[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 21 (Tuesday, February 25, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1525-S1547]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[[Page S1525]]
BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will now resume consideration of
Senate Joint Resolution 1, which the clerk will report.
The bill 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 continued with the consideration of the joint resolution.
Amendment No. 8
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will resume the debate on the Reid
amendment No. 8 until the hour of 6 p.m., with the time equally divided
in the usual form.
Who yields time?
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I yield 20 minutes to the junior Senator
from Illinois.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized for 20
minutes.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, first I thank the Senator from Nevada for
yielding on this important amendment. It is interesting; if you ask the
American people about the balanced budget amendment, they will say in
overwhelming numbers it is a great idea. I have to balance my
checkbook. Why shouldn't the Federal Government have to balance its
books?
But then you say, well, what if in the process of balancing the books
the Federal Government jeopardizes the Social Security trust fund?
Whoa. Wait a minute. Let us think about this. The people who were
overwhelmingly for the balanced budget amendment have second thoughts,
as well they should.
The amendment offered by the Senator from Nevada addresses that very
real concern. In our pursuit to balance the budget, let us not do it at
the expense of Social Security. That is simple. The Senator from Nevada
offers this amendment in good faith, asking Members on both sides of
the aisle, Republicans and Democrats, to come together and agree on
this basic premise: yes, we will balance the budget but not at the
expense of Social Security.
Some would say this is a pretty simple proposition. Why are you
debating this? Frankly, because there is a very serious difference of
opinion, and it gets down to the fundamental flaw in this
constitutional amendment. We are debating what is its greatest flaw,
the failure of this measure to protect Social Security. The balanced
budget amendment includes the Social Security trust fund in the
calculation of whether the budget is in balance. That means it uses the
Social Security trust fund to balance the rest of the Federal budget in
the near term and prevents the proper use of the Social Security trust
fund surplus to offset growing benefit payments in the long term. That
is not the way to treat Social Security, a program which for 60 years
has taken our parents and grandparents and their grandparents before
them out of poverty into dignity. That is why I voted, and I will
continue to vote, only for versions of the balanced budget amendment
that protect Social Security by excluding the Social Security trust
fund.
We hear a lot of witnesses. We have them come before us to talk about
this balanced budget constitutional amendment, as well we should. I say
to those listening, in 205 years of this Nation's history we have only
amended that great document, the Constitution, 17 times. Let us be
careful. Let us listen to the counsel of those who come to speak to us.
I was particularly struck by the testimony of one gentleman, called
by my friend from Utah, the chairman of the committee, as a witness in
favor of this balanced budget amendment. This gentleman was a Wall
Street financier who holds a senior position in a major investment
firm. He didn't see the issue of Social Security quite the same way
that I do. He argued that excluding Social Security from the budget
calculation--here are his words--``would be like going on a low-calorie
diet but not counting chocolate.''
I was struck by that analogy, that this man decided that, in the
scheme of life, in the scheme of things, in the scheme of those
programs and those things that are important to American families,
Social Security was like chocolate candy. For 43 million Americans, let
me suggest, Social Security is not like candy. It is not a luxury; it
is a necessity.
In my home State of Illinois, visit small-town America, find the
widows living in town, the senior citizens living in the highrises, and
ask them what Social Security means each month. You know what it means.
If you have spoken to your parents and grandparents, you know it is the
bread of life. It is what sustains so many people. For this witness,
called by the majority, called by those who support the balanced budget
amendment, to say that it is like chocolate candy really suggests to me
that perhaps financiers, or Wall Street, see life a little differently
than people who live on Main Street.
The balanced budget amendment before us--and let me get to the heart
of this--includes the trust fund in the budget calculation. It invites
cuts in Social Security to balance the budget. That has always been my
fear: Down the line the economy goes bad, revenues are decreasing,
people are paying fewer taxes because they are out of work, and as a
consequence here we are, trying to figure out how are we going to
balance this budget next year. We do not have enough money coming in
because people are unemployed, for example. So where do we turn? Where
is there money? This is serious business. We cannot turn around and
raise taxes in a recession. It is not popular at any time; it is very
unpopular in a recession. Where do you turn?
Lo and behold, where is the mother lode of Federal money? Open the
door to the Social Security trust fund, billions of dollars being
contributed to the fund today by those of us who are working, including
Members of the Senate and House of Representatives, to build a balance
so when the day comes that this Senator and those of like age turn up
to ask for Social Security, the money will be there. Understood.
Future Congresses should not be allowed to raid the Social Security
trust fund, take away the savings that we planned for the rainy day
that we know is coming, and use it to balance the budget. That is why
the Senator from Nevada offers his amendment. Let us play this game
fair. Let us say to the American people, ``If you put the money in, in
each of your paychecks, for Social Security in hopes it will be there
for yourself, for your parents, that it be there.'' It seems so
obvious.
Now let us take a look at Social Security in the long term. Those who
want to include Social Security in the budget calculation argue that
our proposal to protect Social Security would invite future Congresses
to run deficits 32 years from now when the trust fund is exhausted.
This concern is unfounded. Current law does not allow the Social
Security trust fund to run a deficit. If the trust fund runs out of
money, it cannot keep writing checks.
Second, Congress has never authorized the Social Security trust fund
to run an extended deficit. For a temporary time, around 1982 when
there was a pending bankruptcy in the fund, we got close to that
proposition, but only for time enough to develop a bipartisan solution.
Third, the American people are not going to allow the Social Security
trust fund to be depleted. This is the single most popular program in
America today, not just for seniors but for their children. It gives
peace of mind to me to know that my mother, 87 years old, who is living
on railroad retirement, an analogous program to Social Security, has a
monthly check coming in based on her having worked during the course of
her life. And it means, for me and my children, less of a concern about
her financial security.
We are not going to turn away from that. We are never going to walk
away from that. We are not going to allow the Social Security trust
fund to be depleted. But we are not going to stand still and allow this
balanced budget amendment to create a raid on Social Security. That is
why this amendment is being offered. It just stops me cold to hear
those on the other side say, ``We'll never touch Social Security. Trust
us.''
I trust the Senator on the floor. I am not sure I will trust his
successor, or his successor's successor, who will be bound by this same
constitutional amendment. I don't know who they will be. I don't know
what they will face. But at a minimum, let us put in this great
document, this Constitution, language which protects our values. The
Reid amendment does that.
[[Page S1526]]
The Congressional Research Service is an interesting group because
it's a professional organization, neither Democrat nor Republican. They
are here to work for us, and if we have tough questions, we often turn
to them to say, ``What's the honest answer here? Don't give me the spin
from the Republican National Committee or the Democratic National
Committee; give it right down the middle, black and white, as best you
can determine.'' They recently identified a critical reason for
supporting Senator Reid's amendment. ``The balanced budget amendment as
currently drafted would prevent the proper use of the trust fund
surplus to pay extra benefits that the baby boom generation will have
earned but which will exceed revenues when they retire.''
Here is what it means. We are paying more in Social Security today,
and have since 1983, than we need to pay out. As I said earlier, we are
building up a surplus because we know down the line, when baby boomers
like myself show up for their Social Security, we are going to have
more people knocking on the window asking for checks than wage earners
paying in. So we are building up a balance, we of this generation,
which will inure to our benefit down the line. So this surplus is being
built up in the Social Security trust fund. But, if you read this
amendment to the Constitution closely, the amendment offered by the
chairman of the committee, you will see there is a problem. The problem
is you cannot spend that surplus out of the Social Security trust fund
without making up for it somewhere else. That is a major flaw. Let me
tell you what it means in practical terms.
Suppose I told you that a number of years from now you will face
increasing expenses related to your retirement. You might decide to
save up some money now so it will be available when that time comes.
You might even decide to put the money in a special account in the bank
and say, I am going to keep track of it and I am not going to touch it.
I am going to need this when I retire.
Now suppose I told you when the day came and the expenses occurred,
you were welcome to spend the money that you have personally saved but,
one condition, in order to spend the first dollar out of your savings
you have to cut a dollar out of your spending, a dollar that you would
otherwise spend for food or clothing or rent or utilities.
You say, ``Wait a minute, why did I save all this money if when the
time comes when I need it I have to cut other expenditures, dollar for
dollar, to use it? That is no good. That is no savings. That does not
help me.'' Let me say to my colleagues, that is exactly what is wrong
with this amendment. This amendment says: In future generations, if we
pass the balanced budget amendment and want to use the surplus in the
Social Security trust fund, we can only do it if we cut other spending,
balance it out.
Is this something that this Senator came up with? Is this something
that the Democrats dreamed up, an interpretation of the balanced budget
amendment? No. What I have just described to you comes directly from
the Congressional Research Service. It is a fatal flaw in this balanced
budget amendment.
You would think that those who would propose an amendment to the
Constitution would be open to the possibility--the possibility--that
what they want to put in that Constitution is not right and needs to be
corrected and changed. But there has been resistance from the start to
any amendments to this balanced budget amendment. These are the tablets
of Moses, untouched by humans, brought to us, to this floor, to be
accepted as is or else.
I don't like that approach when it comes to amending our
Constitution. I certainly don't believe it is fair when we are dealing
with the fate of 43 million Americans, and I don't believe that we
should allow this flawed version of the balanced budget amendment to go
forward.
I think the amendment offered by the Senator from Nevada, Senator
Reid, makes good sense, and I would predict this: If those who are
pushing for this balanced budget amendment would, for a moment, stop,
count to 10, perhaps accept a little more humble approach to this whole
debate and amend in the protection of the Social Security trust fund,
they would find a lot of Members coming forward, Democrats and
Republicans, who could support it. To date, they haven't done it. But
hope springs eternal.
I will be voting for Senator Reid's amendment, and I hope my
colleagues on both sides of the aisle who value the importance of a
Social Security trust fund to the American family will join us.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kempthorne). Who yields time?
Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, simply put, Senator Reid's amendment would
exempt Social Security from section 1 of the balanced budget amendment,
which requires that ``total outlays for any fiscal year not exceed
total receipts for that fiscal year,'' unless three-fifths of each
House of Congress concur. Senator Reid, and many of those who favor
exemption of Social Security, make rhetorical points that ``we
shouldn't balance the budget on the backs of the elderly,'' and that
``unless exempted, the Social Security trust funds will be raided.''
Those are direct quotes from those who have spoken on the other side of
the aisle.
The primary paradox of this debate, in a debate full of paradoxes, is
the fact that removing Social Security from the protection of the
balanced budget amendment will create an overwhelming incentive to do
exactly what these critics of the amendment fear, for this would focus
budget pressures on the Social Security trust funds that could destroy
the viability of the Social Security program itself. It is a folly that
has no real relationship to the goals sought, which should be the
protection of the Social Security trust funds. What they are doing is a
risky gimmick; it's a riverboat gamble. Frankly, it's a real mistake
should this amendment be adopted.
Furthermore--another paradox--exempting the trust funds is simply
unwarranted. There already exists an elaborate statutory scheme of
firewalls.
Mr. President, I notice the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts
is here. I have a rather extensive statement to make. So what I will
do, if he cares to make his statement, I will yield the floor at this
time, and then I will finish my statement afterward. I ask unanimous
consent I not lose my right to the floor following the distinguished
Senator from Massachusetts.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HATCH. I will forego, so the Senator can have the floor.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I yield to the senior Senator from
Massachusetts 30 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized
for 30 minutes.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada for
yielding this time, and I join with so many of our colleagues in the
Senate, hopefully on both sides of the aisle, as well as our senior
citizens all over this country in commending him for the leadership he
has provided on this extremely important amendment.
I had the chance to offer a similar amendment in the Judiciary
Committee's markup, and we debated some of these issues. But I think
the eloquence and the force and the presentation that has been made by
the Senator from Nevada has been extraordinarily powerful and
increasingly appreciated and understood by the American people, and we
thank him for his leadership on this issue and so many others.
Mr. President, Social Security is America's time-honored commitment
to senior citizens that we will care for them in their golden years. It
says to every citizen that if you work hard and pay into Social
Security throughout your working life, Social Security will be there
for you when you retire. It will help you pay the rent, buy the
groceries, and maintain a reasonable standard of life throughout your
retirement years.
Social Security is the most successful social program ever enacted.
It is among the most solemn obligations that any government can make to
its citizens, and Congress should honor it and not undermine it.
The proposed balanced budget constitutional amendment puts the Social
[[Page S1527]]
Security contract with senior citizens in danger. If this amendment is
added to the Constitution, no one can guarantee you a Social Security
check every month. The Rock of Gibraltar, on which this Nation's senior
citizens have depended for over 60 years, would be gone, replaced by
shifting political sands. The Reid amendment prevents this unacceptable
change by protecting Social Security from the proposed constitutional
amendment--no ifs, ands, or buts.
Millions of retired citizens live from Social Security check to
Social Security check. They need it to arrive on time at the beginning
of each month to pay their bills. Martha McSteen, who headed the Social
Security Administration during the Reagan administration and is now
president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and
Medicare, said recently:
Keeping Social Security safe from budget tampering is,
frankly, a matter of life and death for millions of
Americans.
For 10 million Social Security beneficiaries age 65 and
older, their monthly Social Security check amounts to 90
percent or more of their income. Those checks keep 40 percent
of America's seniors out of poverty.
But under the proposed constitutional amendment, if Government
revenues fall unexpectedly, or if Government expenses go up, payment on
Social Security checks could stop.
Republicans say, ``Trust us.'' We reply, in the well-known words of
President Ronald Reagan, ``Trust--but verify,'' and the way to verify
is by adopting the Reid amendment.
Just 3 months ago, in November 1996, the House sponsors of the
balanced budget constitutional amendment agreed that Social Security
could be in trouble. As Congressmen Schaefer and Charles Stenholm said:
Under the proposed constitutional amendment, ``The
President would be bound at the point at which the Government
runs out of money to stop issuing the checks.''
Economists say there is at least a 50-50 chance in any given year
that the budget projections will be wrong and that under this
constitutional amendment, this Government will run out of money.
Economic forecasting is not an exact science. If budget projections are
off by as little as 1 percent, this constitutional amendment could put
Social Security checks at risk.
Some in this debate have said that the budget that President Clinton
just submitted to Congress counts the Social Security surpluses
reaching a balanced budget by the year 2002. They said if President
Clinton counts Social Security in his budget, then why not count it in
the balanced budget constitutional amendment? But the difference
between a balanced budget, which we will achieve by 2002, and a
permanent constitutional amendment are immense, especially for Social
Security.
In the Clinton budget, the laws protecting Social Security from the
rest of the budget are still in place. There is nothing that President
Clinton or any other President or Congress can do to jeopardize Social
Security. Under the current law, President Clinton and future
Presidents and Congresses must balance the budget without affecting
Social Security. If they want to change Social Security, they have to
change the Social Security law directly. The last thing we should do is
change it indirectly by a vague constitutional amendment.
In its present form, this balanced budget constitutional amendment
undercuts Social Security. Social Security would have to fight its way
on an equal basis with highway construction, defense, welfare,
education, and every other Federal program. Congresses have worked for
many years, ever since the Reagan administration first tried to cut
Social Security, to protect the Nation's senior citizens and Social
Security from the annual Federal budget wars.
For 15 years, a solid bipartisan coalition of Republicans and
Democrats have agreed that Social Security should be safe from that
result. In 1983, the Greenspan commission recommended that Congress
should place Social Security outside the Federal budget. The commission
said that we need to build up a surplus in the trust funds now in order
to have enough funds to provide benefits to the current generation when
they begin to retire. Both Democrats and Republicans support that
result.
The commission's 1983 recommendations were enacted in a law sponsored
by Senator Dole and Senator Moynihan, and their bill required Social
Security to be placed off budget within 10 years. In 1985, 2 years
later, Congress accelerated the process by placing Social Security
outside the rest of the Federal budget. The Deficit Control Act of
1985, the so-called Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law, exempted Social Security
from across-the-board cuts of sequestration. That law also said that
Social Security could never be included in the unified budget of the
U.S. Government. Senator Gramm emphasized during the Senate debate on
the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings proposal, ``This bill takes Social Security
off budget. So if you want to debate Social Security, go to the museum,
because that debate is over. The President cannot submit a budget that
says anything about Social Security. It is not in order for the Budget
Committee to bring a budget to the floor that does anything to Social
Security. Social Security is off budget and is a freestanding trust
fund.''
From that point out, when Congress has adopted the annual Federal
budget resolutions, Social Security is not included. The last time
Congress voted on a budget that included Social Security was 1985. The
Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law was approved by overwhelming majorities, 61-
31 in the Senate and a 271 to 154 vote in the House of Representatives.
Then in 1990 some Members of Congress proposed to put Social Security
back in the Federal budget, but Senator Hollings and Senator Heinz
rejected this unwise suggestion. They insisted that Social Security
remain off budget and the Senate approved an amendment to protect
Social Security by a 98 to 2 vote. In fact, the Budget Enforcement Act
of 1990 speaks forcefully of Congress' intention to continue to protect
Social Security.
Section 13-301 of the act reads ``Exclusion of Social Security from
all budgets''--it says plainly that Social Security shall not be
counted as new budget authority, outlays, receipts, deficits, or
surplus for the purposes of the budget of the U.S. Government as
submitted by the President, the congressional budget, or the balanced
budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.
In 1995, section 22 of the congressional budget resolution amended
the Budget Act even further to protect Social Security in a provision
entitled the Social Security Firewall Point of Order. It said that any
effort to include changes in Social Security in the Federal budget were
subject to a 60-vote point of order in the Senate. The proposed
balanced budget constitutional amendment would reverse these 15 years
of steady progress in protecting Social Security. It would be turning
its back on all of this history and expose Social Security to all the
budget battles that lie ahead.
Further, in a major recent study, the Congressional Research Service
suggested that the proposed constitutional amendment may actually place
the trust funds off limits. The funds will be sitting there and the
Social Security Administration will need them to write Social Security
checks, but if the balanced budget amendment is adopted the
Constitution will say no.
Here is what the Congressional Research Service concluded in its
analysis for Senator Daschle on February 5:
Because the balanced budget amendment requires that the
required balance between outlays for that year and receipts
for that year, the moneys that constitute the Social Security
surpluses would not be available for the payment of the
benefits.
