[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 17 (Tuesday, February 11, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1219-S1223]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION
The Senate continued with the consideration of the joint resolution.
Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I counted it up the other day. This is
my 17th year of having the honor to represent my State of Alaska in
this body.
[[Page S1220]]
During that period I participated in seven separate debates on this
floor on this very singular issue, and that is the amendment of our
Constitution to require that the budget be balanced.
A number of years ago, several of us unloaded a big van on the steps
of the U.S. Senate. In that van were mailbags. And in those mailbags
were letters from our constituents in overwhelming support of an
amendment to the Constitution that would mandate a balanced budget.
Mr. President, in 1982 the Senate adopted the amendment but it failed
in the House. Since then, the amendment has failed in every year that
we have engaged in this debate. In the intervening decade and a half
annual Federal spending has increased nearly $1 trillion and our
national debt has quadrupled.
Mr. President, through this debate, my colleagues on both sides of
the aisle have amply demonstrated the billions and trillions that we
have been spending, and the meteoric rise of our national debt. I do
not intend to repeat those numbers. As the 10-foot stack of budgets
standing before me on the floor clearly show, for the past 28 years the
Federal Government has been living on debt. I find that rather ironic,
Mr. President, in view of the fact that you and I and our constituents
back home have to balance, if you will, our checkbooks. But the
Government goes through a process of lengthy debate and budgetary
process of seeing what its revenues are, seeing what its expenditures
are, and then whatever else it seems to need it is simply added to the
national debt.
Mr. President, I want to talk about the awesome responsibility that
we have as stewards of this Nation to face up to the enormity of the
challenge that we are facing in changing the way we govern and have
been governing.
Mr. President, American Government was transformed by the Great
Depression. In response to this crisis, our then President Franklin
Roosevelt in 1933 ushered in the age of social activist government, one
of whose tenets was that in times of economic stress the Government
would actively intervene to restart the economy. Thus was born the age
of peacetime deficit spending.
Unfortunately, what has ensued in the intervening 64 years is that
the Federal Government has become incapable of weaning itself from this
addiction to deficit spending. Whether in periods of strong growth or
modest growth, the Federal Government runs deficits. In fact, in only 8
years since the Depression has the Federal Government operated with a
surplus.
But even that fact is somewhat misleading for I would note that the
Federal surplus in those 8 years was a mere $33 billion. Compare that
with 56 years of deficits cumulating in a national debt of more than
$5.2 trillion.
Let me refer to the chart here on my left. I hope that the President
can view this. It covers the next 4 years of the current administration
with outlays in 1997 of $1.6 trillion to the year 2000 at $1.84
trillion.
The significance of what is occurring here is we are having to pay
interest on this accumulated debt. The interest is running $247 billion
in 1997, $250 billion in 1998, $252 billion in 1999, and $248 billion
in the year 2000.
I used to be in the banking business and I can tell you that interest
is like owning a horse that eats while you are asleep. It goes on and
on, night and day and holidays. No day is exempt from the accumulation
of interest.
Here is our deficit, Mr. President: $125 billion, $120 billion, $117
billion, $87 billion. One can say that is good news. The deficit is
declining. Let us look a little further.
But I would note that if we did not have to pay interest on this
accumulated debt, if we hadn't accumulated all of these deficits, we
would not have to pay nearly a trillion dollars in interest in the next
4 years and instead of running deficits for the next 4 years, we would
have a surplus. We would have a surplus of $122 billion this year, $130
billion in 1998, $135 billion in 1999, and $161 billion in the year
2000.
My point is that at the end of this timeframe of 1997, through the
year 2000, our outlays will have been a little over $7 trillion, our
interest will have been just under $1 trillion--$997 billion. Our
deficit that we are adding would be $450 billion.
So, if you look at where we are today, at the end of this year our
national debt is at $5.4 trillion. By the end of the year 2000, the
national debt will be $6.3 trillion.
So the increase in the national debt in the Clinton administration
for roughly 8 years is projected to be $2.2 trillion.
The significance of these figures is a bit startling, but the reality
is if we were not strangled by $1 trillion in interest on the national
debt in the next 4 years, we could run a surplus and we could give
every American family a $2,500-per-child tax credit, not the $500 that
is in the Republican proposal but $2,500. Or we could give every
American family a $1,500-per-child tax credit and every American
citizen a 10 percent across-the-board tax cut. Or give every American a
20 percent across-the-board tax cut.
That is the significance of the necessity of this legislation which
will take away deficit financing and allow us to develop a surplus, do
away with the interest and get a hold of this continuing national debt
which does not go away until we reduce the deficit.
