[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 31 (Wednesday, March 12, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H896-H923]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           REQUESTING THE PRESIDENT SUBMIT A BALANCED BUDGET

  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 90 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                               H. Res. 90

       Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it 
     shall be in order to consider in the House the Resolution (H. 
     Res. 89) requesting the President to submit a budget for 
     fiscal year 1998 that would balance the Federal budget by 
     fiscal year 2002 without relying on budgetary contingencies. 
     The resolution shall be considered as read for amendment. The 
     resolution shall be debatable for two hours equally divided 
     and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of 
     the Committee on the Budget or their designees. The previous 
     question shall be considered as ordered on the resolution to 
     final adoption without intervening motion except one motion 
     to recommit. The motion to recommit may include instructions 
     only if offered by the minority leader or a designee. If 
     including instructions, the motion to recommit shall be 
     debatable for five minutes by its proponent and five minutes 
     by an opponent.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon] is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, for the purposes of debate only, I yield 
the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. 
Moakley] pending which I yield myself such time as I might consume. 
During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the 
purpose of debate only.
  Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 90 provides for consideration in the 
House of House Resolution 89, which is a resolution requesting the 
President to submit a balanced budget under a structured rule. The rule 
provides for 2 hours of debate, divided equally between the chairman 
and ranking minority members of the Committee on the Budget or their 
designees.
  Mr. Speaker, in trying to be as fair as possible, the rule also 
provides for one motion to recommit, which may contain instructions if 
offered by the minority leader or his designee. If it includes 
instructions, the motion to recommit is debatable for 5 minutes by a 
proponent and 5 minutes by an opponent, keeping in mind that there will 
have already been 2 hours of debate on this entire issue.
  Under the rules of the House, a motion to recommit is not required to 
be given to the minority for the consideration of a House resolution. 
However, the Committee on Rules sought to provide such a motion to the 
minority for the purpose of the consideration of this bill to be, 
again, as fair as possible.
  Mr. Speaker, after the 1996 elections when the American people 
returned bipartisan political leadership to Washington, the Republican 
Congress offered to begin budget negotiations right away. As a result 
of this bipartisan spirit, formal and informal discussions between the 
Congress and the White House on reaching a balanced budget has been 
ongoing. While these talks have been productive, they are not yet 
complete, an that is the way it has been year in and year out. It takes 
time.
  As we all know, on February 6 of this year, President Clinton sent 
his budget to Congress, a budget which, according to the President, 
produced a surplus of $17 billion in the year 2002, 5 years from now. 
Upon the receipt of that budget, the Republican Congress reacted in the 
same spirit of bipartisan cooperation. The budget was not declared dead 
on arrival, as was so often the case when Republican Presidents would 
present their budget. Even though many of the budget specifics do not 
meet the expectation of many in this Congress, we still have kept an 
open mind on it.
  Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, the Republican Congress sought to give the 
administration every opportunity to explain and sell that budget to 
Congress and to sell it to the American people through the regular 
committee process, and that is as it should be.
  After a thorough analysis by the committees, the bipartisan 
membership, and the Congressional Budget Office, the President's budget 
fails four specific tests, and I think that all Members in their 
offices, or wherever they might be, should pay particular attention to 
this, because it is what they were sent here to do, and that is bring 
some fiscal sanity to this body.
  First, it does not achieve a balance in the year 2002; it actually 
leaves a deficit of almost $70 billion. So what have we succeeded in 
doing? The truth is nothing in dealing with this terribly important 
issue.
  Second, it does not specifically reduce spending in the first 3 
years. It actually allows, listen to this, it actually allows the 1998 
deficit to increase; not decrease but to increase. That is this coming 
year, to increase by $24 billion. And even more so important, listen to 
this, it saves 98 percent of the deficit reduction in this whole 5-year 
period, 98 percent of any cuts, for the last 2 years.
  Well, we all know what that means, It means we will not get there.
  Third, it does not save Medicare from bankruptcy. It actually does 
less to save Medicare than even the last Clinton budget of last year.
  Fourth, it does not provide permanent tax relief for American 
families. It actually increases taxes in the last 2 years. Imagine 
that. We are going to be coming down here and voting to increase taxes 
when the American people are already the most heavily taxed people in 
the world. As a result, the President's budget is found, believe me, 
found wanting.
  Mr. Speaker, while we as the Congress are committed to negotiating a 
balanced budget agreement with the White House, there is one 
nonnegotiable item determined by the American people, by the American 
taxpayer: Any budget agreement must achieve balance in the year 2002 
using the same deck of cards; in other words, comparing apples to 
apples. And that means using the Congressional Budget Office scoring so 
that we all can be playing with that same deck, as I said before.
  This is a goal both the President and the Congress have embraced 
publicly and privately, and was perhaps the only item agreed upon 
during the budget negotiations of the last 2 years. Mr. Speaker, 
without an agreement on the parameters of the numbers, no real 
discussion on specifics can begin because no one will believe what we 
are talking about.
  The President committed to this last year by submitting two budgets 
scored

[[Page H897]]

in balance by CBO. However, his most recent budget, the one we have 
before us, reflects an abandonment of that commitment. We have to ask 
ourselves why.
  The resolution before us today calls on the President to reaffirm 
that commitment to balancing the budget by 2002, using honest numbers 
and up-front cuts; up front in the first few years, not the last few 
years.
  In contrast, the President's budget uses Gramm-Rudman. Now, many of 
my colleagues were not here back in the days of Gramm-Rudman, but that 
was even a Republican budget, and in that budget we had the cuts in the 
latter years. And guess what? We never got there, because in the last 2 
years it was too doggone difficult and we could not do it. We did not 
have the guts to do it.