Therefore, the money that had been set aside, the time when more
funds are being paid into the Social Security benefits, at the year
2019 when there will begin to be some deficit between the amounts paid
in and the amounts that have to be paid out, what the Congressional
Research Service is saying is you will not be able to use the surpluses
that have been built in all of these next 20-odd years. We will have to
only look at the year that the money comes in and that the money goes
out. That is, I think, understandable when you look on page 2 of the
amendment and under line 7, it says ``total outlays for any fiscal year
shall not exceed total receipts for that fiscal year.'' Those are the
operative words which led the Congressional Research
[[Page S1528]]
Service to that conclusion which puts it in danger not only of the
possibility for balancing the budget in terms of any period in the
future but risks the surpluses that have been put in place over these
next several years.
Now, Republicans asked the Congressional Research Service to clarify
its opinion. They hoped, if they asked again, they would get a
different answer, but instead the Congressional Research Service
reaffirmed the opinion of February 12 that Social Security is at risk
under the proposed constitutional amendment. CRS said again that under
the proposed constitutional amendment when Social Security payments are
estimated to exceed Social Security receipts from payroll withholdings,
which is expected to happen beginning in the year 2013, Social Security
payments can be made from the trust funds only if spending for other
programs is reduced by the same amount. In other words, for each dollar
drawn down from the trust fund, a dollar must be cut from education or
defense or some other Government program.
Employees have worked hard all of their lives. Social Security has
been withheld from their paycheck month after month. They are expecting
the money to be available when they retire. But this proposed
constitutional amendment suddenly freezes all that money that they had
paid in over the years. When this happened, if Social Security is not
off budget, we would have only three choices: We could cut Social
Security benefits, we could raise taxes, or we can cut billions of
dollars from education, health, national defense, other priorities, to
keep the Social Security checks flowing. Clearly, Social Security
benefits are at risk under the proposed constitutional amendment.
Now, some supporters of the balanced budget constitutional amendment
want this result. When the Judiciary Committee was debating this
amendment on Social Security, my amendment on January 30, Senator
Hatch, the chair of the committee, said that under the constitutional
amendment Social Security ``would have to fight its way just like every
other program.'' Senator Hatch went on to say that he believed Social
Security has the easiest of all arguments to fight its way. But half of
the members of the Judiciary Committee rejected that position. I had
offered the amendment to protect Social Security during the committee's
markup of the proposal. The committee was evenly split on the issue, 9-
9. So in the very committee that is responsible for this amendment,
half the membership, half of the membership, believed that Social
Security is at risk under the proposed constitutional amendment.
Nothing in the proposed constitutional amendment, nothing, assures
our senior citizens that their Social Security checks will survive the
budget battles that lie ahead. Elderly Americans deserve more than
expressions of good will by supporters of the constitutional amendment.
If those who favor this unwise constitutional amendment are committed
to protecting Social Security, they should write that protection in
their proposal and adopt the Reid amendment.
President Clinton wrote to the Senate Democratic leader on January 28
about the risk to Social Security, and said to Senator Daschle, ``I am
very concerned that Senate Joint Resolution 1, the constitutional
amendment to the balanced budget, could pose grave risks to the Social
Security system.'' We cannot let that happen. I say we must--and we
will, balance the budget. We must--and we will take steps to protect
Social Security in the future. We should have that debate openly and
honestly, but we should not jeopardize Social Security indirectly by
subjecting it to the requirements of this blunderbuss constitutional
amendment. I urge my colleagues to protect the Social Security by
supporting the Reid amendment.
Mr. President, basically, just to sum up where I believe we are, if
we look at the record of the Congress since the recommendation of the
Greenspan commission of 1983, Social Security amendments in 1983 to put
Social Security in order, and the recommendation, the unanimous
recommendation was that Social Security was to be considered off
budget, and that the commission itself urged them to do that in the
next 10 years. Those recommendations were adopted 58 to 14, with 32
Republicans and 26 Democrats. This was a bipartisan effort to protect
the Social Security system.
As I mentioned before, with Social Security, unlike other items in
the Federal budget, people pay in in order to be able to receive later.
I am a great supporter of education, but the students of this country
have not paid in previously in order to receive either a grant or a
loan. I am a great supporter of medical and biomedical research, but
the researchers have not paid in in order to be able to receive
funding. I am a great believer in child care, but the parents have not
paid in so that they can receive money for child care.
The one program people have paid into in order to receive is Social
Security. That is why, Mr. President, we have the recommendations--
unanimous recommendations--of the bipartisan commission, supported by
the ranking member of the Finance Committee--by Republicans and
Democrats alike--that said we should take the recommendations of the
Greenspan commission and, within 10 years, adopt a proposal that would
effectively put Social Security off budget. We didn't wait 10 years. We
waited 2 years. There was Gramm-Rudman-Hollings in 1985, which was
adopted by 61 to 31, with 39 Republicans and 22 Democrats supporting.
This is what it said: ``Exempt Programs, section 255. Social Security
benefits shall be exempt from reduction under any order issued under
this part.'' This is in the Deficit Control Act. What they are saying
is that we will not put at risk Social Security. And then a little
later in that act, they pointed out that what we had was a
sequestration, which meant there was going to be a reduction in various
programs and done so on an across-the-board percentage. What happened
in the Congress? What was accepted at that time? It said: ``The Social
Security benefits program shall be exempt from reduction under any
order.''
So it is saying doubly sure, don't include it, and if somehow it gets
in, don't reduce it. This was the overwhelming position. Why? Because,
as I stated earlier, it is the solemn pledge and commitment of the
United States to our seniors, the lifeline for their lives, their well-
being, their ability not to live in poverty, their ability to live with
some degree of respect and dignity. These are men and women who have
built this country, fought its wars and made it the great Nation that
it is.
Then we had the 1990 Budget Enforcement Act, another opportunity to
deal with the issues in Social Security. If it was not clear enough
previously under the existing amendments, which have been stated, we
had an amendment offered by Senators Heinz and Hollings, adopted 98 to
2. ``Exclusion of Social Security from all budgets.'' There it is
again. Recommended in 1983, enacted in 1985, clarified again in 1985
under the sequestration. If there is going to be any question about it,
in 1990, here is the amendment, 98 to 2, Republicans and Democrats, to
take it off budget. And then, in 1995, we have the firewalls, those
walls to try to separate the various functions of Government as to what
areas could be cut or shifted, in terms of budget allocations. It was
very clear again in 1995--Social Security firewall point of order in
the Senate. It points out, once again, ``Not only is Social Security
off budget, but any budget amendments affecting Social Security are
subject to a point of order.'' This is what they call the pay-go
provisions.
Once again, every indication, coming from 1983 all the way up to the
present time, Republicans and Democrats alike, when it came to the
issues of dealing with budgetary considerations and the challenges that
we as a country were facing, said Social Security is different. Social
Security is different. The reason that it is different is self-evident
for, I think, every Member of this body. It is because it is different
that we are going to treat it differently from other general budget
expenditures. Sure, we are going to have belt-tightening in some areas
that many of us would hope that we would not necessarily have. We will
have differences on where we ought to tighten the budget. But
Republicans and Democrats have repeated time after time after time
after time that we were going to exclude this program and let it be
considered on its own, in terms of a trust
[[Page S1529]]
fund, because it isn't the Social Security trust fund that has brought
us to the kinds of deficits we have had over any period of time, and it
is not the fault of our senior citizens.
I am not out here today to review what actions we took in 1981 that
set us on a path toward the growth of the large deficits. We can debate
that at another time. That is not relevant to this. What is relevant
are the actions, in a bipartisan way, that have been taken at every
single opportunity when this body has addressed the issues of budget.
And now we are being asked in the most significant and important
request of all to say that when it comes to a constitutional amendment,
we are going to make sure that Social Security is going to be included.
We are going to make sure it is going to be included.
How do we know that? Because when we ask to take it out, we are told
we can't take it out. The primary sponsors of this program have said
that Social Security is going to have to fight it out with the other
programs, is going to have to fight it out with education, fight it out
with national security, fight it out with other kinds of priorities for
the Nation. We have to ask ourselves--some of us have very recent
memory when we saw the kinds of potential cuts that were being proposed
in Social Security-related programs in the last Congress--cuts in the
Medicare Program, not unrelated to Social Security, cuts in the program
to pay for tax breaks for the wealthiest individuals.
Are we going to say now that we are going to wrap this potential cut
in Social Security in this constitutional amendment, and that somewhere
down the road it may be used as a piggy bank for trading off other
kinds of budgetary requirements? I say, no. We have a chance to prevent
that. This body is either serious about what we have done over the last
15 years and what we have stated to be the position of this
institution, in a bipartisan way, and say Social Security is out, or we
are telling our senior citizens that Social Security is being put at
risk.
Now, Mr. President, we have to understand some other items. There are
those who have said, well, if we pass the balanced budget, some of this
legislation will still be out there, and it might provide some
protection for Social Security. Well, they ought to read the
Constitution one more time, because the Constitution is what controls
statutes. It is the Constitution that is the law of the land. It is the
Constitution that will be the driving factor and force on this
particular issue, not what we have done in various statutes, not what
we have done in budget orders, not actions that have been taken by
other Congresses. It will be the Constitution.
So what we are saying, Mr. President, is we are going to put at risk,
if the Reid amendment is not accepted, the future in terms of Social
Security. All of these actions and protections that have existed there,
with strong, overwhelming bipartisan support, not just simple
majority--98 to 2--all of that is gone with the wind, all of that is
past, all of that is sand, all of those pillars of marble that are out
there are now effectively dust, in terms of protection.
Now, Mr. President, I know we will hear those who will say, well, the
best we can do for our senior citizens is to have a sound economy. That
is fine. We are going to work for a sound economy. But let's not put
the senior citizens who have paid into this fund at risk in terms of
their future and vital needs. This is a lifeline for our senior
citizens. It is a fundamental and basic commitment that we have made
over the more than 60 years it has been in effect. It has been
reaffirmed and reaffirmed in this body. Without the Reid amendment, we
are putting the Social Security system at serious and grave risk. That,
I believe, is unwise, unjustified, and wrong. I hope the Reid amendment
will be accepted.
I thank the Senator from Nevada again, and I thank my friend from
Utah for working out the schedule.
Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I am always happy to work out the schedule
for my colleague from Massachusetts and always enjoy hearing my
colleague. I think it is good for the acoustics from time to time, and
it is also good for all of us who seem to talk at just a normal level.
I always enjoy hearing my colleague, and I have enjoyed hearing him on
this today, as bad and as dire and stressful as he seems to think
things are. But then again, let's go back.
Simply put, Senator Reid's amendment would exempt Social Security
from section 1 of the balanced budget amendment, which requires that
total outlays for any fiscal year not exceed total receipts for that
fiscal year unless a three-fifths vote of both Houses concurs. Senator
Reid, and many of those who favor exemption of Social Security, make
the rhetorical points that we should not balance the budget on the
backs of the elderly; that the Social Security trust funds will be
raided. Poppycock. The fact is, those funds are going to be invested in
the very same bonds, no matter whether it is off budget or on.
The question is, what is the best budgetary approach to take? What is
in the best interests of our senior citizens? What is in the best
interests of our senior citizens is to understand that everybody in
Congress will protect Social Security, and it is better off having it
in the unified budget where it has always been protected. Show me a
time when it wasn't. It has always been protected, at least in all the
time I have been here. Put aside whether it is a riverboat gamble or
whether it is a risky gimmick; it is pretty pathetic when you stop and
think about it.
We have heard a lot of talk about how our uses of surpluses would be
criminal conduct if done by business people and done in the private
sector. But no one is going to prison around here. The fact is that
removing Social Security from the protection of the balanced budget
amendment would be the worst thing we could do to senior citizens. Talk
about a risky gimmick, a riverboat gamble.
The primary paradox of this debate, as I have said before, in a
debate full of paradoxes is the fact that removing Social Security from
the protection of the balanced budget amendment would create an
overwhelming incentive to do exactly what these critics say they fear.
For this would focus budget pressures on the Social Security trust
funds that could destroy the very viability of the Social Security
program itself. It is a folly that has no real relationship to the
goals sought. And that goal should be the protection of the Social
Security trust funds.
Furthermore, another paradox that I will mention is that exempting
the trust funds is simply unwarranted. There already exists a statutory
scheme of firewalls that protect the trust funds from Presidential and
congressional tampering. Nothing in the balanced budget amendment is
inconsistent with the statutory firewall scheme that would warrant the
firewall protections being declared unconstitutional. The truth is, the
passage of Senate Joint Resolution 1, the balanced budget amendment,
will be the best protection to Social Security that we can get.
Yet another paradox is that the Reid amendment does nothing to
respond to the concern that Social Security benefits will be reduced.
There is no language in his proposal that would protect Social Security
recipients from either further budget cuts or tax increases. In fact,
the Reid amendment expressly reserves the right to cut benefits. Get
that. It expressly reserves the right to cut benefits.
Removing Social Security from the protection of the balanced budget
amendment would weaken the financial integrity of the Social Security
system. Presently, the Social Security program is producing annual
surpluses because the huge baby boomer generation is still working and
paying FICA taxes into the system. But the surpluses will end no later
than the year 2019, when most of the baby boomers retire.
Moreover, under current projections, Social Security will have
exhausted the trust funds and will be running a huge deficit by the
year 2029. By the year 2070, Social Security will face a startling $7
trillion annual shortfall. Excluding Social Security ignores this
problem and places this system in dire jeopardy. Including Social
Security in the budget calculations forces Congress to address the
pending crisis in a responsible manner before it becomes too late.
[[Page S1530]]
Let me just explain this in more detail. Let me talk about the Social
Security exemption that they are asking for here. This risky gimmick of
exempting Social Security would open up a loophole in the amendment and
siphon off revenues from the trust funds. Placing the trust funds off
budget will harm the Social Security program and make balanced budgets
a virtual impossibility. The consequences of this could be very dire
indeed. Further, I must emphasize that nothing in the Reid amendment
protects recipients from either budget cuts or tax increases.
Under the Reid amendment, we would have two budgets. One would be
based on sound principles of solvency and the other, the Social
Security budget, would not be. One budget would be required to be in
balance unless a supermajority votes to allow a deficit. The other, the
Social Security budget, if they have their way, would be raided and
bloated with costly unrelated projects. Anybody who doesn't believe
that has not watched this outfit for the last 28 years as we unbalanced
the budgets in each of the last 28 years.
Social Security--don't leave it out. If you leave it out, you are
going to have special interest rats eating all the Social Security
cheese, whereas if we leave it in, it is protected by the balanced
budget amendment. We protect it because we keep a sound, good economy.
We all know who these rats are. They are special interests that come in
here and buy their way into influence. Taking Social Security off
budget will subject funds to Washington special interest scavengers.
When you have rats in your house, you need to plug all of the holes. If
you do not, they are going to find a way in.
If we leave Social Security off budget, new and old special interest
spending initiatives which cannot survive or make their way if they
have to compete against other programs, will smell out the scent of
Social Security and destroy it just like these high-class rats are
destroying the cheese here on this chart. That is what is going to
happen to Social Security. We all know it.
This is a game. The people who are arguing for it, with the exception
of a few--certainly, Senator Reid is very sincere about this--the
people arguing for this hate the balanced budget amendment. It puts the
screws to their spending programs, programs that are eating us alive
and mortgaging our children's and our grandchildren's future. They want
to defeat this amendment at all costs. And, therefore, they use these
phony arguments that taking Social Security off budget is going to
protect it when everybody knows it will not. This loophole will not
only blow a hole in the balanced budget amendment, but it would also
seriously harm Social Security.
Senator Reid and supporters of the Reid amendment incorrectly contend
that including present day Social Security surpluses in the unified
budget would ``raid'' the trust funds. This is a complete misnomer.
Here is how it works. The people pay the FICA tax. The Social Security
Administration gets it and then sends it to the Treasury. All FICA tax
proceeds are commingled with the general funds. The Social Security
Administration receives Treasury bonds in recognition of the debt--and
those bonds are the greatest redeemable securities in the world, United
States bonds. They buy them to be redeemed later. The only way they are
going to be redeemed is if we have a sound economy. The only way we are
going to have a sound economy is if we live within our means. We
clearly are not living within our means.
These documents are just 28 years. If we put the 58 years of the last
66 years, my goodness, what we have done to America is criminal. That
is the where the real criminals are: people who continue to spend.
The fact is if you are looking for people who have committed wrongs,
then look to Congress, and it would be a double wrong if we moved
Social Security out the protection of the balanced budget amendment,
where it is vulnerable, where it is out there open, where all these
special-interest rats can attack it because it is the only thing left
to be able to spend and spend and spend. That is exactly what is going
to happen here if we do not watch out. The FICA tax, moneys that they
get from the bonds of Social Security, are going right now for
entitlement spending and discretionary spending. Many of these programs
are critical programs. If you take this Social Security off budget in
the sense they want to in the Reid amendment, every one of the
important social spending programs we have in this country, every one
of them is going to be hurt. And in the end Social Security will be
hurt because then there will be that much more of a push to go to that
nice big second budget there that is not subject to balanced budget
requisites and hang all these programs on it. If that happens, mark my
word, senior citizens, every one of you are going to be hurt.
Social Security receipts are by law used to purchase interest-bearing
securities, as I have said. Nothing in Senate Joint Resolution 1 would
change the Social Security program, but if Social Security were removed
from the protection of the Senate Joint Resolution 1 balancing
requirements, the trust fund really would be raided. Under the Reid
amendment, Social Security receipts would not be designated as
``receipts'' or ``outlays,'' as under the balanced budget amendment.
Spending Social Security surpluses, therefore, would not have to be
offset by other receipts as it must if there is no exemption. This
creates a powerful, yet perverse, incentive for Congress to spend the
surpluses by redesigning other programs as Social Security.
That is what they will do to you. You know that. They want it off so
they can redesign other programs, call them Social Security and eat up
the surpluses and add to the deficit that we are all dying from right
now.
