[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 30 (Tuesday, March 11, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H856-H859]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                A POSITIVE AGENDA FOR THE 105TH CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox] is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the time for us 
to have this special order to speak not only of the importance of 
moving ahead with a positive agenda for the 105th Congress, but also I 
rise today in the spirit of the Hershey accords, the achievements of 
our recent weekend in Hershey, PA, to join my colleagues in offering 
this special order. Probably the most important bipartisan issue we can 
address for the citizens of this country is the balancing of the 
Federal budget.
  I rise here today and will be joined by several of my distinguished 
colleagues, not least of which is Gil Gutknecht, a Congressman from 
Minnesota, and urge the President to work with us using the same 
economic assumptions, meeting the requests made by the Congress 
following the number of elections and producing a budget that 
responsibly balances our budget by the year 2002. Once we can see where 
the President's priorities are in the free market of a balanced bucket 
then we can begin a civil debate over the policy differences among the 
various proposals.
  I just want to say at the outset that my feelings are that having 
talked to Republicans and Democrats alike this past weekend, our issues 
of balancing the budget, campaign finance reform, working on things 
like FDA reform, improving our transportation and working on other 
issues of common concern throughout the Congress certainly can be 
accomplished because the bipartisan spirit that I felt and the finding 
the common ground, I think, was very special.
  You know for many of us, who may be one party or the other, we do not 
meet other Members of the aisle, the opposite Members of the aisle, 
unless we are on their committee or we come from their State. This 
particular retreat gave us for the first time in a long time a chance 
for us to meet on a personal level other Members who we do not serve 
within the same committee or from the same State, and by that we are 
able to at least find common ground, and while we do not want anybody 
to give up their principles, we do not want anybody to give up their 
agenda, we do want to make sure that we, as Members of Congress, will 
always remain civil, Mr. Speaker, and to make sure that we can do more 
and be more productive because we give the mutual respect they each 
deserve.
  I wanted to ask Congressman Gutknecht, who was an active participant 
at the conference, what his impressions were before we get into the 
issues of balanced budget and other items that are on your agenda, and 
I know how active you have been on your committee work, Gil. Could you 
tell a little bit of what your impressions were of the retreat and 
whether you thought it succeeded in achieving the goals that it set out 
to begin with.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Well, I would have to say it this way, that I was one 
of those who was not all that eager to go along, and it was guilt that 
got me to go to Hershey, PA. It may have been the chocolate that kept 
me there after the first several hours. But I must tell you as the 
weekend went along it was a very valuable experience, not only for me, 
but I hope for my colleagues and, most importantly, I think, for the 
American people.
  I think that the American people sent us sort of a message in the 
last congressional elections. What they said in effect was that we want 
the Republicans to continue to control the House of Representatives and 
the Senate, but we want President Clinton, the Democrat, to run the 
executive branch of Government, and we want there to be some checks and 
balances, but what they also said is they want us to work together as 
much as we possibly can.
  And one of the valuable things, I think, that came out of Hershey is 
we now, all of us who were there at least, have a little better 
understanding of a sense of history, and if you look at this 
institution, the House of Representatives, there have been some rather 
bloody fights on this House floor. I mean there have been Members who 
have been caned, there have been fist fights, there have been 
arguments----
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. The caning was in the Senate, the fist 
fights were in the House.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. But we have had more than our share of fisticuffs that 
were associated with the debate here on the floor. We have also had 
periods where there was consensus building, cooperation, and much more 
agreement and ability to work together in a civilized way.

                              {time}  1900

  I think what will happen as a result of what we saw in Hershey is 
hopefully both sides will begin to reach out to the other side. I think 
in the end what we really need to do is agree where we can agree, have 
honest debate where we disagree. And I think the American people expect 
that, but I think they also expect us to compromise where we can.
  Mr. Speaker, I would hope that over the next several months and over 
the balance of this 105th Congress we will see more civilized debate. 
There has been entirely too much trivializing, too much demonizing, too 
much personalizing the debate that occurs on the floor of this House.
  We are going to have an honest discussion tonight about the budget. 
We obviously have a somewhat different view of the President's budget 
and the need to balance the budget perhaps than some of our colleagues. 
I brought with me some charts, and I am going to walk down there in a 
few minutes, and we are going to talk about what the President has 
proposed, what we might dispose. But I think most importantly we need 
to talk about, what does this mean to the average American family? What 
is this balancing the budget all about? Is it just some kind of an 
accounting exercise, or does it really ultimately impact real families 
and real Americans in homes and in the neighborhoods where they live?
  Mr. Speaker, I think as we go through and talk a little bit about 
this, I think we can demonstrate that this really does have a dramatic 
impact not only on Americans today but, more importantly, on Americans 
in the future. We have some very serious problems, but I think, if we 
approach them in a cooperative relationship, a respectful relationship 
where we can have a civil and honest debate about the great issues 
facing our country today, then I think both the Congress and the 
American people will have been well served by what transpired up in 
Hershey, PA.

