's largest program off budget?
  If Congress took Social Security off budget and ran trillions of 
dollars of deficits in it, Congress could still say that they balanced 
the budget. That is ludicrous. That is folly. But, more important, it's 
dishonest. Does anyone truly believe that Social Security will suffer 
if we balance our budget? Let's get real. Social Security has been, and 
will continue to be, the highest priority program in the Federal 
budget.
  Let me say this as straightforward as I can. The best thing we can do 
to ensure a sound future for Social Security and America is balance a 
unified Federal budget.
  Let's be honest with the American people and say it straight. We have 
to balance our budget. We cannot continue to pile on to the debt that 
we are leaving this next generation and then expect them to be 
competitive in the global economy of the 21st century. If it takes an 
amendment to the Constitution to balance the budget, we should have 
one. Our Framers gave us that option. When it was required to do the 
right thing for the people and the Nation, the Framers gave us 
amendments to the Constitution to help ensure that we balance our 
budget, and we need a balanced budget constitutional amendment. So 
let's get at it. Let's show the American people that we are going to do 
what we said we would do.
  The future for our next generations is growth and more economic 
opportunities for all Americans. Only through growing our economy, 
cutting taxes, cutting regulation, and cutting Government spending will 
we be able to pay off our national debt.
  We cannot delay these decisions any longer. Generation after 
generation will live with the consequences of our actions or our 
inactions. Will they live with the crushing debt of our indecision? Or 
will they look back and say that we did rise to the occasion and to the 
challenge? Will they say that we faced the deficit and the debt 
honestly and took action and ensured the survival of the American 
dream?
  The magic of America has always been that each generation has done 
better than the last because it had more opportunities. I do not want 
to look my 6-year-old and 4-year-old in their eyes in 20 years and say 
to them that I was a Member of the U.S. Senate, but I didn't do enough 
to protect their future.
  I will not allow that to be the legacy of this U.S. Senator, nor do I 
believe that this is the legacy my distinguished colleagues wish to 
leave to their children, grandchildren, and America.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, today, we being consideration of a 
proposed constitutional amendment to require the Federal Government to 
achieve and maintain a balanced budget.
  Undoubtedly, it is the desire of every Member who supports the 
balanced budget amendment to see the Federal budget deficit eliminated 
so that we may begin to cut away at the Federal debt which is currently 
over $5.28 trillion. Without a balanced budget amendment, there has 
been little pressure on the President to submit a balanced budget and 
on the Congress to make tough legislative choices on Federal spending. 
I would note that the Republican-controlled Congress is working hard to 
balance the Federal budget. However, we need a balanced budget 
amendment as part of the Constitution. As the Congress authorizes 
Federal spending, we must understand the reality that there are a 
finite number of tax dollars available for public spending and various 
proposals would compete on merit and need, not popularity.
  The balanced budget amendment would instill legislative 
accountability as the Congress considers various proposals for 
increased Federal spending. Currently, there is no real check on 
runaway Federal spending, and there will never be a shortage of 
legislation creating new Federal programs or efforts to increase 
spending in existing programs. Without a balanced budget amendment, 
budget deficits over the long term will continue to rise and the 
Federal debt will continue to grow. There have been times when gestures 
were made to bring spending within our means but those efforts were 
shortlived. Statutes to reduce Federal spending have not been enough. 
They are too easily cast aside and the Federal Government rolls along 
on its path of fiscal irresponsibility.
  I am convinced that without the mandate of a balanced budget 
amendment, Federal spending will continue to eclipse receipts and the 
American people will continue to shoulder inordinate tax burdens to 
sustain an indefensible Federal appetite for spending. In 1950, an 
average American family with two children sent $1 out of every $50 it 
earned to the Federal Government. Today, the average American family is 
spending $1 out of every $4 it earns to the Federal Government.
  Mr. President, we can trace the debate on a balanced budget amendment 
back in our history for 200 years. A defining moment may well have been 
the appointment of Thomas Jefferson as Minister to France. Thomas 
Jefferson was abroad when the Constitution was written and he did not 
attend the constitutional convention. If Jefferson had been in 
attendance, it is quite possible that he would have been successful in 
having language placed in the Constitution to limit the spending 
authority of the Federal Government. Upon studying the Constitution, 
Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter of a change he so fervently believed 
should become part of the Constitution. He wrote the following:

       I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our 
     Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for 
     the reduction of the administration of our government to the 
     genuine principles of its Constitution. I mean an 
     additional article taking from the government the power of 
     borrowing.

  Further, Jefferson stated,

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

  Another former President, Andrew Jackson, stated the following,

       Once the budget is balanced and the debts paid off, our 
     population will be relieved from a considerable portion of 
     its present burdens and will find . . . additional means for 
     the display of individual enterprise.

  President Harrison described unnecessary public debt as ``criminal.''

[[Page S1004]]

  Mr. President, early American Presidents and public leaders 
understood the dangers of excessive public debt. For almost 150 years, 
balanced budgets or budget surpluses were the fiscal norm followed by 
the Federal Government. The unwritten rule followed by Presidents and 
legislators until recently in our Nation's history was to achieve 
balanced budgets except in wartime. Unfortunately, the role and the 
size of the Federal Government has grown out of control. In the past 
three decades, the Federal Government has run deficits in every year 
except one. Further, the Federal Government has run deficits in 56 of 
the last 64 years.
  The Federal debt has grown as deficits have continued and the debt is 
now over $5.28 trillion. It took this Nation over 200 years to run the 
first trillion dollar debt yet we have recently been adding another 
trillion dollars to our debt about every 5 years.
  I have been deeply concerned during my time in the Senate over the 
growth of the Federal Government. It has been too easy for the Congress 
to pass legislation creating new Federal programs and spending more tax 
dollars whenever there is a call for Federal intervention. Of course, 
the Federal Government has an appropriate role to protect the citizens 
of this Nation, but it is not realistic to believe that Washington 
should respond to every perceived problem with a new Federal approach. 
This Nation has drifted from its original foundations as a national 
government of limited authority. I believe the adoption of a balanced 
budget amendment will do much to return us to a more limited Federal 
Government and decentralized authority and the mandates of such an 
amendment will increase legislative accountability. A balanced budget 
amendment is the single most important addition we can propose to the 
Constitution to begin reducing the size of the Federal Government.
  Mr. President, we have seen the national debt and deficits rise in 
large part because the Federal Government has grown. The first $100 
billion budget in the history of the Nation occurred in 1962. This was 
almost 180 years after the Nation was founded. Yet, it took only 9 
years, from 1962 to 1971, for the Federal budget to reach $200 billion. 
Then, the Federal budget continued to skyrocket; $300 billion in 1975, 
$500 billion in 1979, $800 billion in 1983, and the first $1 trillion 
budget in 1987. The budget for fiscal year 1996 was over $1.5 trillion. 
Federal spending has gripped Congress as a narcotic but it is time to 
break the habit and restore order to the fiscal policy of this Nation.
  Two years ago, we were only one vote short of the votes needed to 
pass the balanced budget amendment. We now have another opportunity to 
send the balanced budget amendment to the American people for 
ratification. I hope we do not fail the American people on this 
historic opportunity and instead present to the States our proposed 
amendment to mandate balanced Federal budgets. It is time to act to 
secure the future for all Americans.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, as you can see, this is a very important 
amendment. This is a very important debate. This particular debate is 
going to determine whether this country is going to go ahead with a 
fiscally responsible Government or whether it isn't. And, frankly, I 
think it is time that we do vote on this and that we do what is right 
for our country.
  We are waiting for a couple of Senators who would like to come and 
speak to this.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I compliment the distinguished Senator from 
Nebraska for his maiden speech on the floor of the Senate on the 
balanced budget amendment. He did a very good job. He made a lot of 
very important points. I hope everybody in this country will pay 
attention to him.
  This is a fellow who has sacrificed for his country. He was a war 
hero. He has been much decorated. He decided he wanted to run for the 
U.S. Senate so he could make a difference, and he made a real 
difference here today. I personally commend him for it and thank him 
for it.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, while I disagree with the position of the 
distinguished Senator from Nebraska, I, too, compliment him on his 
first speech. He obviously had given great thought to it and to his 
position. It was sort of in the dim recesses of my own memory of the 
first time I spoke on the floor. I know it is a special time. I applaud 
him for waiting to speak on this matter. Whichever side we are on, we 
all agree that it is a very serious matter.
  I notice that the distinguished senior Senator from Massachusetts is 
on the floor and wishes to speak. Following the sort of informal 
arrangement the Senator from Utah and I have worked out, trying to go 
back and forth, I will yield to the Senator from Massachusetts.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy].
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Vermont. Mr. 
President, I support a balanced budget, but I oppose this 
constitutional amendment. It is unnecessary, unwise, and untimely. At 
the very moment when Congress is about to balance the Federal budget 
the right way, our Republican friends are attempting to do it the wrong 
way, by writing an inflexible requirement into the Constitution.
  Tomorrow, President Clinton will give Congress an opportunity to 
approve a balanced budget that genuinely protects the priorities of 
American families on key issues, such as Social Security, Medicare, 
education, jobs, health care, and the environment, while achieving the 
goal of a balanced budget in the year 2002. That is what American 
families want and need, not a risky and unnecessary constitutional 
amendment that would jeopardize these priorities, hamstring the 
economy, and place a straitjacket in the Constitution.
  Our Republican friends refuse to admit the extraordinary progress we 
have already made under President Clinton to balance the budget. Twelve 
years of Reagan-Bush budgets tripled the national debt and quadrupled 
the deficit. But in 4 years under President Clinton's leadership, we 
have reduced the deficit by nearly two-thirds, and the goal of a 
balanced budget is clearly within our grasp.
  The proposed constitutional amendment has several fatal flaws. One of 
the most flagrant is the clear threat it poses to Social Security. 
Today, over 43 million senior citizens rely on Social Security as a 
lifeline, and millions more are counting on it for their future. Yet 
the balanced budget constitutional amendment does not protect Social 
Security--it endangers it.
  For over a decade, beginning with the Reagan administration when 
Social Security first came under heavy hostile fire from some members 
of the Republican Party, large bipartisan majorities in both the Senate 
and the House of Representatives have consistently dealt with that 
threat by providing clear protection for that basic program. Major 
legislation in 1983, 1985, and 1990 all protected Social Security by 
placing it outside the regular budget process. Yet this proposed 
constitutional amendment would undo all those protections, and put 
Social Security on the chopping block with all other programs.
  When we were considering the markup of the balanced budget amendment, 
I made this point. Those who took a different position said, ``Well, 
Social Security will be protected in any event because of the existing 
statutes.'' But what they fail to understand is that we are talking 
about a constitutional amendment that will override those particular 
statutes. Those statutes will be ineffective because of the new 
constitutional mandate.
  We will erode the protections afforded Social Security in the past. 
The protections recommended by the Social Security Commission in 1983, 
which were effectively adopted in the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings budget 
statute and restated, with bipartisan support, in 1990. These are 
important pieces of legislation that clearly said that Social Security 
is different.
  Social Security is special. Social Security represents dollars paid 
in by workers with the clear understanding and effective guarantee that 
they will