Look, it is the biggest con job I have ever seen. Sincere or not, it
is a con job. Let me just say this. This would be real raiding because
what constitutes ``Social Security'' will be expanded, with the present
day surpluses funding newly relabeled programs, only they will be
called Social Security, and they will just continue to spend just like
we have been doing for 58 of the last 66 years. This is only 28 of
those unbalanced budgets, the last 28.
If projects are not immediately redesignated Social Security as I
just discussed, thereby consuming accumulated Social Security
surpluses, surplus proceeds would be used in the only possible manner
that would avoid section 1's prohibition on outlays exceeding receipts,
and that is to make debt repayment.
Normally, this would be wonderful, but, in fact, it creates a
dangerous mechanism for the Congress to continue deficit spending if we
adopt the Reid amendment. If the surplus is used to pay down the public
debt, the total debt level will be reduced, creating a gap between the
public debt total and the statutory debt ceiling. As a result, Congress
would then be able to increase spending out of Social Security, which
is not constrained by a balanced budget rule, without immediately
bumping into the statutory debt ceiling. This would in essence allow a
future Congress to again increase the Nation's debt without facing the
balanced budget amendment's required three-fifths vote. Thus, any
surplus generated by Social Security and used to pay off the debt would
be squandered because the Congress could simply deficit spend under the
Social Security exemption until the statutory debt ceiling is reached.
This scenario would not be possible if Social Security was not exempted
from the balanced budget amendment.
This secondary loophole constitutes an indirect way of using surplus
Social Security receipts.
So, Mr. President, through one loophole or another, the Reid
amendment would drain off the Social Security surpluses in the short
term and fail to protect Social Security from tremendous deficits in
the long term. Consequently, the Reid amendment not only fails to
protect Social Security but is a risky gimmick, a riverboat gamble that
will endanger the trust funds.
The net effect of the loopholes will be the depletion of the trust
funds years early. When the balanced budget amendment does take effect
in the year 2002, the trust funds will stop growing as all annual
surplus funds would be reallocated for programs that have been
redesignated Social Security. So instead of growing from 2002 to 2019,
the years the trust funds are estimated to stop growing, the system
[[Page S1531]]
would become stagnant. Exemption of Social Security from the balanced
budget amendment will consequently speed up the system's demise.
If you do not believe that, then you have not watched Congress over
the last 28 years. I think there might be some logic to what they say
if you really stretched the cord, if you did not have the good old 28
years of unbalanced budgets sitting here, knowing the Congress cannot
stop spending unless there is something in the Constitution that says
we have to stop; you have to start living within your means; you have
to start budgeting; you have to start doing what is right for the
American people and especially the future of our children.
Removing Social Security from the protection of Senate Joint
Resolution 1 would make balancing the budget virtually impossible.
Based on the gimmickry of the past, the most likely scenario Congress
will follow is to pass legislation to fund any number of programs off
budget through the Social Security trust funds. The budget could be
balanced simply by shifting enough programs into the Social Security
trust funds. Where would the senior citizens be then? You would be the
ones who are being ripped off. You talk about criminal conduct.
Congress could simply add to an exempted Social Security enough
budget items to make up any deficit from the official budget. Congress
could then eliminate the deficit by simply transferring costly programs
to the exempted Social Security program. We would have a balanced
budget but on paper only. Talk about a risky gimmick.
FICA taxes have grown significantly over the years. Odds are that the
loophole would only accelerate this increase. In fact, all kinds of new
``Social Security'' taxes would be enacted such as a ``Social
Security'' income tax or a ``Social Security'' value-added tax. As this
process continues, the loophole created by this exemption by the Reid
amendment would easily swallow both the spending and taxing provisions
of the balanced budget amendment.
The balanced budget amendment will allow the use of Social Security
surpluses to fund benefits.
Some Senators have proffered another argument in support of removing
Social Security from the protections of Senate Joint Resolution 1. They
allege that the very wording of the balanced budget amendment will not
allow the use of surpluses in following years. This is so, they claim,
because in succeeding years the spending for benefits from the saved
surpluses becomes ``outlay'' under the constitutional amendment. They
created quite a storm when they claimed that a CRS memorandum confirmed
this. The only problem with their elaborate theory is that it is wrong.
Simply put, Mr. President, I must say once more that passage and
ratification of the balanced budget amendment will not harm the Social
Security Program. In fact, the very passage of Senate Joint Resolution
1 will help stabilize the program. CRS never concluded that the
balanced budget amendment will harm Social Security. I believe that the
Congressional Research Service memorandum my friend from Nevada was
alluding to was, unfortunately, quoted out of context.
Let me explain. The CRS memorandum, dated February 5, that my
colleague was alluding to, did not conclude in any way whatsoever that
the balanced budget amendment would harm Social Security. All the CRS
memorandum concluded was that, assuming the Social Security surplus
survived through to the year 2019, the year Social Security will start
running huge annual deficits, this previously accumulated surplus could
be used to help pay for future deficits but only if it is offset by
revenue or budget cuts.
Now, despite what my good friend asserted, under the balanced budget
amendment, assets of the Federal Treasury could be drawn upon to ensure
payments to beneficiaries when the system starts running deficits,
annual deficits, that is.
To clear up any confusion, the Congressional Research Service
produced another memorandum dated February 12, 1997, at Senator
Domenici's request. This memorandum stated ``We,'' that is, the
Congressional Research Service, ``are not concluding that the trust
fund surpluses could not be drawn down to pay beneficiaries. The
balanced budget amendment would not require that result.''
So where is the problem? In the near future, when Social Security
runs in the red, the Congressional Research Service concluded that
under the balanced budget amendment, ``The trust funds will be drawn
down to cover the Social Security deficit in that year, and the
Treasury will have to make good on the securities with whatever moneys
it has available.''
Senator Mack and I also requested that the Congressional Research
Service clear up any confusion concerning the use of the February 5 CRS
memorandum. CRS stated, in a letter dated February 14, that its
memorandum was quoted out of context, and reiterated that under the
balanced budget amendment, Federal receipts, including Social Security
surpluses, could be used to pay for Social Security benefits.
I ask unanimous consent that the letter dated February 14, 1987, be
printed in the Record at this point.
There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the
Record, as follows:
Congressional Research Service,
The Library of Congress,
Washington, DC, February 14, 1997.
Hon. Orrin G. Hatch,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Hatch: This letter is in response to inquiries
made by you and Senator Mack about the conclusions CRS was
reported to have reached in various responses to requests
about the impact of the pending Balanced Budget Amendment
(BBA) on the Social Security program. We note that you were
engaged in a debate about these responses on the Senate floor
on February 12, 1997.
Let me first say that CRS will always seek to respond to
the specific needs of the congressional requestor, but will
do so in a manner consistent with our obligation to provide
research and information that is accurate and nonadvocative.
We place the highest importance on these characteristics of
our work and make every possible effort to maintain them. I
want to assure you that CRS has applied these principles in
responding to requests on the question of the BBA's effects
on Social Security.
Although the National Journal's ``Congress Daily AM''
report of February 12, 1997 and other subsequent press
accounts suggest that CRS drew a conclusion in a February 5,
1997 memorandum to Senator Daschle that Social Security would
be threatened by the enactment of the Balanced Budget
Amendment (BBA), we did not.
In fact, we were careful in that memorandum to make sure
the reader understood that there was a range of possible
outcomes. We realize that considerable attention was drawn to
the following statement in the memorandum:
``Because the BBA requires that the required balance be
between outlays for that year and receipts for that year, the
moneys that constitute the Social Security surpluses would
not be available as a balance for the payments of benefits.
[The word `surpluses' here was referring to the accumulated
securities held by the Social Security trust funds.]''
The reader, however, only needed to go to the next and
final paragraph of the memorandum to know that we were not
concluding that this would be a problem for Social Security.
It stated:
``Now, of course, this does not mean that Social Security
benefits could not be paid. If the rest of the receipts into
the treasury for a particular year exceed outlays, this
amount could be used to offset the Social Security deficit.
And, again of course, tax or expenditure provisions, or both,
could be altered to create a new balance.''
We came to realize from the immediate Congressional
inquiries we received that there was a perception among some
Members and staff that the statement, when taken in
isolation, meant that if the BBA were enacted, the Social
Security trust funds could not be drawn down to pay benefits
if in any year the program was running a deficit. The
statement in question simply was referring to how the
drawdown from the trust funds would be scored under BBA
accounting rules, not to what would happen to the program or
trust funds. Nevertheless, in responding to subsequent
congressional requests, we addressed this perception. In a
February 12, 1997 memorandum prepared for Senator Domenici,
which he inserted in the Congressional Record the same day,
we pointed out first that
``the Trust Funds will be drawn down to cover the Social
Security deficit in that year, and that the Treasury will
have to make good on those securities with whatever moneys it
has available.'' [Congressional Record, February 12, 1997,
pp. S1294, 1295.]
We further pointed out that the earlier statement--that the
drawdown from the trust funds would not count as receipts
under BBA scoring rules--was not a conclusion by CRS that the
trust Funds surpluses could not be drawn down to pay
benefits. In fact, we said that the BBA would not require
that result.
In both instances, CRS was asked specific questions on the
same issues, but from different Members with different
perspectives,
[[Page S1532]]
and we gave consistent answers. I further would point out
that in a CRS memorandum for general congressional
distribution prepared February 7, 1997 for the purpose of
discussing the impact of the BBA on Social Security
generally, where we did not have to respond to a specific
question from a Member, we made a similar statement about the
topic:
``Regardless of whether Social Security is included in
calculating the budget, under the intermediate projections
[of the 1996 Social Security trustees' report] its outlays
must be reduced or its revenues increased to avoid insolvency
in 2029. Whether it is more or less likely that these changes
would occur if Social Security were or were not included in
the Balanced Budget Amendment is a matter of conjecture.''
[Memorandum entitled ``Analysis of effects of the balanced
budget amendment on Social Security, including the effect of
enactment of H.R. 3636,'' by Geoffrey Kollmann, February 7,
1997]
With numerous CRS staff from different disciplines
responding to questions from many Members and offices with
varying perspectives, which is a common occurrence on major
legislative issues, we are conscious of the possibility that
we could approach and respond to questions about an issue
inconsistently. Consequently, we expend considerable effort
to coordinate our analyses and responses, particularly
through the extensive CRS review process. On this particular
issue, I believe we have taken a consistent position on what
we do know and don't know about the impact of the BBA on
Social Security, both in responses to specific questions from
individual Members and in our general products.
In closing, I would emphasize again the importance CRS
attaches to its unique role as a source of accurate and
balanced research and information. I trust this communication
has demonstrated our commitment to preserving the reputation
for integrity that we have earned from the Congress over
eighty years.
Sincerely,
Daniel P. Mulhollan,
Director.
Mr. HATCH. Furthermore, to nail the point home, the nonpartisan
Concord Coalition entered the fray. In a memorandum dated February 18,
1997, the Coalition concluded that the Senate position--that if the
balanced budget amendment does not exempt Social Security it will
somehow nullify Social Security benefits and prevent payments of
benefits to retired baby boomers--is, and I quote, ``nonsense.'' Let me
quote further.
``What the balanced budget amendment would do is to raise national
savings, and thus make Social Security--along with the myriad other
claims on tomorrow's economy--more affordable. It would be ironic
indeed if concern about funding Social Security, whether real or
pretended, turns out to be the issue that sinks the balanced budget
amendment.''
``Let us be clear,'' they go on to say, ``The balanced budget
amendment would in no way alter the status of the Social Security trust
funds.''
I ask unanimous consent that an article entitled ``Facing Facts, The
Truth about Entitlements and the Budget, A Fax Alert from The Concord
Coalition,'' dated February 18, 1997, be printed in the Record at this
point.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Concord Coalition, Feb. 18, 1997]
More Nonsense on Social Security and the BBA
Last week, Senator Byron Dorgan and several like-minded
colleagues held a news conference at which they warned that
if the balanced budget amendment (BBA) does not exempt Social
Security it will somehow nullify the program's trust-fund
surpluses and prevent Congress from paying promised benefits
when Boomers retire. This conclusion, they said, has been
corroborated by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
All of this is nonsense. What the BBA would do is to raise
national savings and thus make Social Security--along with
the myriad other claims on tomorrow's economy--more
affordable. It would be ironic indeed if concern about
funding Social Security, whether real or pretended, turns out
to be the issue that sinks the BBA.
a deficit time bomb
Let's be clear: The BBA would in no way alter the status of
the Social Security trust funds. After enactment of the BBA,
the Treasury IOUs held in the trust funds would be precisely
as meaningless as they are today. With or without the BBA,
these ``assets'' can only be redeemed if Congress hikes
taxes, cuts other spending or borrows more from the public to
raise the cash. The BBA, by requiring that the unified budget
be in balance in every future year, would simply curtail the
borrowing option--which, in effect, is all CRS says.
Apparently, what the senators really want is some guarantee
that Congress translate Social Security's trust-fund
surpluses into genuine economic savings by running unified
budget surpluses of equal size. This may be a laudable policy
goal--and there is nothing in the BBA to prevent Congress
from pursuing it. But embedding trust-fund accounting in the
Constitution by exempting Social Security from the BBA is a
terrible idea.
Why? While the Social Security trust funds are officially
projected to run modest surpluses until 2019, thereafter they
are due to run ever-widening deficits. And once the deficits
begin, the BBA-cum-exemption would allow Congress to run a
unified budget deficit equal to the Social Security trust-
fund deficit every year. By 2025, the allowable annual
unified budget deficit would rise to $315 billion; by
2040, it would rise to $2.1 trillion. if the economy takes
a dip, moreover, deficits could begin much sooner--by
2007, according to the Trustees' high-cost projection. In
this case, a BBA that goes into effect in 2002 would
guarantee very little near-term addition to national
savings--but would allow a Niagara of deficit spending in
future years.
And even this assumes that legislators won't redefine
``Social Security'' so that the exemption becomes an
immediate highway for any amount of deficit spending. With
the White House now proposing to keep Medicare ``solvent'' by
shuffling outlays between its trust funds, such shenanigans
hardly seem farfetched.
time to wake up
It's time we focus less on process and more on substantive
economic results. Trust-fund accounting is (and always has
been) an arbitrary legislative artifact. Whether a trust fund
is in surplus or deficit has little economic relevance. What
does matter is the net difference between total federal
revenues and outlays, otherwise known as the unified budget
balance.
The senators should wake up and look around. The principal
effect of their exemption would be to allow the nation to run
huge unified budget deficits at a time when a massive age
wave will be straining the productive capacity of America's
younger generations.
Yes, it probably is sound policy to run unified budget
surpluses today to boost our lagging savings rate and prepare
for the coming demographic transformation of our society. But
let's not do so merely to fulfill some narrow trust-fund
logic--and especially not as way to justify and allow massive
budget deficits in the future.
Right now we find ourselves waist deep in deficit water.
The purpose of the BBA is to require Congress to raise the
deck above water and keep it there. The Social Security
exemption would defeat this purpose. As for running budget
surpluses, nothing in the BBA prevents Congress from doing so
whenever it so decides.
Mr. HATCH. Even more important, yesterday, the very same Concord
Coalition revealed a major analysis studying the effects of exempting
Social Security from the unified budget.
This is the Balanced Budget Amendment and Social Security, the
Concord Coalition Issue Analysis, 97-1, dated February 24, 1997, as of
yesterday. Because of the significance of the analysis, let me quote
its major conclusion:
Trust fund accounting is, and always has been, an arbitrary
legislative artifact. Whether a trust fund is in surplus or
deficit has little economic relevance. What does matter is
the net difference between total Federal revenues and
outlays, otherwise known as the unified budget balance.
Although some Senators and Representatives mistakenly
believe that exempting Social Security from the balanced
budget amendment would protect boomer retirees, it would, in
reality, do nothing to guarantee future Social Security
benefits, which would remain mere statutory promises, subject
to change by Congress at any time.
``Instead,'' and let me go to this next chart--``Instead,'' it says:
. . . legislators should focus on how the balanced budget
amendment without an exemption for Social Security would
strengthen the Social Security program and the ability of our
Nation to finance retirement benefits not only for the baby
boom generation, but for succeeding generations as well. The
BBA, the balanced budget amendment, would raise national
savings and thus make Social Security--along with Medicare
and other claims on tomorrow's economy--more affordable.
That's a statement of the Concord Coalition, The Balanced Budget
Amendment and Social Security--6, in 1997.
The Concord Coalition is a nonpartisan group made up of
Democrats and Republicans, business people and nonbusiness
people, people who are concerned about fighting these budget
battles in an appropriate way. They do not have any axes to
grind except they are leading the fight to try to balance the
budget. They are not playing games with the letters from the
Congressional Research Service. Which really has occurred in
this matter.
``Right now we find ourselves waist deep in deficit water,'' the
Concord Coalition goes on to say.
The purpose of the balanced budget amendment is to require
Congress to raise the deck above water and keep it there. The
Social Security exemption would defeat this purpose.
[[Page S1533]]
I ask unanimous consent to have the Concord Coalition's Issue
Analysis 97-1, the Balanced Budget Amendment and Social Security,
printed in the Record at this point.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Concord Coalition, Feb. 24, 1997]
The Balanced Budget Amendment and Social Security
Issue Analysis 97-1
On February 5, 1997, the American Law Division of the
Congressional Research Service (CRS) issued a one-page
memorandum (Appendix 1) evaluating whether the proposed
balanced budget amendment (S.J. Res. 1) would preclude, at a
future time, the use of Social Security trust fund surpluses
to pay out benefits. This memorandum was Exhibit One at a
press conference held by Senator Byron Dorgan and several
like-minded colleagues to warn that the balanced budget
amendment to the Constitution (BBA) would somehow nullify the
program's trust-fund surpluses and prevent the payment of
benefits when the baby boom generation retires.
In fact, the CRS memorandum did not buttress the Senators'
point. After explaining that payments from the trust fund
would, indeed, count as federal outlays, the CRS memorandum
stated explicitly.
``. . . this does not mean that Social Security benefits
could not be paid. If the rest of the receipts into the
Treasury for a particular year exceed outlays, this amount
could be used to offset the Social Security deficit.''
