[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 15 (Friday, February 7, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1126-S1130]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION

  The Senate continued with consideration of the resolution.
  Mr. ASHCROFT addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thomas). The Senator from Missouri is 
recognized.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. I thank my colleague from the State of Connecticut. Mr. 
President, I am pleased to have an opportunity to make some remarks 
about the balanced budget amendment. It is my understanding the 
minority leader may come to the floor to speak, and if he does I am 
happy to interrupt my remarks to provide him an opportunity to make 
whatever remarks he plans to make.
  Mr. President, when we discuss the balanced budget amendment, we are 
usually talking about the impact of runaway spending on our economy or 
on our future. These are fundamental considerations, but I think there 
is another consideration that we must not lose sight of, and that is, 
perhaps, more fundamental and more profound than the economic 
implications of the balanced budget. A protracted deficit spending 
empowers the central Government with the means to undermine our basic 
liberties. What I really mean to say is that unlimited spending by 
Government promotes unlimited Government, and unlimited Government 
means limited freedom. There is a relationship between the size of 
Government and the number of its prerogatives and the size of 
individuals and the number of their prerogatives.
  For how we tax and spend, really, in fact, determines whether we are 
prosperous or poor, free or enslaved, good or evil. I believe if we 
want to be free, we have always to be careful about the size of 
Government.
  Now, the acknowledgment that we can control Government by controlling 
its power of the purse is not new. From the very beginnings of this 
Republic there has been a clear understanding that if you could control 
the purse, if you could limit spending, you could limit the 
encroachment of Government upon the freedom of individuals. Money is 
and money has always been the source of Government's most basic power. 
History bears testament to this truth.
  The Magna Carta, which was signed grudgingly by King John a few 
centuries ago--I might add, no relation, King John, but the name is 
still in current use--prescribed that the monarchy could not impose 
taxes, and King John grudgingly signed this, the monarchy could not 
impose taxes without the consent of the Great Council. Charles I was 
executed because he tried to spend money without the consent of the 
Commons. And our own Declaration of Independence talks of injuries and 
usurpations, not the least of which was George III's imposition of 
taxes without representation, taxes without the consent or 
participation in the decisionmaking by colonial residents.
  Mr. President, deficit spending has wrested power from the people. It 
has taken power from the next generation and brought it to this 
generation, the power to decide how the resources of our own children 
will be spent. It has deposited this power in the Halls of Congress.
  We are not only taking the freedom of this generation when we spend 
in deficit, we are taking the freedom of the next generation, so that 
we have a compound problem here. The extent and reach of Government 
encroaches upon the capacity of individuals to live freely, not only in 
the present time but because we are funding this overreaching of 
Government with deficit spending, it encroaches upon the freedom of the 
next generation.
  This is an inversion of the will of the Framers of the Constitution. 
It is an invasion of the social contract in which our forefathers 
developed this country. It takes the power from the people and puts it 
in the hands of the Congress. And really what Congress' enterprise 
ought to be is empowering people. It is time to return to the people 
the ability to control their own lives, their future and their destiny 
and to begin to assure the next generation that we will not have 
exercised their prerogatives, we will not have made their choices about 
how to spend their resources, but that we will, indeed, protect some of 
that prerogative which they rightfully have which they ought to enjoy. 
Another way of saying this is that it is simply immoral to tax unborn 
generations of Americans in anticipation of their existence in order to 
satisfy our undisciplined consumption that is a result of deficit 
spending.
  Mr. President, Congress today does not have to vote to raise more 
revenue in order to spend more money. We have gone through a transition 
from tax and spend, which is an arguable proposition, to borrow and 
spend, which is certainly a very questionable proposition. We now are 
in a category of steal and spend, because borrowing without the 
intention or capacity to pay back by those who are doing the borrowing 
is something that is categorized in the law as something far different 
from borrowing. People who go to borrow without the intention to pay 
back are stealing. Most State statutes call it stealing by deceit. When 
we in this generation borrow without the intention or capacity to repay 
those moneys which we have borrowed, we, in fact, are stealing from the 
next generation. We cannot have their consent to take their resources 
because they do not exist yet. We are taking resources from our 
children and grandchildren at a time before they are even born. We are 
borrowing without the intention to pay back. We have gone from tax and 
spend to borrow and spend, and I daresay, now we find ourselves in the 
moral reprobate position of stealing from the next generation to spend.
  I spent some time as attorney general of my State. I had the 
privilege of serving the people of Missouri for 8 years as attorney 
general. It is the attorney general's responsibility to uphold the 
convictions of individuals who have violated the law. Among those are 
people who abuse children. I think child abuse is reprehensible. It is 
beyond my comprehension how someone would abuse a child, let alone his 
or her own child.
  But most of the people who abuse children would not think of stealing 
from children, or stealing from their own children. I find it to be 
abhorrent and immoral, and it is very unwise that we would take from 
our own children the capacity that they ought to have to be free, and 
that we would somehow wrest from them the decisionmaking capacity of 
free citizens in the next generation to decide how to deploy the 
resources that they generate. We would have already made the decisions, 
we would already have consumed the benefits, and we would send to them 
nothing more nor less than the bill--the debt to be paid.
  We owe our children so much more than that. Tax and spend was bad; 
borrow and spend was worse. When we got to a situation where we could 
not repay that which we had borrowed, it became stealing by deceit, and 
steal and spend is morally reprehensible and must be curtailed, it must 
be stopped.
  The ability to take resources of the next generation is unique to the 
Congress. No father can create debts which are visited upon his or her 
son or daughter. No mother can create a debt that can be visited upon 
her son or daughter. The law simply does not allow the debts of a 
parent to be imposed upon a child. Only in one universe can this 
happen, and it can only happen when the people of this country, through 
their Congress, create a debt which will be visited on those who are 
yet unborn, will be used as a set-off to garnishee the wages that are 
yet unearned. It's time that we stop.