[[Page S1005]]

be paid back at retirement. Social Security is different, as all of us 
well understand, from other provisions of legislation--direct 
appropriations and the discretionary budget, which funds, for example, 
education programs, NIH, the military, and the entitlement programs, 
plus the interest on the debt. As much as I strongly support the 
commitments at NIH or the Pell Grant Program, citizens do not pay into 
those programs expecting to get something back in the future.
  That is why, Mr. President, it has been the time-honored position of 
this body--with bipartisan support--to place a firewall around Social 
Security. But not under the balanced budget amendment. It is right in 
there along with other programs, eligible for the chopping block.
  This proposal could easily force the Federal Government to stop 
making payments on Social Security checks. As House sponsors of the 
amendment have admitted, ``The President would be bound, at the point 
at which the Government runs out of money, to stop issuing checks.'' 
That would be a disaster for senior citizens on fixed incomes who count 
on Social Security to pay their rent, buy their food, or pay their 
heating bills.
  How can any senior citizen count on Republican pledges that say, 
``Trust us. We won't hurt Social Security''? Our answer is clear--stop 
dissembling about Social Security. Stop playing this phony shell game 
with Social Security. We all know how to protect Social Security--so I 
say, protect it.
  The second fatal flaw surrounding this amendment is the pretense of 
broad public approval. Proponents claim the amendment has widespread 
support among families in communities across the country. The polls 
seem--but only seem--to confirm that. A balanced budget constitutional 
amendment does have superficial appeal. It sounds good in a sound bite, 
but it can't survive serious debate.
  Families don't balance their budgets this way. If they did, they 
could never buy a home through a mortgage, or borrow money to send 
their children to college or to buy a car.
  That is the family budget. We hear, ``Well, the families have to 
account for their funding.'' They do, and we should. And we will under 
President Clinton's budget. But to say that the families of this 
country do not mortgage their homes and pay off the debt over a period 
of time or borrow to send their children to college or to buy a car is 
misstating and misrepresenting what is really happening on Main Street 
USA.
  Our Republican friends should not be lulled into a false sense of 
public support for this phony amendment. When families across America 
realize its flaws, this amendment will flunk the kitchen table test.
  The third fatal flaw in this amendment is its threat to the economy. 
Republicans tell us that this proposal is good for families. But over 
1,000 economists, including 7 Nobel prize winners, have condemned the 
amendment as an unacceptable risk to the health of the economy.
  As Secretary of the Treasury Bob Rubin told the Senate Judiciary 
Committee, the amendment would ``subject the Nation to unacceptable 
economic risks in perpetuity * * *. A balanced budget amendment could 
turn slowdowns into recessions, and recessions into more severe 
recessions or even depressions.''
  Mr. President, we have seen an expanding and growing economy in 
recent years. It has worked very well for an important percentage of 
the American people. It has not worked as well for all working families 
in this country. We acknowledge that. That is an area which I think we 
have to give greater focus and attention. But we do not have the 
dramatic swings that we experienced at other times in our economic 
history. Times that had a disastrous effect on working families--in 
particular, working families at the lower level of the economic ladder. 
So why are we putting them at risk with the balanced budget amendment? 
The wealthiest individuals are not going to be hurt if their Social 
Security check is cut or the Pell Grant program is reduced. Working 
families will be at risk. And the working poor have the most to lose 
because, if this country is put into a depression, they are the ones 
who will forfeit their jobs and the opportunity to provide for their 
families.
  This amendment could spell disaster for working families during times 
of recession. The amendment turns off the economy's automatic 
stabilizers. That could cause unemployment to rise dramatically.
  It is estimated that the unemployment rate in the 1992 recession 
would have risen to 9 percent, instead of 7.7 percent, and an 
additional 1 million Americans would have been thrown into the 
unemployment lines. What sense does it make to pass a fell-good 
constitutional amendment that could have harsh and extreme consequences 
like that?
  Proponents claim that Congress would act in time to avoid any 
economic emergency. Does anyone seriously believe that? Under the 
three-fifths rule in this amendment, a willful minority could hold the 
economy and the entire country hostage indefinitely.
  The House sponsors of the amendment have acknowledged this problem. 
They admit the amendment would have the effect of ``lowering the 
blackmail threshold * * * from 50 percent plus one in either body to 40 
percent plus one.'' That is the height of irresponsible government.
  I say, let's work together, on both sides of the aisle, to pass an 
honest balanced budget that protects the Nation's priorities, protects 
the economy, and protects the Constitution too. Amending the 
Constitution is a transparent partisan political gimmick, and I'm 
convinced the people will see through it as this debate continues.
  Mr. President, I look forward later in this debate to have the chance 
to debate the issues on Social Security, the enforcement provision, how 
this measure would tend to force amendments, and we will work with the 
leadership, Senators Leahy and Hatch, to offer those amendments in a 
timely way to permit Members to engage in this debate.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, I thank the Chair.
  I note by way of a prefacing comment the amendment that we are 
debating is a significant one. Obviously, there is going to be 
prolonged and thoughtful debate on the merits of Senate Joint 
Resolution 1, as is appropriate.
  I note that not all Democrats agree with the position I take in 
support of this amendment, and not all members of the same family 
agree. The very able and distinguished senior Senator from 
Massachusetts has made an eloquent statement here just moments ago in 
opposition. His articulate and able nephew joined us at a press 
conference earlier today with equal vigor arguing for its ratification. 
So this will have some ramifications, I am sure, in terms of the 
process here in Washington.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. BRYAN. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I appreciate the comment. It is two out of three. We 
have two out of three members of the family who oppose it. But I 
appreciate the Senator's pointing out the one member of the family. We 
will have a chance to talk to him.
  Mr. HATCH. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. BRYAN. I will be happy to yield to the Senator.
  Mr. HATCH. I think we see some hope for the Kennedy family.
  Mr. BRYAN. I do not want to transgress and separate that wall of 
separation between church and state, but I think there may be a period 
of redemption here for those who have not yet been enlightened by our 
view.
  It is always a pleasure to engage the Senator from Massachusetts in 
conversation because I know that he advocates from a position of 
conviction, sincerely a colleague whom I respect even though in this 
particular case I find myself in disagreement with his position.
  Mr. President, this debate will climax later this month when the 
Senate tries to muster the 67 votes necessary to make this the 28th 
amendment to the Constitution. The outcome of this vote will have 
historic consequences which will significantly affect this country for 
decades to come. If we are successful in getting this amendment added 
to our Constitution, it will be this Congress' legacy to the history 
books and to our children and our grandchildren.

[[Page S1006]]

  The President spoke eloquently last evening in his State of the Union 
Address. I have known the President for at least 15 years, when he and 
I served as chief executive officers of our respective States, and I 
have never heard him speak more eloquently. I believe it is the most 
eloquent of the State of the Union Messages that I have heard as a 
Member of this body. He spoke at considerable length about our children 
and the 21st century. We are part of the 20th century. As he pointed 
out, those who are born this year will have little or no memory of the 
century that has been the governing influence in the lives of every 
Member of this institution and those who report our actions for this 
generation.
  I believe with equal sincerity that the action we take on this 
amendment is, likewise, for our children and their legacy so that they 
may have the same economic opportunities we have. It is my sense, and I 
will speak to this more in just a moment, that we foreclose and 
mortgage their future if we do not arrest a trend that has been 
institutionalized with both Democratic and Republican administrations 
and with Democratic and Republican Congresses.
  As I commented earlier this month at a press conference with my able 
colleague, the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee, both 
the White House and the Congress have supported a balanced budget. 
Democrats and Republicans in the Congress support a balanced budget. It 
has become the Holy Grail, if you will, of American political strategy 
to reach a balanced budget. Suffice it to say, our track record has not 
been particularly impressive. In 59 of the last 67 years, we have 
failed to balance the budget, and as a consequence these numbers are 
staggering. I want to talk to that issue a little bit more in a moment.
  I do not underestimate the seriousness of an undertaking to amend the 
Constitution. We have only done so 27 times in our history, and so we 
should approach this carefully and analytically. This will and should 
be a lengthy debate, with serious consideration given to legitimate 
points of view, but in the final analysis I believe it is imperative 
that Congress send to the States some form of a balanced budget 
amendment. Other approaches have been tried and failed, but for the 
future economic well-being of our country, our children, and 
our grandchildren, we must take this step.