Because the point of the February 5 memorandum was so
widely misreported to say the opposite of what the author
intended, CRS issued a second, clarifying memorandum on
February 12. (Appendix 2) The second memorandum stated,
``We are not concluding that the Trust Funds surpluses
could not be drawn down to pay beneficiaries. The BBA would
not require that result. What it would mandate is that, in as
much as the United States has a unified budget, other
receipts into the Treasury would have to be counted to
balance the outlays form the Trust Funds and those receipts
would not be otherwise available to the Government for that
year. Only if no other receipts in any particular year could
be found would the possibility of a limitation on drawing
down the Trust Funds arise. Even in this eventuality,
however, Congress would retain authority under the BBA to
raise revenues or to reduce expenditures to obtain the
necessary moneys to make good on the liquidation of
securities from the Social Security Trust Funds.''
These two CRS memoranda make clear that the Senators'
allegations are nonsense.
a deficit time bomb
Let's be clear: The BBA would in no way alter the status of
the Social Security trust fund. After enactment of the BBA,
the Treasury IOUs held in the trust fund would be precisely
as meaningless as they are today. With or without the BBA,
these ``assets'' can only be redeemed if Congress hikes
taxes, cuts other spending, or borrows more from the public
to raise the cash. This bears repeating: even if the BBA is
never enacted, when the time comes to draw several hundred
billion dollars from the Trust Fund in a particular year in
order to pay benefits, the money to turn the government bonds
held by the Trust Fund into cash will have to be found
somewhere, and it will have to be found in that year. These
funds can come from only three sources: raising taxes,
reducing other spending elsewhere in the budget, or borrowing
from the public. The BBA, by requiring that the unified
budget be in balance in every future year, would simply
curtail the borrowing option--which, in effect, is all the
CRS memoranda say.
Apparently, what some Senators and Representatives really
want is some kind of guarantee that Congress translate Social
Security's short term trust-fund surpluses into genuine
economic savings by running unified budget surpluses or equal
size. This is a laudable policy goal--and there is nothing in
the BBA to prevent Congress from pursuing it. In fact, the
Concord Coalition hopes that Congress will run substantial
surpluses during extended periods of peacetime prosperity,
and we invite Senators and Representatives to work with us on
budget plans that not only reach balance by 2002 but contain
credible, equitable, and politically realistic policies to
achieve annual surpluses shortly thereafter roughly equal to
Social Security surpluses.
But embedding trust-fund accounting in the Constitution by
exempting Social Security from the BBA is a terrible idea.
Why? While the Social Security trust funds are officially
projected to run modest surpluses until 2019, thereafter they
are due to run ever-widening deficits. These deficits will
not be a temporary phenomenon that will subside once the
period of the baby boomers' retirement is over. The boomers'
retirement marks the abrupt beginning of what will be a
permanent demographic shift. The analogy is not a python
trying to swallow a pig; the analogy is a python trying to
swallow a telephone pole.
While one might be able to make a case for borrowing money
to ride out a temporary crisis, no one can justify trying to
borrow our way out of a permanent change. Once the deficit
begins, the BBA with the Social Security exemption would
allow Congress to run a unified budget deficit equal to the
Social Security trust-fund deficit every year. By 2025, the
allowable annual unified budget deficit would rise to $315
billion; by 3040, it would rise to $2.1 trillion. If the
economy takes a dip, moreover, deficits could begin
much sooner--by 2007, according to the Trustees' high-cost
projection. In this case, a BBA that exempts Social
Security that goes into effect in 2002 would guarantee
very little near-term addition to national savings--but
would allow a Niagara of deficit spending in future years.
And even this assumes that legislators won't redefine
``Social Security'' so that the exemption becomes a
superhighway for any amount of deficit spending. With the
White House now proposing to keep Medicare ``solvent'' by
shuffling outlays between its trust funds, this hardly seems
farfetched.
time to wake up
It's time we focus on substantive economic results. Trust-
fund accounting is (and always has been) an arbitrary
legislative artifact. Whether a trust fund is in surplus or
deficit has little economic relevance. What does matter is
the net difference between total federal revenues and
outlays, otherwise known as the unified budget balance.
Although some Senators and Representatives mistakenly
believe that exempting Social Security from the BBA would
protect boomer retirees, it would, in reality, do nothing to
guarantee future Social Security benefits, which would remain
mere statutory promises subject to change by Congress at any
time. The principal effect of the exemption would be to allow
the nation to run huge unified budget deficits at a time when
a massive age wave will be straining the productive capacity
of America's younger generations.
Yes, it is sound policy to run unified budget surpluses
today to boost our lagging national savings rate and prepare
for the coming demographic transformation of our society. But
let's not do so merely to fulfill some narrow trust-fund
logic--and especially not as a way to allow and justify
massive budget deficits in the future.
Instead, legislators should focus on how the BBA without an
exemption for Social Security would strengthen the Social
Security program and the ability of our nation to finance
retirement benefits not only for the baby boom generation,
but for succeeding generations as well. The BBA would raise
national savings and thus make Social Security--along with
Medicare and other claims on tomorrow's economy--more
affordable. It would be ironic indeed if concern about
funding Social Security, whether real or pretended, turns out
to be the issue that sinks the BBA.
Right now we find ourselves waist deep in deficit water.
The purpose of the BBA is to require Congress to raise the
deck above water and keep it there. The Social Security
exemption would defeat this purpose. As for running budget
surpluses, nothing in the BBA prevents Congress from doing so
whenever it so decides.
____
Appendix 1
Congressional Research Service,
The Library of Congress,
Washington, DC, February 5, 1997.
To: Hon. Thomas A. Daschle, Attention: Jonathan Adelstein.
From: American Law Division.
Subject: Treatment of Outlays from Social Security Surpluses
under Balanced Budget Amendment
This memorandum is in response to your inquiry for an
evaluation of an argument made in connection with
interpretation of the proposed Balanced Budget Amendment
(BBA), now pending in the Senate as S.J. Res. 1. Briefly
stated, the contention is that the terms of the proposal, if
proposed and ratified, would preclude, at a future time when
Social Security outlays in a particular year begin to exceed
Social Security receipts in that particular year, the use of
surpluses built up in the Social Security trust funds to pay
out benefits.
At the present time, surpluses are being accumulated in the
Social Security trusts funds, at least as an accounting
practice, as a result of changes made in 1983. It is expected
that when the receipts into the funds fall below the amount
being paid out that moneys from the surpluses will be used to
make up the differences.
The BBA would have its impact on this legislated plan
because under Sec. 1 of the proposal ``[t]otal outlays for
any fiscal year shall not exceed total receipts for that
fiscal year, . . . .'' Under Sec. 7 of the BBA, the two terms
are defined thusly: ``Total receipts shall include all
receipts of the United States Government except those derived
from borrowing. Total outlays shall include all outlays of
the United States Government except for those for repayment
of debt principal.''
Therefore, under the BBA's language, there is mandated a
balance in each year of the outlays that year and the
receipts that year. Payments out of the balances of the
Social Security trust funds would not be counted as
Government receipts under the BBA, when in the year 2019, or
whenever the time occurs, the receipts in those particular
years into the Social Security funds are not adequate to
cover the outlays in those years. That is, payments out of
the trust fund surpluses could not be counted in the
calculation of the balance between total federal outlays and
receipts. Because the BBA requires that the required balance
be between outlays for
[[Page S1534]]
that year and receipts for that year, the moneys that
constitute the Social Security surpluses would not be
available as a balance for the payments of benefits.
Now, of course, this does not mean that Social Security
benefits could not be paid. If the rest of the receipts into
the Treasury for a particular year exceed outlays, this
amount could be used to offset the Social Security deficit.
And, again of course, tax or expenditure provisions, or both,
could be altered to create a new balance.
Johnny H. Killian,
Senior Specialist,
American Constitutional Law.
____
Appendix 2
Congressional Research Service,
The Library of Congress,
Washington, DC, February 12, 1997.
From: American Law Division.
Subject: Treatment of Outlays from Social Security Surpluses
under BBA.
This memorandum is in response to your inquiry with respect
to the effect on the Social Security Trust Funds of the
pending Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA). Under S.J. Res. 1 as
it is now before the Senate, & I would mandate that ``[t]otal
outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed total receipts
for that fiscal year . . . .'' Outlays and receipts are
defined in Sec. 7 as practically all inclusive, with two
exceptions that are irrelevant here.
At some point, the receipts into the Social Security Trust
Funds will not balance the outlays from those Funds. Under
present law, then, the surpluses being built up in the Funds,
at least as an accounting practice, will be utilized to pay
benefits to the extent receipts for each year do not equal
the outlays in that year. Simply stated, the federal
securities held by the Trust Funds will be drawn down to
cover the Social Security deficit in that year, and the
Treasury will have to make good on those securities with
whatever moneys it has available.
However, Sec. 1 of the pending BBA requires that total
outlays for any fiscal year not exceed total receipts for
that fiscal year. Thus, the amount drawn from the Social
Security Trust Funds could not be counted in the calculation
of the balance between total federal outlays and receipts. We
are not concluding that the Trust Funds surpluses could not
be drawn down to pay beneficiaries. The BBA would not require
that result. What it would mandate is that, inasmuch as the
United States has a unified budget, other receipts into the
Treasury would have to be counted to balance the outlays from
the Trust Funds and those receipts would not be otherwise
available to the Government for that year. Only if no other
receipts in any particular year could be found would the
possibility of a limitation on drawing down the Trust Funds
arise. Even in this eventuality, however, Congress would
retain authority under the BBA to raise revenues or to reduce
expenditures to obtain the necessary moneys to make good on
the liquidation of securities from the Social Security Trust
Funds.
Johnny H. Killian,
Senior Specialist,
American Constitutional Law.
Mr. HATCH. The Reid amendment will make it harder to balance the
budget. And it will harm not only Social Security, but other social
programs.
Furthermore, in another paradox, the exclusion of the present-day
surpluses in the budget would make it extraordinarily difficult to
balance the budget by the year 2002, the date Senate Joint Resolution 1
mandates balancing. Between now and the year 2002, the surplus is
estimated to be over $500 billion; over $500 billion. On this chart we
have 10 years of the surplus. You will notice at the bottom the
surpluses are worth $1.067 trillion, that is 10 years from now. Mr.
President, $1.067 trillion is more than our expenditure this year on
Medicare, education, veterans' benefits, the environment, national
defense, Social Security, transportation, and infrastructure and
national resources combined. In fact, between the year 2002 and 2019
when Social Security outlays will exceed receipts, the trust fund is
expected to earn more than $1.9 trillion.
Where do supporters of the Reid amendment propose to come up with the
money necessary to cover this supposed shortfall? This is an annual
surplus average of approximately $100 billion each year. According to
current budgetary figures, $100 billion per year is more than our
current annual expenditure on education, the environment,
transportation and infrastructure. Where will we come up with the money
if this goes off budget to fund these programs if we exclude Social
Security surpluses from the unified budget, and if we are serious about
getting to a balanced budget by the year 2002? Show me the money. We
are going to have to come up with $1.067 trillion, and it is going to
have to come out of these programs that are critical programs, if you
follow this amendment that the distinguished Senator from Nevada has
filed here.
Federal programs would have to be cut under his amendment, or taxes
raised by that amount to reach the balanced budget goal. If the
American people think they are taxed enough now, wait until they have
to be taxed to make up part or all of $1.067 trillion in the next 5
years. Keep in mind, the fact of the matter is, Social Security goes
from the people to the Social Security Administration, funds go into
the Treasury, and then they are invested, the surplus funds are
invested in bonds that go back to the Social Security Administration to
be redeemed later. They happen to be invested in the most important
securities in the world. The only way we are going to be able to pay
those bonds is if we have a balanced budget amendment without any
gimmickry or games, and especially risky gimmicks at that, that
literally help us to have a good enough economy to redeem those bonds.
If we do not do that, then many of these discretionary spending
programs such as Head Start, education, entitlement spending programs
such as veterans' pensions and benefits are going to be seriously
harmed. It is just that simple.
Additionally, I have to point out again, not all of President
Clinton's budgets have included the Social Security surpluses in their
calculations. Doesn't that bother you, that the President says, ``Oh, I
think we ought to take Social Security out just like Senator Reid
does?'' Why doesn't he? Why doesn't he take it out? Because he knows he
cannot even make a claim to getting close to a balanced budget without
those surpluses and he also knows he would have to cut most of the
expensive social welfare programs that he and most of us up here would
like to keep going in the best interests of people.
Indeed, Secretary Rubin, the Secretary of the Treasury, testified in
a recent judiciary hearing, that without including the surpluses in
budget calculations, it would be virtually impossible to arrive at a
balanced budget. In his recent press conference President Clinton
admitted the same when he confessed, and this is what he said,
``Neither the Republicans nor I could produce a balanced budget
tomorrow that could pass if Social Security funds cannot be counted.''
And the reason is because those surpluses are now being used to help
balance the budget. But the obligation will be the same. The bonds are
still going to be there. It will still be invested in bonds, whether
the Reid amendment passes or whether we continue the same system. So,
to say if we were in the private sector doing this we would all go to
jail is not only a misnomer, or a misstatement, the fact is that we are
putting them into the securities that are the only great securities in
the world.
But they are only as great as this country is. And if this country
continues to spend into bankruptcy, we will not have the money to
redeem those securities. If we do what the distinguished Senator from
Nevada wants done here, we will not have the monies. Then you really
will harm those trust funds by putting them out there all alone, not
subject to balanced budget requisites, not subject to any reforms that
need to take place with regard to the whole budget as a whole, but out
there, vulnerable to the special interest rats who come along and eat
it like cheese.
The Social Security trust funds consist not of cash but of debt
securities, as this chart shows. And they will be, whether this
amendment passes, the Reid amendment passes, or not. But these debt
securities have to be paid back.
How do you pay them back if you don't get the country's spending
under control? If you look at reality--that is these 28 budgets that
have been unbalanced since 1968--how are we going to get spending under
control so we can pay back those bonds and redeem those bonds and pay
back that money to the Social Security fund?
Part of the problem in addressing the Social Security issue in this
debate results from the confusing terminology used by our opponents.
They complain that the present trust fund surplus will be ``raided'' if
we have a unitary budget that includes Social Security. But the fact is
the Social Security trust funds are not a giant wallet of $100 bills or
$1,000 bills or gold, for that matter. The
[[Page S1535]]
FICA tax receipts come from the people to the Social Security
Administration, and the bonds are given to the surplus, which are used
to balance the budget today, and it will be the same system if the Reid
amendment is adopted. The only difference is there is no balanced
budget amendment. That is the only difference.
(Mr. GORTON assumed the chair.)
Mr. HATCH. The Social Security FICA tax receipts are used to pay
benefits, and any excess is, by law, loaned to the Treasury to pay
other Federal obligations in exchange for Treasury bonds. These bonds
are interest-bearing bonds. That is all. They are evidence of the debt
the Federal Government owes itself.
The most important question for future retirees is whether the
Federal Government will be able to pay off its debts. The only way they
will be redeemed in the future is if a budget is balanced and we have
enough revenue to redeem the securities.
Mr. President, the best protection for Social Security is passing and
ratifying Senate Joint Resolution 1. This would create the needed
discipline to balance the budget. Payments on debt interest would be
substantially reduced. The chance for Government default would be
significantly diminished. The economy will grow at a brisker pace,
repayment of Social Security obligations will be more secure, and we
will end this process of never-ending mounting national debts, which
have been continuing since--well, 58 of the last 66 years, but 28 of
the last 28 years.
As I stated, the Social Security system is facing a future crisis. By
the year 2029, the system will be bankrupt. We will put that chart up
and you can see, when you get up to 2029, the system is bankrupt and we
go into very serious deficit. Sadly, the Social Security trust fund's
board of trustees estimates that by the year 2070, Social Security will
be facing a $7 trillion annual deficit. In 1996 dollars, that amounts
to more than $1 trillion in deficits each year. Our current total
annual Federal budget is only $1.5 trillion. Where will we get the
revenue to redeem the Social Security securities, then, unless we plan
and budget for it as required under our balanced budget amendment?
The trust fund securities are only a claim on the General Treasury
funds with no capital to back up that claim. If the country ever
defaults on its debts, the Social Security trust funds will suffer. For
this reason alone, Social Security recipients, both current and future
and those who are concerned about them, should strongly support the
balanced budget amendment--for that reason alone.
The biggest threat to Social Security, therefore, is our growing debt
and concomitant interest payments. The Government's use of capital to
fund debt slows productivity and income growth and, thereby, lessens
the pool of revenues available to fund Social Security. The real way to
protect Social Security benefits is to pass Senate Joint Resolution 1.
The proposal to exempt Social Security will not only destroy the
balanced budget amendment, or any plan to balance the budget, but in
all probability will also pose a real risk to the Social Security
system.
Section 13301 of the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 does not require
that Social Security be placed ``off budget.'' Supporters of exempting
Social Security argue that section 13301 of the 1990 Budget Enforcement
Act literally exempts Social Security trust funds from the President's
and the Congress' budget calculations. They claim that the balanced
budget amendment would change this because it requires a unified
budget.
These critics of the balanced budget amendment are wrong on both
counts. Under section 13301(a) of the Budget Enforcement Act, the
receipts and outlays of the Social Security trust funds are, indeed,
not counted in both the President's and Congress' budgets, but only for
certain specific purposes. The primary purpose for this exclusion was
to exempt Social Security from sequestration by the President under the
Gramm-Rudman-Hollings procedures and from the act's pay-as-you-go
requirement.
In addition, as added protection, sections 13302 and 13303 of the
Budget Enforcement Act also created firewall point of order protections
for Social Security trust funds in both the House and the Senate. All
this is made clear by the conference report accompanying the 1990 act.
Indeed, the 1990 Budget Enforcement Act does not preclude both
Congress and the President from formulating a unitary budget that
includes Social Security trust funds for national fiscal purposes.
