[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 17 (Tuesday, February 11, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1211-S1212]
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.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana is recognized.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, what is the order of business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The pending question is Senate Joint 
Resolution 1.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I rise today to express my support for the 
balanced budget amendment, the constitutional amendment. I think it is 
properly named Senate Joint Resolution 1 because it is one of the most 
important acts that this Congress, I think anyway, will achieve.
  My home State of Montana has had that balanced budget amendment law 
since its inception when it joined the Union in 1889. So, living with 
fiscal prudence has always been our way of life. Even though there are 
times when we strayed from this, and had our ups and downs, we always 
produced a little bit of a surplus, which we had this last time, and 
the State returned it to the taxpayers. The Federal Government could 
learn a lot just looking at the example of the States.
  For example, according to the Congressional Budget Office, if we do 
not pass this legislation and we stay with the present trend, it has 
been pointed out that the deficit will be over 2\1/2\ times in 10 years 
what it was in the year of 1996. Using CBO's numbers, our national debt 
will rise from $3.7 trillion to over $6 trillion by the year 2007. 
Every day that goes by without a balanced budget is another step closer 
to financial calamity for the United States. Around 40 cents of every 
tax dollar you send to us goes to pay the interest on the national 
debt, $344 billion last year alone. That is as much as we have spent on 
law enforcement, education, environment, energy, transportation, 
agriculture, and technology combined.
  I guess in order to understand what we are doing here you have to 
boil it down to where the average American family can make sense of it 
and how it relates to them. Over the life of a 30-year mortgage on a 
$75,000 home, it means a savings of around $71,000; savings of $1,000 
on the life of a 4-year loan on an automobile worth $15,000; savings of 
$1,800 over the life of a 10-year student loan at $11,000. By the way, 
I am experiencing some of that, and that means quite a lot to this 
Senator. The grand total of all the savings of these loans will be 
around $74,000 over the lifetime. I think that is something that we 
cannot just overlook or ignore as a consumer.
  A small State like Montana--we are small businesses, ranching, 
farming--uses these savings to expand our businesses, thus expanding 
the economy of Montana.
  That is one thing that we have to do in this country. We have to 
continually expand the economy. If you want to do something for people 
to ensure jobs, job opportunity, and work opportunity, we cannot stand 
at the same trough and at the same side of the pie. We have to grow the 
pie.
  In the legislative branch we have to enact this amendment because it 
seems that we can't rely on the current administration to furnish or 
enact policies that will provide for further deficit-reduction 
measures. Sometimes we can't even do it ourselves. The President vetoed 
the Balanced Budget Act of 1995, which would have led to a balanced 
budget by the year 2002. All told, this year the omnibus appropriations 
for fiscal year 1997 added back $70 billion of Federal spending because 
of pressure from the White House.
  Finally, the President has publicly stated that he would like to see 
the legislation fail. In fact, the President, Secretary Rubin, and 
Members of this Chamber have been working overtime to ensure that this 
amendment does not pass.
  What is wrong with passing an amendment, sending it to the States, 
and letting the States decide, getting closer to the people? 
Unfortunately, some of these individuals have been trying to undermine 
the balanced budget constitutional amendment by suggesting that if we 
include Social Security in the equation, this would

[[Page S1212]]