  The wording of the resolution is straightforward and the text is 
barely two pages long. Under Senate Joint Resolution 1, total Federal 
spending must not exceed total Federal revenues for each year unless a 
60-percent supermajority of those elected in both the House and the 
Senate vote to allow the Congress to authorize a specific amount of 
deficit spending.
  While the wording is straightforward, the significance in terms of 
its impact on our country cannot be overestimated. Balanced budget 
amendments are not alien to our Government. In fact, almost all States 
have balanced budget requirements either in their constitutions or in 
their statutes.
  As Governor of Nevada, I was required to balance the State's budget. 
It was not always an easy task, particularly during the economic 
slowdown of the early 1980's which affected my own State of Nevada and 
many other States. The year that I was elected Governor, in 1982, the 
recession had reached its low point in my State, and in January 1983, 
as I assumed office, we were not sure in that first month whether we 
could handle the payroll for State government. It was close. It was nip 
and tuck.
  It is always the lot of those who seek support for programs, many of 
which I support, many of which the Members of this Chamber are 
supportive of, it is always the nature of those groups to ask more than 
they know you can provide, and Governors have the responsibility 
reinforced with a balanced budget provision, notwithstanding those 
requests and the merit of many of them, to simply say I would love to 
do it, I would like to do it, but we simply cannot do it because we do 
not have the money to do it and we have to operate within the revenue 
stream that we have.
  That is the way we conduct our personal affairs, in business and 
private life. We lack that institutional discipline, it seems to me, 
here at the Federal level. And I say that without respect to 
partisanship. That is true with Democratic and Republican 
administrations alike.
  My experience born out of that time is that a balanced budget 
requirement instills fiscal discipline in a system that is otherwise 
predisposed to avoid making hard, unpopular choices, and for the most 
part States have performed admirably when it comes to fiscal 
responsibility. We cannot say the same for the Federal Government in 
recent history.
  In our country's first 150 years, there was almost an unwritten rule 
that the Federal Government should balance its budget. The United 
States Government ran deficits during the War of 1812, the Civil War 
and the Spanish-American War, to name a few occasions. But in other 
periods the Federal Government ran surpluses to reduce its outstanding 
debts. On the whole, only emergencies justified running deficits. 
However, in the past 36 years, the Federal Government has balanced its 
budget only once, in fiscal year 1969, and has failed in 59 of the last 
67 years.
  That is not an impressive record. None of us ought to be proud of 
that record. Let me emphasize, because this is bipartisan, that 
occurred under Republican administrations, Democrat administrations, 
Republican Congresses, and Democrat Congresses. So institutionally we 
all share the failure in being able to achieve that balanced budget.
  Since 1980, the accumulated Federal debt has skyrocketed from less 
than $1 trillion to over $5 trillion. That represents $20,000 for every 
American, man, woman, and child. This has taken place in an era when 
our country has not been at war and has enjoyed relatively healthy 
economic conditions. No one can claim national emergency necessitated 
running these deficits.
  Many in Washington believe there is now a true commitment to fiscal 
discipline. On the Federal level, in the last few years there has been 
some cause for optimism. For the first time since before the American 
Civil War, for four consecutive years, the annual deficit has declined. 
The President can take credit for that as well as the Congress for 
actions that have been taken.
  What we do not hear is that in the current budget year we are 
developing, the deficits will begin to rise again, and so they will in 
each successive year to the year 2002. That success has been achieved 
as a result of a number of things that we have done in the Congress and 
in an economy that has enjoyed a surprising long run in growth. The 
deficit has been cut in half from its projected level just 4 years ago 
and the deficit has fallen from 4.9 percent of the gross domestic 
product in 1992 to 1.4 percent in 1996.
  I know, and I think every Member of this Chamber knows, it is going 
to be extremely difficult, but we must complete the task and balance 
the budget by 2002. I am pleased to note and to sense a strong 
bipartisan will to achieve this goal. When we debate the budget 
resolution and 13 appropriations bills later this year, our will to 
achieve a balanced budget by 2002 will be sorely tested. I am 
optimistic, and I am hopeful we will rise to that challenge.
  If we can balance the budget by 2002, some may ask, why do we need a 
balanced budget constitutional amendment? The simple answer is that 
this amendment is in the form of an insurance policy that Congress will 
live up to its good intentions. The amendment will keep our feet to the 
fire. While I respect the good intention of Members of Congress, 
history has proven that in the past three-quarters of a century we have 
not been up to the challenge. As I indicated a moment ago, in 59 of the 
last 67 years, the Federal Government has spent more money than it took 
in.
  Additionally, since 1978, Congress has enacted five statutes 
requiring a balanced Federal budget--clearly good intentions. But 
Federal statutes have not worked, which is why I believe an amendment 
to the Constitution is the next logical and necessary step we must 
take. If we have the desire to balance the budget, why have we had so 
much difficulty in achieving this goal? While people in theory support 
a balanced budget, I am sure my colleagues share the same experience 
that I have had. At every townhall meeting, if asked, ``Do you favor 
the Federal Government balancing its budget?'' The answer is 
overwhelmingly in the affirmative. But when it comes down to specific 
cuts, it is interesting that that

[[Page S1007]]

same townhall meeting will say, ``But I don't want you to cut here.'' 
And in an audience of a couple hundred people, there are probably a 
dozen programs that those of our constituents who come to these 
meetings suggest: Balance the budget but don't make any cuts in these 
respective programs. They, like past Congresses, shy away from the hard 
choices.
  Unfortunately, the consequences of failing to make the hard choices 
are either very subtle or are not felt for years or decades. While cuts 
in food stamps or home heating assistance are felt immediately and 
energize a specific constituency, a point or two rise in interest rates 
caused by deficit spending is hidden. Some of the American people have 
to make the connection between large Federal budget deficits and higher 
interest rates. These higher interest rates have a dramatic impact on 
the American family's bottom line. In fact, DRI-McGraw-Hill estimates 
that interest rates will drop by 2 percent if we balance the budget. 
This will save an average family $2,169 per year in mortgage interest, 
$180 on an auto loan, and $216 on a typical student loan.
  But the most insidious effects of deficit spending are the larger and 
larger burdens we pass on to the next generation. In just a decade, the 
deficit has gone from $8,000 for every man, woman, and child in this 
country to more than $20,000 this year. We are burdening future 
generations with the tab for our inability to bite the bullet, to make 
the hard choices.
  Our inability to balance the budget has had a compounding effect. 
Each year we fail to do so, the job becomes harder the next year, as we 
have to pay more to service the national debt. In the past 20 years, 
the percentage of our budget that goes to servicing the debt has risen 
from 7 to 15 percent. We lose 15 percent of our budget just paying for 
the excesses of the past and just the interest, none of that retiring 
the principal which is now approximately $5.3 trillion.
  Put another way, $1 in every $6 of our Federal budget goes to paying 
interest on our more than $5 trillion national debt. Before the first 
school lunch is paid for, before another road is paved, before much-
needed repair is undertaken on our neglected National Park System, we 
spend in gross interest payments alone, $300 billion as the cost of 
servicing our national debt. It is the second largest Federal spending 
item, following Social Security, and is equal to almost one-half of our 
personal income taxes paid to the Federal Government. Yet we have 
nothing to show for it.

  While there is little disagreement on the evils of budget deficits, 
there is a serious disagreement and debate over whether Senate Joine 
Resolution 1 addresses specific concerns people have. I want to address 
one that is very sensitive and certainly worthy of being discussed and 
carefully considered, and that is whether Social Security should be 
included in a balanced budget amendment.
  I believe Social Security should be removed from the balanced budget 
amendment. I do not do this lightly, because removing the Social 
Security surpluses will make it more difficult in our task of balancing 
the budget. The surplus for 1996 was approximately $60 billion. But 
whether Social Security should be taken out of the balanced budget 
amendment depends on how you view the Social Security system. If you 
believe it to be a pay-as-you-go system where today's workers' payroll 
taxes should go to pay the benefits of today's retirees, then Social 
Security should remain a part of the overall budget, and that is an 
honest, philosophical point of view. If, however, you believe the funds 
being taken out of today's workers' payrolls should be set aside for 
their retirement, years from now, then Social Security should be taken 
out of budget.
  In fact, Congress has spoken on this issue and, in 1990, enacted 
legislation to take Social Security out of the unified budget. But my 
support for taking Social Security out of the balanced budget amendment 
is based on my conviction that we must start putting aside money for 
future retirees or we will face, as a country, financial calamity. The 
math does not work out, for there will be far too few workers to 
support far too many retirees when the baby boom generation retires in 
the next century.
  Finally, we currently have 3.2 workers for every retiree. In the year 
2030, we will have only two workers for every retiree, and young people 
today are rightfully skeptical about what will be left to pay for their 
retirement. One way to restore their confidence would be to truly set 
aside their payroll contribution by taking it out of a balanced budget 
amendment. This would prohibit the Federal Government from using Social 
Security surpluses when it balances the budget, and Social Security 
would look more like a traditional retirement system.
  Over the next several weeks the Senate will engage in serious debate 
over the issue of excluding Social Security from a balanced budget 
amendment. While I support such an amendment, I believe it is vital 
that we pass a balanced budget amendment, even if it does not exclude 
Social Security. The worst thing we can do for Social Security is to 
fail to pass any balanced budget amendment.
  Without the fiscal discipline provided by the amendment, we will 
never be able to keep our budget in order.
  If we have learned nothing else from our past budget problems, it 
should be that putting off the solution only makes matters more 
difficult to rectify. A little pain now helps us to avoid a lot of pain 
later. The fiscal discipline of the balanced budget amendment will make 
it much easier for us to responsibly assure the long-term solvency of 
the Social Security System. The worst option for the long-term 
viability of Social Security, in my opinion, would be to continue with 
the status quo and fail to enact a balanced budget amendment.
  Let me just embellish upon that for a moment. I know that many of my 
colleagues will be joining me in supporting an amendment to take Social 
Security off budget, and I believe they are sincere in desiring to 
protect Social Security. But I must say, I find it difficult to follow 
the logic that if there is not sufficient votes to take Social Security 
off budget in this constitutional amendment, that somehow voting 
against a balanced budget in some way protects Social Security.
  I have been a Member of this body since 1989. I have seen budgets 
submitted by a Republican and a Democratic President, and we will see a 
budget submitted to us tomorrow by this President. Each President has 
submitted as part of a budget proposal to us the Social Security 
surplus. So tomorrow, the $60 billion that represents this year's 
surplus will be included in the spending plan that is recommended to 
the Congress.
  So the notion that somehow if we fail to adopt a balanced budget 
amendment we are protecting Social Security, I must say, is an argument 
the logic of which I do not understand. We are currently using that 
surplus in the Social Security budget to finance the operational 
expenses of the Federal Government. Republican Presidents have done it; 
Democratic Presidents have done it. And in my view, it is a misguided 
notion that we protect Social Security by rejecting a balanced budget 
amendment that does not contain the off-budget language.
  Mr. President, this Congress has a historic opportunity to take 
action that will positively affect this country for generations to 
come. If we fail, I am afraid we will continue to push financial 
burdens on those who come after us. Let this Congress' legacy be that 
it took bold action and that it did so in a bipartisan way, and that by 
so doing, we protect the future economic well-being of all Americans. I 
urge my colleagues to enact Senate Joint Resolution 1.
  As I said at the outset, I do not take amending our Constitution 
lightly, but I feel, in light of the circumstances of our recent 
history, it is the only responsible course of action. History has shown 
us that good intentions, Federal statutory enactments have failed to do 
the job. A balanced budget amendment will bring about the fiscal 
discipline our country so desperately needs, and I urge my colleagues, 
Democrats and Republicans alike, to join with us in enacting a 
constitutional amendment that will balance the Federal budget in the 
year 2002, and, by so doing, ensure that our children and our 
grandchildren will enjoy the economic opportunities that have been the 
privilege of our generation to enjoy.