[[Page S1127]]

  No family in America finds its children encumbered by the debts of 
parents. The American people are fed up with a Congress that spends 
these yet unearned wages of the next generation, and rightly so. It is 
more than economics; it is a matter of freedom. Second it is more than 
freedom; it is a matter of integrity.
  Mr. President, deficit spending is not only a threat to our posterity 
and our children's future, it is a method by which Washington's elite 
circumvent the public, the law, and the Constitution. When the people 
express the belief that Government is out of control, they are correct. 
For too long, this body has satisfied the appetites of narrow interests 
at the public's expense. Where is the accountability to taxpayers? 
Where is the will to do that which is right?
  Mr. President, we have tried time and time again to deal with this 
problem of recurring chronic debt. In terms of the medical profession, 
this is not an acute problem that lasts momentarily and then is gone, 
this is a chronic problem. These copies of out-of-balance budgets for 
the United States, year after year--I believe there are only 28 years 
stacked here. Over the last 60 years, you can more than double, perhaps 
triple, the volume represented by these out-of-balance budgets. They 
represent the absence of our capacity to discipline ourselves to stop 
spending someone else's money, to stop borrowing someone else's money, 
to stop stealing by deceit the resources of the next generation.
  In 1985, we tried something. It was a noble endeavor. To be commended 
are Senators Gramm, former Senator Rudman, and Senator Hollings in the 
Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act. Then again we didn't have the will to carry 
through, and we changed the law so we could change the rules because we 
could not change our habits. We put Gramm-Rudman II in place in 1987. 
Then we changed the law and we changed the rules because we could not 
change our habits and broke that agreement. When the Budget Enforcement 
Act of 1990 went into effect, again, we found ourselves changing the 
law and the rules because we could not break our habit. It becomes 
apparent to me that we need to do more than just have laws and rules, 
because we never have been able, in the face of our bad habit, to 
maintain our commitment to the rules or to the laws. We have simply 
changed the law and broken the rules because we could not break the 
habit.
  We need systemic change, something that goes to the very heart of us, 
that forbids this insistent expropriation, taking away from the next 
generation. It is simply that we need to put into the Constitution an 
immutable, unchangeable document, a kind of capacity to provide the 
discipline we have lacked and lacked consistently. I think we need to 
summon the discipline to restrain Government. It is obvious that 
Republican and Democrat Congresses have not had it. Republican and 
Democrat Presidents have not had it. It is time for us to provide a 
backbone implant, if you will, for the Congress of the United States to 
place in the Constitution of the United States this discipline.
  While one Senate cannot bind the next Senate, and hasn't because we 
have changed the laws and changed the rules because we could not break 
the habit, our Constitution can provide that discipline. Persons born 
in 1900 paid, roughly, 24 percent of their income in Federal and local 
net taxes. Persons born in 1970 will pay about 34 percent of their 
income in net taxes. If the policies that we have in place now remain, 
persons born in 1994 and thereafter will find themselves, over the 
course of their lifetimes, paying a net tax rate of about 84 percent. 
It is a trend which cannot continue. It is taxation without 
representation. It is an expropriation of the freedom and opportunity 
of the next generation. It is immoral, it is obscene, and it must end.