[[Page H857]]

  I would just say publicly for the benefit of those who may be 
watching back in Pennsylvania, I know we cannot refer to them, but I 
would like to thank them and all the folks from Pennsylvania for 
everything that they put into the weekend, because they really did a 
wonderful job and showed us tremendous hospitality. It was a beautiful 
setting, wonderful people. I think I gained about 4 pounds in 3 days, 
but it was just fantastic.
  I would also just share one more thing that relates to Pennsylvania. 
I reminded some of the folks who were in my group, and I intend to do a 
1-minute tomorrow morning and talk about, among other things, one of 
the things that Benjamin Franklin said. During the Continental 
Congress, there were some rather bitter and vicious debates that took 
place on the floor of those meetings. And after several days of very 
bitter rancor, debate going on in the Continental Congress, one morning 
Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania rose slowly at the back of the House 
Chambers and he said, ``Let us for a moment, Mr. Speaker, contemplate 
our own fallibility.''
  Mr. Speaker, one of the things that we discussed in some of our 
sessions in Hershey was that there are two things that I think we need 
more of in this body. One is a little more humility, and second is a 
little more humor. Hopefully, we can bring that about in the coming 
days and weeks of this debate.
  Tonight we want to talk about the budget, what it means to average 
Americans; talk a little bit about why the President's budget leaves a 
little to be desired. It is a starting point but something we have to 
work on with our colleagues here in the Congress and with the folks 
down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I am going to move down here and turn 
it back to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox].
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to mention that for a 
first bipartisan conference in Hershey I was very pleased to see 220 
Members, both sides of the aisle being there. I think that augurs well 
for the future, when the next event I hope that we will have three-
quarters, if not seven-eighths of the House present. Not only was 
Speaker Gingrich there, but a Democratic leader, minority leader, 
Richard Gephardt was there, which shows that this was a bipartisan 
effort. Those who came to the bipartisan conference certainly left with 
the idea that we are going to do our part to raise the level of 
civility and professionalism and to make sure that we try to find a 
common ground without giving up principles and without giving up 
important items on our agenda, not only in our State, but in our 
country.
  Mr. Speaker, one other item I think I should mention, a very 
important thing, is we found out that we have different regional needs. 
The Midwest has needs that the South does not need, and the South has 
needs that need to be respected as well. So one of the outcomes that I 
think are going to happen, we are going to find Members visiting in 
those other regions. So while I am talking about how important mass 
transit is to the East so we do not have mass gridlock, overloading the 
roadways and increasing pollution and trying to help us get more trains 
and those initiatives, I can understand the Midwest having some 
interest in agriculture programs, and over in the Pacific Northwest and 
some of their environmental concerns.
  So we need to have this shared vision for America where we all come 
together and work as well as we can.
  Mr. Speaker, I think in looking at the balanced budget, in starting 
that discussion tonight, I think that is something that the Republicans 
and Democrats need to work on. The Clinton budget, I might say at the 
outset, leaves a deficit of $70 billion in 2002, and it also, according 
to the Joint Committee on Taxation, is going to increase taxes by $23 
billion by 2002.
  Mr. Speaker, I am interested in hearing the analysis of the gentleman 
from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht] of the Clinton budget as a starting 
point for this House to move on. And I hope that we will have the 
gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Saxton] join us, who is the chairman of 
the Joint Economic Committee, and I would hope that he could join us as 
well.
  Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from Minnesota could start us on his 
outline of the Clinton budget, I know it would be a good starting point 
for tonight's discussion.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. As I said earlier, 
we need to have an honest debate about the numbers. Before we can have 
an honest and civil debate about the budget, we have to be speaking the 
same language. We cannot have a debate where I am speaking in German 
and someone else is speaking in French and someone else is speaking in 
another language altogether.
  One of the problems we have in terms of our debate about the budget 
is we tend to be speaking in Congressional Budget Office terms, and the 
President this year is speaking in terms of the Office of Management 
and Budget. They take different assumptions.
  Right now the Congressional Budget Office has gone through the budget 
that the President submitted, and what they have told us is that 
actually total deficit goes up under the President's plan in the first 
couple of years and then begins to come down; but even in the last year 
of the President's budget, the year 2002, he is still about $69 billion 
short.