[[Page S1008]]

  I yield the floor.
  Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I will only take a moment, because the 
distinguished Senator from Minnesota wishes to make a statement on the 
other side of the issue.
  I thank my colleague from Nevada for an excellent set of remarks. He 
is a tremendous leader on this issue, the principal cosponsor of this 
amendment on the Democratic side of the aisle. I thank him for all the 
work he has done and the excellent remarks that he has made. It means 
an awful lot to all of us.
  Mr. BRYAN. I thank my colleague from Utah for his generous remarks. I 
look forward to working with him and our other colleagues in seeing 
this measure is enacted into law.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I would like to take a few seconds to point 
out this little stack. This is only 28. This stack is only 28 of the 
unbalanced budgets since 1969. We were afraid to put up the ones before 
1969, which was the last year when we had a balanced budget in this 
country. So those who get up and say, ``Well, we just simply ought to 
have the will to do it,'' look at this stack. We are going to have to 
take it down because we are afraid somebody will get hurt. We wanted 
the American people to see just what they have lived with for 28 solid 
years, and that doesn't even count the years before. It is pitiful for 
people to stand up and say, ``Well, we don't need a balanced budget 
amendment.'' That is pitiful, too,
  Mr. DOMENICI. I wonder if Senator Hatch will yield for 1 minute.
  Mr. HATCH. I yield to the distinguished chairman of the Budget 
Committee.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I say to my fellow Senators, I happened 
to be on ``Meet the Press'' on Sunday. I couldn't put all 29 unbalanced 
budgets there, but I put a couple. Frankly, I described this episode in 
American history as 29 years of engagement where we have been engaged 
with the American people and to the American people on a balanced 
budget, and, as I put it, the time has come to get married, to tie the 
knot. The engagement has been too long, 29 years.

  My second point is, for those who are listening and frequently see 
some of us speak to these issues on the floor, before you believe the 
statements coming from those who oppose this constitutional amendment 
that by taking it off budget you make it more secure and more safe, 
just be patient. Some of us will convince you that by taking it off 
budget, you put the Social Security trust fund at risk and pensions for 
the future at risk, because they will be subject to exclusively the 
will of a Congress.
  That is all you need to worry about is to put a trust fund out there 
that has money and let Congress have ahold of it and no balanced budget 
requirement. You can just imagine what we are going to be able to show 
seniors what is going to happen to that fund if you take it off budget.
  I thank the Senator.
  Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I won't make some of the arguments that 
have been made in opposition to this amendment. With all due respect to 
my colleagues, we can look back with a sense of history, and I think 
there is probably plenty of blame on both sides--I am glad to say I 
wasn't here during most of that history--about budgets that were not in 
balance. But the fact of the matter is, people in our country have made 
it really clear that they want to see us get our fiscal house in order. 
We can do that, we should do that, and we don't need this amendment.
  I do, in a moment, want to talk about who is at risk and exactly what 
kind of priorities I believe this amendment is going to lock us into, 
which I don't think are the priorities and values of people in our 
country.


                         Privilege of the Floor

  Before I do that, I ask unanimous consent that Jordan Cross, who is 
an intern, be granted privilege of the floor for the duration of this 
debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, as we turn our thoughts to the new 
century--and I have a different context about this debate--we can 
celebrate a great deal. The past 100 years have seen massive 
improvements in the quality of our national life, American leadership 
in getting the world past murderous global conflict and successful 
transcendence of economic crisis.
  Our population is more diverse than ever, and at midcentury, we 
dismantled the legal framework encasing our original sin of State-
sanctioned racism. We are, in many varied ways, a model for much of the 
world.
  But there is at least one way in which we are not a model, one area 
in which in recent times we have been moving in the wrong direction. 
That is in fulfilling our national vow of equal opportunity.
  We said in 1776 that every American should have the right to life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In 1997, that national 
commitment is in need of refurbishing and renewal. Mr. President, I 
will explain in a moment why I start out with this context.
  More than 35 million Americans--1 out of every 7 of our fellow 
citizens--are officially poor. More than one out of every four children 
in our country today are poor. One out of every two children of color 
are poor in America today. And the poor are getting poorer.
  In 1994, of the poor children under the age of 6, nearly half lived 
in families with incomes below half the poverty line. That figure has 
doubled over the last 20 years, as has the number of people who work 
full time, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, and still are poor.
  Mr. President, minorities are poorer than the rest of Americans. 
African Americans are close to 30 percent and Hispanics at a little 
over 30 percent. And 44.6 percent of children who lived in families 
that are female-headed families were poor in 1994. Almost half of all 
children who were poor live in female-headed households. Women are 
disproportionately among the ranks of the poor in America. There is a 
convergence between race and gender and poverty and children.
  Mr. President, when I introduce my amendments in this debate that 
will ensue over the next couple of weeks, I am going to talk in very 
concrete terms about what it means to be poor in America.
  Context, Time magazine, ``Special Report: How A Child's Brain 
Develops, And What It Means for Child Care and Welfare Reform.'' This 
is startling. This is medical evidence that is irreducible and 
irrefutable, and the evidence says that the first 3 years are critical. 
We have to make sure that, first of all, women that are expecting 
children have an adequate diet. Otherwise, their children at birth may 
not have the opportunity and the chance that is the very essence of the 
American dream. And if children do not have an adequate diet during 
these early years, and decent health care, and children do not get a 
smart start and have nurturing care and stimulation by age 3, it may 
very well be that they will never be able to fully participate in the 
economic and political and social and cultural life of our Nation.
  What does this have to do with this debate? Let me be clear about who 
is at risk. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities--by 
the way, Bob Greenstein and the work of this organization is 
impeccable. All of us on both sides of the aisle have a tremendous 
amount of respect for their work.
  According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, more than 93 
percent of the budget reductions in entitlement programs in the 104th 
Congress came from programs for low-income people. Congress reduced 
entitlement programs by $65.6 billion over the period from 1996 to 
2002. Of that amount, $61 billion out of the $65 billion came out of 
low-income entitlement programs. Entitlement programs not targeted on 
low-income households were reduced only $4.6 billion--whether it was 
nutrition, whether it was health care, whether it was early childhood 
development.
  I will tell you what was interesting. Those citizens in this country 
who do not have the political power, who do not hire the lobbyists, who 
are not the heavy hitters--let me make a connection to campaign finance 
reform, who were not the big givers--they are the ones who 
disproportionately were asked to pay the price.

[[Page S1009]]