  We cannot let that happen again. We cannot add another trillion 
dollars to this accumulated debt. That Gramm-Rudman budget took credit 
for cuts then, but they wanted to make the cuts at a later time and it 
just did not work.
  Now, once we agree on these goals and what those goals mean, Congress 
and the President together can sit down and we can work out agreements 
on the details, details like this. Here is $800 billion in cuts. Take 
your choice, Mr. President; take your choice, Congress. But we have to 
do it. We cannot just ignore it and let it go on year after year. Until 
that time, budget negotiations will be little more than partisan 
bickering and will never get us to where we all say we want to be.
  Some of my colleagues will argue this resolution is meaningless 
because Congress has not yet produced its own budget. Well, in response 
I would like to just make three observations, and we will discuss this 
during the 2-hour general debate coming up in a few minutes.
  First, the current laws governing the budget process required action 
by both the President and the Congress. Both of us. First the President 
then the Congress. That is what the law says. It is in here. Read it on 
page 802.
  Now, it is true that the President has submitted a budget, which my 
colleagues must remember was actually submitted to Congress late, and 
that is the way it usually always is. And I will admit there is nothing 
in current law that requires the President to submit that balanced 
budget, although many of us would argue that. However, for the past 2 
years and during the entire Presidential campaign of 1996, all 
discussions of the budget have assumed a balanced budget. We all began 
talking along that line, balancing the budget.
  By submitting a budget not in balance, the President has submitted a 
budget that in reality cannot be considered by this Congress. I, for 
one, will not let that go through the Committee on Rules. Either it 
will be balanced and it is going to be honest, without smoke and 
mirrors, or it is not coming out of that Committee on Rules.
  My colleagues may also remember that for the past 2 years the 
Committee on Rules has required that all budgets, whether offered by 
Republicans, whether offered by Democrats, whether offered by the Blue 
Dogs, or the Black Caucus or anybody else, had to be scored by CBO and 
they lived up to it. They went and they had their budgets scored. My 
own budget was scored by CBO. They were all honest. That is not a new 
requirement. This is what we agreed to in the last Congress and, by 
golly, this is what we are going to agree to in this Congress.
  This resolution, therefore, calls upon the President to follow that 
process. If we were to take up the President's current budget, it would 
have to be scored by CBO, which shows that it is, in fact, not a 
balanced budget. Without a new budget, Congress' hands are tied by the 
rules of the Budget Act.
  Second, we must remember that over the past 20 years Congress, under 
Democrat and Republican majorities, have only met the April 15 deadline 
for considering the budget resolution once. Once over the last 20 
years. And not one of those budget resolutions was a balanced budget.
  Furthermore, according to my calendar, it is only March 12. We have 
more than a month to work until that April 15 deadline.
  Third and finally, if my colleagues went back and reviewed the 
history, they would find that every year in which a budget agreement 
was reached between Congress and the White House, whoever the President 
was, the budget resolution was adopted later than the deadline. Why? 
Because both sides sought to reach agreement on the priorities of the 
budget up front. The actual implementation of that agreement came later 
in the year, as we all know, through the appropriation process.