Surely the opponents of the balanced budget amendment are not
suggesting that the President of the United States and the Congress
have been flouting the law when they include the Social Security trust
funds in their respective budget calculations. Look, we all know that
Social Security will need reform if it is to continue to be viable over
the long haul. This chart shows that. There is no way that we can
continue to go the way we are going without reforming Social Security.
We all know that, but the problem is not the inclusion of Social
Security trust funds in the budget. The problem is that at the time of
the retirement of baby boomers, there will not be enough FICA taxes to
fund their retirement. Moreover, the surplus Social Security taxes
being collected today will not cover the future cost of the system.
Most of the current Social Security taxes are used to cover benefit
payments to present retirees.
Outlays will exceed receipts of the system in about the year 2019,
maybe even before. The guarantee of future benefits, therefore, will
depend on the Federal Government's future ability to pay benefits.
Not including Social Security in the budget would harm the program.
Congress could redesignate programs as part of the exempted Social
Security system. The distinguished Senator from Nevada yesterday said
Social Security is statutorily defined. Let's understand what that
means. When something is statutorily defined, a subsequent statute can
change the definition of it, and that only takes a simple majority in
both Houses of Congress to do. Anybody who doesn't understand that
doesn't understand the legislative process.
Let me tell you, if you don't include Social Security in the budget,
the program is going to be harmed. Congress could rename anything
``Social Security,'' as they have done before, by a simple majority
vote. If they just name it Social Security and use the FICA taxes to
fund these programs, then you will really see the program raided.
The problem that the Reid amendment raises in reality is not with the
balanced budget amendment, but with the problems that the Social
Security Program faces. We need to fix that, and adopting the balanced
budget amendment and getting rid of these unbalanced budgets is a heck
of a good start.
The balanced budget amendment does not overturn existing statutory
protections for Social Security. In a related argument that seeks to
justify the exemption, some have argued the balanced budget amendment
will override the existing statutory protections for Social Security.
Contrary to this assertion, it is clear that the current statutory
protections for Social Security would not be eliminated by the
amendment. Of course, the supremacy clause of the Constitution provides
that any legislation contrary to a constitutional provision must fail.
As the great Chief Justice John Marshall held in the landmark 1803
decision of Marbury versus Madison: An act of the legislature repugnant
to the Constitution is void.''
But what critics fail to mention is that there is absolutely nothing
in the balanced budget constitutional amendment that is inconsistent
with current statutory schemes. The Social Security statutory
protections are not legislative acts ``repugnant to the Constitution''
as amended by Senate Joint Resolution 1. Congress, under the balanced
budget amendment, can also create statutory protections for the Social
Security Program.
Further, the Reid amendment has absolutely no protection against
Social Security benefit cuts. The plain fact is that the best thing we
can do for Social Security, the best thing we can do for retirees, and
the best thing we can do for all Americans is to enact the balanced
budget amendment without loopholes, without exemptions, and bring
fiscal sanity and a little common sense back to Government.
Opponents of Senate Joint Resolution 1 who argue for a Social
Security exemption contend that the balanced
[[Page S1536]]
budget amendment will not in reality produce a balanced budget because
gross debt will still rise. This is clever but it is misleading.
Mr. President, the balanced budget amendment does indeed require a
balanced budget. Outlays must not exceed receipts under section 1 of
Senate Joint Resolution 1. But it is also true that gross debt may
still increase even if the budget is balanced. That is because the
Government's exchange of securities for incoming FICA taxes is counted
as gross debt. It is merely an accounting or bookkeeping notation of
what one agency of Government owes another agency. It is analogous to a
corporation buying back its own stock or debentures. Such stock and
bonds are considered retired obligations that once paid have no
economic or fiscal significance. Thus if we enact the balanced budget
amendment the debt the United States owes to everyone but itself will
stop growing.
This is very different from obligations owed by the Federal
Government to the public. This type of debt--termed net debt or debt
held by the public--is legally enforceable and is what is economically
significant. If net debt zooms--because of interest payments of debt--
which last year amounted to more than $250 billion--budget deficits
balloon with all the dire economic consequences. To assure that budgets
will be balanced unless extraordinary situations arise, debt held by
the public cannot be increased unless three-fifths of the whole number
of each House concur.
That net debt is considered to be of far greater economic
significance than gross debt is a widely held truism among economists.
Indeed, in the study ``Analytical Perspectives: Budget of the U.S.
Government Fiscal Year 1998,'' the Clinton administration no less
concludes that net debt or ``borrowing from the public, whether by the
Treasury or by some other Federal agency, has a significant impact on
the economy.''
On the other hand, the study also maintains that gross debt or debt
issued to Government accounts ``does not have any of the economic
effects of borrowing from the public. It is merely an internal
transaction between two accounts, both within the Government itself.''
Now, it is true that the balanced budget amendment does not by itself
reduce the $5.3 trillion national debt. But what it does do is
straighten out our national fiscal house and make it orderly. Passage
of Senate Joint Resolution 1 will increase economic growth and allow us
to run surpluses. With this, our national debt may be decreased if
Congress desires to do so in the interest of national economic
stability and prosperity. Without Senate Joint Resolution 1, this would
be and will be an impossibility.
The Reid amendment, on the other hand, adds nothing to protect the
trust funds from accumulating debt. In fact, by creating this loophole,
this risky gimmick, this riverboat gamble, the Reid amendment may cause
the trust fund to dry up sooner and run deeper deficits. Thus, the Reid
amendment is a risky gimmick that endangers Social Security.
The Reid amendment is confusing and its application is going to harm
Social Security. Let me just say, finally, Mr. President, the Reid
amendment should be rejected because it is confusing. As I have said,
its application may harm the Social Security Program, the very thing
the Reid amendment claims to protect. The amendment exempts the Social
Security trust funds from the balancing requirement, but it also
includes the proviso ``as and if modified to preserve the solvency of
the Funds.''
Explicitly exempting Social Security by placing it in the
Constitution may ``constitutionalize'' the program in perpetuity unless
a subsequent constitutional amendment provides for the program to be
altered or abolished. As a result of the Reid amendment, do minor
technical changes to Social Security every year require amendments to
the Constitution? The constitutional amendment process was designed by
the Framers to be lengthy, to prevent specious changes to the
Constitution. If we must go through this time-consuming process for
every change to Social Security because we have written specifically a
statutory scheme into the Constitution, a statutory program into the
Constitution --even minor technical alterations--I fear major needed
reforms to Social Security will come far too late if at all.
Similarly, does the proviso language mandate the solvency of the
Social Security system, or does that language merely allow the Congress
to take such steps? If the answer is that Congress must take measures
to assure solvency, does this require mandated tax increases or benefit
cuts?
Frankly, this proviso language strands us in unchartered territory.
We do not know exactly how this language is going to be interpreted.
Once it becomes part of the Constitution, assuming this amendment would
pass, this language could also very well mean that the scope of Social
Security as a constitutional provision could be amended by statute. For
instance, in 1965, Social Security was broadened by a statue to include
hospital insurance. That is, part A of Medicare. My question is this:
If under the Reid amendment Social Security can be variously modified
by statute, would we be constitutionalizing a massive loophole through
which we could constitutionally enforce spending on any program
redesignated as ``Social Security?'' If, on the other hand, we can only
modify Social Security by constitutional amendment, will that not
require a two-thirds Senate vote, approval of 37 States, and a 7-year
delay to enact even the most minor changes?
All of this demonstrates the danger that the Reid amendment as a
whole creates--that Congress ought to be responsible and not amend the
Constitution to include specific statutory programs like Social
Security. A constitutional amendment should be timeless and reflect a
broad consensus and not make narrow policy decisions. We should not
place technical language or overly complicated mechanisms in the
Constitution and undercut the simplicity and universality of the
balanced budget amendment. Explicitly exempting Social Security may
constitutionalize the program in perpetuity unless a subsequent
amendment provides for the program to be altered or abolished. It would
also invite, in the opinion of many, gaming, and I can tell you it will
invite gaming and endless litigation as the terms of the program are
altered.
Former Assistant and Acting Attorney General Stuart Gerson and
attorney Alan Morrison, on different sides of the fence, both
have extensive experience litigating constitutional issues and
testified in a Judiciary Committee hearing on Senate Joint Resolution
1. Although the two disagree about the wisdom of the balanced budget
amendment, they agree that exempting Social Security is a bad idea, and
both strongly oppose exempting Social Security from the balanced budget
amendment. Stuart Gerson is for the balanced budget amendment. Alan
Morrison was against. But both agree Social Security should not be
exempted. Nothing should be. It ought be in the unified budget, to
approach it intelligently.
According to Alan Morrison, a liberal, against the balanced budget
amendment, a litigator with Public Citizen who opposes the balanced
budget amendment and testified for the minority:
Various proposals have been floated to exclude Social
Security from the amendment, presumably as a means of
attracting additional votes. Given the size of Social
Security, to allow it to run at a deficit would undermine the
whole concept of a balanced budget. Moreover, there is no
definition of Social Security in the Constitution and it
would be extremely unwise and productive of litigation and
political maneuvering to try to write one. If there is to be
a balanced budget constitutional amendment, there should be
no exceptions.
That is pretty important testimony given before the Judiciary
Committee by a person who, although he hates the balanced budget
amendment and does not want it as a liberal, nevertheless believes it
would be tremendously detrimental to the Constitution if we put a
statutory scheme in the Constitution.
In conclusion, Mr. President, the biggest threat to Social Security
is our growing debt and concomitant interest payments. Debt-related
inflation hits hardest on those on fixed incomes, and the Government's
use of capital to fund debt slows productivity and income growth and
siphons off needed money for worthwhile programs. The way to protect
Social Security benefits is to
[[Page S1537]]
pass Senate Joint Resolution 1, get rid of the year after year of
unbalanced budgets, get us living within our means. The proposal to
exempt Social Security will not only destroy the balanced budget
amendment, but in all probability would also cause the Social Security
trust funds to run out of money sooner than they would have without an
exemption, perhaps mortally wounding the very program the Reid
amendment was designed to protect. That would be the paradox indeed.
Let me just finally conclude, anyone who believes Social Security
will not be harmed are simply wrong.
The Reid amendment is a risky gimmick. The Reid amendment is a
gamble. Special interest scavengers will sniff out Social Security.
Before long, we will be using Social Security to fund all sorts of
perks like the S.S. Social Security battleship. If we can put that
chart up to make the point. We can see it happening. Now, that is
bizarre but not nearly as bizarre as what has been done for 28 years,
with all these unbalanced budgets. There is nothing in the Reid
amendment that protects Social Security. Indeed, the Reid amendment
threatens Social Security. It is a risk, it is a gamble, and it should
be defeated.
I reserve the remainder of my time.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, will the Senator from Utah entertain a
unanimous-consent request? I will explain it. I was going to ask that
we lay aside the Reid amendment, call up the Kennedy amendment No. 10,
have it considered, then lay that aside and go back to the Reid
amendment.
Mr. HATCH. Let me first suggest the absence of a quorum with the time
to be divided equally.
I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that the
time be divided equally.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. LEAHY. 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
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment
of the distinguished senior Senator from Massachusetts, [Mr. Kennedy]
amendment No. 10, be deemed as qualified and having been brought up,
but without altering the order of other amendments in their normal
course or by unanimous consent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Amendment No. 10
(Purpose: To provide that only Congress shall have authority to enforce
the provisions of the balanced budget constitutional amendment, unless
Congress passes legislation specifically granting enforcement authority
to the President or State or Federal courts)
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf
of Mr. Kennedy and ask for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Vermont [Mr. Leahy], for Mr. Kennedy,
proposes an amendment numbered 10.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the
amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
On page 3, at the end of line 14, insert the following:
``Unless specifically otherwise provided by such law,
Congress shall have exclusive authority to enforce the
provisions of this Article.''
Amendment No. 8
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I yield the floor and the control of the
time on the Reid amendment to the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin,
[Mr. Feingold].
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin is recognized.
Mr. FEINGOLD. I thank the floor manager. I yield myself such time as
is necessary.
Privilege of the Floor
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Susanne
Martinez, Sumner Slichter, Mary Murphy, and Michael O'Leary, of my
staff, be granted the privilege of the floor during Senator Joint
Resolution 1 and all rollcall votes thereto.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise to support the Reid amendment. I
want to commend my friend and the distinguished Senator from Nevada for
offering it.
Mr. President, Social Security is unlike any other program in the
unified budget. In fact, the surpluses generated by Social Security are
the principal reason that the unified budget was created in the first
place.
Social Security is, fiscally and politically, a special program, and
those special traits require us to separate it out from the rest of the
budget. Social Security is singular as a public contract between the
people of the United States and their elected Government.
What happened here with Social Security, Mr. President, is that the
elected Government promised that if workers and their employers paid
into the Social Security fund, they would be able to draw upon that
fund when they retire--a simple proposition. But the singular nature of
Social Security and the special regard in which it is held by the
public, Mr. President, does not flow from some fleeting sense of
nostalgia. Rather, Social Security has provided real help for millions
of seniors.
According to AARP, Social Security keeps 15 million beneficiaries of
all ages out of poverty. Today, 13 percent of recipients rely on Social
Security for all of their income; 1 in 4 count on it for at least 90
percent of their income; 3 in 5, Mr. President--60 percent--depend on
it for at least half of their income.
For those seniors, and for millions of others, the Social Security
contract is very real and a vital necessity, and anything other than
partitioning Social Security off from the rest of the budget risks a
breach of that public contract, Mr. President.
Beyond the issue of our moral obligation to such a contract and
keeping our promise, there are critical fiscal reasons for making a
special distinction in this new constitutional budget structure.
Most obvious is the enormous temptation Social Security will provide
to those who might seek to raid the trust fund to alleviate the
deficit. This scenario is not hard to imagine. It is not some kind of a
nightmare or a pipe dream. We already do it now. A unified budget masks
the true, on-budget deficit. This is not a weakness of one party or one
branch of Government. But it is a problem that we need to address, and
it is a problem we need to address quickly. If we do not, the Social
Security surpluses will be used to distort the true deficit picture,
and it will undercut the deficit reduction that needs to be done. In
fact, what will happen is we will pretend that we really have a
balanced budget. But we will not because we will have used Social
Security dollars to make it look in balance.
So, Mr. President, we have to begin to rid ourselves of the addiction
to the Social Security trust fund and to begin to learn how to balance
the budget without it if we are to fulfill the promise we made to
today's workers that the Social Security benefits would be there for
them when they retire; that those benefits will be there for them when
they need it.
Some may argue that current law provides adequate protection for
Social Security; or, many say, that, if the balanced budget amendment
is ratified, Social Security can and will be protected though passage
of implementing legislation. There are several responses to those
claims.
First, let us recall that many of those who make that argument are
also the people who maintain that mere statutory mandates are
insufficient to move Congress to do what it has to do. The argument,
when it comes to the subject of balancing the budget, is that only
constitutional authority is sufficient to engender the will necessary
to reduce the deficit.
Let's use the reasoning of these supporters. Using their reasoning,
the willpower needed to resist the temptation to raid the Social
Security ``cookie jar'' can presumably only come from
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a constitutional mandate, or, more specifically, a specific reference
in this amendment that protects Social Security. Those who oppose
giving extra constitutional protection for Social Security often
suggest that there is no practical need for the protection because
``Social Security will compete very well * * *'' with other programs.
I heard the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee
reassure us time and again during the committee proceedings of this
claim that we don't have to worry; that once we pass the balanced
budget amendment Social Security is going to do very well; nothing to
worry about.
Mr. President, Social Security should not have to compete with
anything. As many have noted, it is a separate program with a dedicated
funding source intended to be self-funding.
In addition, any assessment of the political potency of any
particular program is going to have to be reappraised if we ever enter
the brave new world of the balanced budget amendment.
Mr. President, let us take a look at the current environment to get a
clue as to what might happen after the balanced budget amendment is
passed, ratified, and implemented. In the current environment, it isn't
even Social Security that receives the most preferred treatment. In the
last 2 years that status, the greatest preferential status, has been
reserved for military budgets that receive billions more than the
Pentagon even asks for. That higher status has also been reserved not
for Social Security but for corporate tax loopholes which were
specifically exempted from the new line-item veto authority that many
of us supported and sent on to the President last year.
What is more important, Mr. President, the proposed constitutional
amendment imposes a new burden on Social Security that it doesn't even
impose on other programs. Not only is Social Security not exempted, or
protected, but it has the problem the way this amendment is drafted
that other programs don't face. Because outlays cannot exceed receipts
in any year, we are effectively barred from drawing on savings built up
to fund future outlays. It is the very approach that we have to rely on
to fund the expected ballooning of Social Security benefits as
generations such as the baby boom generation reach older age.
Mr. President, the surplus of Social Security revenues produced today
contribute to the equivalent of a giant savings account which will have
to be used to pay for the expected bulge in beneficiaries when the baby
boomers begin to retire. By 2002 the combined Social Security trust
fund balance will exceed $1 trillion. By 2010, the balance will exceed
$2 trillion. And by the year 2020, Mr. President, that figure will
approach $3 trillion. All of this money is intended for and is supposed
to be for Social Security benefits. And we are going to need it. But
the proposed constitutional amendment would impose a three-fifths
majority requirement on that financing structure, and no statutory
approach would be able to overcome the problem. It will have been
enshrined in the Constitution.
So, if we want to address the problem, if we want to be able to use
that surplus fund to pay for these benefits in the future, it has to be
done as part of the constitutional amendment itself.
So, Mr. President, the bottom line on this proposed constitutional
amendment is--that is right--that it does not treat all programs alike.
Programs like Social Security which require a buildup of savings into
the future somehow have to reach the higher standard and muster a
three-fifths majority. But the defense budget, special interest
spending done through the Tax Code, and corporate welfare all get a
free pass in the brave new world of the balanced budget amendment.
So, Mr. President, unless this is altered along the lines perhaps of
the amendment proposed by the Senator from Nevada, the proposed
constitutional amendment will not only enshrine the current practice of
using Social Security surpluses to disguise the size of the budget
deficit, it will actually make it nearly impossible to use those
surpluses for Social Security when we need them. It will turn a
bookkeeping gimmick into a $3 trillion heist.