  We had deficit reduction--talking about how to balance the budget--
based on the path of least political resistance. It was not the oil 
companies. It was not the pharmaceutical companies. It was not the big 
insurance companies. But it was children, disproportionately low-income 
citizens and disproportionately poor children in America.
  Mr. President, therefore, the first amendment that I am going to 
offer, which I think is a litmus test for all of us--I hope I will get 
support from the other side of the aisle--will read as follows: ``This 
amendment would exempt outlays that would disproportionately affect 
nutrition, health care, and education programs.''
  Mr. President, this is an amendment that basically says that we want 
to make sure we would exempt outlays that would disproportionately 
affect the nutrition, health care, and educational programs and status 
of children.
  Mr. President, it is a simple amendment. We have been hearing 
speeches in which all of us have talked about education and children. 
We love to have photo opportunities with children. This amendment just 
says, ``OK, if you're going to lock us in to a balanced budget, I think 
we need to get a commitment, based upon the record of the 104th 
Congress, that you are not going to make disproportionate cuts in 
programs that deal with the educational, health care, and nutritional 
status of children.'' Everyone should vote yes for that.
  Let us go on record. Let us be clear that we are not going to target 
for cuts, we are not going to target for pain poor children in America, 
that we will not make those disproportionate cuts in nutritional 
programs for those children, in health care programs for those 
children, in educational programs and early childhood programs for 
those children.
  I think this amendment speaks to a very real concern that people have 
in this country. Exactly what is the agenda here?
  Mr. President, the second amendment--let me repeat the first 
amendment one more time: ``Federal outlays shall not be reduced in a 
manner that disproportionately affects outlays for education, 
nutrition, and health care programs for children.''
  That should be an amendment that I should get support on from both 
sides of the aisle. ``Federal outlays shall not be reduced in a manner 
that disproportionately affects outlays for education, nutrition, and 
health care programs for children.''
  Mr. President, the second amendment that I am going to offer is that 
``Funding for the Women, Infants, and Children Program shall be 
exempted from the definition of outlays for balanced budget 
calculations, thus protecting such spending from cuts under a balanced 
budget amendment.''
  Mr. President, it is pretty simple. The Women, Infants, and Children 
Program provided assistance in 1996 for 7.3 million women, infants, and 
children. However, it was only 60 percent of the eligible population, 
and 11 million mothers and children were eligible. Only 7.2 million 
were covered, leaving 4 million women, infants, and children vulnerable 
and not benefiting from the Women, Infants, and Children Program.
  We all know what the evidence suggests. And so my amendment just 
simply says, we will exempt that from the definition of outlays for 
balanced budget calculations, thus protecting this program. Are we 
going to protect it or not? I want to hear people tell me why we would 
not go on record saying we would protect it.
  The third amendment that I am going to lay out on the floor: 
``Funding for Head Start shall be exempted from the definition of 
outlays for balanced budget calculations, thus protecting such spending 
from cuts under the balanced budget amendment.''
  Mr. President, in 1996, Head Start served 796,500 children. According 
to the Census Bureau, there were roughly 2 million American children 
living in poverty. That leaves 1,200,000 children who were still 
unserved.
  This program, which gives children just what the title says it does, 
a head start, reached only 17 percent of eligible 3-year-olds and only 
41 percent of eligible 4-year-olds. The medical evidence is in. These 
are the ages where we need to support these children. These children, 
just because they come from poor households, deserve every bit of 
support we can give them.
  This amendment lays itself on the line. If you are going to support 
this amendment to balance the budget and lock us in, then I want a 
commitment from this Senate that we will not target these children and 
we will not have cuts in this vital program that gives children a head 
start, some of the most vulnerable poor children in America.
  Finally, Mr. President, another amendment--and these are just four I 
am going to preview. ``Funding for education shall be exempted from the 
definition of outlays for balanced budget calculations, thus protecting 
such spending from cuts under the balanced budget amendment.''
  I heard the President last night talking about education. I heard the 
President last night talking about early childhood development. 
Senators were on their feet applauding. So I am just saying since I saw 
what we did last Congress, I saw where we made the cuts, I want to hear 
Senators argue with me that, if there is another position here--almost 
all those cuts affected low-income citizens. Almost all those cuts 
affected poor children in America, the very citizens who do not get to 
the bargaining table, the very citizens who do not march on Washington, 
DC, the very citizens who do not have lobbyists.
  So I say to my colleagues who support this, how about giving me some 
reassurance and, more importantly, how about giving people in our 
country reassurance that when we do this we will make sure, one more 
time, that Federal outlays shall not be reduced in a manner that 
disproportionately affects outlays for education, nutrition and health 
care programs for children; that we go on record that we are not going 
to cut benefits that deal with the Women, Infants, and Children 
Program; that we are going to make sure that a woman expecting a child 
has an adequate diet; that we are not going to make cuts in Head Start, 
we are going to make sure these children are given a head start; and we 
are not going to make cuts in educational programs. It is real simple. 
It is up-or-down votes.
  I want to know exactly where my colleagues want to take our country 
with this constitutional amendment to balance the budget. I want to 
know what the priorities are. I want to know where the cuts are going 
to be. My understanding, and I will talk much more about this when I 
bring the amendments to the floor, is that the majority party, roughly 
speaking, has about $500 billion of tax cuts, most of it accelerated 
beyond the year 2002--my colleague is shaking his head. We can have a 
debate upon that, and I will be very reassured if that is not the case.
  Mr. President, if we have hundreds of billions of dollars, even if it 
is not $500 billion, in tax cuts and then the tradeoff is going to be 
cuts, but where? What is going to be the offset? They do not want to go 
after the corporate welfare. They do not want to go after the Pentagon 
budget. They want to have hundreds of billions of dollars of tax cuts, 
most of it benefiting high-income, wealthy people. Where will the cuts 
be?
  In the last Congress almost all cuts focused on low-income families, 
low-income children, educational programs. All those programs were in 
jeopardy last time.
  This time I think we need a reassurance and we need a strong vote in 
favor of each of these amendments so that we can have a reassurance for 
many, many citizens in our country. The goodness of America says do not 
cut Head Start. The goodness of America says do not cut the Women, 
Infants, and Children Program. The goodness of America says do not cut 
health care programs that will affect the status of children. The 
goodness of America says do not make disproportionate cuts in any of 
those programs. They have worked. They are important. They are vital.
  I hope I will get 100 votes for each of these amendments. If not, 
then my colleagues will be making their point. My colleagues will be 
saying we refuse to vote for an amendment that puts us on record that 
we will not reduce Federal outlays in a manner that disproportionately 
affects outlays for education, nutrition, and health programs for 
children. I cannot imagine why any Senator would vote against such an 
amendment. We should go on record

[[Page S1010]]

and let the goodness of the Senate speak out on these amendments.
  I look forward to coming to the floor with each of these amendments. 
I will have much supporting evidence. I want to talk about what 
happened in the last Congress. I want to go over exactly where we made 
the cuts, and I want to see if I can get my colleagues to make a 
commitment that we will not continue down this path. I really do 
believe that the vast majority of people in America think it would be 
wrong to make more cuts in programs like WIC and Head Start, more cuts 
in programs that affect the health care, nutrition and educational 
status of our children.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I think we are about to conclude the 
business of the Senate for today. Prior to that happening, I want to 
make some opening observations about this historic constitutional 
amendment, Senate Joint Resolution 1, that we have on the floor this 
evening and on which we have started debate.
  Let me also say to my colleague from Minnesota, who has eloquently 
and passionately laid out a variety of critically important items for 
us to debate in the coming days, my colleague from Minnesota mentioned 
programs that I support. I have always voted for Head Start, and I have 
always voted for Women, Infants and Children. Those are very important 
programs for our country. I am also one who says those programs have to 
be funded within the context of a balanced budget.
  I am standing here beside this 6-foot tall stack of budget documents, 
what I call the budgets of the era of liberalism. This is when America 
said that poor people ought to be cared for, and unprecedented in the 
world, this Nation poured out its riches to the poor. Mr. President, 28 
years of budgets are represented here, and benefits resulted from some 
of what was in them.
  We started the WIC program. We started Head Start in these budgets. 
They were funded last year and will continue to be funded. But what 
happened along the way? People did not seem to get better. People 
seemed to get poorer. While this Nation spoke about having a safety 
net, and it must speak to the need for a safety net for the truly 
needy, we began to learn lessons in the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's. We 
began to learn that handouts are not necessarily a hand up. In a 
society as wealthy as ours, while we truly need to be kind and caring--
and the Senator from Minnesota is truly that, and I think that all 
Senators are--somehow, along the way, we began to realize that the 
cumulative effect of all these spending programs was to put the whole 
Nation at risk. These 28 budgets--28 budget packages submitted by six 
presidents, both Democrats and Republicans--also represent $5.3 
trillion worth of debt. Enough money is paid out annually in interest 
to service the debt that these budgets created to fund all the programs 
that the Senator from Minnesota wants and many, many more.
  That is what the debate is about today. This debate is not about 
Women, Infants, and Children. This debate is not about Head Start. This 
debate is about fiscal responsibility. This debate is about making 
tough policy choices.
  I am amazed that the Senator from Minnesota would fear the 
constitutional amendment, as eloquent as he is on the issues that he is 
impassioned about, because he can appeal to me and he will get my 
vote--within the context of a balanced budget--for Head Start and for 
Women, Infants, and Children. Then he and I, working together, will 
have to work with our other colleagues to make sure that we choose a 
rational spending policy that prioritizes these programs because we 
decide to reduce elsewhere.
  What I will not do and what this Congress will not do is send to the 
American people for ratification a constitutional amendment with a 
loophole in it large enough to drive all of the trucks that service the 
industries in Minnesota through. We dare not send to the American 
people a phony document that they might put in the Constitution, in 
which we exempt all of these programs from the responsible 
decisionmaking that the Senator from Minnesota and I want to make here 
on the floor.
  Should we exempt Social Security? If we exempted Social Security and 
Women, Infants, and Children and Head Start and all of the other 
programs being suggested, that is probably better than a third of the 
budget. How can we turn to the American people and say now we have a 
balanced budget when we just took a third of it off-budget? No longer 
would we have the right to make the choice to set priorities. These 
would autopilot programs. But instead of protecting these programs, 
they would become the loophole through which to channel all sorts of 
new and increased spending. I do not think the Senator from Minnesota 
wants that. I think what the Senator from Minnesota is speaking to is 
setting priorities, making tough choices for the right reasons on the 
right issues for people who are less fortunate. If that is what he 
means, and I know he means that because I know him well, then he will 
have the Presiding Officer's support and he will have my support.

  What we would like to ask him to do is to join us in pleading that we 
get away from this stack of 28 unbalanced budgets in a row, that we get 
away from adding to this $5.3 trillion worth of debt, with its $340 
billion a year worth of interest to service the debt. Those huge 
interest payments actually strip this country of its resources to do 
what that Senator wants done. If we did not have to pay all that 
interest, if we had paid off the past Federal debts, then we would have 
a surplus today of more than $100 billion a year, available to spend on 
programs like those the Senator from Minnesota advances.
  The American people now agree with us. Mr. President, 70 or 80 
percent plus of the American people say a balanced budget is critical. 
President Clinton said last night he was sending us a balanced budget 
tomorrow. I bet he funds WIC, and I bet he funds Head Start, and I bet 
inside that budget is Social Security. This President, our President, 
last night said that was a balanced budget.
  A few moments ago the Senator from Massachusetts was on the floor, 
and he said we should treat Social Security differently--that there 
will be an amendment to treat Social Security differently--from how we, 
the Republicans and some Democrats want to under the balanced budget. 
He said he wanted to keep it separate and apart. Then he spoke 
eloquently about the President's budget, and the President treats 
Social Security exactly the way Republicans want to treat it, leaving 
it inside the budget, making sure that our Government's fiscal house is 
in order so that a government whose budget is balanced is a government 
that can meet its obligation. That is really the issue here, and that 
is the crux of the debate that will go on over the course of the next 
several weeks.