  Now, we do not really want to have a debate about the Congressional 
Budget Office, who is more accurate, the CBO or the OMB or whomever, 
because I think sometimes the American people do not understand that. 
But what I hope they will understand is that, before we can have a 
debate about the budget, we all have to be speaking the same language. 
So one of the things I think we need to get in agreement with the White 
House on over the next couple of weeks is what are the assumptions we 
are going to use.
  One of the things we could do, and I learned this when I was in the 
State legislature and served on the Pension Commission, is that 
assumptions are everything. If we assume an economic growth rate, for 
example, of 3.5 percent over the next 5 years, frankly you do not have 
to make much in terms of budget changes in terms of the spending side, 
because the economic growth will solve it. If we assume a very low 
interest rate, it has a dramatic impact on the deficit. As a matter of 
fact, we were told by the Congressional Budget Office in the Committee 
on the Budget a couple of weeks ago that, if interest rates change by 
one-quarter of 1 percent, either up or down, it changes the deficit by 
$50 billion over the next 5 years.
  So one of the things we want to do is hopefully get the White House 
and the Congress to at least be using the same assumptions so that we 
are speaking the same language. As I say, then we can have a civil and 
honest debate about which items we are going to increase and which ones 
we are going to reduce.
  I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.
  Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. First 
let me commend the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox] and the 
gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht] for sponsoring this discussion 
tonight. If I may just ask the gentleman's explanation of deficit in 
the Clinton budget.
  The gentleman mentioned the scoring that takes place by two different 
agencies, the CBO and OMB. In spite of the fact that they do different 
scoring, they both agree, do they not, that the deficit goes up 
initially and then falls ever so slightly during the 1998-99 time 
frame, and then during the last 2 years of the 5-year plan, the 
President's 5-year plan, the deficit reduction that takes place is 
about 70 percent of the total deficit reduction that takes place during 
the whole plan. So we are essentially, under this proposal, pushing 
most of the deficit reduction off until after the year 2000, when we 
then promise the American people we will get to it. Is that fair to say 
under both sets of scoring?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, under both sets of scoring, and I think 
that is an accurate point, both the Congressional Budget Office and OMB 
acknowledge that in the first year, and this is really the only budget 
that counts for this Congress, is the budget we are going to debate for 
fiscal year 1998, both would agree that the deficit actually goes up 
this year, which in the view of some of us is a step in the wrong 
direction, because we have been moving in the right direction. Partly,

[[Page H858]]

and let us give some credit, we want to give credit to the White House 
and to the economy and other things, but part of it is that the 104th 
Congress did confront some of those spending issues.
  Mr. Speaker, we did make some real reductions in discretionary 
domestic spending, and it is showing some impact. The deficit now is 
about half of what it was when Congressman Fox and I first came to 
Washington. As a matter of fact, it is less than half of what it was 
when we first came to Washington.
  I would point out this other chart. This again is according to the 
Congressional Budget Office, which is the official scorekeeper for the 
House and the Senate, that the deficit will be about $69 billion in the 
year 2002.
  To get to the other point that the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. 
Saxton] made, 98 percent of the deficit reduction comes in the last 2 
years of the President's budget plan. That is one of the concerns we 
have that is entirely too heavily what we call backend-loaded. 
Actually, according to the CBO, the increase in the deficit will be 
about $24 billion more than it would have been if this Congress did 
nothing.
  Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, it just seems to me, and this chart points 
it out even more clearly, I said that 70 percent of the reduction takes 
place in the last weeks of the last 2 years, and my colleague is saying 
that virtually all of the deficit reduction under the President's plan, 
98 percent, takes place during the last 2 years. It would seem to me 
that, if we are going to be serious about deficit reduction and getting 
to a balanced budget, that we ought to start in earnest right away to 
make a serious step down of the deficit to take place beginning in 1998 
and not waiting until the year 2000. Would my colleague agree with that 
analysis?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. If the gentleman would yield back, that is one of the 
debates that we have had, and over the last couple of years Congresses 
have used what we called a manana budget. It is real easy to cut the 
budget after we leave office. So what we are really concentrating on is 
what can we do in fiscal year 1998 to put us on a path toward a 
balanced budget.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I think it is very clear that 
your leadership and the leadership of Congressman Saxton is needed to 
move us forward to have a balanced budget. I know that Congressman 
Saxton is the chairman of the Joint Economic Committee and has been 
trying to work to make sure we get that balanced budget, because by 
doing that, we reduce the interest cost, whether it is for car loans, 
for mortgages, for student loans, all of the items in life where we can 
make a cost difference for families back in our districts. That is what 
it is all about.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to at this time to include with our 
discussion tonight the gentleman from Utah [Mr. Cook], who has been 
doing a great deal of work and has been speaking out about fiscal 
responsibility when he ran for the office and in his early weeks here 
as a Congressman has displayed that kind of fiscal responsibility. I 
would like to call on Congressman Cook now, if he could give us some of 
his thoughts on this issue and just where we should be going in this 
105th Congress on the balanced budget.
  Mr. COOK. Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate this opportunity to speak 
briefly on a subject that is very dear to me. As a longtime advocate of 
a balanced budget and tax reform, I am not really happy about President 
Clinton's proposed 1998 budget. I think in many ways this budget is a 
mockery of the American people's desire for a balanced budget and 
responsible spending in Washington.
  President Clinton promised us a plan that would balance the budget by 
2002. However, as my colleagues have been saying, the Congressional 
Budget Office reports that Clinton's budget would have a deficit of $69 
billion in 2002. Under the President's spending plan, the budget 
deficit would even drop to last year's level of $107 billion until 
2000. Between now and then, the deficit would balloon, to allow the 
President to increase aid to foreign countries and pad our welfare 
program, six new entitlement programs. And he would increase welfare 
spending alone by $21 billion over the next 5 years.
  President Clinton is proposing a budget that carries tax-and-spend 
ways through, I believe, the rest of his administration, leaving the 
bulk of his own deficit reductions for another President to implement. 
Play now, pay later.
  The American people expect better of their President. This splurge 
now, starve later tactic, I think, is an offense to our people who are 
really looking hopefully to Washington for the fiscal responsibility 
they yearn for from their leaders.
  I am a strong supporter of tax reform and tax relief for struggling 
American families. As a longtime proponent of tax reform, I really 
question the President's claim that he too wants to help working 
American families when he heaps $23 billion in proposed permanent tax 
increases on those families.