Some say, well, why do we need a constitutional amendment to do it?
My answer is rather simplistic, Mr. President. We have not had the
self-discipline to do it ourselves. We could do it ourselves, but it
has not been done.
I say to my colleagues who have any doubt about the wisdom of this
amendment: The evidence is overwhelming that without the discipline of
a constitutional amendment, elected officials are incapable of fiscal
management of the people's business, and it has taken the last 64 years
to demonstrate this fact.
Some say we can balance the budget without this amendment. I say, OK,
prove it. There is nothing within our post-Depression experience to
suggest that this is even remotely possible. Eight years out of 64
years with surpluses totaling $33 billion is hardly evidence that
convinces me. Quite the contrary. It proves to me that we must have
this amendment if we are ever going to end deficit spending as business
as usual in Washington, DC.
Mr. President, the first 10 amendments to our Constitution,
collectively known as the Bill of Rights, are the seminal protections
afforded citizens in a free society. They were adopted against the
backdrop of the 17th and 18th century tyranny that the kings
arbitrarily exercised over their subjects.
The Founders knew that these rights--the freedom of speech, religion,
and assembly--would not be guaranteed simply by congressional statute,
for what one Congress grants, another can easily take away. That is why
these fundamental rights are enshrined within our Constitution. That is
why the concept of a balanced budget must also be added to the
Constitution, for the evidence shows without any doubt that in this
modern era of government, the President and Congress are simply
incapable of balancing the budget except perhaps in rare and unique
circumstances.
When future historians review the history of 20th century American
Government, I fear that the legacy we will leave behind will be an
enormous debt that we have passed on to the citizens of the 21st
century. When this new century opens in just 3 years, we will have
accumulated a debt of more than $6 trillion, the carrying costs, as I
have indicated, of which will be a quarter trillion dollars annually.
Who is going to pay off that debt? Well, consider, Mr. President,
that the largest surplus this Government has ever run was a mere $11
billion in 1948. In inflation adjusted dollars, that is equivalent to a
surplus today of approximately $84 billion.
If, starting in the year 2000, we could replicate our 1948 experience
and have an annual surplus of $84 billion, the national debt of the
United States would not be eliminated until the year 2073. That gives
you some idea of the legacy we are passing on.
In other words, under the most optimistic circumstances, the citizens
who are alive for the first 75 years of the next century will be
shackled with paying the debts their parents and grandparents and
great-grandparents accumulated. And we all know it is unlikely we will
sustain such large surpluses throughout the next century. More likely,
it will take 100 years or more to pay off this debt, only if we start
now.
[[Page S1221]]
Can there be anyone in this Chamber who believes that the citizens in
America who will be alive in the year 2097 ought to be saddled with
paying the interest on the debt that we are accumulating today--money,
I might add, that is not being used to finance long-term investments or
jobs or inventory in this country but money that is being used to pay
interest on the national debt.
That is right; that is what we are doing.
In my view, this amendment is an economic bill of rights for future
generations of this country. It is equally as important as the Bill of
Rights we now take for granted as the foundation for this great Nation.
It finally will force Government to learn that it cannot borrow
indefinitely. It rearranges the rules of Government as never before in
our history, for it requires us to face up to the fact that we can only
spend as much as we take in in revenues, as we dictate to our private
citizens. And it stands for the proposition that building debt on top
of debt is morally and fiscally irresponsible to Americans who have not
even been born yet. That is what we are doing.
The legacy of the 105th Congress must be that we, at the end of this
century, have recognized the responsibility we have to future
generations, that we will no longer buy now and put off paying
indefinitely. The time is now to finally stand up and change the way we
have been governing for the past 60 years.
I thank the Chair for its attention.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER [Mr. Allard]. Who seeks recognition?
The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, we are under no specific time restraints
per side, are we, at this moment?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. CRAIG. I thank the Chair. I thank my colleague, the Senator from
Alaska, for making a very clear statement of what happens when a
country creates the kind of debt which our country has over the last 30
years and the kind of priorities we have to shift to in funding simply
to service debt.
The Senator from Alaska talked about the impact of interest on debt.
Standing here or sitting here or stacked here beside me are 28 budgets,
28 consecutive budgets of the last 28 fiscal years of our Government
that have been out of balance. In other words, that have had deficits
that got spun into debt that have created the $5.3 trillion debt we
have today.
As a result of that, in the last fiscal cycle and the one we are
currently in and the one we are currently examining, this Senate and
the Congress at large is going to have to consider outlays of upwards
of $250 billion to $260 billion to pay the interest on this stack of
books or, more clearly spoken, on the debt that was generated by the
budgets that are housed in this stack of budgets.