  The Senator from Minnesota has approached us this afternoon with four 
amendments. They are important amendments and they should be debated; 
they should be voted on. I hope that my colleagues, in considering any 
amendment, will consider that all of the budget be a part of the whole 
and the whole should be balanced. The Secretary of the Treasury does 
not suggest that we split anything out of the budget. He suggests that 
we deal with a whole budget, that we don't start prying things apart. 
The President will present that kind of a budget tomorrow. The reason 
that we want to make sure that happens is that it is time this country 
makes the tough choices. I think that when we make those tough choices, 
under the responsibility of a balanced budget requirement in our 
Constitution, social spending programs critical to the truly needy of 
our country will survive.
  For a few moments, Mr. President, let me talk about what stands 
before us here. Twenty-eight years of endlessly unbalanced budgets are 
stacked here at my right hand, 28 years of deficit spending, 28 years 
since the last time this Government balanced its budget in 1969. Now, 
14 of these 28 budgets were never intended to be balanced. They were 
intended to be in deficit, to create debt. But 14 of them--the other 
half--promised a balanced budget at some point. It was the same kind of 
promise we heard from President Clinton last night. These were sincere 
promises, all 14 of these budgets that promised eventual balance, 
spread over the last 28 years. And I do not question this President's 
sincerity in promising yet another budget that reaches balance in a few 
years. I believe that he

[[Page S1011]]

believes he can produce a balanced budget.
  What was the rhetoric last night? ``You vote for it and I will sign 
it.'' The problem is choice making--choice making in an environment in 
which we don't have to make hard choices. And as a result of not having 
to make hard choices, wanting to serve the needs of the American 
people, wanting to address the truly needy, Congresses and Presidents 
instead have made easy choices, 28 long years of easy choices.
  Oh, they were tough choices at the time, or at least they felt tough. 
But when you know you don't have to balance the budget--you do not 
really set priorities and make hard choices. And we went through an era 
when deficit spending was supposed to be good because it supposedly 
stimulated the economy and created jobs. Well, that may have been all 
right in some instances when we didn't have a $5.3 trillion debt, when 
service on the debt was $5 or $6 billion a year and was a minuscule 
part of a total budget. All of a sudden, over the last decade and a 
half, this debt has exploded on the American scene and on the American 
taxpayer's pocketbook. Today, Social Security and the interest on debt 
created by these 28 budgets now rival each other as to which is the 
largest single expenditure in the annual budgets of the Federal 
Government.
  That is why, consistently over recent years, the American people have 
said to this Congress--Republican or Democrat-- ``Get your fiscal house 
in order and balance the Federal budget.'' Seventy-plus percent of the 
American people want a constitutional amendment. But recently polled, 
only 12 percent really believed that we would get to a balanced budget 
by the year 2002. Why? Here is the reason why: 28 consistent years of 
promises made and promises broken to the real people of this country, 
the taxpayer who now feels exploited and put upon largely because this 
Congress and Congresses like it promised but failed to deliver. Twenty-
eight years of budgets submitted by Presidents that promised deficit 
reduction or balanced budgets that never came to be.
  Twenty-eight years of borrowing, a total of 36 deficits in 37 years, 
$5.3 trillion worth of gross debt. That is $20,000 of debt for every 
man, woman, and child in America. So the majority of all the real 
people living in this country today have seen a budget actually 
balanced only once or never. And they now question the integrity of 
their Government and the reality of what this country really is about 
and, more important, what its politicians are about.

  We will honor the promises made by Social Security because we want to 
and because we must. It is a contract with the elderly of our country. 
A government whose budget is balanced is a government that can honor 
that pledge. A government that is in bankruptcy sends no checks out to 
a defense contractor, to an elderly person, or to a single parent on 
welfare.
  That's the reality of the debate. Somehow we think there are special 
needs that could get separated out. At a time when our Government finds 
its fiscal house increasingly in trouble, if it goes bankrupt, no 
checks go out. That is why, for over 3 years, those who believe in a 
balanced budget amendment have argued against those who wish to exempt 
out Social Security and other unique social programs. We understand 
that the threat to Social Security, the threat to Women, Infants and 
Children, the threat to Head Start, is not the balanced budget 
amendment, but the debt. Why are we having to cut back on spending on 
some programs today? Because we did not balance the budget for so many 
years before now. Because of deficits and because of a huge, heavy debt 
structure, and because the American people are saying, ``Fix it, it's 
broken, correct it.''
  What does it mean? What does this stack of paper--thousands of pages 
of debt--say to the average American family? Well, it's something like 
this, in the sense of what it costs them. Since the time I started 
debating this issue in 1982 until today it represents $15,000 for every 
American family in income loss, minimally--$15,000. That means that the 
average American family's income today--if we had balanced the Federal 
budget in 1982 and kept it balanced until 1997--would be $15,000 more. 
Those are not my figures. Those are the figures based on a study by the 
Concord Coalition. We talk of the needy and of wanting to care for 
people. Put an extra $15,000 in every American family's budget and see 
what kind of help you have offered them. But, instead, the Government 
has taken those fruits of their hard work to service the debt structure 
represented by 28 years of profligate deficit spending.
  What does it mean to a household with a 30-year mortgage if the 
economists are right and we pass this amendment and balance the budget? 
Interest rates drop 1\1/2\ to 2 points. And that $30,000 to the average 
American family, saved on a 30-year mortgage, is a year in one of the 
most expensive colleges in the country. Or if you are in Idaho, that is 
2\1/2\ to 3 years of college education in our land grant university. 
That is a lot of money. Where does it go today? Out of the working 
person's pocketbook into the IRS coffers to pay to service the debt 
structure created right here by Congresses past--caring and well-
meaning Congresses--that created this stack of paper representing $5.3 
trillion worth of debt.
  Well, if there is frustration in this debate for some of our Members, 
I don't reject their concerns and I don't take it lightly. I must say 
that it may be frustration that we have inflicted upon ourselves, 
because it is now necessary to propose a constitutional amendment that 
is very simple. It gives us plenty of latitude to get our fiscal house 
in order by 2002. It does so in a way that also creates the necessary 
flexibility in times of real need and in times of war. It says that 
there are margins in which deficit spending can occur, but now it will 
take tough choices to deficit spend, not the automatic and easy choices 
of past years, not ``oh, well, we will make it up next year or a few 
years down the road.''

  We will see a variety of amendments to the balanced budget amendment 
that will come to the floor in the next several weeks. Senators that 
will talk impassionedly about certain priorities that are all critical 
and all important. And all these priorities can be served inside a 
balanced budget by tough decisions and tough choices on this Congress.
  What am I talking about this evening? Correcting a problem that we 
created, correcting a problem that threatens--not me, not the Presiding 
Officer, and not the Senator from Vermont, but his children, my 
children, our grandchildren, and future generations of American 
citizens who will want to be as productive as we hope we have been.
  How important is correcting that problem of adding to the debt? The 
Office of Management and Budget--President Clinton's Office of 
Management and Budget--said that if we continue down the path that this 
Congress and other Congresses have been on, future generations would 
pay 82 percent of their total income in taxes for all levels of 
government because of debt, debt service, and government needs--82 
percent. That means there is no money left to buy a house, there is no 
money to put in a savings account for a rainy day, and there is no 
money left for a college education.
  So what happens? You turn to your government, and the endless process 
is always underway of a government having to do something for more 
people because government has taken so much from those who worked so 
hard and find themselves getting nowhere.
  That is why this has to be corrected, or there will be no future for 
the young people of our country. Because a future in which 82 percent 
of your gross pay goes to all levels of government is no future at all. 
Those are some of the kinds of things we are talking about.
  A child born today--again, not my figures, but those of the National 
Taxpayers Union--a child born today will pay an additional $180,000 in 
taxes during his or her lifetime to service the Federal debt--debt that 
his or her grandmas and grandpas spent but didn't pay for. And that is 
a tragedy.
  Our friend Paul Simon, the now retired Senator from Illinois, who is 
as liberal as I am conservative but who stood shoulder to shoulder with 
me for a decade fighting the battle of the balanced budget amendment to 
our Constitution, called it fiscal child abuse. And he is right. 
Because that legacy of crushing debt is no future for any child

[[Page S1012]]

born in America today, having that obligation out in front of them, 
being required of them by their Government for from which something 
they get no value. That is why this issue has become the No. 1 issue in 
America.
  Our President spoke of valuable priorities last night, important 
issues--education, some tax cuts, the kind of priorities that an 
American wants to be proud of and wants to be a part of. Republican or 
Democrat, there were many of us who heard a President last night speak 
of issues that we can all identify with. But in doing so, we say, with 
a simple caveat: They must be within the limit and the capacity of the 
ability of the Government to pay for them, and the permission of our 
citizens to pay for them, within a balanced budget. It is a simple 
requirement. The problem is that the choices are tough, but that is 
what my job is and that is what I have hired on to do, as has the 
Presiding Officer, and as has the Senator from Vermont.
  In the coming days, as we debate, I hope we can see the very clear 
differences between those who oppose requiring fiscal responsibility, 
who do not want the citizens of this country through the Constitution 
to impose that kind of discipline on the floor of this Senate, and 
those of us who say that after 28 years of endless spending, endless 
debt, and endless deficits, it is time we offer the American people the 
choice of whether to require that kind of constitutional discipline.
  The time is growing late. It is our intent to adjourn as soon as we 
can. But the debate will go on through tomorrow and next week, and we 
hope through the balance of February, as we deal with this issue and as 
Members of the Senate speak their will, as they should, because I know 
of no issue more important than this constitutional amendment.