Mr. President, I urge my colleague to support the Reid amendment and
at least give Social Security the same chance every other program has.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. HATCH. How much time does the Senator need?
Mr. DOMENICI. I do not recall how much I had.
Mr. HATCH. I yield such time as the Senator needs.
I yield 15 minutes to the distinguished Senator from New Mexico.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, and fellow Senators, I note that my good
friend, Senator Reid, is on the floor. Let me say that it is with great
reluctance that I say to the Social Security recipients across America
that the Reid amendment threatens Social Security. Let me repeat. The
Reid amendment threatens Social Security. Senator Reid and others have
introduced their own version of a balanced budget amendment which would
require a balanced budget in 2002 excluding the Social Security trust
fund.
It is interesting right off. The President of the United States
opposes the constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. One of the
reasons he gives is that Social Security ought to be off budget.
Everyone should know the President has been touting to all Americans
that he has a balanced budget. And he said to the Republicans, ``Why
don't you work with me, and maybe together we can have a balanced
budget by 2002?'' Everybody should know that the President does that
balanced budget with Social Security on budget--not off budget. He has
never once ever said in a budget document that he sends up here that we
ought to take Social Security off budget so we will protect Social
Security. Never, never, never has he done that.
The people on the other side of the aisle have proposed their own
balanced budgets in the past, and I am going to say, since I am not
sure of one those budgets, that every single one ever offered included
Social Security on budget--not off budget. Isn't it interesting when
the time comes that you are really going to insist that the American
people are protected in the future from big Government and big deficits
that now the excuse is Social Security should not be on budget. It
should be off budget.
Those same people argue that Social Security in the balanced budget
effectively authorizes the raiding of the Social Security trust fund
and the surpluses that are in that trust fund for purposes of balancing
the budget.
Mr. President and fellow Senators, I believe the argument that is
being made, and this argument in particular and the Reid proposal in
particular, is nothing more than a smokescreen. It is intended to
divert public attention from the real issue--constitutionally required
fiscal discipline. It provides an excuse for some who supported the
balanced budget in the past to vote against it now, now that their vote
really matters, for this is obviously within one or two votes at the
most of leaving the Senate and going to the House, after which there is
a real chance it will go to the sovereign States to see if three-
fourths of them want constitutionally imposed fiscal restraint.
Let me repeat. Now that the chips are down, that a vote is a real
vote, excuses are coming forth from the walls in abundance, and the
biggest excuse and risky gimmick is that we should leave the largest
program of the Federal Government, into which the largest amount of
American taxes are entrusted, that we should not have it on the budget.
I believe the American people will ultimately see through this
smokescreen because it is obviously a charade. It is not about Social
Security. It is about defeating the balanced budget amendment to the
Constitution.
It is clear to me that it is their version of a balanced budget that
would lead to the so-called raiding of Social Security, while our
balanced budget would protect the trust funds. Let me repeat, it is
very, very interesting to note that the argument is being made that you
must take Social Security off budget or you will harm Social Security
when as a matter of fact from what I can tell, and I think I understand
budgeting, to take it off is to put it more at risk. Let me see if I
can explain why.
[[Page S1539]]
Make no bones about it. The Social Security trust fund, who gets paid
and how much they get paid, what is subject to the trust fund and what
can they pay out of it, is not enshrined in the Constitution. It is
totally, purely, Mr. President, legislation. Social Security is defined
by whom? It is not defined by God. It is not in the Ten Commandments.
It is written by legislators. They define it. They write into that law
who can get money, what programs might be within the Social Security
trust fund, and here we go.
The Reid amendment says balance the rest of the budget but leave this
very large trust fund to float hither and yon on its own, subject to
what, Mr. President? Subject to what Congress wants to do with it.
Senior citizens, you are being duped, if you are coming here in large
numbers telling us to leave it off the budget. Leave it off the budget,
for what? For what? So that Congress can do with it what it wants
without regard to the budget.
Now, I am not suggesting that any Member of the Senate has that in
mind, I say to the Senator from Oklahoma. I am not suggesting that my
great friend from the State of Nevada has that in mind, but I am
suggesting that when you enshrine in the Constitution a balanced budget
that leaves Social Security out of the budget, you then have to ask the
question over time, what might happen to that trust fund? I submit, in
the past 15 years on at least one occasion that I am aware of, believe
it or not, the now bankrupt Medicare fund, a trust fund, had a surplus,
I say to my friend from Oklahoma, and Social Security was hurting. So
guess what we did under the leadership of the chairman of the Finance
Committee, Russell Long. We borrowed money from the Medicare fund and
put it in the Social Security fund.
We made up for that later. But now what we are going to do is take
Social Security and put it out there all by itself. Guess what is going
to happen in the next decade. The Social Security fund has a lot of
money in it. It is growing. It has a lot of surplus. And guess what.
Its sister fund for hospitalization for seniors is diminishing. We are
all running around saying let us keep it from bankruptcy. What if we do
not keep it from bankruptcy, I say to my friend, the occupant of the
Chair? What if we do not keep Medicare from bankruptcy and in 8 years
it is desperately in need of money? Where do you think Congress might
look to get the money? This budget that has Medicare on it will be a
tough budget because it has to be in balance. So I think it will be as
easy and as axiomatic as anything that goes on, like day following
night, Congress will say, let us take it out of the trust fund. Then
somebody will rise up and say, but what about the balanced budget? Then
some will stand up and say, well, we did not put it in that balanced
budget because we wanted to protect it. Then somebody will say, protect
it? Let us use it. So they will borrow from it. Or in fact make the
payments for Medicare out of it saying we will fix it later.
Now, frankly, I truly believe there is a higher probability of that
happening than there is the probability that when the Social Security
trust fund needs the cash that its reserves represent, that we have
borrowed for the Federal Government, there is a higher chance of
harming it by taking money out of it than there is the chance we will
not have the money when the time comes that the surpluses have to
really be turned into cash available.
Then, might I suggest, if the whole purpose of a constitutional
amendment--and I do not deny the sincerity of those who propose a
constitutional amendment other than ours, than the one we propose. My
friend from Nevada probably really wants a constitutional balanced
budget, but the truth of the matter is the purpose of that is so that
you get to the point in time, fellow Senators, the point in time when
you cannot borrow any more money. Right? That is the whole purpose of
this constitutional amendment. It is structured in that way and there
is no question about it.
Now, I ask you to just take a look at this one chart. I will use no
more than this one. You see the black dotted line. That comes down to
about 2020. That is the period of time when there will be a surplus
that Congress can play with and spend if they would like because it is
sitting out there, and in the Reid constitutional amendment it is
subject to no limitation.
Now, if the purpose then of the balanced budget amendment that my
friend, Senator Reid, introduces is to say we are not going to be
borrowing more money after we get to balance, then I ask what is going
to happen in 2022 when that trust fund starts going in the red and you
need to borrow money if you have not fixed the program? That is the red
line. If we do not fix Social Security out there in the future, the
difference between that green line and that red line, that great big
triangle, is the amount of money that would have to be borrowed if we
do not fix Social Security.
Now, let us assume that it is sitting out there in 2024. That is not
farfetched because the constitutional amendment is supposedly forever,
right, for 100, 200 years. Now, here we are. The whole purpose of the
Reid constitutional amendment is to put us in the position where you
cannot borrow any money after you are in balance.
I ask the Senator from Utah [Mr. Hatch] what happens when Congress
says, well, we need $650 million for Social Security; it is going in
the red? So somebody proposes, why, America has a great, strong
economy. Let us borrow the money. Right?
Mr. HATCH. Right.
Mr. DOMENICI. What will there be in the constitutional amendment, if
the Reid amendment became law, that says we cannot borrow that money?
Nothing, Senator Nickles. It can be borrowed. So we have kind of a
charade going. You write a constitutional amendment that says when you
finally get to balance you cannot borrow any more money, right? But
that is only on that budget. On this other budget that is floating over
here, there is no limitation on borrowing. I ask, if you are trying to
protect the American economy and future generations from borrowed
money, is there any difference between the borrowed money that might go
into the first budget as compared with borrowed money that might go
into the Social Security fund? I think not. I think both have the same
negative effect on the future of our children and the growth and
prosperity of the Nation.
So, if we want to stop at $5 trillion in deficits, when we finally
get to balance under the Hatch constitutional amendment, we are saying
we should not borrow any more money. But if the Reid amendment becomes
law, we are not saying that. We are saying, for Social Security
purposes you can borrow as much as you want. If that isn't a sorry
state of affairs, after we have adopted a constitutional amendment if
we were to adopt the Reid constitutional amendment, then I have not
seen one; a situation which is more dissimilar after the fact than
this. For after the fact there is no limitation on borrowing money.
Having said that, I choose, today, not to take up the second part of
my comments other than to say we are struggling here today--have I used
all my time?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 15 minutes have expired.
Mr. DOMENICI. May I have an additional 2 minutes?
Mr. HATCH. I yield 2 minutes.
Mr. DOMENICI. We are struggling today to see if we can make a deal
with the President of the United States. We are trying to get a
balanced budget by the year 2002. It is hard to do. The President
struggled, he said, with putting one together and said how hard it was.
We are now looking at how we would do it and we say the President's is
not a very good budget, but still we have to get there.
If, in fact, we got a constitutional amendment like the one my friend
from Nevada offers, it says you will be balanced in 2002 without Social
Security surpluses being counted. I will just tell you what the
President would have to add to his budget in order to be in balance
under that definition by 2002: $75 billion more in Medicare cuts. We
are having trouble, arguing between $120 billion in savings and $160
billion in savings. But you would have to add $75 billion to the
President's. Mr. President, $35 billion more in Medicaid; $28 billion
more in civil service, military retirement, and other mandatories, and
$158 billion more in education, environment, law enforcement and
discretionary spending. Mr.
[[Page S1540]]
President and fellow Senators, we all know that cannot happen. I mean,
we cannot even settle on a balanced budget using the unified budget. It
is difficult to get done.
So I must submit, in all deference and with as much respect as
possible, that the Reid amendment is not intended to become the law of
the land. It is not intended to become the constitutional amendment
that goes to our sovereign States for ratification. For, if it was, it
would have no chance of being ratified, for who would support it under
the circumstances I have described?
I thank the Senate and thank Senator Hatch for yielding and I yield
the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield me 8 minutes?
Mr. HATCH. I yield 8 minutes to the distinguished Senator from
Oklahoma.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, first I wish to compliment my colleague,
Senator Hatch from Utah, for his leadership in this bill as well as
Senator Domenici for his excellent statement. I hope our colleagues had
a chance to listen to the Senator from New Mexico. He probably knows
more about the budget than most all of us. He made an outstanding
presentation.
I urge our colleagues to vote against this amendment. I recognize
this amendment may be good politics. It sounds kind of good. I have
heard some people say, ``If you vote for this amendment you are going
to protect Social Security.'' I totally disagree. As a matter of fact,
I think it may have just the opposite result, or opposite conclusion.
But it looks good. And, if it is reported by the press, ``Well this one
amendment was trying to protect Social Security,'' if they write it
like that, some people are going to assume that is correct. I think it
has just the opposite result.
I think, if we pass a constitutional amendment that says we are going
to balance the budget, we are not going to spend any more than we take
in but, oh, incidentally, we are going to exempt the largest and most
popular program in Government, in other words we want to be in balance
except for this very important, popular program, you just gutted the
balanced budget amendment. There is no reason to have a balanced budget
amendment. The amendment would say we are going to exclude the old age
and survivors and Federal disability insurance program. You could
include a lot of other things. Why not include Medicare? A lot of
people think Medicare is the same thing as Social Security. It is all
paid for by a payroll tax. Right now American citizens pay 12.4 percent
for Social Security, which includes retirement and disability. And they
pay another 2.9 percent in Medicare. There is no reason why we would
not include that. You could define that as Social Security.
As a matter of fact, in the President's budget he takes home health
care--basically he takes it out of the Medicare trust fund and moves it
over from part A to part B, and then says it is all going to be paid
for by the Federal Government.
My point is, you can shift around trust funds and I think you would
find a multitude of programs running to be defined as Social Security.
Let us throw in Medicare. Let us throw in welfare. Let us throw in
anything else, and it will all be exempt from the balanced budget
amendment requirement. That makes the balanced budget amendment a
facade, it makes it a fraud, it makes it worthless.
I am not saying this is from the sponsor of the amendment, but I
think a lot of people who are going to vote for the amendment want that
to happen. There are a whole lot of people who are going to vote for
the amendment of the Senator from Nevada--not that they hope it will
pass, they do not support a balanced budget amendment anyway. And I
would include President Clinton in this category. He does not support a
constitutional amendment to balance the budget. But now he raises the
specter of Social Security, maybe to scare people into thinking that is
a good way to kill the amendment; to kill the constitutional amendment
to balance the budget. I regret that.
I looked at a statement President Clinton made on January 28 at a
press conference. He said, dealing with whether or not we should
exclude Social Security that we couldn't right now. ``Neither the
Republicans nor I [and the Congress] could produce a balanced budget
amendment tomorrow that could pass if Social Security funds cannot be
counted,'' if you will, as part of the budget.
So the President is saying: Wait a minute, I use Social Security
surpluses right now in my budget to get down to zero in the year 2002.
So do the Republicans. President Clinton has in every single budget
that he has had in the past. So have other Presidents. My point being
he is now saying we will try to pass that amendment because he knows it
is a killer amendment, not because he believes it is good policy. He
knows it is bad policy. I think everybody, if they were asked
legitimately, is this good policy, they would say, ``No.'' Is it good
politics? They may say, ``Well, it may be.'' It might be good politics
but it certainly is bad, bad policy.
You should not have a constitutional amendment that says we are not
going to spend any more than we take in and exclude the largest program
in Government. You should not open it up to a program that is not
really defined by the Constitution, and therefore every other program
in Government could be added as part of Social Security. All of which
would be excluded from the constitutional requirement.
I think, frankly, when you are talking about the Constitution you
should not be trying to write in the Constitution an exclusion for a
particular Federal program. That does not fit. Again, it may fit for
political purposes but it does not fit in the Constitution. It does not
belong in the Constitution.
So, Mr. President, I mention this, I have the greatest respect for my
colleague and friend from Nevada. I am afraid a lot of people will be
looking at this amendment and saying it has a lot of political appeal
but substantively it should not be in the Constitution. We are dealing
with serious business. We are right on the throes of having the vote to
pass a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. I hope that we
will in the next few days. We will not, in my opinion, I will tell my
colleagues, we will not if we come up with this amendment.
I have heard some people say if we just agree to this amendment I
would vote for it in a minute. I don't think they would, not if they
looked at what the results would be, not if they looked at the changes
that would have to be made. I don't think that is accurate. This
Senator would not vote for it because I think of it as a fraud. I think
it would be misleading the American people and I don't want to do that.
I think we should be serious in our legislating and I think we should
be doubly serious when we are talking about a constitutional amendment
in any form, and certainly one to balance the budget.
So, Mr. President, with all respect I urge my colleagues to vote
``no'' on the Reid amendment and, hopefully, it will go down and then
we will be able to pass a constitutional amendment to balance the
budget in the next few days.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. REID addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada has 46 minutes 35
seconds remaining.
Mr. REID. And my friend from Utah?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Thirteen minutes forty-seven seconds.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I wrote a letter to a number of people in
Nevada, and this is what I said in the last paragraph of the letter:
There is no question Congress must face up to the tough
task of balancing the Federal budget. I'm the first to accept
responsibility for this task, but I draw the line on
devastating the Social Security trust fund to accomplish this
task.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, upon signing the Social Security Act, said,
We can never insure 100 percent of the population against
100 percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we
have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of
protection to the average citizen and to his family against
the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.
I received numerous responses after writing this letter, but one
response I received, as I mentioned on the floor yesterday, was from
Helen Collins who said:
[[Page S1541]]
I have been a widow since age 21. I never considered
applying for any kind of welfare assistance. I worked, and
raised and educated my son. He got a master's degree. Sad to
say, at age 71, I am totally on my own on quite a limited
budget. By being very careful, I get by. However, I do worry
about getting more seriously ill and losing Social Security.
For many of us, these are not the golden years. But I, for
one, thank God that good people like you are helping us
maintain our dignity and independence.
That is what this debate is all about. It is about the Helen
Collinses of the world, not the people who are running full-page ads in
the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The people on Wall
Street want this to pass because it gives them an easy opportunity to
balance the budget.
Mr. President, I heard my friend, my good friend, with whom I serve
on a subcommittee--I am the ranking member of the subcommittee, and I
have served on the Appropriations Committee with him since I have been
in the Senate--I heard my friend, the senior Senator from New Mexico,
say that what we are trying to do is keep Social Security on its own.
That is absolutely true, we are. We are trying to keep Social Security
on its own. It is not part of the unified budget. It shouldn't be part
of the unified budget. We have passed laws in this body so it would not
be part of the unified budget.
Here is what happened over the last decade: The Greenspan commission,
where we established, by a majority vote, a bailout of the Social
Security system, and it was to last to the year 2060; in 1985, we
passed the Deficit Control Act, which further strengthened Social
Security; in 1990, we passed the Hollings-Heinz amendment which took
Social Security off budget.
What right do we have to suddenly start including it in the unified
budget? We don't have any right to do that. Everyone has said you can't
balance a budget unless you use Social Security. That is my whole
point. If we are going to balance the budget, we should do it the right
way, the hard way.
I think the most telling thing, Mr. President, was when my friend
from New Mexico came and gave this very well-meaning speech--he is a
sincere man, but I think it is glaring that he did not respond to the
statements that I have made and the junior Senator from South Carolina
has made over the last 2 days about his own words from 1990. These were
his own words:
I voted for Senator Hollings' proposal because I support
the concept of taking Social Security out of the budget
deficit calculation. But I cast the vote with reservations.
What were his reservations that he came to this floor and did not
respond to? His reservations:
We need a firewall around those trust funds. . . .
That is what this amendment is all about.
We need a firewall around those trust funds to make sure
the reserves are there to pay Social Security benefits in the
next century. Without a firewall or without the discipline of
budget constraints, the trust fund would be unprotected and
could be spent on any number of costly programs.