                              {time}  1915

  His promise of the family-friendly tax cut, the $500 per child tax 
cut, would only be good for the next 3 years if the economy does not 
perform the way he hopes it will. The much-touted education tax credit 
would only apply to families with children in college during the next 3 
years on the same basis.
  President Clinton offers his tax breaks that last only while he is 
around to take credit. Conveniently, his tax increases, too, do not 
start until after he leaves office, but unlike the tax breaks, they are 
very permanent. Indeed, his proposed legacy of $23 billion in tax 
increases will linger, I am afraid, decades after he is gone.
  With those tax increases, he will make it harder for American 
families to pull one end close enough to meet the other. He barters our 
children's future with tax increases and false promises of a balanced 
budget, ironically while claiming to build a bridge to that future.
  The Democrats' success in defeating the balanced budget amendment in 
the Senate was a disappointment to many, many of us and, I think, to 
the American people who hoped this year would finally be the year when 
Congress made that tough decision. We must keep faith with those 
Americans who must balance their own budgets and rightfully expect 
Congress to do likewise.
  We cannot approve yet another White House tax-and-spend budget. If 
President Clinton does not have the courage to begin whittling Federal 
spending down, I think while he is around to take some of the heat 
himself, we do have that courage. We made an agreement, I think, with 
the American people, an agreement that included fiscal prudence and 
meaningful tax relief.
  The idealism and confidence of those promises are the reasons I 
wanted to come to Washington. I was proud to come back here this year 
and stand with those who in 1994 promised a better way. We have had a 
rough few years with the White House fighting every inch of progress in 
keeping our word to the American people. Some who have stood for this 
have lost their bids for reelection along the way.
  But keeping our word is not about our own political careers. It is 
not about popularity in the polls. It is about restoring integrity to 
government. It is about once again deserving the trust of the American 
people.
  Mr. SAXTON. If the gentleman will yield on the one point that he made 
on his mention of taxes, I think it is very important to point this 
out, and I think the gentleman is right on, relative to this issue, 
when we talk about balancing the budget. There are undoubtedly some in 
this Chamber, as apparently the President is, apparently at least 
partly in favor of tax increases to try to move toward a balanced 
budget.
  I think it is a very foolish course to follow, because history shows 
that every time Congress has increased taxes, Congress has also seen 
fit to increase spending by $1.59 for every dollar we have increased 
taxes. So in spite of the fact that we had tax increases in 1990 and 
tax increases in 1993, in both cases, in a stated attempt to balance 
the budget, in both cases the deficit got worse. There are reasons for 
that that I will not go into, but they had to do with the way the 
economy performs when we raise taxes and the way it performs in a 
positive way when taxes are reduced.
  I happen to favor a version of the balanced budget amendment which 
creates a supermajority provision to raise taxes. In other words, if we 
as an institution decide that it might be a good

[[Page H859]]

idea to raise taxes instead of cutting spending to balance the budget, 
then we ought to do it, in my view, with a supermajority two-thirds 
vote.
  It makes imminently common sense to me, because history has shown 
that over and over and over again, this institution and the President 
have chosen to try to control the deficit by increasing taxes. It has 
not worked. We need to recognize that. The supermajority provision in 
the balanced budget amendment seems to me to be one safeguard against 
the Congress falling into that trap yet again.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I have to agree with the 
comments made by the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Saxton] and the 
gentleman from Utah [Mr. Cook]. They are very poignant regarding the 
importance of balancing the budget.
  Mr. Speaker, I would yield back the balance of my time and ask the 
Speaker to consider making the Speaker's designee the gentleman from 
Wisconsin [Mr. Gutknecht]

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