  Our vote will not make it so. Our Founding Fathers decided that was 
not our job. Our vote is simply to propose to the American people a 
constitutional amendment. And then 38 States, three-fourths of the 
States must vote to ratify, and the debate will go on in every State 
capital across this country--the debate about Government, the Federal 
Government, and its budgets and its priorities. And that will be one of 
the healthiest debates the American citizenry has ever been involved 
in. From that, Senators serving in this Congress and future Congresses 
will not only have the absolute constitutional requirement to balance 
the budget, but they will probably have a much clearer idea of what the 
American people expect of their Federal Government. That ratification 
process is an important process. If we send forth this amendment, we 
will have started in this country what I think not only assures that we 
get our fiscal house in order, but it assures future generations the 
same kind of opportunity that all of us have had in our lifetime.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEAHY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I will not be long because, if nobody else 
wants to go home, I know that staff who serve in this body probably 
would like to, including the young pages on both sides of the aisle. 
They are as important as any contributors to this body. They keep us 
going. I hope that for all of them their service here will be an 
experience that they will remember all of their lives as worthwhile. I 
know that former Senator Pryor, who just recently retired, had been a 
page and felt that way. I know two of my children were pages--here and 
in the other body--and feel that way.
  Mr. President, my good friend from Idaho--he is my good friend--spoke 
eloquently of the stacks of budgets. You know that every year we do 
have a large document that represents the Federal budget, but I would 
point out to him that no constitutional amendment is needed to balance 
those budgets.
  I have great affection for President Reagan. We had a very good 
personal relationship. I used to kid him that every year he would talk 
about a need for a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, and 
then he would send up a budget that increased our national debt, 
something he did more than any President in our Nation's history. By 
the time he got done, he had doubled or tripled the national debt that 
had taken over 200 years to build up.
  He had wonderful speeches saying, ``Let us balance the budget. But, 
by the way, guys, here is my budget, and guess what is in it? It is one 
more huge deficit.''
  We talk about charts showing how the deficits went up and they did 
throughout the 1980's. From President Reagan's election to President 
Clinton's election, they skyrocketed more than in all the Nation's 
history put together before those 12 years--more than all the debt that 
had been arisen from World War II, World War I, the Civil War, the War 
of 1812, from all of our wars combined, and from all of our depressions 
and from all of our recessions. In just 12 years, the amount of debt 
that had grown up was doubled and tripled.
  We talk about the last 28 years. Well, President Clinton is the only 
President in those 28 years--and now for 4 years in a row--who has 
brought down the deficit. That is not withstanding the fact that he has 
to find in our budget several hundred million dollars every day, every 
single day, just to pay the interest on the debt that was built up 
during President Reagan's and President Bush's terms.
  I have great affection for President Reagan and President Bush. I 
felt privileged to think of them as friends. But there is a big 
difference between the rhetoric and the reality when it came to 
balancing the budget with them. The debt that the Senator from Idaho so 
eloquently speaks of, in terms of our children and our children's 
children, the vast bulk of that debt built up just during those 12 
years when some talked the talk but were not willing to walk the walk. 
And now we have to pay it off.
  In 4 years, President Clinton has submitted budgets and fought hard 
for them. For 4 years, he has brought the deficit down. No President in 
my lifetime, Republican or Democrat, has done that. This year he is 
trying to reduce the deficit, again, and achieve a balanced budget 
agreement for the next several years.

  We talk of amending this Constitution, this little, short 
Constitution, the greatest Constitution democracy ever had and the 
reason we are the most powerful democracy known to history. We talk 
about amending it as if we could, then we all go home and 10 years from 
now somehow the amendment would magically come into play and the 
Federal budget would be balanced. President Clinton told us last night 
that all it takes to balance the budget is our votes, courageous votes, 
and his signature. We can balance the budget and we can do it now 
without a constitutional amendment.
  So, instead of amending our Constitution, why not proceed to use our 
votes. I hold up here the voting lists with the names of all Senators 
and places marked where they can vote ``yea'' or ``nay.'' Every one of 
us can stand up and vote ``yea'' or ``nay'' for a balanced budget. That 
is all it takes. We do not have to go through and say 10 years from now 
maybe the States will ratify it and it will be in place and maybe some 
future Congress will act to make the tough decisions. We can vote right 
this minute, today, this month, this year and do what we should do--
make the tough decisions ourselves.
  There are only five Senators remaining in this body who had the 
courage to vote against Reaganomics, which tripled the national debt. I 
am proud to be one of those five. I have cast the tough votes. I have 
had special-interest groups from the right and the left, from my State 
and your State and every other State, come and give me heck for voting 
against their favorite programs. I have probably written as much 
legislation as anybody here that has cut huge hunks out of the Federal 
budget, cuts that affected my State as well as others. But that is the 
way you do it. You do not cast a vote that is just a nice, popular 
thing that fits the polls of the moment. You cast votes that run the 
test of time.
  I urge us to be courageous and think of the future. My children are 
going to live most of their lives in the next century, and when I vote 
I think of what that next century will be. I do not want them burdened 
with debt.
  I wish the debt had not gone up as it did during the 1980's. I think 
it was a great mistake. This body went along

[[Page S1013]]

with it. I commend the political abilities of President Reagan. He got 
within one-quarter of 1 percent of every single budget he ever asked 
for. In fact, when we talk about the veto pen, the only appropriation, 
or spending bill that President Reagan ever vetoed was one that did not 
give him as much money as he wanted. He never vetoed a bill because it 
had too much money. The only spending bill he ever vetoed was one that 
did not give him all the money he wanted. As I recall, the years when 
the Democrats were in office, we actually came back with budgets that 
were smaller than asked for.
  What was, was; what is, is. What is today is the ability, as 
President Clinton said last night, to vote for and enact a balanced 
budget.
  Economists are not asking for a balanced budget amendment to the 
Constitution. Over 1,000 economists signed a letter, including 11 Nobel 
laureates, saying do not amend the Constitution; it creates far more 
problems than it solves. What they said was balance the budget, which 
we can do if we have the courage, but do not amend the Constitution to 
do it. Even as conservative a newspaper as the Wall Street Journal 
yesterday had an editorial saying do not vote for this constitutional 
amendment. Certainly nobody thinks of Alan Greenspan as a profligate, 
shoot-for-the-Moon kind of spender, and Alan Greenspan said do not pass 
this constitutional amendment. Secretary Rubin, one of the most trusted 
and respected Secretaries of the Treasury any administration has had, 
says do not pass this constitutional amendment. Instead of passing a 
bumper-sticker form of economics, do what is right. Have the courage to 
vote for budgets and spending bills that bring about a balanced budget.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, for the past ten years I have spoken out 
in favor of a Balanced Budget Constitutional Amendment, and have 
supported and voted for this measure each time I have had the 
opportunity to do so.
  In fact, in preparing for this statement, I looked back on my career 
in Congress to see how many times I have supported this measure, and I 
noted with interest that in January 1987, my first month of being a 
member of the House of Representatives, I joined as an original 
cosponsor to the Balanced Budget Constitutional Amendment. One of the 
primary sponsors of the legislation on the House side was my colleague, 
Senator Craig, and on the Senate side, Senator Hatch was in the 
forefront introducing the measure in this body. It is with great 
pleasure that I join my friends in this effort once again, along with 
well over 50 of my Senate colleagues.
  Opponents believe it would be easy to give up on the idea of passing 
the Balanced Budget Constitutional Amendment. For a number of years, 
despite the hard work of many individuals, this measure has failed to 
pass through Congress and move on to the states for ratification where 
it belongs. I believe passage of this Amendment is in the best interest 
of the future of our country because it will force us to make the tough 
decisions now that need to be made to balance the budget and eventually 
eliminate the staggering debt that threatens the economic well-being of 
every American.
  Now, there are those that believe there is no need for the Balanced 
Budget Constitutional Amendment--that the federal government can be 
fiscally responsible without being mandated by the Constitution to do 
so. Well, I have been a Member of Congress for 10 years now, and I have 
yet to see Congress or the administration bite the bullet, balance the 
budget, and tackle our enormous debt.
  Just last week, the Congressional Budget Office released one of its 
annual reports making projections on the economic and budget outlook 
for Fiscal Years 1998-2007. According to CBO, last year's deficit was 
$107 billion, making it the fourth year in a row that the deficit has 
decreased. However, the news is not all good. CBO also projects that 
the deficit will increase for Fiscal Year 1997 to become $124 billion. 
And, if we do not commit ourselves to balancing the budget, and 
discretionary spending keeps pace with inflation, this country will be 
faced with a deficit estimated at $278 billion in 2007.
  What does all this mean? It means that nothing ever changes. Year 
after year we are faced with huge deficits and an increasing national 
debt. Year after year we talk about doing the right thing, the 
responsible thing, and passing a balanced budget. And yet, once again, 
here we are debating the merits of the Balanced Budget Constitutional 
Amendment.
  Back in my home state of Colorado, I have been conducting a series of 
town meetings, discussing a wide range of issues with my friends and 
constituents. When the discussion turns to balancing the budget, 
Coloradans realize that if we do not address this important issue with 
Constitutional authority, the amount of the federal budget devoted 
toward paying off the interest on the debt and the entitlement programs 
will increase to the point that there will be barely any money left for 
those programs which deserve and require Federal funding.
  Currently, more than half of the $1.6 trillion in spending goes 
toward the entitlements and mandatory spending. According to CBO, ``if 
current policies remain unchanged, mandatory spending will be twice as 
large as discretionary spending by 2002.'' In addition, another 15 
percent of all outlays goes toward interest costs on the debt. This is 
money that does not go toward education, law enforcement, national 
security, or even our national parks and monuments. As far as I am 
concerned, it is wasted money. My constituents realize this, and on 
their behalf I continue to fight for the Balanced Budget Constitutional 
Amendment.
  Now, I am not saying that this Amendment will be the silver bullet 
which solves all of our problems. However, it will make us accountable 
to the Constitution and to the will of a majority of Americans and 
force us to get our fiscal house in order. If we achieve a balanced 
budget and reduce the deficit, we can expect even lower interest rates, 
an increased savings rate, and increased economic growth for every 
American. Essentially, Americans can expect an increase in their 
standard of living, and I think that is something everyone of us wants 
and deserves.
  Congress came within one vote last session of passing the Balanced 
Budget Constitutional Amendment. I am optimistic that this year we can 
pass this legislation and send the measure on to the states for their 
deliberation. It is time to allow the American people and the state 
legislatures the opportunity to debate the merits of the Balanced 
Budget Constitutional Amendment, and I hope that the Congress will see 
fit to entrust this measure to those who must ratify or reject it.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I appreciate this opportunity to speak in 
behalf of the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
  I especially thank two of my colleagues, Mr. Domenici, the 
distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee, and Mr. Hatch, the 
distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee for their 
longstanding leadership and efforts in behalf of this legislation and 
in effect, enabling us to protect the financial and economic future of 
our children and their children.
  Mr. President, for those who have had the perseverance and tenacity 
to pursue this goal, it has at times been a lonely trail. Whatever 
success we might achieve and I hope that we will achieve has been in 
large part due to the efforts of these two Senators.
  I have read some interesting commentary regarding this effort. Our 
opponents predict dark budget clouds for Social Security and any other 
program deemed essential to a particular economic interest group. But, 
contrary to that dire prediction, I see a bright future with the sum of 
the balanced budget parts. I see a nation with 6.1 million more jobs in 
10 years. I see lower interest rates that will directly affect the 
daily lives and pocketbooks of every citizen in terms of the amount of 
hard-earned income they pay now for living essentials, health care, 
housing, education loans, food, and transportation. With a 2-percent 
drop in interest rates, how would you like 6 months of groceries free 
or corresponding savings in your health care premium costs, mortgage 
payment, student loan? Compare those savings with the marginal 
reductions in the amount of growth of Federal programs.
  In his State of the Union Address, the President said: ``Don't give 
me a balanced budget amendment; give me a balanced budget.''