It is here, and that is what my amendment is all about. Social
Security should not be used to pay--in the words of the present
chairman of the Budget Committee, ``the trust funds would be
unprotected and could be spent on any number of costly programs.''
These moneys should be spent on one thing and one thing only: paying
old-age benefits.
Silence is golden. My friend from New Mexico did not, in his 20
minutes on the floor, even respond to the statements he gave in 1990.
They are in the Congressional Record. Not a word.
Mr. President, we received today almost a million signatures from a
group of senior citizens who signed these petitions in the last few
days. They have a right to do that. Of course they do, because, Mr.
President, American seniors are exercising a powerful right to stop a
devastating wrong. The right to petition our Government for wrongs is
guaranteed in the first amendment of the Constitution. This right is a
cornerstone of our democracy and deserves to be enshrined in the
Constitution, and it was. Giving Congress and the courts the power to
permanently raid Social Security should not be guaranteed by the
highest, most powerful legal document in our country.
So, Mr. President, I believe that what is taking place here is a
cheap, easy, deceitful way to balance the budget. It is contrary to law
to take the Social Security surpluses and use them for other purposes.
And even if it weren't law, you shouldn't do it because it is a trust
fund, and a trust fund should not be spent for any purpose other than
for what the trust fund was established.
My friend from Utah, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, talked
about the Concord Coalition and others who last Congress said we would
protect this program through enabling legislation. What they were
saying in the last Congress is maybe what we can do is have a statute
to preserve Social Security. I am sure they must have checked with
somebody who is in their first year of law school who told them that a
statute will not override the Constitution. And after having checked
with a first-year law student, they came up with a new pitch, and that
is, ``Let's go along with it. Let's just raid Social Security.'' And
that is what they have said.
Mr. President, my good friend from Utah has also said the
Congressional Research Service changed the memo the second time, it
doesn't really say what they said it says. The Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities disagrees. The Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities, among other things, says, all three memos, the two from CRS
and theirs, explain that under the Hatch balanced budget amendment,
outlays in any year, including outlays for benefits paid from the
Social Security trust fund, may not exceed receipts in that year. All
three memos note that any funds drawn down from the accumulated Social
Security surpluses to help pay for Social Security benefits of retired
baby boomers would not count as receipts in those years.
They go on to say:
Under the balanced budget amendment, the Social Security
surplus could not be tapped and interest earnings on the
surplus could not be used unless there was offsetting surplus
in the rest of the budget.
Mr. President, we have a number of other people saying that, and one
person saying it is not a first-year law student but a graduate of one
of the finest universities in America today, the person who is in
charge of the Office of Management and Budget, a person who has a great
reputation, Franklin D. Raines.
Franklin Raines said, in writing this letter to Senator Daschle, the
minority leader:
Dear Mr. Leader: I am writing in response to your inquiry
regarding the February 5, 1997, Congressional Research
Service memorandum entitled ``Treatment of Outlays From
Social Security Surpluses Under a Balanced Budget
Amendment.''
That memorandum noted that the 1983 Social Security reforms
called for accumulating those surpluses to allow payments
even when annual trust fund income is no longer sufficient to
make those payments. It concluded that, under S.J. Res. 1 and
without further congressional action, accumulated trust fund
surpluses could not be used for the full payment of Social
Security benefits in any year when outlays would otherwise
exceed receipts. That conclusion is correct.
Under current law, expenditures from trust funds are
governed by the amount of funds available in the trust fund
balances and by congressional spending authorizations. This
general rule applies to the Social Security trust funds. .
.
S.J. Res. 1 would require overall federal government cash
flow balance on a year-by-year basis. In the event that
revenues are projected to fall below outlays for a given
year, outlays would need to be adjusted for the remainder of
the year. Such a shortfall would most likely occur toward the
end of a fiscal year, when only a limited base of
discretionary outlays would be available for reduction.
Consequently, programs with monthly payments would be unable
to avoid exposure to such reductions.
All entitlement expenditures--including Social Security--
would be treated as expenditures under S.J. Res. 1 and, thus,
would be exposed to reductions. This would mean that, due to
operation of the proposed constitutional amendment, the
government might not be able to make payments from trust
funds with both available balances and full congressional
authority to make expenditures from the trust fund.
Reductions in entitlement spending would have a particularly
perverse effect if the revenue shortfall was caused by a
recession, and where payments subject to limitation are part
of the automatic stabilizers.
So, Mr. President, it is very clear that the underlying amendment
would devastate Social Security. Well, there are some who say, ``Why
are you trying to protect Social Security, there are other trust
funds?'' Mr. President, the reason I am trying to protect Social
Security is that is where the money is. The other trust funds are
pittances.
[[Page S1542]]
They are bits and kibbles. There really is not much money there.
Social Security is the finest social program in the history of the
world, and I feel an obligation, a moral obligation, to protect it.
The reason that there has been all this emphasis on Social Security
is they are going after the moneys just as Senator Domenici in 1990
said we should try to prevent. ``We need a firewall around those trust
funds,'' said Senator Domenici, ``to make sure the reserves are there
to pay Social Security benefits in the next century. Without a firewall
of the discipline of budget constraints, the trust funds would be
unprotected and could be spent on any number of costly programs.''
That is a direct quote.
So, Mr. President, I think we have to narrow the focus of what this
is all about. The focus is whether or not we are going to allow the
Social Security trust fund to be raided on a yearly basis until it runs
out of money and then, of course, Social Security would be wiped out.
I say, Mr. President, that I suspect, and I feel that I cannot direct
this to anybody in the Senate because I do not know, but there are
people in the leadership in the House of Representatives who believe
the Social Security program is a bad program. Again, I do not think you
have to be real bright to figure out that is how they feel. This is a
statement from the majority leader, the present majority leader of the
House of Representatives. Again, I quote: ``Social Security is a rotten
trick. I think we are going to have to bite the bullet on Social
Security and phase it out over time.''
Now, does that appear to be somebody that is pushing a balanced
budget amendment and wanting to protect Social Security? Would you
trust someone of that philosophy to try to draft a statute to avoid a
constitutional provision? First of all, you cannot. But even if you
could, would you trust someone with that philosophy? I think not. There
are people supporting this amendment, recognizing that doing so will
wipe out Social Security.
I think we should not do that. I think we should look at the Helen
Collinses of the world and say the money that she is talking about is
just a small amount of money. We have a number of letters here that my
staff has brought me. One woman talks about getting 300-some-odd-
dollars a month. That gives her a little bit of independence. This
amendment protects her interest by excluding Social Security from the
calculations of the balanced budget amendment. It protects the interest
of the Helen Collinses of the world.
Social Security is, therefore, not at fault for the deficits that
have been accumulated. Not a single Social Security recipient is the
cause of the deficit. Social Security is not running up deficits. In
1983 we passed legislation to forward fund Social Security. The reason
this amendment is so important to some people is that is where the
money is. They do not want to balance the budget the hard way.
We heard statements here from President Clinton saying it is going to
be real hard to balance the budget if you do not use Social Security.
No kidding. I understand that. We all understand that. But if we pass
my amendment we would have a true balanced budget and we would also
preserve Social Security. I think that is a pretty good deal and I
think it is worth the risk.
The Social Security trust fund is being used to mask the size of the
deficit. Each time the Government dips into the Social Security trust
fund to help pay for the deficit it hurts Social Security. We should
stop that.
Because the Constitution will require the Federal Government to
balance the budget, Social Security moneys will have to come from one
of four places.
I see my friend from Florida. Does he care to make a statement? I am
happy to withhold and allow my friend from Florida to make a statement.
Mr. MACK. If you want to take a few more minutes to finish your
thought, fine. However I would like to have the opportunity to speak.
Mr. REID. Please go ahead.
Mr. MACK. Mr. President, again, I thank my colleague for allowing me
to take this time to address the Senate on the issue of the balanced
budget amendment.
I have spoken many times in the past years on this issue, both in the
House and here in the Senate. I think it is a vital one. It is truly a
debate about whether we are committed to the belief that the era of big
Government is over. The reason there is such a debate about this issue
is because it really is fundamental to that.
Before I make some additional comments I think I might just make a
statement or two with respect to the issue of Social Security. I
represent the State of Florida, and therefore I think it is fair to say
I am pretty sensitive to the retiree, the elderly vote in my State and
their concerns about Social Security. I make the claim that probably
the most significant way to protect Social Security is, in fact, to
pass a balanced budget constitutional amendment.
My feeling is that, in fact, it is a risky gimmick, I think, to be
taking Social Security off budget. For that matter, I think it is to be
proposing that a whole series of programs be taken off budget. We need
to address the balanced budget constitutional amendment from the
standpoint of all the expenditures, all the income and all the
expenditures of the Federal Government, not separating them off into
different accounts and considering only one group of expenditures at a
time. Again, I think it is a risky gimmick to take Social Security off
budget.
Mr. President, over the last couple years I had the opportunity to
read several books on the Constitution. One written by Catherine
Drinker Bowen, and maybe this comes back to my mind after having
watched the special on Thomas Jefferson that was on PBS last week. I
thought it was a terrific 3-hour presentation and discussion about the
roots of our Government, the roots of this Nation. Catherine Drinker
Bowen's book, called ``Miracle at Philadelphia,'' was all about the
debate about the establishment of the Constitution. I know that some
have said, ``Well, the Constitution did not have a balanced budget
amendment or a balanced budget requirement as part of it.'' Therefore,
people would make the claim if they did not feel it was important then,
and they were certainly some of the brightest minds we have ever
experienced in Government, who are we to claim that there needs to be
an amendment to the Constitution to address this issue, the need for a
balance within our expenditures?
I think that the people who make that claim fail to take into
consideration how our Constitution has been amended over the years and
the fact that the Senate used to be appointed. I believe it was either
in 1912 or 1916--I have forgotten the specific date--when the
Constitution was changed to require a direct vote on Members of the
Senate. Well, there was an intricate balance that the writers of the
Constitution came up with that was changed, with the result of the
Senate being directly elected by the people. If you will remember, the
fear that many had in those days was that the House, directly elected
by the people, would be off pursuing many different ideas of great
popular support, and that there needed to be some kind of restraint
that would be placed on the people's House, and that would come from
the Senate. Again, that has been changed. So some of the restraint was
built into the system to be able to say, no, we don't think we ought to
pursue that particular program or that particular expenditure. That was
taken out as a result of the change in the direct election of Members
of the U.S. Senate.
I think it is fair to say that we ought to address the particular
point that, today, there is a tendency to think of this debate as being
a debate about economics. The reality is this is about human behavior
and how we are going to control the desire on the part of some people
to support all the different initiatives that might come from our
constituents. So I think, from a constitutional perspective, one can
say that the conditions have changed significantly, to the point where
it is completely legitimate to be arguing today that we need an outside
restraint on the ability of the Members of the Congress to spend our
taxpayers' dollars. I have supported the constitutional amendment since
I have entered Congress, which was back in 1982.
[[Page S1543]]
I want to take just a moment or two to talk about the benefits that
are derived. Again, all too often we find ourselves talking about some
very intricate aspect of this debate, and we fail to address what I
believe are the important benefits that come from a constitutional
amendment to balance the budget, a requirement that we balance the
budget. I believe, in the long term, we will end up with lower taxes,
higher growth, more jobs, less Government, and lower interest rates.
Again, lower interest rates can, I think, produce some very tangible
benefits to our constituents. We have made estimates, for example, that
lower interest rates would save the average family $125 a month. Now,
some people might say that is not a great deal of money. I say to my
colleagues, then go stand out in front of a grocery store and ask the
individuals coming out whether they think an extra $125 a month is
meaningful. I believe it is. We believe the way they can save that kind
of money is, again, because of lower interest rates. Mortgage payments
would be lower, automobile loans would be less expensive, student loans
would be more affordable. That is a direct benefit that is passed on to
our constituents.
Again, I have a tendency to think at this time about the kinds of
people that will be affected by what we do. I again ask my colleagues
to consider the folks back home--the mother who might have two jobs who
is being asked to support funding of all these various programs at the
Federal level, the family where the husband and wife both work. In
fact, I remember one particular individual coming up to me and
explaining that he works all week and comes home and takes care of the
children over the weekends while his wife works over the weekend. These
are the kinds of people who we are asking to pay taxes to the Federal
Government to fund the various programs. I can only think of one way we
can finally put some restraint, again, on the Members' ability to spend
their money, and that is to pass a balanced budget constitutional
amendment.
At this point, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to my friend, the Senator
from North Dakota.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I was listening to my friend from Florida,
Senator Mack, someone for whom I have great regard and affection. The
interesting thing about this debate is that we essentially agree that
we ought to balance the budget. There is no disagreement about the goal
here. There is a disagreement about the methods of achieving that goal.
Earlier this afternoon, I heard someone come to the floor of the
Senate and speak of the Reid amendment. He said that the Reid amendment
actually threatens Social Security. Well, that is the most byzantine
argument I have heard, perhaps, in all the time I have served in the
U.S. Senate--the Reid amendment injures or threatens Social Security.
The Reid amendment is designed to make sure that we do two things at
once--balance the Federal budget by exacting the discipline needed to
do that in the Constitution, but while we do it, keeping our promise to
those who we made a promise to with the Social Security system, saying
that you are paying taxes into the system, that taxes are dedicated for
one purpose, and we are going to honor that. That is what the Reid
amendment is about.
Without the Reid amendment, this constitutional amendment doesn't
balance the budget. I came here this morning at 9:40 and spoke in favor
of this amendment. I asked a question, and I am going to ask the
Senator from Nevada, who has been on the floor all day because he has
been managing his amendment, whether anybody has come to the floor to
respond to that question. I asked this question, and the question
itself strips naked the proposition that what is on the floor from the
majority party requires a balanced budget. If we passed this proposal,
just like that, 20 seconds from now, and if we then passed a proposal
to balance the budget, as offered by the majority, just like that, 20
seconds later, and it is the year 2002, why then does the budget
require that the Federal Government increase its debt limit by $130
billion in a year in which the proponents claim the budget is balanced?
I have not heard anyone respond to that. If the budget is balanced, why
is there a requirement to increase the Federal debt limit by $130
billion?
I know the answer, but I am asking it of the other side because I
want to hear them say what I know to be the case. The reason you have
to increase the debt limit by $130 billion when you claim the budget is
in balance is because the budget isn't in balance, precisely because of
the kind of thing Senator Reid is trying to address. You take, on that
side, the Social Security revenues and add them in over here and say,
look what we have done, we have balanced the budget, implying somehow
there is no obligation over here to use those moneys in Social Security
when the baby boomers retire.
The Senator from Nevada offers an amendment that says if we are going
to do this, let's do it the honest way. I suspect there are not the
votes in the Senate to pass the amendment of the Senator from Nevada. I
intend to vote for it. But I suspect it will be defeated so we can have
the same old same-old here of claiming to balance the budget when, in
fact, the Federal debt limit continues to increase.
I ask the Senator from Nevada, has anybody come and answered the
question of why, using this approach, enshrining this practice into the
Constitution, when they say they have balanced the budget, why the
Federal debt would then increase by $130 billion in the very year they
claim they balanced the budget?
Mr. REID. I left breakfast early so I could be here early to hear all
the debate. The Senator has asked this question more than one time, and
I thought this would be an appropriate time for someone to respond to
the question. You have asked it at least a half dozen times. I thought
that, with all the power behind this underlying amendment, Senate Joint
Resolution 1, someone would come and be prepared to answer your
question. There has not been a single word spoken in response to your
question.
Mr. DORGAN. I think the reason for that is that this is a giant dance
that goes on. The farther they get from the truth, the faster they
dance. I am talking about those who are suggesting to us that they have
an approach that will balance the budget, even as that balanced budget
requires the Federal debt to continue to increase.
There was a hearing on this subject. I went and testified at the
hearing. At the hearing they had the debt clock. That is the neon clock
with the numbers that keep increasing that shows how the Federal debt
is increasing. I made the point that debt clock actually reinforces
what I was asking. I said, it is interesting. When you say that you
have balanced the budget that debt clock is going to keep increasing.
Until you turn the debt clock into a stopwatch you have not balanced
the budget and nobody in my home town thinks you are going to balance
the budget.
So, if you accept the Reid amendment, which is a perfecting amendment
to the underlying constitutional amendment that balances the budget,
you will solve that problem. It is not so hard to do. Accept the Reid
amendment, and I think we can enact this constitutional amendment to
balance the budget with 70 to 75 votes, mine included. But this is
important because it relates to the underlying question of are we
really about balancing the budget, or are we about altering the
Constitution so that we can claim we have done something that we have
not in fact done? That is what is at the root of this issue.
Mr. President, we will have an opportunity to vote for a perfecting
amendment that Senator Reid is offering. If we lose that, we will have
the opportunity to vote for a substitute constitutional amendment which
incorporates the Reid amendment that I will offer.
So we will have two votes on this. If those who study this subject
decide that they don't want to change it so that we do this in a way
that really does balance the budget, which does require a balanced
budget, and which does not increase the Federal debt after you have
claimed the budget is in balance--if they don't want to do that, then I
guess there will not be a constitutional amendment. If they want to do
it, all they have to do this afternoon is accept the Reid amendment.
This is not just on our side of the aisle. Congressman Neumann, Senator
Specter,
[[Page S1544]]
and many other folks said the same thing that Senator Reid and I are
saying. So this is not just a group of folks who are on one side of the
political aisle that makes this case. This is a $1 trillion issue over
the next 10 years. It is very important to a very important program. It
is also important in terms of the question of whether we actually are
going to balance the budget and at the same time meet our obligations
for Social Security in the years ahead.
I appreciate the Senator from Nevada yielding to me.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and
I had an agreement that I would have the last 5 minutes and that he
would have 5 minutes prior to that. So will the Chair notify me when I
have about 5 minutes left on my side?
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brownback). The Chair would be happy to.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, when I yielded to my friend from Florida, I
was saying at that time that if it passes it will require the Federal
Government to balance the budget and Social Security moneys after that
will have to come from four places.
No. 1, raise the payroll taxes in order to cover the difference; No.