                              {time}  1230

  That is exactly what Congress is trying to do this year. The 
Republican Congress is acting in a cooperative way and I believe a very 
productive manner by offering to use an honestly balanced budget 
presented by the President as a basis for the debate. In the long run, 
this will set the context for an effective and productive debate.
  The President needs to lead by presenting his visions and his 
priorities of how the country can reach its goals. However, he fails to 
achieve the goal of a balanced budget. In these budget negotiations, 
actually achieving balance through real and significant spending cuts, 
it is the whole ball game, my friends. If we do not do that, there is 
no reason to go through this whole exercise. The resolution calls on 
the President as an exercise of good faith to actually submit a 
balanced budget. Let us hope that he does.
  Let me just show Members, there is a chart down in the well, I will 
not bother presenting it now, but this is what Members better be 
thinking about when voting on the resolution today. The deficit of $69 
billion in 2002, that is what Members would be voting on if they voted 
on the President's budget today: a $70 billion further deficit in that 
year, an accumulated deficit all during the 5-year period, 98 percent 
of the deficit reductions in the last 2 years.
  That is not fair, to even come on this floor and talk about that. If 
we have not got the guts to vote on those cuts up front in year 1, in 
year 2, in year 3, then we should not be in this Congress. In this year 
alone we would, under the President's budget, increase the deficit by 
$24 billion rather than staying on that glide path to a balanced budget 
over 5 years.
  This is what this is all about today. We are urging the President to 
give us that balanced budget, scored by CBO, so that we can compare 
apples to apples and we can at least hopefully attain the balanced 
budget that we all are fighting so hard for.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my dear friend, the gentleman from 
New York [Mr. Solomon], for yielding me the customary half-hour, and I 
yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I had hoped that last weekend's promise of new 
collegiality would last longer than 3 days, but this rule and this 
balanced budget bill have melted away that bipartisanship all too 
quickly.
  Mr. Speaker, it should not come as much of a shock to anyone that my 
Republican colleagues do not like President Clinton's budget. If they 
do not like what the President does in the White House, I do not expect 
them to like what is in the President's budget. But how the President 
balances his budget is not the issue, Mr. Speaker. The real issue is 
the Republican budget, which nobody has seen.
  The most persistent and urgent question at this point, Mr. Speaker, 
is where is the Republican budget? They have got 10 days left to 
produce it. The House can spend all the time it wants trying to tell 
President Clinton what to do, but the fact is the budget needs to come 
from the House of Representatives. It does not matter how the President 
balances his budget. It does not matter even if the President has a 
budget, because the budget has to come from the House of 
Representatives before April 15.
  Mr. Speaker, section 301(a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, 
as amended, says, ``On or before April 15 of each year, the Congress 
should complete action on a concurrent resolution on the budget for the 
fiscal year beginning on October 1 of such year.''
  In other words, Mr. Speaker, the budget needs to come from the House. 
Section 301(a) does not even mention the President. The House and 
Senate have to agree on a budget by April 15, and as I said, we have 
got 10 legislative days left to get it done. It is that simple. 
Yesterday House majority leader

[[Page H898]]

Dick Armey announced that Congress will not consider a budget 
resolution until May, one month after the deadline that has been 
imposed by the law.
  I might add, Mr. Speaker, that President Clinton submitted his budget 
on February 6. His budget has been pored over for more than a month 
while the Republican budget is still a figment of somebody's 
imagination.
  At this point it is easy for my colleagues to like the Republican 
budget. Nobody has seen it. And although how much someone likes 
President Clinton's budget is irrelevant, I would like to add, Mr. 
Speaker, that according to the Office of Management and Budget, 
President Clinton's budget is in balance. Even the Congressional Budget 
Office's March 3 analysis of the President's budget shows that it is 
balanced by the year 2002.
  President Clinton has said in his own words that if the CBO's 
deficits are larger than the OMB's, the President will make sure that 
his budget balances with the higher deficit numbers. What could be 
fairer than that? He will make additional discretionary cuts, about 4 
percent; he will make entitlement cuts, about 2.25 percent; and he will 
sunset some taxes. It does not get any better than that, Mr. Speaker.
  But that is not the issue here today. The budget issue is the 
responsibility of the Congress. Putting together a budget with which 
both the House and Senate agree is the responsibility of the Congress. 
Meeting the April 15 deadline is the responsibility of the Congress. No 
amount of finger-pointing or politics is going to change that, Mr. 
Speaker.
  So I suggest to my Republican colleagues that we remember last week's 
collegiality retreat and we work together constructively. The American 
people are not going to stand to have their Government closed down for 
the second year in a row because of Republican politics. And no matter 
how long the House waits, it is going to have to come up with a budget 
someday.
  So I urge my colleagues, on this matter, to defeat the previous 
question, to make in order the Minge-Tauscher-Stenholm alternative.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. 
Minge].
  Mr. MINGE. Mr. Speaker, we are dealing with a very difficult question 
here this afternoon, and that is, how does this institution reconcile 
the serious political differences that exist in the country with 
respect to the budget of the United States of America?
  The President took a stab at this when he sent to Congress a budget 
in early February. Unfortunately, he did not have the benefit of the 
Congressional Budget Office in projecting revenues and expenditures in 
making up this budget. CBO had not yet reached that stage in its 
analysis that it could provide that type of assistance. Once the budget 
arrived, CBO did attempt to evaluate, or score, the budget. In the 
meantime, the Office of Management and Budget had provided the 
President with that guidance.
  We now find that the Office of Management and Budget and the 
Congressional Budget Office disagree. The President attempted to 
address this difficult situation by having a so-called fail-safe or 
trigger mechanism, that tax cuts and certain expenditure programs would 
be sunsetted, reduced, if the budget was not balanced by the year 2002. 
For this reason, the Congressional Budget Office said that technically 
it can balance by 2002.
  Now, it would be nice if the President would simply respond to each 
request that we send to him from the Hill, submit new budgets, and in a 
sense be negotiating with himself. But the position that we have taken 
and the amendment that we ask to be allowed in order to this particular 
resolution would simply recognize that we cannot depend on the 
President to do all of this. We have a responsibility here in Congress.
  Some of us have put together a budget proposal which the 
Congressional Budget Office has indicated will balance by the year 2002 
without the use of triggers, but unfortunately that budget is not being 
sponsored by the leadership of either party. We feel, those of us that 
are asking that our amendment be recognized as a viable alternative, 
that the leadership of this institution has a responsibility that is 
parallel to the President's, to introduce its own budget. Then we will 
have some choices on the table.
  We are saying, introduce that budget on the majority side and ask the 
President to send up a revised budget simultaneously. We feel that this 
simultaneous obligation will move our process forward so that indeed we 
can be effective, efficient and timely. We would request that this 
amendment so be allowed, and if it is allowed, we would have the 
opportunity for an intelligent vote.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Armey], the esteemed majority leader. He is 
one of the reasons we have moved toward fiscal sanity in this body in 
the last several years.
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York for 
yielding me this time. If I may, let me give my regards to my good 
friend from Boston.
  It is a pleasure for me to be able to participate in this debate, but 
I do feel that I want to raise a note of caution. As we all know in 
this town, it is all too often, I think, possible for people to gain a 
wrong impression of what is intended and how we act. Sometimes that is 
because we perhaps act in a clumsy manner. But if I could have my wish 
for how the President and the White House and members of his party 
would respond to or accept this action we are taking today, I would 
hope that they could accept it as an invitation and as an 
encouragement.
  The President went out and campaigned, as well he should, for 
reelection, and he campaigned on a commitment to achieve a balanced 
budget that achieved many things, including tax relief for the American 
people and including saving Medicare from pending insolvency. And the 
President was reelected. Having won a reelection to the Office of the 
President of the United States, it is absolutely clear to all of us he 
won the right and I daresay the obligation to provide Presidential 
leadership to this first, most important concern of the American 
people.
  When the President submitted his budget before us, we understood and 
I think we need to understand the White House went through a fairly 
large personnel change, two new persons at the White House, in 
particular, that I have enjoyed working with: Erskine Bowles the 
President's new Chief of Staff, and Frank Raines, his new Budget 
Director. It is perfectly well understandable that, given this change, 
that their first initial submission may have had some disappointments.
  We have received the President's budget with all the consideration 
and all the respect that a President's budget should receive, and we 
have had it examined and scored by those agencies that must examine and 
score and see how a budget measures up.
  The clear definitive agency that the President himself has spoken of 
so eloquently, even in front of this body in his State of the Union 
Message, that is definitive, is the Congressional Budget Office. What 
have we found? To our disappointment, and I have to say from my 
conversations, I will accept to the genuine surprise and concern of 
Erskine Bowles and Frank Raines, the President's budget just simply did 
not do a good job of making the mark.
  His current budget raises taxes instead of cutting taxes. It delays 
98 percent of the spending cuts until 2 years after the President 
leaves office. If we did nothing, we would be better off with respect 
to deficit reduction next year than if you passed the President's 
budget.