[[Page S1014]]

  I must say I agree. But, with all due respect, Mr. President, many of 
my colleagues and I have done just that to no avail. During the last 
session of Congress, we sent two balanced budgets to 1600 Pennsylvania 
Avenue and despite exhaustive effort, we were not able to reach 
agreement or accommodation.
  However, I must say that passing the balanced budget amendment and 
two budgets that were, in fact, in balance did provide the kind of 
fiscal backbone and tenacity not seen in the Congress for decades. In 
my own case, I was proud of our efforts within the House Agriculture 
Committee in enacting farm program and food stamp reform that also 
produced an estimated $33 billion in savings over the life of the 
budget agreement. So, I agree with you. It can be done. And, with our 
reform of farm program policy passing by overwhelming margins, we also 
proved there is bipartisan support for true reform and budget savings. 
We also achieved considerable budget savings in discretionary spending 
at the conclusion of the appropriations process; something unique to 
the last Congress.
  However, the real problem is that while there is considerable talk 
about accepting responsibility and standing four square for a balanced 
budget, there are serious differences of opinion as to how to bring the 
budget into balance. Which programs will be cut? Do we have the 
political wherewithal to save Medicare and other entitlements? In this 
regard, the President and many of our friends across the aisle stated 
over and over again they are for a balanced budget but not that 
budget--that budget meaning any cuts in their favorite and priority 
programs.
  And, I must say, despite the fact that a Republican Congress and the 
President were within $10 a month difference in regard to preventing 
Medicare bankruptcy, the fact we were not able to reach agreement and 
the fact that the Democrat Party made a conscious decision to make 
Medicare a top issue in last year's campaign, I am not overly confident 
any budget agreement can be worked out--unless we have to--unless there 
is some outside discipline that will force Congress to get the job 
done. The lure of political opportunism is just too great, the coming 
debate regarding Social Security being a classic example.

  The real question is, does the Congress have the fortitude, the 
perseverance and the tenacity to balance the budget? Despite good men 
and women of both parties and the best of intentions, it is now the 
28th year in which a majority in the Congress has failed in efforts for 
the Federal Government to live within its means. We all agree we must 
make progress toward a balanced budget and then during the course of 
political deliberations we most generally agree to disagree as to how 
to achieve this goal. It is clear that if there is anything to be 
learned during the time we have regretfully experienced ever increasing 
deficits, it is that we need a balanced budget amendment to the 
Constitution to get the job done.
  With the fall of the Greek Republic as an example, there is a theory 
that a democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. The 
theory is it can only exist until the voters discover that they can 
vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, 
the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most 
benefits with the result that a democracy always collapses over a loose 
fiscal policy.
  That is the theory. If true, it is a terrible prospect.
  Mr. President, I choose not to accept that dire prediction but I must 
say given our most recent history and given the fact our best efforts 
fell short during the last session of Congress, I believe this debate, 
this legislation, and this time represents our vest best opportunity to 
set our Nation's fiscal house in order.
  As President Clinton stated, ``We don't need a constitutional 
amendment to balance the budget, we need action.'' Again, with due 
respect to the President, it is indeed time for action and for action, 
we need a constitutional amendment to get the job done.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Snowe). The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. ABRAHAM. Madam President, I rise today to give some opening 
remarks with respect to the resolution on the balanced budget that is 
now before us. I suspect during the course of the next several weeks in 
the debate that is ahead, I will probably be here several more times to 
discuss various aspects of this resolution as well as some of the 
amendments which are going to be offered. But today I thought I would 
just make some initial comments regarding what I consider to be the 
need, the necessity really, for this amendment, both why we need a 
balanced budget, why we need to have a balanced budget amendment, and 
why we need to do it now.
  First of all, I think it should be clear to all Americans why we need 
a balanced budget, although it certainly has not been the case that the 
Congress or the President, over the last many, many years, has 
responded to the public's demands. The first reason is simple. We have 
gone literally a generation without balancing the budget.
  Just a few minutes ago, all of these budgets were presented to us, 
reflecting the many years in which we have failed to balance the 
budget. This is as close to balancing the budget as we have come today, 
piling these documents on top of each other and making sure they do not 
fall over, but that is as close to balancing the budget as we have been 
in a quarter of a century. These years of deficits have to come to an 
end.
  We need a balanced budget also because a failure to balance the 
budget has hurt the economy. To the extent that Government borrows, it 
means less capital is available for private citizens to borrow. That 
means that our economy cannot grow as fast as we would like it. It has 
especially meant that families in America have suffered. Families have 
suffered to the extent that the Federal Government's encroachment in 
capital markets means higher interest rates, higher interest rates on 
new home purchases, on new automobile loans, on student loans, on the 
variety of other things which average, hardworking American families 
must seek financing.
  It has also hurt our families in the sense we are passing on to our 
children what is obviously a mountain of debt. Kids in America today, 
as one of the earlier speakers, the Senator from Idaho, indicated, 
inherit immediately upon their birth, an enormous responsibility for 
debts built up by past Congresses. A child born in America today--and I 
have a 5-month-old child so I suspect it applies to him--is immediately 
responsible for paying over his or her lifetime something in the 
vicinity of $180,000 in taxes simply to pay his or her share of this 
debt.
  That is certainly not the kind of legacy that was passed on to my 
generation. It is not the legacy I intend to pass on to my children's 
generation. Therefore, it is essential that we balance the budget and 
we do so immediately so we do not continue to hurt our families, our 
businesses, and especially our children.
  The next question is why we need a constitutional amendment to 
balance the budget. Indeed it is true, as many have said, that simply 
an action by Congress and the President would bring about a balanced 
budget. But, as we have seen just in the last 2 years, saying it and 
doing it are very different things. We reached an impasse in Washington 
in 1995. I don't think it's an impasse that was unique to the 104th 
Congress or President Clinton. I think it is the kind of impasse that 
is likely to be reached on almost any occasion in which the Congress of 
the United States is controlled by one political party and the 
executive branch is controlled by someone from the other party. The 
impasse was over spending priorities. But, even though everyone on all 
sides of the issue said they wanted a balanced budget, we did not get a 
balanced budget because of that impasse. The absence of a 
constitutional requirement that we balance the budget, that outlays not 
exceed revenues to the Federal Government, meant that the impasse 
continued in spite of the rhetoric on all sides, in spite of all of the 
balanced budget proposals that flowed from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and 
on Capitol Hill. Despite all of that, we never got to the balanced 
budget. It is my view that, without an amendment, without a 
constitutional requirement that the Congress and the President bring 
about a balanced budget, impasses such as the one that existed during 
the winter of 1995 will occur again.

  Another reason I believe we need an amendment is because we do not 
know

[[Page S1015]]

what the future will bring, and we need to have a permanent safeguard 
against the kinds of deficits that have plagued the Nation over the 
past quarter of a century. Yes, today, today in America, talking about 
balancing the budget, advocating a balanced budget, is politically 
popular and what the American people are demanding. But, as we have 
seen for a quarter of a century, something that is simply politically 
popular may not get done. We have no idea what future Congresses will 
think about this issue. If we provide this sort of loophole that a 
failure to pass this amendment provides, we will be right where we have 
been for the last 25 years.
  Yes, it is possible we all might get together and in this Congress, 
even though the parties that control the Congress and the White House 
are different, we might finally reach a balanced budget for the year 
2002. But what about the year 2003, or 2005, or 2010? What is the 
safeguard the American people deserve, to guarantee that in those years 
the same atmosphere that will bring about a balanced budget maybe in 1 
year, will continue? I think the only safeguard will be an amendment to 
the Constitution.
  The last issue is why now? I think the crisis we confront today is 
one of the strongest arguments that we could have for balancing the 
budget. But the crises that fiscally will afflict this country in 
another 15 or 20 years are an even stronger argument for this amendment 
at this time. As we know, projections with respect to a variety of 
Federal spending programs, particularly the Federal entitlement 
programs, suggest that as the baby boom generation members age and 
ultimately become consumers of entitlements rather than providers of 
revenue to the Federal Government, such programs as Medicare and 
retirement programs will begin to run even greater costs than they do 
at this time. What we need to do is get our fiscal house in order today 
so that when those greater demands on the Federal Government begin to 
occur, we have the resources necessary to ensure they are honored. A 
constitutional amendment that prohibits us from running the deficits 
that are reflected in this stack of budgets before me will assist us in 
getting our fiscal house in order.
  In summary, the average family in my State of Michigan has interests 
rates that are unnecessarily high due to the deficits we have run and 
due to the borrowing of the Federal Government. Because of that, the 
average family in my State does not have as much to spend on its 
priorities as it deserves.
  That family's parents should have more income to spend on their 
children and their priorities and send less dollars to Washington and 
less dollars on interest payments than they do at this time. We need a 
balanced budget to help that working family in Michigan.
  America's long-term security also is at stake. America deserves to 
have fiscal integrity so that as we move forward into the 21st century, 
this debt does not bind us down, this debt does not undermine our 
economic security, this debt does not hold America back as we try to 
compete in the global economy, this ever-more competitive global 
economy, in the years ahead.
  For all these reasons, I think action is required now. I think a 
balanced budget is a necessity, and I think the only way to achieve it 
is with an amendment to the Constitution that not only brings about a 
balanced budget in the year 2002, but assures we will continue 
balancing the budget into the next century and into the future of our 
Nation.
  For those reasons, Madam President, I support the balanced budget 
amendment. I look forward to continuing this debate as we move forward 
into the next few weeks and hope that by the time we reach a final vote 
on this issue, two-thirds of our colleagues will join together to 
finally change the direction here in Washington, in America and, most 
importantly, end the unbroken series of Federal deficit represented by 
this stack of budgets standing next to me.
  Mrs. MURRAY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as if 
in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. MURRAY. I thank the Chair.

                          ____________________