  As Thomas Jefferson stated in a letter to James Madison in 1789:

       The question whether one generation of men has a right to 
     bind another * * * is a question of such consequence as not 
     only to merit discussion, but place also, among the 
     fundamental principles of every government.

  We must place it among the fundamental principles of our Government 
by enshrining the balanced budget amendment in our Constitution.
  Now, there is some quibbling about whether those who founded this 
great Nation would have wanted the balanced budget amendment in the 
Constitution. I must say to you that there were certain presumptions 
that surrounded most individuals who assembled to create the finest 
document ever written by human hand--the U.S. Constitution. One 
presumption was the presumption of integrity and the presumption of 
responsibility that the Founders expected of those in Government. 
Tragically, that presumption is unwarranted as it relates to the 
Congress today. I believe, absent their ability to rely upon the 
integrity and determination of the Congress, they would gladly have 
placed in the Constitution a framework which would have required such 
responsibility.
  Mr. President, I send to the desk for inclusion into the Record the 
letter of Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, written in Paris on 
September 6, 1789.
  I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record following my 
remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, during this debate, we have heard 
frequently that there is not a need to amend the Constitution. There is 
authority, we are told, for Congress to do what is right if we simply 
exercise greater fiscal discipline. No one in this Chamber has ever 
argued that there is inadequate authority for balancing the budget. But 
these unbalanced budgets are a testimony which is undeniable, not to 
the absence of authority, but to the absence of discipline. It is time 
that we, who have experienced a collective loss of will, provide a 
structure in which we cannot allow this abuse of the future of the 
United States to continue.
  The balanced budget amendment is real reform, and it will be felt. I 
had the privilege of serving my State as Governor. I have seen what 
happens when there is a framework and structure which demands 
discipline. I know that for 8 years we balanced our budgets. As a 
matter of fact, we aimed for a little surplus so we could create a 
rainy day fund so that when times got tough, we could simply call upon 
those resources that we had developed when times were good. And it was 
not only an appropriate way to do business because it was moral and 
because it didn't steal from the next generation. It was an appropriate 
way to do business because it was very healthy for the State 
economically. And over and over again our State was rated at the very 
top with the highest bond rating--the highest financial rating of any 
State in the country because it was understood that we had this concern 
about the integrity of our fiscal affairs.

  So, Mr. President, let me just say a balanced budget amendment is 
real reform. It will reestablish the historical responsibilities 
observed in this country that we could have balanced budgets, except in 
times of war, which is something that should be assumed. But it cannot 
be assumed and must be institutionalized.
  It is also a political reform that will be felt first and foremost in 
the cold corridors of power here on the Potomac. Most importantly, it 
will be felt by the American people who will have their right to self-
governance restored.
  Over two centuries ago Edmund Burke reminded members of the British 
House of Commons of a fundamental principle. Burke said: ``The people 
must possess the power of granting their own money or no shadow of 
liberty can subsist.''
  The truth of the matter is that, if the people do not have power over 
their own purse strings and if we can extend our Republic of Government 
by borrowing or stealing from the next generation, we indeed will have 
seriously eroded the liberty which we are entitled to in this country.
  We need to safeguard those liberties which were first inscribed in 
the Magna Carta in 1215 preserved by the blood of patriots on 
continents around the world. We must return the power of the purse to 
the people. We must stop stealing from our children. We must stop 
stealing by deceit.
  Mr. President, the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution not 
only has to do with economics and the economy, and not only has to do 
with

[[Page S1128]]

prosperity. It is a problem about integrity, and it is a challenge 
relating to liberty. And we must embrace it and offer it to the people 
of the United States for ratification.