                              {time}  1245

  I do not believe the President and I do not believe the people that I 
have spoken to in the administration would find that an acceptable 
level of achievement, given the commitment that has been so eloquently 
expressed from the White House by the President, by the Vice President, 
and by so many of the people in the administration, and what we try to 
do today is extend an invitation.
  Mr. President, as my mama told me so many, many times: ``Don't harbor 
a disappointment, don't let yourself be defeated. If at first you don't 
succeed, try, try again.''
  Please let us work together. We are more than ready to welcome 
another submission, to get down and look at that. We must acknowledge 
one responsibility that this Congress has, and it

[[Page H899]]

is the responsibility this Congress will not step down from, and that 
is to get before the American people in this year a truly balanced 
budget that makes the hard choices, that fulfills the rigorous demands, 
that calls on all of us to stretch ourselves out a little bit and 
achieves the promised goals of a balanced budget by the year 2000, of 
saving Medicare from the threat of insolvency and providing tax relief 
for the American people.
  I truly believe that this year is the best year for us to get 
together, this body and the other body, working together and, in all 
that process, to work with the inclusion and the enthusiastic support 
and encouragement, one for another, with the administration. We can do 
that. We ought to do that.
  Therefore, I, as we have discussed this whole question of putting 
this resolution on the floor today, have said from the outset we should 
do so, and we should do so as an invitation and as an encouragement to 
the administration to understand they put better work before us, and it 
will receive even more respect than that work which they put before us. 
We have understood their disappointments as the Congressional Budget 
Office and Joint Tax Committee have examined their work, and we want to 
work with them, and on that spirit I would encourage us all to vote for 
this resolution and encourage the White House to work with us.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Texas [Mr. Stenholm], the ranking minority member on the Committee on 
Agriculture.
  (Mr. STENHOLM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, the tenor of the last speaker, my friend 
and colleague from Texas, is exactly why I wonder why we are doing this 
today. It is just like last night when I appeared before the Committee 
on Rules. It seemed like we were in more agreement than disagreement, 
and yet I have to come to the floor expressing my extreme 
disappointment that the amendment that the gentleman from Minnesota 
[Mr. Minge], the gentlewoman from California [Mrs. Tauscher], and I 
have suggested for today would not even be made in order, that we would 
not have the opportunity to even vote upon that.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman yield at that point?
  Mr. STENHOLM. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman knows, we discussed this 
at length, and we specifically cleared with the parliamentarian both of 
the amendments that he and the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Minge] 
were seeking, and they are germane and they can be offered.
  Mr. STENHOLM. But only as an offer to recommittal, and I am 
reclaiming my time.
  Mr. SOLOMON. But with a clean up or down vote on this subject.
  Mr. STENHOLM. But there again we both know that those are more 
partisan than they are actual activities on the floor of the House.
  Mr. Speaker, the purpose of our alternative is to try to put an end 
to finger pointing and the blame game that has distracted us from doing 
the serious work to balance the budget. I was reminded of a speech that 
I was making not too long ago. When they point a finger at the other 
side, they should take a good look at themselves; there are three aimed 
back at them.
  Our amendment recognizes that both the Congress and the President 
must demonstrate more leadership than they have to date in order to 
reach a balanced budget. We should not allow Congress or the President 
to avoid this obligation.
  The Minge-Stenholm-Tauscher amendment contains the exact same 
language as the underlying resolution requesting that the President 
submit a new budget by April 7. However, our amendment would hold 
Congress to the same standard as the President by requiring the House 
Committee on the Budget to report a balanced budget by April 7 as well.