Of these 28 budgets, 14 of them were intended to be deficit budgets,
with no excuse or no apology on the part of the Congress that passed
them. But there were the other 14 you would find in the language of the
book that would suggest the intent was to balance in the future, or it
was designed as a sequence of budgets to balance.
Interestingly enough, that is the very debate this Congress and our
President are involved in at this moment. In fact, the President was
here today in the President's Room just behind the Chamber discussing
his budget proposal and the leaders of our Senate were there along with
the leaders of the House comparing notes and deciding where they might
work together to bridge the gap of the kind of impasse we have had and
get to a balanced budget. But it is not a balanced budget. It is one
budget of a series of budgets that promises to bring balance by a given
time, in this case by the year 2002, as did 14 of these budgets.
Mr. President, 28 years later, 14 budgets in deficit and 14 intended
to be balanced, we now are faced with the circumstance the Senator from
Alaska has spoken about, a $5.3 trillion debt, $250 to $260 billion of
interest paid on debt depending on the rate of interest and the amount
our notes are negotiated under, under the 3-year cycle under which our
notes get renegotiated, and here is the rest of the story.
The President, and I do not question his sincerity, presents a budget
for fiscal year 1998, of the U.S. Government, that will have about 250
billion dollars' worth of net interest costs, which is about 14.8
percent of the entire Federal budget. Here is what happens in a
Government like ours when we have to commit such a phenomenal amount of
our resource to interest on debt. Let me give these comparatives. This
is work that has been done by our policy committee as an examination of
reality because, when we talk about 250 billion dollars' worth of
interest on debt, to serve debt, that means that creditors, people who
buy our bonds, are owed money. A fair amount of that flows to foreign
countries and foreign interest, but a fair amount of it flows to our
own citizens and to their stocks and to their trust accounts.
But 250 billion dollars' worth of net interest in the President's
1998 fiscal budget is something like this. It is 21 times as much on
interest as we are spending on agricultural programs. In other words,
our priority in budgeting today is to spend 21 times more on interest
than we do on agriculture. So our priority is not agriculture, it is
paying our debt. Better spoken, I should say paying our creditors who
have loaned us their money to service the debt.
What about international affairs? We are the last great superpower of
the cold war period. We play an important role in the decisions of the
world and our presence oftentimes causes other nations to think
differently about how they would conduct their business, both
internally and externally. Yet, today, 17 times as much on interest is
paid as on international affairs. So, for those of our constituents who
say you are spending too much on foreign aid, I would say we are
spending 17 times more on debt, interest on debt. Again, clearly
spelling out the priorities that we have forced ourselves into as a
great nation, simply because we could not control our spending
appetite.
We pay 11 times as much on interest as on natural resources and the
environment. This President, this administration, likes to call itself
the environmental administration. And there is not a Senator on this
floor who does not want to make sure that Government policy in
cooperation with the private sector promotes a positive, cleaner
environment. And yet, today, when it comes to priorities of dollars and
cents, we pay 11 times more to service the debt created by these 28
budgets as we do on interest rates. Where are our priorities? They are
to pay our creditors so we can continue to have debt.
We spend 10 times as much on interest as on the administration of
justice. That is the Justice Department, that is the FBI, that is our
engagement in the war on drugs, that is trying to curtail illicit
activities that flow across our borders that somehow damage our
citizenry. Yet, if you looked at our budget today, you would say that
Congress is more preoccupied with paying interest on debt than they are
with protecting our citizens against drugs, if you were to look at the
actual expenditure of money. Why? Because 30 years worth of fiscal
irresponsibilities have forced us to pay more attention to servicing
our debt than the flow of drugs across our borders and the kind of
impact they have on our citizens and our children.
We pay six times as much on interest as on benefits and services for
veterans. A very large veterans group is now visiting our community,
this Nation's Capitol. I was just visited by a nice contingent of
Veterans of Foreign Wars. This evening, there is a large gathering of
hundreds of Veterans of Foreign Wars in this city, men and women who
put their lives on the line to protect our freedom. Many of them are
concerned about the future of the Veterans Administration and the
veterans health care delivery system, and will we honor our commitment
to them and to the World War II veterans who are now reaching a peak in
their need for health care services? Yet, today, this Government, by
the nature of its fiscal irresponsibility of the last 28 years, is
going to pay six times more on interest as on the benefits and services
to veterans. Is it our priority? It has to be our priority if we are to
maintain our fiscal solvency as a nation. We must progressively ignore
the true interests and priorities of our country in light of paying our
creditors.