                               Exhibit 1


 letter from thomas jefferson to james madison, paris September 6, 1789

       Dear Sir: I sit down to write to you without knowing by 
     what occasion I shall send my letter. I do it because a 
     subject comes into my head which I would wish to develop a 
     little more than is practicable in the hurry of * * * of 
     making up general dispatches.
       The question Whether one generation of men has a right to 
     bind another, seems never to have been started either on this 
     or our side of the water. Yet it is a question of such 
     consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also, 
     among the fundamental principles of every government. The 
     course of reflection in which we are immersed here on the 
     elementary principles of society has presented this question 
     to my mind; and that no such obligation can be so transmitted 
     I think very capable of proof.--I set out on this ground, 
     which I suppose to be self evident, `that the earth belongs 
     in usufruct to the living': that the dead have neither powers 
     nor rights over it. The portion occupied by any individual 
     ceases to be his when himself ceases to be, and reverts to 
     the society. If the society has formed no rules for the 
     appropriation of it's lands in severality, it will be taken 
     by the first occupants. These will generally be the wife and 
     children of the decendent. If they have formed rules of 
     appropriation, those rules may give it to the wife and 
     children, or to some one of them, or to the legatee of the 
     deceased. So they may give it to his creditor. But the child, 
     the legatee, or creditor takes it, not by any natural right, 
     but by a law of the society of which they are members, and to 
     which they are subject. Then no man can, be natural right, 
     oblige the lands he occupied, or the persons who succeed him 
     in that occupation, to the paiment of debts contracted by 
     him. For if he could, he might, during his own life, eat up 
     the usufruct of the lands for several generations to come, 
     and then the lands would belong to the dead, and not to the 
     living, which would be the reverse of our principle.
       What is true of every member of the society individually, 
     is true of them all collectively, since the rights of the 
     whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the 
     individuals.--To keep our ideas clear when applying them to a 
     multitude, let us suppose a whole generation of men to be 
     born on the same day, to attain mature age on the same 
     day, and to die on the same day, leaving a succeeding 
     generation in the moment of attaining their mature age all 
     together. Let the ripe age be supposed of 21. years, and 
     their period of life 34. years more, that being the 
     average term given by the bills of mortality to persons 
     who have already attained 21. years of age. Each 
     successive generation would, in this way, come on, and go 
     off the stage at a fixed moment, as individuals do now. 
     Then I say the earth belongs to each of these generations, 
     during it's course, fully, and in their own right. The 2d. 
     generation receives it clear of the debts and 
     incumberances of the 1st. the 3d of the 2d. and so on. For 
     if the 1st. could charge it with a debt, then the earth 
     would belong to the dead and not the living generation. 
     Then no generation can contract debts greater than may be 
     paid during the course of it's own existence. At 21. years 
     of age they may bind themselves and their lands for 34. 
     years to come: at 22. for 33: at 23. for 32. and at 54. 
     for one year only; because these are the terms of life 
     which remain to them at those respective epochs.--But a 
     material difference must be noted between the succession 
     of an individual, and that of a whole generation. 
     Individuals are parts only of a society, subject to the 
     laws of the whole. These laws may appropriate the portion 
     of land occupied by a decedent to his creditor rather than 
     to any other, or to his child on condition he satisfies 
     the creditor. But when a whole generation, that is, the 
     whole society dies, as in the case we have supposed, and 
     another generation or society succeeds, this forms a 
     whole, and there is no superior who can give their 
     territory to a third society, who may have lent money to 
     their predecessors beyond their faculties of paying.
       What is true of a generation all arriving to self-
     government on the same day, and dying all on the same day, is 
     true of those in a constant course of decay and renewal, with 
     this only difference. A generation coming in and going out 
     entire, as in the first case, would have a right in the 
     1st. year of their self-dominion to contract a debt for 
     33. years, in the 10th. for 24. in the 20th. for 14. in 
     the 30th for 4. whereas generations, changing daily by 
     daily deaths and births, have one constant term, beginning 
     at the date of their contract, and ending when a majority 
     of those of full age at that date shall be dead. The 
     length of that term may be estimated from the tables of 
     mortality, corrected by the circumstances of climate, 
     occupation &c. peculiar to the country of the contractors. 
     Take, for in stance, the table of M. de Buffon wherein he 
     states 23,994 deaths, and the ages at which they happened. 
     Suppose a society in which 23,994 persons are born every 
     year, and live to the ages stated in this table. The 
     conditions of that society will be as follows 1st. It will 
     consist constantly of 617,703 persons of all ages. 2ly. Of 
     those living at any one instant of time, one half will be 
     dead in 24. years 8. months. 3dly. 10,675 will arrive 
     every year at the age of 21. years complete. 4ly. It will 
     constantly have 348,417 persons of all ages above 21. 