  Although the underlying resolution calls on the House to consider a 
balanced budget resolution, it sets no deadline or timetable for 
action. This will allow us to continue to postpone action and continue 
the current stalemate. We should not vote to exempt ourselves from 
responsibility to produce a credible balanced budget.
  I believe it is very dangerous, in spite of the very eloquent words 
of my colleague from Texas a moment ago. I believe it is very dangerous 
for Congress, as an institution, to continue to shift responsibility 
for the budget to the President. Article I of the Constitution gives 
Congress primary authority over legislation dealing with tax and 
spending and borrowing money.
  I encourage my colleagues to read an opinion editorial on our desk in 
last week's Washington Times by Professor Thomas DiBacco, who pointed 
out that for most of our history, Congress had the primary 
responsibility for budgets. Although Congress has given the President 
more authority in budgeting in order to bring more discipline to the 
process, the increased presidential role in the budget process has 
actually coincided with increased deficits.
  I would remind my Republican colleagues of the words of a previous 
Republican Speaker, Joe Cannon, who said, ``When Congress consents to 
the Executive Branch making the budget, it will have surrendered the 
most important part of governing. I think we had better stick pretty 
close to the Constitution with its division of powers well defined and 
powers close to the people.''
  The resolution before us today allows Congress to avoid its 
constitutional obligations on budget issues. What they are saying in 
their resolution is ``Mr. President, you submit the budget.'' Our 
responsibilities in this body are for us to submit the budget, and I am 
ready to reach out and work on both sides of the aisle on going through 
the regular legislative process. That is what our amendment would make 
in order.
  I urge my colleagues, if they agree with the tenor of my conversation 
and the concerns about the Constitution, I urge them to defeat the 
previous question, allow our amendment to come up in which we say to us 
and the President, ``Let's get on with the business of the American 
people.''
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
California [Mrs. Tauscher].
  Mrs. TAUSCHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the rule 
before us today, and I object to House Resolution 89. I am disappointed 
that the Committee on Rules has chosen to restrict debate on this 
measure, and I hope my colleagues will vote to defeat the previous 
question and allow us to offer the Minge-Stenholm-Tauscher substitute.
  Our substitute, Mr. Speaker, is quite simple. It says that not only 
should the President have a CBO-scored balanced budget plan by April 7, 
but that the House Committee on the Budget must present one as well.
  This is a reasonable request, and it is one that is made in the 
spirit of bipartisanship. It is an effort to place all the parties on a 
level playing field and to help facilitate useful discussions on 
balancing the budget.
  Mr. Speaker, I regret that we are here today not to debate the merits 
of different budget proposals, but it looks like it is a cynical 
attempt to make the President look bad. It is counterproductive to be 
considering House Resolution 89, but it is even worse that the rule 
prevents us from offering an amendment to apply the provisions of House 
Resolution 89 to the Committee on the Budget as well as the President. 
My colleagues on the Republican side say they are simply trying to get 
the President to submit a budget using CBO numbers, but that begs the 
question: Where is the Republican budget?
  I came to Congress with a commitment to make the difficult choices 
necessary to balance the federal budget. I am proud to be a cosponsor 
of the Blue Dog Coalition budget proposal that makes those choices. Now 
it is time for the Committee on the Budget to do the same. The Minge-
Stenholm-Tauscher substitute would apply the same rules of the game to 
each participant.
  I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question and support this 
evenhanded alternative to House Resolution 89.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Florida [Mr. Goss].
  Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from New York [Mr. Solomon], 
the distinguished chairman, and I also appreciate the assistance of the 
gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Moakley], the distinguished former 
chairman, who spoke fondly of our last