[[Page S1222]]
Four times as much on interest as on education, training, and
employment programs; yet our President, in his State of the Union, just
this past week prioritized for our Nation and for the decade ahead the
issue of our involvement in education at all levels. None of us
disputes that priority. All of us recognize that our public schools are
in need and, in many instances, they are failing. Yet, today, as we
wrestle with the 1998 budget, what will be the first priority? Funding
interest on debt created by irresponsible Congresses of the past that
generated 5.3 trillion dollars' worth of debt. So where in all of
these priorities will education fall? It is not going to be first. It
cannot be first. What is first? Paying interest on debt. It has to be
taken right off the top. It has to be taken right off the top of
Government expenditures, just the way interest on serving the debt in
the private sector is taken right off the top of all the money coming
in. Because if you do not take it off the top, and you do not pay your
debts or your interest on debts, if you do not service your debt you do
not borrow any money. You are busted. You are bankrupt. And that, of
course, is exactly what has happened to this country.
Now, nearing the largest single item in the Federal budget is
interest on debt. So when our colleagues stand on the floor and say, as
the President said the other night, ``Oh, gee whiz, you guys have the
votes and I have the signature. You pass a balanced budget and I will
sign it,'' what this President knows and what he clearly has
demonstrated in the budget that he has sent to the Hill, is that it is
not in balance. It is about $120 to $130 to $140 to $150 billion out of
balance for the next 5 years. Then, if he really honors the tax cuts--
which he does not, because he agrees in his budget that he takes them
back to fund the deficit to create the balance in the outyears, because
he needs more money--what he is really saying is that his budget is not
in balance. Why? Partly because of interest on debt.
Where does the National Government get $250 billion to pay its
interest costs? By adding together all corporate income taxes, that is
only $190 billion. Believe it or not, if we choose to double corporate
income tax in this country we would just get enough and a little more
to pay interest on debt. And all Federal excise taxes--that is $61
billion. I think the point I am making, and the point the Senator from
Alaska made, is we do not believe the Congress truly has the will. We
do not believe any President, Republican or Democrat, can find the
total will to work for, make the tough choices, and get to a balanced
budget in the kind of timeframe and with the kind of reasonableness
that the American people have demanded of us. That is why I and others
so strongly believe we need the kind of constitutional framework to
operate within, that creates the kind of political discipline and
fiscal discipline to produce a balanced budget.
Who do we owe it to? We owe it to a lot of people. But most
important, we owe it to future generations, because it is our children
and our grandchildren who will pay off the debt. More important, if we
continue to create debt without servicing debt, without bringing debt
down in the future, more and more of the resources of our young, when
they grow to maturity, will have to go to pay the creditor instead of
fund the kind of Government they want, or to fund the kind of services
they want from Government; but, more important, to keep some of their
own money so they can have their own lives and their own families, and
have their part of the American dream as our generation has had it.
There need not be any pointed finger or accusation as to whose fault
these budgets have been, because, while most of them in the 28-year
period could be, arguably, Democratic budgets, a fair number of them
were Republican budgets.
A fair number of them were created under Republican Presidents. All
of them were out of balance, and all of them had deficits, and all of
them created the $5.3 trillion debt that this country experiences
today.
So I really think we ought to quit chasing our tail. The arguments
that we have heard for the last decade are the same arguments, and the
President makes the argument today that is certainly not original that
a few Presidents before him have made but all who oppose a balanced
budget amendment to our Constitution make. And that is that you cannot
tie the hands of Government, that this would be much too rigid, that it
would cause conflict within the economy, that it might cause us to not
have the priorities in Government that we want.
What they are really all saying is that nobody is willing to make the
tough choices, and 28 years of budgets clearly demonstrate that. That
is why I think it is important that we reflect on the words of Thomas
Jefferson who said that if there is 1 more amendment to the 10, the
11th amendment he would have added was to disallow the ability of
Government to borrow, because he was fearful of a representative
republic being able to vote itself money, and we have done that year in
and year out.
As a result of that, we are now here wrestling, as all Presidents and
Congresses do, with what do we do with the debt, what do we do with the
deficit, and where do we find the money to spend on some of these
critical programs.
The Senator from Alaska is right. When a nation overspends itself,
when a Congress no longer prioritizes as to where the limited resources
of the tax dollars go, but takes $250 billion right off the top and
says that has to go to interest on debt, Mr. President, it is time we
change, and that is why many of us have stood on this floor and argued
for years that this is the mechanism to bring that change, this is the
mechanism to bring the kind of political and fiscal discipline and
responsibility that this Congress must have, because there isn't a
Senator on this floor who can just vote it without the real discipline
that a Constitution brings.