     years. 5ly. And the half of those of 21. years and upwards 
     living at any one instant of time will be dead in 18. 
     years 8. months, or say 19. years as the nearest integral 
     number. Then 19. years is the term beyond which neither 
     the representatives of a nation, nor even the whole nation 
     itself assembled, can validly extend a debt.
       To render this conclusion palpable by example, suppose that 
     Louis XIV. and XV. has contracted debts in the name of the 
     French nation to the amount of 10,000 milliards of livres, 
     and that the whole has been contracted in Genoa. The interest 
     of this sum would be 500. milliards, which is said to be the 
     whole rent roll or nett proceeds of the territory of France. 
     Must the present generation of men have retired from the 
     territory in which nature produced them, and ceded it to the 
     Genoese creditors? No. They have the same rights over the 
     soil on which they were produced, as the preceding 
     generations had. They derive these rights not from their 
     predecessors, but from nature. They then and their soil 
     are by nature clear of the debts of their predecessors.
       Again suppose Louis XV, and his cotemporary generation had 
     said to the money-lenders of Genoa, give us money that we may 
     eat, drink, and be merry in our day; and on condition you 
     will demand no interest till the end of 19 years you shall 
     then for ever after receive an annual interest of 12\5/8\ per 
     cent.\1\ The money is lent on these conditions, is divided 
     among the living, eaten, drank, and squandered. Would the 
     present generation be obliged to apply the produce of the 
     earth and of their labour to replace their dissipations? Not 
     at all.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     \1\ 100, at a compound interest of 5. per cent, 
     makes at the end of 19. years, an aggregate of principal and 
     interest of 252-14, the interest of which is 
     12 12-12s-7d which is nearly 12\5/8\ per cent on 
     the first capital of 100. .
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       I suppose that the received opinion, that the public debts 
     of one generation devolve on the next, has been suggested by 
     our seeing habitually in private life that he who succeeds to 
     lands is required to pay the debts of his ancestor or 
     testator: without considering that this requisition is 
     municipal only, not moral; flowing from the will of the 
     society, which has found it convenient to appropriate lands, 
     become vacant by the death of their occupant, on the 
     condition of a paiment of his debts: but that between society 
     and society, or generation and generation, there is no 
     municipal obligation, no umpire but the law of nature. We 
     seem not to have perceived that, by the law of nature, one 
     generation is to another as one independant nation to 
     another.
       The interest of the national debt of France being in fact 
     but a two thousandth part of it's rent roll, the paiment of 
     it is practicable enough: and so becomes a question merely of 
     honor, or of expediency. But with respect to future debts, 
     would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare, in 
     the constitution they are forming, that neither the 
     legislature, nor the nation itself, can validly contract 
     more debt than they may pay within their own age, or 
     within the term of 19 years? And that all future contracts 
     will be deemed void as to what shall remain unpaid at the 
     end of 19 years from their date? This would put the 
     lenders, and the borrowers also, on their guard. By 
     reducing too the faculty of borrowing within it's natural 
     limits, it would bridle the spirit of war, to which too 
     free a course has been procured by the inattention of 
     money-lenders to this law of nature, that succeeding 
     generations are not responsible for the preceding.
       On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make 
     a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth 
     belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it 
     then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their 
     usufruct. They are masters too of their own persons, and 
     consequently may govern them as they please. But persons and 
     property make the sum of the objects of government. The 
     constitution and the laws of their predecessors [are] 
     extinguished then in their natural course with those who gave 
     them being. This could preserve that being till it ceased to 
     be itself, and no longer. Every constitution then, and every 
     law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be 
     enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right.--It 
     may be said that the succeeding generation exercising in fact 
     the power of repeal, this leaves them as free as if the 
     constitution or law had been expressly limited to 19 years 
     only. In the first place, this objection admits the right, in 
     proposing an equivalent. But the power of repeal is not an 
     equivalent. It might be indeed if every form of government 
     were so perfectly contrived that the will of the majority 
     could always be obtained fairly and without impediment. But 
     this is true of no form. The people cannot assemble 
     themselves. Their representation is unequal and vicious. 
     Various checks are opposed to every legislative proposition. 
     Factions get possession of the public councils. Bribery 
     corrupts them. Personal interests lead them astray from the 
     general interests of their constituents: and other 
     impediments arise so as to prove to every practical man 
     that a law of limited duration is much more manageable 
     than one which needs a repeal.
       This principle that the earth belongs to the living, and 
     not to the dead, is of very extensive application and 
     consequences, in every country, and most especially in 
     France. It enters into the resolution of the