[[Page H900]]

weekend retreat on collegiality. It was not, however, a retreat from 
our commitment to balance the budget. I thank those involved in this 
debate because it is an important debate.
  This resolution is very direct and very simple, and in fact there is 
a provision in the motion to recommit for other views. It asks the 
President to live up to his word with a budget that reaches balance by 
2002, as scored by the independent Congressional Budget Office. They 
are the scorekeepers on this; they are the referees. Far from 
balancing, the latest Clinton budget is projected to have a $70 billion 
deficit in 2002 by the scorekeepers. So we do not have a balanced 
budget from the White House.
  Now, some will contend that we should place Congress' own budget on 
the table because of the President's failure to balance the budget. 
Indeed we have heard that today. They say we need to begin now to do 
the heavy lifting necessary to balance the budget, and I could not 
agree more. I think we do need to get on with this, and I can assure my 
colleagues this process is underway. But the fact is the President must 
submit a budget. That is required under the law.

  It is here; I could refer to it. It is page 872 of the House Rules 
Manual, and when we get into the law and we get into chapter 11 of 
title XXXI of the United States Code, section 1105, my colleagues will 
find in fact several pages of very fine print about what the President 
must do and when he must do it. And he has not done it in the sense of 
providing us a balanced budget. That is just the fact.
  So, as the majority leader said, we are sending an invitation.
  Now judging by President Clinton's track record, I think it is best 
to follow President Reagan's advice in these matters, and his advice 
was trust and verify.
  President Clinton used his first State of the Union Address to 
endorse the CBO, and at that time it was important to use CBO 
estimates, he said, ``so we could argue from the same set of numbers.'' 
I agree with that. Yet President Clinton fails to follow that pledge at 
this time.
  Many believe President Clinton effectively killed the balanced budget 
amendment by demagoguing Social Security. A few weeks after sending us 
a budget that utilizes Social Security trust funds for deficit 
reduction, it is a rather curious situation.
  So given these actions, is it not reasonable for Congress to question 
the strength of President Clinton's commitment to balance the budget 
and ask him for a balanced budget?
  Mr. Speaker, the American people, I think, have had enough of the 
rosy scenarios and the political gestures that have no particular 
substance. If we are to be true partners in the process toward a 
balanced budget, we need to know that both sides are working off the 
same sheet. The people I represent expect those in charge to do the 
job. It is therefore appropriate for us to ask the President to send up 
a balanced budget.
  Mr. Speaker, that is what this resolution does.
  I urge support for this rule, which is very straightforward, and I 
urge support for this resolution, which is also very straightforward 
and gets the job done.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 10 minutes to the gentleman from 
South Carolina [Mr. Spratt], the ranking member of the Committee on the 
Budget.
  (Mr. SPRATT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 89 is a waste of time. To understand 
what I mean one has to look no further than its title: House Resolution 
89, a one-House resolution, totally ineffectual to accomplish the 
purpose it proclaims, which is to make the President send up the second 
budget because it could not possibly affect the President, does not 
even bind the other body.
  So we are doing today something we are spending 3-hours plus on what 
amounts to next to nothing.
  Now if we are going to take up a matter like this because a majority 
feels that there is some purpose served by having a resolution like 
this debated in the House, then why not have a full and open debate? 
This is not a delicate, sensitive matter that cannot be entrusted to 
amendment on the House floor. Why can we not have full and open debate 
and an open rule?
  Instead, we have got this rule before us, this resolution, which 
takes this debate and makes it even more pointless, more useless, by 
imposing upon it a closed rule and precluding virtually any amendments 
to the language that is before us in the Resolution No. 89.
  Now we all know that the Budget Act calls for the President to submit 
his budget in early February. The President did that. He sent us a 
budget which complies fully with the Budget Act, scored by his budget 
shop, the Office of Management and Budget, not only to be balanced in 
the year 2002, but to be in surplus in the year 2002 by $17 billion.

                              {time}  1300

  Mr. Speaker, we all know as well that section 301(a) then calls for 
the Congress, this House, to produce a concurrent budget resolution by 
April 15. That is a tighttime frame, but it is a rule that we imposed 
upon ourselves; we wrote that law.
  We have missed that date for the last 2 years and we are going to 
miss it again this year. As I stand here today, ranking member of the 
Committee on the Budget, I am aware of no date in the middle of March 
that has been set for the markup of a House budget resolution. I am 
aware of no date that has been set for floor consideration of a budget 
resolution. In fact, I am aware of no budget resolution.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SPRATT. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's remarks. I just 
want to ask the gentleman, he said that we have not reached the April 
15 deadline in the last 2 years. Is the gentleman aware we have not 
reached that deadline in the last 18 years out of the last 19 years?
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, in the House, the House Committee on the 
Budget in 6 out of 8 years that it was under House Democratic control, 
6 of those 8 years, we reported and considered and passed a budget 
resolution in 6 out of those 8 years.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield, because I have a 
chart here----
  Mr. SPRATT. We did not have the current budget resolution, but we had 
the House budget resolution before April 15. We at least got our work 
done here in the House.
  Mr. DeLAY. But if the gentleman would yield, the deadline is for a 
conference report by April 15, and this House has not reached that 
deadline in the last 18 years.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, that is beyond our control. That happened in 
the other body. We got our work done on time. If they had been moving 
in parallel process, we probably would have met that date.
  The reason that we are doing what we are doing today is that we are 
about some diversion, distraction. We are trying to keep the American 
people from understanding that Congress is not doing its job, the 
majority is not doing its job. We are trying to shift attention from 
the fact that we do not have a budget resolution before us, have not 
scheduled one to be brought to the floor, by shifting the blame to the 
President of the United States when he has done what the law calls for 
him to do. He has sent us a budget scored by his budget shop as being 
in balance.
  Everybody in this House knows what regular order calls for at this 
point. It calls for a House budget resolution, and that is what I call 
for today. Let us have a House budget resolution.
  The gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon] said, and I agree with him, 
we need to sit down and negotiate. There are lots of things in the 
President's budget that are not going to happen, I know that, and a lot 
of things in the various budget proposals are not going to happen 
either. But the way to frame those negotiations, since the President 
has put his budget on the table, is for my colleagues to put their 
budget on the table. We beg the question of the debate today, why have 
my colleagues not done that?
  Mr. Speaker, let me just back up and say where we stand with the 
President's budget. As my colleagues all