2, cut benefits to beneficiaries; No. 3, cut Government expenditures
and other needed programs to pay its debt to Social Security; and No.
4, because of the language in the constitutional amendment, to get a
three-fifths majority of each House to constitutionally raise the debt.
That is a pretty rough row to hoe.
Also, it is quite clear that because there is no vote required to
borrow from the Social Security trust funds that there is a powerful
incentive to borrow from those funds to pay for general programs.
So I believe we should pass a balanced budget, which is not a
gimmick. It isn't going to make it easy. I acknowledge that. If my
amendment passes, it is going to be extremely difficult to balance the
budget. But when we do, it will be a fair way to balance the budget. We
will not be using the surpluses out of Social Security to balance that
budget.
Mr. President, last Saturday the President gave his weekly statement
to the American public over the radio. He said in that radio address:
Over the last several weeks, we've received the full data
on our country's economic progress for the last four years.
The economy created 11.5 million new jobs, for the first time
ever in a single term. That includes a million construction
jobs and millions of other good paying jobs.
In fact, Mr. President, 60 percent of the jobs were high-paying jobs.
Entrepreneurs have started a record number of new
businesses, hundreds of thousands of them owned by women and
minorities. We've the largest increase in home ownership
ever, a big drop in the poverty rate, and a big increase in
family income. And just this week, we learned that the
combined rate of unemployment and inflation over the last
four years is the lowest for a Presidential term since the
1960's.
That is a direct quote from the President's address.
There is more that he said. But, among other things, he said, if this
amendment passes, that:
. . . it could force the Secretary of the Treasury to cut
Social Security, or drive the budget into courts of law when
a deficit occurred when Congress was not working on the
budget. In a court of law, judges could be forced to halt
Social Security checks, or raise new taxes just to meet the
demands of the constitutional amendment.
I say that isn't very pleasant.
Also, there are millions of people out there young and old who
believe that this Senate Joint Resolution 1 is bad. For example, the
National Committee to Preserve Social Security stated in a February 11
letter that my amendment will preserve the integrity of the Social
Security fund under a balanced budget constitutional amendment.
Borrowing from a reserve to finance the current debt will place a heavy
burden on future generations because the debt to the trust fund must be
repaid with interest.
The American public support my position. Almost 75 percent of the
people in the polling data in the last week say we want a
constitutional amendment to balance the budget, but not if you include
Social Security.
The argument being used by the proponents of this amendment is
Orwellian. They are saying that because we have been stealing money
from the Social Security trust fund in the past that we should go ahead
and stick it in the Constitution. We are saying exempt it. That is what
should be done.
I know that my friend, the minority whip, wishes to speak. I am very
happy to have him speak. But I want to just say, Mr. President, that
this is not a group of Democrats only. Maybe in the Senate. But in the
House we have some courageous Republicans--most of them sophomores--who
have said we are not going to be taken down the path to destroy Social
Security, and we will not vote for a balanced budget amendment unless
we can vote on an amendment like Senator Reid is propounding.
This is what Congressman David McIntosh, a sophomore Republican House
Member from Indiana, said, ``Republicans cannot allow us to be defined
as cutting Social Security even as we move forward with the balanced
budget amendment.''
I say that Congressman McIntosh has it right. We should follow his
lead. Some of the people on the other side of the aisle and over here
should follow this courageous young man and vote for my amendment.
Mr. President, how much time does this side have?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Seventeen minutes and thirty seconds.
Mr. REID. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Kentucky.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Nevada for allowing
me the time to speak. I compliment him for his courage, for his
ability, and for his tenacity. We have seen that before. We have never
needed it any more than we do right now.
Mr. President, just before I came up I was going through some letters
that came into my office today. You always see something personal which
just happened. Here is a fellow--I will not use his name--who said, ``I
truly am concerned about my future as a citizen of the United States of
America.'' He also adds, ``I am worried about my future. Will there be
any Social Security money left for me to have and live on after I am
retired?'' The concern is there. If you want a balanced budget, vote
for the Reid amendment.
Tomorrow you will have 70-some-odd votes. Now we are scrambling to
get one more trying to pass it and force it down people's throats.
In 1983, I had to cast a very, very hard vote. That is when we
increased the taxes on Social Security. We did it so it would be there
for the so-called baby boomers. We developed a surplus on purpose so
they would be taken care of in the outyears. Now we find that, if this
balanced budget amendment is passed as is without the Reid amendment,
it will be a piggy bank that will not stand the crowbar of balancing
the budget. They will break that piggy bank and use that Social
Security money like it is going out of style. And I will not vote for a
balanced budget amendment that desecrates the Social Security vote I
cast in 1983.
How many would have voted with Senator Dole when he came from that
commission if he had told us that someday this money will go for
welfare reform, that someday this money will go for foreign aid, and
for other programs? I doubt seriously if it would have passed at that
time.
No. Here we are now with a balanced budget amendment that says to
those that we have committed to--the senior citizens--that we are not
going to cut them. But what happens to those that come after those that
are on Social Security now? They are almost there. What about your
children and my children that are 45 and 48 years old? They have been
required to pay higher taxes. Some of them pay more Social Security
than they pay withholding taxes. Now we are saying to them that in your
older age for Social Security retirement it will not be there if this
passes.
There is one thing that ought to make everybody shiver. There is a
possibility of the courts telling the legislative bodies to raise taxes
and not to issue checks. So then we come subservient, and we are not a
three-part Government any longer. Under this amendment the courts can
tell a legislative body what to do. If that doesn't send chills up your
spine, if that doesn't tell the people of this country that nonelected,
appointed-for-life people, are
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going to tell a legislative body, the Congress, what to do--that ought
to send shivers up and down the spine of every American.
We have been here for over 200 years; the best and strongest country
in the world. And we are about ready to say the system that brought us
to this point is about to be eliminated; the system that brought us to
this point today is about to be eliminated because of the possibility
of the courts telling the Congress to raise taxes and not to issue
checks; things of that nature. Oh, we will hear the crocodile tears,
the Reagan-Bush memorial over here on my right, you know. We hear all
of that. But I say to my friends that I made a commitment. It is called
the Social Security trust fund, and I gave my word, and the trust of
the people of this country in this Congress ought to be upheld.
In the last Congress, the Senate voted 83 to 17 to adopt a sense-of-
the-Senate amendment stating that Social Security should not be cut in
order to balance the budget.
Protecting the Social Security trust fund is not jut a seniors issue,
according to this letter from this young person. We have promised not
to reduce benefits for current Social Security beneficiaries in order
to balance the budget, but what about this young person's concern about
whether they will be able to secure Social Security based on what we
have in this balanced budget amendment.
Let me just go back to the possibility of what the courts might do. I
do not think there is anyone in this body who wants the courts telling
us what to do and how to do it. They will interpret whether it is
constitutional or not. That is their prerogative. That is the way the
system works. But I tell you when we pass an amendment that says the
courts have the authority to run this country--unelected, appointed for
life--I have some real concerns.
``Will there be any Social Security money left for me when I
retire?'' this young person writes. ``I am truly concerned about my
future as a citizen of the United States.'' I say to that young person,
my vote will secure Social Security for her or him or whoever it might
be out there, and I want their future as a citizen of the United States
to be brighter. We can balance the budget, as the President says, if we
cast the vote.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada has 10 minutes
remaining.
Mr. REID. I extend my appreciation to the Senator from Kentucky, a
man who not only has served with distinction here in this body but who
has balanced a few budgets as Governor of one of the biggest, most
populous States in the Nation, the State of Kentucky. We respect his
work on budgetary and other matters.
Mr. President, I would ask the Chair to advise me when I have 5
minutes remaining.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair will so advise.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, my amendment is not one I want to direct to
big numbers, even though that is what this body has talked about during
these past few days. But I want to draw your attention to small
numbers, people who draw Social Security checks on a monthly basis.
They do not understand the billions and trillions of dollars we are
talking about. They understand the hundreds of dollars they receive on
a monthly basis because the check they receive represents the
difference between retirement with dignity and retirement in poverty.
The reason President Roosevelt signed the bill in August 1935 was to
give seniors dignity, and, Mr. President, that is what Social Security
has done. I repeat, it is the most successful social program in the
history of the world. And we are about to give everyone an opportunity
to see how they stand for Social Security.
We have had people come to this floor and say, well, I am a big
supporter of Social Security. I have a lot of seniors in my State.
I have no doubt that is true. But if you want to protect Social
Security, exclude it. Why? Because to do otherwise, these funds will
continue to be raided and the Social Security trust fund will be a
slush fund.
Most, as I have indicated, express public support for continued
maintenance of Social Security. But this is the test right now. Vote to
support a balanced budget amendment, a true, honest, nondeceptive
balanced budget amendment. Those who say they will not use Social
Security to balance the budget cannot have it both ways. You cannot say
we are not going to use Social Security, we are going to protect Social
Security and say that we are going to do it. And I agree with the
chairman of the Budget Committee when he said in 1990 there should be a
firewall developed to protect Social Security. I want that firewall,
and that is what this amendment is.
We have communication from the Congressional Research Service, the
President of the United States, the Office of Management and Budget,
think tanks, who say if you pass this amendment, you are going to
destroy Social Security. Absent an express exemption of the Social
Security trust fund, we will place at risk the ability to draw down
those reserves when the baby boomers begin to retire. We have both a
moral and a fiduciary relationship to prevent this.
We all know that the practice of misusing Social Security trust funds
is wrong, so let us stop it. Let us terminate it. This is the chance to
do that. About 75 percent of the American public agrees with us. Why do
we not do something for a change that the American public thinks is the
right thing to do, not continue the smoke and mirrors process that has
been going on in this country so long that we have stacks of deficits
that big, 4 or 5 feet high as indicated by my friend from Utah. It has
been referred to as the Reagan-Bush budget deficit memorial. That is
what it is. Huge deficits have accumulated during these years. They
must stop. They have gone down in the last 4 years from over $300
billion to a little over $100 billion. We can do better.
My amendment, even as my opponents concede, is the only way to do
this. But they say if you do it, it is going to be hard to balance the
budget. I am willing to take that chance and make the hard, make the
difficult choices because when we do it, it will not be smoke and
mirrors. It will not be a gimmick. We will be balancing the budget the
right way, the proper way, and we will protect the most important
social program in the history of the world.
I reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. REID. I would ask the time run equally against the opponents and
proponents of this amendment during the time that I suggest the absence
of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk
will call the roll.
The assistant 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. I ask how much time is remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Each side has 4 minutes remaining.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, it is my fervent hope that during the
debate over the proposed exemption of the Social Security funds from
the requirements of Senate Joint Resolution 1, I have convinced my
colleagues to support the balanced budget amendment. As Justice
Brandeis so eloquently wrote in the 1927 case of Whitney versus
California, ``It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage
of irrational fears.''
I truly believe that many of my well-meaning colleagues' desires to
exempt the Social Security Program is based on unfounded fears.
Look, if we take the largest item in the Federal budget and put it
outside of balanced budget purview, we are left with no mechanism at
all for its protection. Social Security will be out there all alone,
with no protections whatsoever. Whereas, if we keep a unified budget
and keep everything in it, Social Security will be protected because
everybody in the Congress wants to protect it, and it can compete
better than any other Federal program for the available funds. Frankly,
I know it would get them. Every one of us would vote for Social
Security, for its protection.
But if you agree to the risky gimmick of putting Social Security
outside the budget, and everything else is
[[Page S1546]]
subject to balanced budget amendment requirements but Social Security,
then those who want to destroy Social Security or those who want to
continue to spend for social programs, all they have to do is
statutorily--because that is all Social Security is, a myriad of
statutes--statutorily add anything they want to to Social Security and
go on spending forever more without any budgetary restraint at all. The
more provisions they add to the total Social Security bill outside the
purview of the budget, the more Social Security will be watered down,
diminished, and eaten away. That is the difference here.
We have a unified budget, and with a balanced budget amendment that
unified budget is going to have to be balanced by the year 2002 or we
are going to have to stand up and vote not to balance it. There is no
reason in the world to put the largest item in the budget outside of
the purview of the balanced budget amendment, since every dime that
comes in from the FICA funds will be invested in Federal Government
securities anyway. Whether we keep it in budget or put it out on its
own without any budgetary restraints, those surpluses are going to go
into Federal Government bonds, and the only way we can pay those bonds
off, the absolute, only way, is if we pass this balanced budget
amendment intact without excluding any program from its purview.
Last but not least, in this limited time, if you write a statute into
the amendment, that means you make it constitutional. Can you change
Social Security to reform it or make it better or help people or
increase funds without a constitutional amendment? Unfortunately, I am
not sure we can answer that today. It might well be the case that it
would take a constitutional amendment to do it. If that is so, that
would be a tragedy.
I do not think this amendment is well thought through. I hope our
colleagues will not support it. Constitutionally, it is the wrong thing
to do. Most important, even if you do what the distinguished Senator
from Nevada sincerely wants to do here, you are not protecting Social
Security because you cannot protect it outside of the budget from
suspect spending practices. It is free floating without any of the
budgetary restraints that the balanced budget amendment would put on
the whole unified budget.
Let us do what budget people really know we have to do, and that is
live within the constraints of the unified budget, keep Social Security
in there where it will compete better than any other program, and, in
the end, I think our country will be so much better off because we will
be able to balance the budget, reduce interest rates, and make this
country really run properly.
It is always helpful to put this debate in a larger context. Today,
the accumulated national debt is nearly $5.4 trillion. Interest
payments on this debt consumes $250 billion annually, which the
Washington Times recently estimated, is more than the combined budgets
of the Departments of Commerce, Agriculture, Education, Energy,
Justice, Interior, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, State, and
Transportation. This means that the share of the debt for every infant
born today is about $20,000.
There is a crying need for sound fiscal reform. Unless we do
something, this Nation will continue to have stagnant economic growth
with less jobs. Unless we do something, the interest payment on the
debt will continue to devour capital that could be otherwise used for
investment or Federal programs. Let's not kid ourselves that Washington
politicians will remedy this problem; the blunt truth is that no
balanced budget deal has worked in the past, that is why we need to
amend the Constitution to provide for fiscal sanity.
Yet, opponents of Senate Joint Resolution 1 argue that Social
Security should be removed from the protection of the balanced budget
amendment. But to do so as they request would be a risky gimmick that
would harm Social Security and open a loophole in the constitutional
amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired. The
Senator from Nevada has 4 minutes.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, even the great mind, Justice Scalia, who
does not like legislative history, does not like to look at it, even
Justice Scalia would recognize we have established in this matter a
legislative history that is second to none. We are taking Social
Security from the confines of this balanced budget amendment. This is
not all alone, floating in the air. It is out on its own, as it was
required by law in 1990. All of a sudden we are ignoring this law we
passed. Any one of the Senators who voted for this in 1990 and now does
not vote for my amendment better check his or her record on
inconsistency, because this would probably be at the top of their
inconsistency list.
The only way to protect Social Security is the way we are doing it.
We are not running full-page ads paid for by the Wall Street brokers
and power brokers. We are trying to establish, through petitions signed
by a million people that were received today, that what is being done
with Senate Joint Resolution 1 is wrong. We are representing the
recipients, the beneficiaries of Social Security, not the people who
want to raid Social Security so it will be easier to balance the
budget.
We are supported by the beneficiaries past and those in the future
and those in the present. We are supported by the American public by
almost 75 percent in polls taken. We are supported by the National
Committee to Save Social Security, by the President, in letter and in
radio address. We are supported by the Office of Management and Budget.
Mr. President, we are supported by Republicans in the House of
Representatives who have stepped forward courageously to say we are not
going to be seen as trying to cut Social Security. I repeat, I hope
some of my friends on the other side of the aisle will step forward
with the courage shown by Congressman McIntosh, Republican of Indiana.
Mr. President, Franklin Roosevelt, when this legislation was signed,
said that he had an obligation not only to protect business interests.
I feel that same obligation to protect business interests. I am for
reduction in the capital gains tax. I was for the legislation that gave
significant incentives to small businesses last year that we passed in
conjunction with the minimum wage bill. But as President of the United
States, Franklin Roosevelt, said:
. . . just as Government in the past has helped lay the
foundation of business and industry. We must face the fact
that in this country we have a rich man's security and a poor
man's security and that the Government owes equal obligations
to both. National security is not a half and half manner: it
is all or none.
We have to help business and we have to help the small person. We are
trying to help those people who are trying to survive to maintain their
dignity. That is what this amendment is all about. I repeat, anyone who
voted in 1990 to take Social Security off budget and now votes against
my amendment had better recognize that that is probably about as
inconsistent as you can be, legislatively.
I ask my colleagues to support this amendment. It is the right thing
to do for the American public.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. REID. I ask for the yeas and nays.
Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I move to table and ask for the yeas and
nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to
lay on the table amendment No. 8, offered by the Senator from Nevada
[Mr. Reid]. The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call
the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Hawaii [Mr. Inouye] is
necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 55, nays 44, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 14 Leg.]
YEAS--55
Abraham
Allard
Ashcroft
Bennett
Bond
Brownback
Burns
Campbell
Chafee
[[Page S1547]]
Coats
Cochran
Collins
Coverdell
Craig
D'Amato
DeWine
Domenici
Enzi
Faircloth
Frist
Gorton
Gramm
Grams
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Hatch
Helms
Hutchinson
Hutchison
Inhofe
Jeffords
Kempthorne
Kerrey
Kyl
Lott
Lugar
Mack
McConnell
Murkowski
Nickles
Robb
Roberts
Roth
Santorum
Sessions
Shelby
Smith, Bob
Smith, Gordon H.
Snowe
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Warner
NAYS--44
Akaka
Baucus
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Breaux
Bryan
Bumpers
Byrd
Cleland
Conrad
Daschle
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Feingold
Feinstein
Ford
Glenn
Graham
Harkin
Hollings
Johnson
Kennedy
Kerry
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
McCain
Mikulski
Moseley-Braun
Moynihan
Murray
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Specter
Torricelli
Wellstone
Wyden
NOT VOTING--1
Inouye
The motion to lay on the table the amendment (No. 8) was agreed to.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I move to lay it on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
____________________