[[Page S1129]]

     questions. Whether the nation may change the descent of lands 
     holden in tail? Whether they may change the appropriation of 
     lands given antiently to the church, to hospitals, colleges, 
     orders of chivalry, and otherwise in perpetuity? Whether they 
     may abolish the charges and privileges attached on lands, 
     including the whole catalogue ecclesiastical and feudal? It 
     goes to hereditary offices, authorities and jurisdictions; to 
     hereditary orders, distinctions and appellations; to 
     perpetual monopolies in commerce, the arts and sciences; with 
     a long train of et ceteras: and it renders the question of 
     reimbursement a question of generosity and not of right. In 
     all these cases, the legislature of the day could authorize 
     such appropriations and establishments for their own time, 
     but no longer; and the present holders, even where they, or 
     their ancestors, have purchased, are in the case of bona fide 
     purchasers of what the seller had no right to convey.
       Turn this subject in your mind, my dear Sir, and 
     particularly as to the power of contracting debts; and 
     develope it with that perspicuity and cogent logic so 
     peculiarly yours. Your station in the councils of our country 
     gives you an opportunity of producing it to public 
     consideration, of forcing it into discussion. At first blush 
     it may be rallied, as a theoretical speculation: but 
     examination will prove it to be solid and salutary. It would 
     furnish matter for a fine preamble to our first law for 
     appropriating the public revenue; and it will exclude at the 
     threshold of our new government the contagious and ruinous 
     errors of this quarter of the globe, which have armed despots 
     with means, not sanctioned by nature, for binding in 
     chains their fellow men. We have already given in example 
     one effectual check to the Dog of war by transferring the 
     power of letting him loose from the Executive to the 
     Legislative body, from those who are to spend to those who 
     are to pay. I should be pleased to see this second 
     obstacle held our by us also in the first instance. No 
     nation can make a declaration against the validity of 
     long-contracted debts so disinterestedly as we, since we 
     do not owe a shilling which may not be paid with ease, 
     principal and interest, within the time of our own 
     lives.--Establish the principle also in the new law to be 
     passed for protecting copyrights and new inventions, by 
     securing the exclusive right for 19, instead of 14, years. 
     Besides familiarising us to this term, it will be an 
     instance the more of our taking reason for our guide, 
     instead of English precedent, the habit of which fetters 
     us with all the political heresies of a nation equally 
     remarkeable for it's early excitement from some errors, 
     and long slumbering under others.
       I write you no news, because, when an occasion occurs, I 
     shall write a separate letter for that, I am always with 
     great & sincere esteem, dear Sir Your affectionate friend & 
     servt.