[[Page H901]]

know, the Congressional Budget Office, the CBO, took the President's 
budget and scored it as producing a deficit in the year we are shooting 
for, the terminal year of 2002, of $69 billion, not a surplus of 17. 
CBO took the President's budget and said, per our economic forecasts 
and our technical analysis, this budget will not be in surplus in the 
year 2002 by $17 billion, it will be in deficit by $69 billion.
  Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons that they found this budget in 
deficit is that the President has requested $98 billion in tax cuts. He 
has offset those tax cuts by $76 billion in tax renewals and extenders 
and the repeal of certain tax expenditures, so there is a net revenue 
loss in the President's budget of $22 billion.
  In addition, the President has sent up over a 5-year period of time 
new entitlement initiatives, spending increases, that come over 5 years 
to about $68 billion, according to the estimates of his budget shop, 
OMB. By the scoring placed upon this budget by the Congressional Budget 
Office, this budget can accommodate these tax cuts and these spending 
increases without producing a deficit; in this case the deficit is $69 
billion.

  But I say to my colleagues, if the present budget cannot accommodate 
a $90 billion package of tax cuts and entitlement spending increases, 
then neither can a budget scored by CBO accommodate $190 billion in tax 
cuts, which is what the Republicans, my friends on the other side of 
the aisle, have been talking about. That is the range of magnitude that 
they have been proposing. That is why we are here today.
  Mr. Speaker, they are unable to put before the House a budget 
resolution which can accommodate the tax cuts they are proposing 
without also necessitating deeper cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and 
education than they want to be seen openly proposing because the 
American people do not support it.
  The gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon] says that Congress has 
never met the date; the gentleman from Texas [Mr. DeLay] said the same 
thing. As I mentioned, 6 out of 8 years the House Committee on the 
Budget had its resolution on the floor by April 15.
  But the key point is this: Why chastise Congress for not meeting the 
date that we have imposed upon ourselves with a resolution that calls 
upon the President to do something else? If we want to chastise 
ourselves for being tardy in the past, why not have a resolution today 
that sort of calls for hunkering down, for putting our hand to the 
wheel, for getting ahead with the problem, leaning into it.
  We have a hearing today at 2:30 before the Committee on the Budget 
that deals with one of the most critical components in the solution to 
this whole problem, the so-called CPI, Consumer Price Index. Before us 
will be the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics testifying 
about ways that the CPI can work out some of the biases that lead to 
overstatement of inflation in our economy.
  It is a critically important hearing. Many of us on the Committee on 
the Budget, because we have to be on the floor to debate this 
resolution which amounts to nothing, will not be able to attend. That 
is not the critical path. That is not what we need to be doing if we 
are going to meet the self-imposed deadlines that we put in the Budget 
Act ourselves.
  So the best way to proceed with the resolution of the budget, proceed 
toward a balanced budget is to vote against the previous question here, 
vote against the rule, and vote for putting the budget process back on 
the critical path and not chasing after red herrings like this 
resolution.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, another reason why we have moved toward 
some fiscal sanity in this Congress in recent years is because of the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. DeLay], our distinguished majority whip, and 
I yield such time as he might consume to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. 
DeLay].
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate those words more than we can 
imagine, and I do appreciate it. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this 
rule because I rise in strong support of this very important 
resolution.
  We said from the beginning of this Congress that we want to negotiate 
with the President, but we cannot negotiate with a President that does 
not want to balance the budget. We do not want to negotiate over 
whether to balance the budget or not; we want him to submit a budget 
that balances by CBO which he called for. We will negotiate with him in 
the parameters of a balanced budget and negotiate over the priorities 
within that balanced budget.
  But if the President cannot submit one, how do we negotiate apples 
with oranges? You know, the saying goes, if at first you do not 
succeed, try, try again.
  The President's first attempt at a budget this year did not balance, 
so we are giving him a chance to try it again. The President has said 
that he supports a balanced budget, and I hope he is honest in his 
statement. He also said that we did not need a balanced budget 
amendment to the Constitution if we had the will to balance the budget. 
But this President, Mr. Speaker, has done everything he can to derail 
the balanced budget process; first, by vetoing the first balanced 
budget in a generation, the last Congress; then, by working overtime to 
kill the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution; and, finally, 
by submitting another budget that simply does not balance.
  Why is balancing the budget so important? Why should we care whether 
we pile up more debt on future generations? Mr. Speaker, I will tell my 
colleagues why. At our bipartisan retreat this last weekend a lot of 
Members in both parties brought their children. The place was 
overflowing with kids. It was so much fun to see these kids having a 
good time. We are balancing the budget for their sake.
  The President should explain to those kids why he will not take steps 
today to make their futures brighter tomorrow. The President should 
justify why he did not have the political will to make commonsense 
changes to entitlement programs so that those programs could survive 
when those children decided to retire.
  Mr. Speaker, this debate should not be about green eyeshades, it 
should be about preserving the future for America's children.
  So I just urge the President to be responsible and to resubmit his 
budget. America's children deserve better than they are getting from 
this President's current unbalanced budget.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Texas [Mr. Green].
  (Mr. GREEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. GREEN. Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to follow my colleague from 
Texas [Mr. DeLay] on the floor, and I look over and see the gentleman 
from New York [Mr. Solomon], the chairman. We have worked together on 
lots of bills, Mr. Speaker, but obviously today we disagree on the need 
for this rule and also the need for the resolution.
  We only have 11 days left until Congress by law must pass a budget 
plan. But here we are today debating a rule and debating a resolution 
that says, Mr. President, send us your second budget, and yet we do not 
even have our first here from Congress.
  While the President and Democrats have fielded criticism for weeks 
now from the Republicans on the President's budget plan, we have not 
yet seen their alternative. The Republicans need to respond with their 
own budget before they can ask the President for a second budget. That 
is what is called give and take, and that is what this process is 
about.
  This resolution calls for the President to submit another budget 
because of the claims that the CBO found that the current budget 
proposal from the President would not be balanced in the year 2002. I 
happen to see a letter from March 4 that the director of CBO analyzed 
the President's budget and showed that it would indeed be balanced by 
the year 2002.
  As Democrats, we are not opposed to criticism if it is accompanied by 
concrete and realistic proposals. In fact, we have the moderate, 
conservative group of Democrats who have a budget plan, but where is 
the Republican majority budget plan? They do not have one. The 
President has one out on the table, the moderate, conservative 
Democrats have one, and yet the Republican majority does not have one.
  We have had enough time to develop a budget alternative proposal 
through

