[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 24 (Friday, February 28, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1782-S1783]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     A CALL TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I call on the American people to use this 
weekend and Monday to express their views to the Members of the U.S. 
Senate on whether or not we should have a balanced budget. The American 
people can influence the vote that we will take next Tuesday at 5:15 
p.m. The American people overwhelmingly support a constitutional 
amendment for a balanced budget because they know, they understand, 
without this guarantee, without this leverage, it will not happen. So 
the decision we make next Tuesday is in the hands of the American 
people. They need to let their Senators know how they feel. If their 
Senators have said they will be for it, commend them for it. If they 
have said they are going to vote against it, ask them why. Ask them 
what is the alternative. Ask them, where is the historical proof that a 
balanced budget will occur without the constitutional amendment.
  If a Senator has switched his vote from a year ago or 2 years ago, or 
if a Senator has switched his vote from what he said he would do in 
last year's elections, ask them why. How can you do that? How can you, 
in 6 months, change your mind on so fundamental an issue?
  Mr. President, this is a question of honesty. It is a question of 
truth in Government. We wonder why people are cynical, why they wonder 
about us, why they question us. This is exhibit A. When you give your 
word to your constituency in your State during the election campaign 
that you are going to vote for a constitutional amendment for a 
balanced budget and then 6 months later you say, ``Gee whiz, I have 
learned something new, it is hard to take.'' These are not new members 
to government and politics. These are people with experience at the 
State level, at the Federal level, in the House of Representatives. 
What is new?
  No, this is a question of basic honesty. But the American people can 
make that difference. If they will get on the phone, if they will call, 
if they will write, if they will express themselves, they can make sure 
that this amendment passes next Tuesday.
  The press, the Washington press, is saying it is over, they will not 
get but 66 votes. The fat lady has not sung. This ``ain't'' over. It is 
not over until we take the vote. I would hate to be a Senator who votes 
next Tuesday against this constitutional amendment for a balanced 
budget, especially if I had said earlier that I was going to do 
something else.
  I am still working on a couple of angles, too. I have been working 
with the rules of the Congress for 24 years, and I tell my colleagues 
you are never going to be absolutely sure what I am going to do. If I 
can find a way to do what I think is right for the American people, I 
will do it, and I will be innovative. I have a couple of ideas. Believe 
me, there are a couple of Senators in this Chamber who are sweating 
right now. I bet they will not be doing any press conferences this 
weekend. No. That is an age-old strategy when you are in Congress. If 
you do not want to talk about something you are fixing to do that your 
constituents do not agree with, you hide. Press availability is not 
possible. We need to do this.
  Now, the argument is made by the President, ``Oh, we should just go 
ahead and balance the budget.'' I agree. We should have done it last 
year. The Congress passed a balanced budget. The President vetoed it, 
just 1 year ago. Why did we not do it the year before, the year before, 
or the year before? Why haven't we done it for 28 years? Who among us 
believes we will do it in 2 more years or 4 more years?
  I am an optimist. I believe in the positive attitude of men like 
Ronald Reagan--there is a pony in there somewhere. We will find a way 
to do this job. But I have not seen any evidence of it yet. I have done 
my dead-level best to calm down the rhetoric and try to be positive and 
hold out hope and hold out an olive branch to Members of the Congress 
on both sides of the aisle and between the two Chambers and with the 
President. I have said we should work together for the American people. 
We should get this job done, balance the budget.
  Mr. President, you have just been reelected. We have a majority in 
the Congress. The American people want us to do some things for our 
children and for the future of our country. I have said we can do that. 
We should do that. The President suggested early on in one of our 
discussions that we should set up a commission for a particular 
matter--which I will not talk about now--and I said, ``You know, Mr. 
President, you just got reelected, we just got reelected. That is what 
we are for. We should do the job.''
  We don't need a commission. Why do we always have to have this deal 
where we punt it off to commissions where we can see no evil, hear no 
evil, speak no evil. They did it, not us. So let's see what we can do, 
and then maybe we will talk about a commission.
  I said, ``Mr. President, please, please, show leadership and show 
some courage in your budget. Show me that we can do it.'' And then he 
sent us his budget. We didn't trash it, cuss it, and throw it out into 
the street and say it's dead on arrival. We weren't, obviously, happy 
with it. I took over a day before I had much of anything to say. I 
actually read it and looked at the numbers, and I called him and I 
said, ``Mr. President, this is not what I hoped for. It is political 
cover.'' I understand. We have made it clear that we weren't going to 
go through the exercise we went through last year. He was afraid, 
maybe, to take political risks in sending up a budget that really would 
get us where we needed to go. He felt like, well, we will negotiate a 
real result. But you can't have shell games and remove home health care 
from one part of Medicare over to the other, and say, gee, I just 
magically saved $50 billion. You can't have triggers and lookbacks and 
optimistic assumptions and shove all the tough decisions off on the 
next President. Two-thirds of what would be saved would occur after the 
year 2000. No, it wasn't adequate, and I expressed my concern about it. 
But I continue to say that, well, okay, I understand how that can 
happen.
  I am prepared to do my dead-level best to work with the Congress and 
with the American people and the President to get a balanced budget 
agreement this year. But I am not going to be a part of a fraud and 
hold hands with the President, or anybody else, and say, this is it, we 
got it done, unless it is real. So I think it puts additional pressure 
on us to have the constitutional amendment. I have been here all these 
years, in the House and in the Senate, and we have tried. Good men and 
women have said, yes, we can do this. Jimmy Carter said it; he meant to 
do it. Ronald Reagan said it; he intended to do it. Congress has said 
we are going to do it. We had the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings act to force us 
to do it with a sequestration, but it was a statute. It was only a 
statute. Guess what happened. One by one, we removed all the hurdles, 
all the requirements that would have actually gotten us to a balanced 
budget.
  First, we said, oh, gee, we can't have it apply to this or to that 
program. I remember the negotiations. I was there. We said maybe not 
this program,