  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DASCHLE. 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. DASCHLE. Mr. President, today we begin the debate about the 
budget resolution. As everyone knows, yesterday the President sent to 
Congress his plan for a balanced budget. The way we receive that budget 
will be the first real test of our ability and our willingness in this 
Congress to find bipartisan consensus on a budget.
  Is bipartisanship truly our goal, or is it merely a PR strategy? The 
debate that begins today will go a long way on both sides of the aisle 
toward answering that question.
  The plan the President is sending us balances the Federal budget by 
the year 2002 while protecting our priorities. It invests in America's 
future, and pays for those investments.
  The President's budget offers targeted tax relief for homeowners and 
families with children; for parents who are struggling to save for 
their children's college education, and workers who are trying to save 
for their own retirement; for companies involved in environmental 
cleanup and converting old industrial sites into new hubs of 
opportunity.
  The budget provides a strong framework for a bipartisan agreement. It 
reflects 2 years of hard negotiations, and contains ideas advocated by 
both parties.
  With the requisite sense of purpose and political will, this Congress 
can enact a balanced budget that protects important national priorities 
this year. That is my goal, and I am committed to making it happen.
  It does not take a miracle to balance the budget. I know. I helped 
write a plan last year that balanced the budget by the year 2002--and 
protected Medicare, education, and the environment. I voted for it. And 
so did a lot of other people.
  The President adopted the plan. And the President is submitting a 
modified version of that very plan today. So he knows it does not take 
a miracle to balance the budget. The President has shown us a blueprint 
that will allow us to make that a reality.
  It also doesn't require a constitutional amendment. The President's 
budget will balance the budget by the year 2002 without it.
  But let me be clear. I support a balanced budget amendment. I have 
since I was first elected to Congress. I have voted for amendments in 
the past. I have opposed other amendments. And I will support a 
balanced budget amendment again this year.
  But it has to be the right amendment. There is a difference between 
supporting a responsible amendment and supporting any balanced budget 
amendment.
  Senator Dorgan and I and others are cosponsoring an amendment that 
requires Congress to pass a balanced budget without looting the Social 
Security trust funds.
  The version of the amendment now before the Senate contains no such 
protection.
  It places current retirees in the most immediate danger. Let me read 
a letter from the President that I received just last week. In that 
letter the President states:

       In the event of an impasse in which the budget requirements 
     can neither be waived nor met, disbursement of Social 
     Security checks could cease or unelected judges could reduce 
     benefits to comply with this constitutional mandate.

  That was a letter from the President just last week.
  Social Security has never been a day late or a dollar short. The 
amendment should not force us to break that historic contract.
  This version of the amendment also places future retirees at risk. 
The heart of the 1983 bipartisan agreement that rescued Social Security 
was a plan to set aside funds for baby boomers' retirement. Because of 
that plan, Social Security is now running huge surpluses. This year 
alone that surplus is expected to be $78 billion. By the year 2002, it 
is expected to be $104 billion. By 2019, when many of the baby boomers 
start to retire, the Social Security trust funds will have built up a 
$3 trillion surplus, which will be absolutely necessary to pay the 
retirees at that time.
  But, if we pass this version of the balanced budget amendment, none 
of those funds will be available to pay the Social Security benefits.
  This amendment says clearly, ``Total outlays for any fiscal year 
shall not exceed total receipts for that year.'' Total outlays, 
including Social Security.
  The Government would be forbidden not only from running a deficit, 
but also from drawing down the surplus.
  Social Security benefits could be paid only from taxes raised in the 
same year. That means, when the baby boomers retire, Congress would 
have to raise taxes dramatically, or slash Social Security benefits 
deeply--or both.
  In addition, this version of the amendment cheats working families.
  American workers are paying more in payroll taxes today than is 
needed to cover the Social Security checks that go out. The surplus 
revenues are supposed to be set aside to meet their future retirement 
needs. If we pass this amendment without exempting Social Security, the 
Government cannot save those tax dollars to pay for future Social 
Security needs of the baby boomers. Instead, the money will be diverted 
to other Government programs, to everything from highways to salaries 
of Members of Congress.