cause future harm to the Social Security trust fund and thereby the 
next generation of seniors. I would like to state flatly that that is 
exactly the opposite of what we are trying to do here. We are trying to 
save and strengthen Social Security.
  The President has even admitted that no one could balance the budget 
without the Social Security funds. The President said that.
  This is a false argument. It is a risky gimmick that causes undue 
anxiety among our people.
  So my fellow Members believe that Social Security will have to fight 
it out with other programs if tied to the amendment. This is not the 
case. Money has already been allocated, and it will remain in these 
trust funds. We should not be needlessly scaring people into believing 
that their futures are uncertain. We would never cut Social Security to 
balance this budget.
  So it is a risky business whenever you start talking about setting 
the Social Security trust fund off to the side and not being included 
in the budget process.
  If you do not include Social Security in this amendment, our deficit 
will immediately increase by an additional $465 billion during fiscal 
year 1998 through the year 2002, and by another $602 billion during 
fiscal year 2003 to the year 2007, for a total of $l.067 trillion over 
a 10-year period. Excluding this provision will actually make it more 
difficult to choose which programs will stay and which will be cut 
away.
  So why would anybody suggest anything different? As we know, the 
balanced budget constitutional amendment will force lawmakers to make 
some tough decisions. That is the way it should be. We have always 
lived in a life of priorities.
  If we are to save our Nation from future heavy debt and uncertainty, 
hopefully we will follow the course of what the States do every day. We 
would hope at least to have a surplus.
  I come out of county government. We maintain surpluses in every line 
item. We always maintain reserves. There is a reason for that because 
of the tax collection. It makes you maintain reserves. It is prudent to 
do it.
  Nobody knows what the future holds. The American people look to us to 
provide those funds in the event of emergencies. You cannot do it 
without maintaining reserves.
  So I maintain that to keep safe and secure the future programs like 
those which are meant to protect our senior citizens and our children, 
that we have to pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution of 
the United States. It just makes good sense.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. CHAFEE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gorton). The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I would appreciate it if the desk would 
inform me when I have spoken for 7 minutes.
  Mr. President, when I speak with Rhode Islanders I often find it very 
difficult to put the budget problems in perspective. Few, if any, of us 
understand what a billion dollars is, never mind what $1 trillion is 
But the current national debt of the United States is $5.3 trillion--
not billion dollars, not million dollars--trillion dollars.
  So we try to figure how can we put this in some form of perspective 
and what the national debt is. This is what we owe our children. And 
the national debt amounts to $20,000 for every American in our Nation, 
or a bill for a family of four of $80,000.
  Let me give you some idea of what $5 trillion is: $5 trillion is 
enough money to purchase every automobile ever sold in the United 
States and have enough money left over to purchase every airline ticket 
ever sold for travel in the United States. You buy all the automobiles 
that have been made in the history of the United States, and then you 
have money left over to buy every airline ticket that has ever been 
sold in the United States, and then you will have used up $5.3 
trillion; $5 trillion is equal to the asset value of all the U.S. 
stocks held by Americans. If we went out to spend a dollar every second 
of every day to reach the goal of $5 trillion, it would take 158,000 
years at a dollar per second.

  When the Federal Government spends more than it collects in tax 
revenue, it borrows the difference. This debt, obviously, is a 
liability for future generations. My children, your children, these 
young people here, the young people all over America are going to have 
to pick up the bill for what we spent that we didn't collect taxes for. 
And those who support a balanced budget constitutional amendment such 
as we have before us believe the Federal Government should do just like 
a family does. All families in America have to pay their bills. If they 
don't, they go into bankruptcy and go through a lot of extreme 
difficulties. But the Federal Government does not pay its bills. It 
does not collect enough in taxes to pay what we are buying.
  The Governor of California, Earl Warren, once said--I never forgot 
it--the people of California can have anything they want, anything they 
want, as long as they are willing to pay for it. And that should be the 
guiding rule for us in the United States.
  People might say, ``Well, sometimes you have to borrow some money.'' 
Sure you do. Thomas Jefferson borrowed $15 million to finance the 
Louisiana Purchase. And our Nation, obviously, had to borrow money 
during World War II in the 1940's to pay for that war. No one would 
argue with those decisions. But when we borrow money, we ought to pay 
it back and pay it back promptly. That isn't the way the Federal 
Government works today.
  Mr. President, what this balanced budget amendment is attempting to 
do is to say if we want something in the United States, then we ought 
to levy taxes to pay for it. And if we are not willing to levy the 
taxes to pay for it, whether it is better parks or better education or 
better health care or better protective services or a stronger FBI or 
better facilities for our Ambassadors and officials of our Foreign 
Service serving abroad, all of those things, maybe they are fine. And 
if they are and if the decision is that they are fine, then let us levy 
the taxes to pay for it. That is what this amendment is all about.
  Mr. President, I hope that this first step on a long road to 
balancing our budget will be undertaken. This, of course, does not say 
we are going to pay off that $5.3 trillion debt. But we will get 
started on it. First, we will not be adding to it every day of every 
year. Certainly, for the last 40 years we have spent more than we have 
taken in. That is why we have the $5.3 trillion deficit.
  Mr. President, I think that this balanced budget amendment is a good 
start. I hope it will be approved.
  I thank the Chair.
  Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mr. HELMS. I thank the Chair.

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