So this is why I hope that, in the ensuing days, all of our
colleagues join together to support the balanced budget amendment to
our Constitution and to give the citizens of this country the right,
under the Constitution, to debate the issue in the capitals of their
States to determine whether they want to change the organic law of this
country to discipline this Government to cause this Government to react
in a way that they perceive, as I, to be a much healthier action on
behalf of the economy, the citizens and future generations.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
Mr. DODD addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, at some point, I believe a unanimous-consent
request will be entered into, and we will set out the agenda for
tomorrow's business, including an allocation of time for morning
business, as well as an allocation of time for an amendment, which I
will shortly propose, to be considered.
I gather the respective leaders are working on that. In anticipation,
Mr. President, I have been asked, in order to move the process along
and make sure we have some business to conduct tomorrow, to submit an
amendment. I will briefly describe the amendment this afternoon and
then yield the floor. Based on the allocation of time the leaders are
able to agree upon, we will engage more fully in the debate tomorrow.
Amendment No. 4
(Purpose: To simplify the conditions for a declaration of an imminent
and serious threat to national security)
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Dodd] proposes an
amendment numbered 4.
On page 3, line 7, strike beginning with ``is'' through
line 11 and insert ``faces an imminent and serious military
threat to national security as declared by a joint
resolution.''.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, that is the sum and substance of the
amendment.
Very briefly, the proposed language on the balanced budget
constitutional amendment, section 5, reads as follows:
The Congress may waive the provisions of this article for
any fiscal year in which a declaration of war is in effect.
The provisions of this article may be waived for any fiscal
year in which the United States is engaged in military
conflict which causes an imminent and serious military threat
to national security and is so declared by a joint
resolution, adopted by a majority of the whole number of each
House, which becomes law.
[[Page S1223]]
My concerns with this provision, Mr. President, are addressed, I
believe, by the amendment that we will consider tomorrow. Very briefly,
if one reads this section very carefully, word for word, and I
emphasize in my reading of this section the language that is of
particular concern to me, and that is ``is engaged in military
conflict''--now the earlier language, ``a declaration of war,''
troubles me as well--it seems to mean we would have to be in the midst
of a conflict before we can waive the provisions of the amendment.
There have been numerous examples throughout our history in which we
were very much aware that an imminent danger was on the horizon and we,
in preparation of that imminent danger, were able to respond, utilizing
deficit financing to do it.
If you wait until we are actually engaged in that conflict, it seems
to me you are running the risk of leaving this country very, very
vulnerable, particularly with weapons of mass destruction that have the
capability of causing great harm to our Nation.
This amendment attempts to address that issue. If there is an
imminent threat to our national security--and then allowing for the
different provision here--we would have a resolution adopted by both
Houses where a majority of those present and voting would be necessary
in case of some emergency circumstance--I see, for example, my good
friend and colleague from Idaho who has some distance to travel to get
to Washington--where something may happen and Members are not able to
get back here as quickly as they may need to.
We would not be able to meet that constitutional requirement if the
underlying balanced budget amendment is adopted, because you would need
51 Senators. The amendment that I offer addresses both points; that is,
enables a response prior to actually being engaged in military conflict
and allows for a joint resolution to be adopted with less than the
whole number of each House.
Again, I will wait until tomorrow, Mr. President, to discuss this
further. This is an amendment, I remind my colleagues, which has been
raised in very similar form on previous occasions. Regardless of
whether one is for the balanced budget amendment or not, it seems to me
we do not want to place ourselves in the position, obviously, of
restricting our ability, particularly where our national security is in
imminent danger and our Nation is in jeopardy and not able to respond.
I cannot think of a single Member who would want to be put in a
position, as important as balancing the budget is, where we would be
willing to risk a threat to this country on that particular altar.
So I hope Members, this evening and tomorrow, before we have time to
debate this amendment, will look at it carefully and consider it in
hopes that I might garner their support when we vote on this tomorrow
afternoon. Again, this will depend on when the leaders are able to
agree on a time for debate and a vote.
With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence
of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Unanimous-Consent Agreement--Amendment No. 4
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate resume
consideration of Senator Dodd's amendment regarding national security
beginning at 1:30 on Wednesday with the time between 1:30 and 5:30
equally divided in the usual form. I further ask unanimous consent that
at 5:30 the Senate proceed to a vote on or in relation to the Dodd
amendment and, finally, no amendment be in order to the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. DODD. No objection.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There being no objection, it is so ordered.
____________________