  More than half of American taxpayers, 58 percent, pay more in Social 
Security taxes than they do in income tax. These taxes place a 
disproportionately heavy burden on low and moderate-income families. It 
is justifiable to levy these taxes if they are truly set aside for 
Social Security, but it is inexcusable if they are used to pay for 
general Government operations. The Congress should not enshrine this 
abuse of the payroll tax in the U.S. Constitution.
  The amendment that is before the Senate contains another flaw that I 
will seek to change. It would limit in perpetuity how Congress can 
treat capital investments in our future economic growth. If this 
amendment

[[Page S1130]]

passes, any proposal to create a capital budget would be declared 
unconstitutional. A capital budget would allow us to differentiate 
between investments and operating costs like every single State in the 
country.
  If we were to ask any Governor today, do you have a capital budget, 
the answer is ``yes.'' If we would ask any Governor today, if you had 
to work under the same accounting devices that we do at the Federal 
level, a unified budget, would you have a balanced budget, chances are 
in every single case the answer would be, ``no, we would have a 
deficit.'' We would have a large deficit, billions of dollars of 
deficit. Why? Because for many, many years, in some cases from the very 
beginning of a State's history, they have known the importance of 
differentiating between capital investments and operating costs, 
knowing that you do not treat an investment long term like you do 
somebody's lunch.
  I think it is very important for this country to differentiate in 
that regard at some point in the future as well. And for us at this 
date, regardless of how one feels about a capital budget, to say that 
from here on out we are going to make it unconstitutional for this 
country to even consider budgeting the way we do in business, the way 
we do in families, the way we do in States, in my view is 
extraordinarily dangerous to this country's economic health and well-
being.
  How many times have we heard on this Senate floor the following 
phrase: this Government ought to budget its expenditures the way a 
family does. We ought to treat our budget the way every single family 
treats its budget.
  Mr. President, there are not many families I know of that pay off 
their mortgage in 1 year. How many families today say that they have a 
balanced budget, taking into account the mortgage that they themselves 
must pay? Few families today would have the ability to pay off a 
mortgage in 1 year. But we are asking the Federal Government to pay off 
every one of its mortgages in each year, to treat a mortgage the same 
way we treat a bill for the lights which run this building.
  There is a big difference, and I think the time has come for this 
country to have a capital budget. Regardless, as I say, the real 
question is, should we have an accounting system like families, like 
businesses, like States? I hope the answer is ``yes,'' someday, and I 
hope we will have the foresight, regardless of what we may think of a 
budgeting system of that kind, to at least say that the Senate has the 
right to consider a capital budget at some point in the future. To make 
it expressly unconstitutional, in my view, is extraordinary.
  I ask all of my colleagues to think very carefully about the 
amendment we write. I have also heard so often Senators come to the 
floor and say this bill is not perfect; this amendment is not the best 
we can do, but let us accept the fact that we can improve on it at some 
point in the future.
  I hope no one in this entire debate will ever come to the floor and 
say this bill is not perfect, this amendment to the U.S. Constitution 
may not be perfect, because we do not have the luxury of coming back 
and amending it. We do not have the luxury of altering it once it 
becomes part of the U.S. Constitution. We tried that once before with 
prohibition, and it took another constitutional amendment to undo the 
damage we did the first time.
  So let us not in any way, shape or form be content to satisfy our 
need to pass an amendment and then say we are willing to accept 
something that is imperfect. We have imperfections in this amendment 
that have to be dealt with. There is absolutely no reason to pay for 
deficit spending with Social Security trust funds. There is no reason 
to constitutionally preclude us from dealing directly with the real 
need to pass a capital budgeting system at some point in the future.
  So let us be honest. Let us recognize that this amendment is not 
perfect; it needs to be changed; it needs to be amended in a 
constructive way; it needs to take into account our future; it needs to 
recognize that we have to be truthful with the American people; and it 
needs at long last to be dealt with in a bipartisan way, with 
Republicans and Democrats working together to fashion an amendment that 
makes sense not only for us but for all posterity.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Enzi). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hagel). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________