[[Page S1783]]

maybe not that program. We started off and we only exempted seven 
programs. Then, one day, it was 21 programs. And in spite of already 
exempting 21 programs from an across-the-board cut of sequestration, as 
it was called, we got up to the ``lick log'' when we were going to 
actually have the programs cut across the board. Guess what Congress 
did. Changed the date. They said, oh, gee, we will move it a year.
  Congress will always find a way to avoid the tough decisions, unless 
it is in that revered document, the Constitution. So we have tried 
laws, we have had good men and women in Congress and in the 
Presidencies saying we are to go do it, and we have not done it. It is 
not easy. It takes courage, like I know the Senator from Connecticut 
has. He would do what we need to do to encourage growth in the economy. 
He would step up and cast the tough vote to control the growth in 
spending in some of these programs--all of these programs.
  Everybody has to ante up and kick in. But I haven't seen it. I don't 
like the idea of amending the Constitution. I voted to do it a few 
times, and probably if I could take back some of those votes, I would 
do so. But this is not an insignificant thing. This is our children's 
future. I have a 29-year-old son, a young entrepreneur who is working 
hard. He employs 55 people. He sells pizzas. Today, I won't give the 
label of the pizza, but he is what the American dream is all about. He 
is out there working hard, making money, creating jobs, and paying a 
lot of taxes. He figured it out recently. He said, ``Dad, I am paying 
over 50 percent of everything I make in taxes.'' You know, that is 
terrible. It is terrible. A young, 29-year-old man, whose work hours 
usually are the toughest between 5 p.m. and 2 o'clock in the morning. 
He is having 50 percent of it go to State, local, and Federal 
Governments.
  That is not the American way. I have a 26-year-old daughter, a young 
professional woman, who works hard and promotes our State of 
Mississippi, promotes tourism. She does a great job. I am proud of her. 
But I am saddling that son and daughter with an incredible burden, 
because I have not been able to help find a way to stop the deficit 
spending, to control the debt--yes, to reduce the debt of the country, 
and the $340 billion in interest on the national debt. Only Social 
Security exceeds the cost of interest on the national debt. If we don't 
do something and do it now and do it tough, there will be over another 
trillion dollars added to the debt by the year 2002.
  So I think this is something that is worth amending the Constitution 
for, because we are talking about the future of the country, the future 
of our economy, the future of our children and their children. If we 
don't do it now, who will do it? When will it be done? So we should 
amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget. And if we don't, 
the American people will know truly that we are not serious about it 
when we say we want to balance the budget.

  I have gone back and looked at the arguments over the years--even 
this year--as to why we should not pass a constitutional amendment for 
a balanced budget. There is no end to the things that have been 
suggested. Some are absolutely hilarious, and some are purely 
political. Amendments have said basically that we should not do it 
until a Republican President submits the balanced budget, or maybe we 
should say we should not do it until the Democratic President submits 
the balanced budget. That is ridiculous. Then they said, well, it's 
because the escape hatch in times of recession or national emergency is 
too high--three-fifths. We should not have to have 60 votes. Just about 
everything we do around here takes 60 votes. Just about everything. And 
if it is easy to get out from under a balanced budget requirement, do 
you think Congress won't take advantage of that? We are masters. We 
have done it over and over and over again.
  Capital budgeting has been talked about. Oh, they do it in the 
States. Great. Let us take everything off the budget. Let's take out 
all the trust funds. I have been an advocate of that on occasion. But 
it is just a red herring.
  Social Security. Oh, that is a good one. We can always rely on Social 
Security to scare the bejeebers out of folks. So that is a great cover. 
Oh, yes, if we don't find some special way to deal with the Social 
Security requirement, oh, this would destroy the system. My mother, 83 
years old, bless her heart, counts on Social Security. She knows I am 
not going to do anything to endanger that for her. I would not do that. 
If we don't do that, that is what will endanger Social Security.
  I could go on. I will speak again next Tuesday to try to help put 
this thing in a proper perspective from the beginning to the end with a 
quote from Thomas Jefferson and some modern quotes about why we need to 
do this and why we should have done it. I wanted to take a few minutes 
this morning to say to the American people that it is up to them. If 
they really want this, a way will be found to get one more vote--just 
one more vote. Is it a Senator from Nevada or South Carolina? Maybe it 
is a Senator from South Dakota, or maybe even New Jersey. Somewhere, 
there will be a Senator who will say: This does matter, and I am going 
to make the difference.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut is recognized for 
10 minutes.

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