[[Page H902]]

our committee process. But yet, like my ranking member of the Committee 
on the Budget said, we are spending time debating resolutions instead 
of working in the Committee on the Budget.
  In the 1980's we heard the slogan, ``where's the beef,'' and now we 
are asking, ``where is the meat?'' Where is the meat in the Republican 
budget from our colleagues? If they want to have a balanced budget, let 
us see that meat that they have in their budget.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it is ironic that I stand here because being 
honored to serve 20 years in the legislature, I saw our Governor submit 
budgets to us as a legislature, just like the President has done. And 
most of the time we would say, thank you, we can present it; and then 
we would work off of our own document. That is what Congress has been 
doing for many years, up until now. Now we are going to let the 
President provide that leadership?
  I am not willing as a Member of this Congress to advocate that to the 
executive branch, no matter who is there. That is why I think it is so 
important that we have a congressional budget plan. I may disagree with 
it, but the Republicans here in the majority, they need to get up and 
find the meat and to do it instead of saying, well, Mr. President, you 
need to do a second plan because we do not like your first. Let us see 
what we can offer as a Congress to say, OK, Mr. President, this is our 
plan.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, one of the really respected Members of this 
body is a former fighter pilot and a great Congressman from California 
[Mr. Cunningham]. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California 
[Mr. Cunningham].
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, there may be a perception that this is 
not important to the other side, but the reality is important. For 28 
years we have not been able to balance the budget because it has proven 
too difficult. In Gramm-Rudman, the deal was that for every tax dollar 
we take in, we will cut it by 3, and we will push out the cuts into the 
last year. We could not do that because the cuts were too hard.
  Remember when George Bush moved his lips? The deal was that for every 
tax dollar we take in, we are going to cut spending by 3, and we are 
going to give you an absolute way to do that. We are going to put 
firewalls between each of the appropriation committees and we are going 
to put a cap. The leadership on my colleagues' side, how did they get 
around it? With emergency spending. We found outlandish emergency 
spending things on there, and the continuing resolutions that just 
carried over the spending. And it was not viable.
  Remember in the 104th when the President gave us three balanced 
budgets? All increased the deficit by $175 billion. And then in the 
fourth one he gave us, he balanced it using CBO numbers in 7 years, and 
72 percent of the cuts came in the last year.

                              {time}  1315

  It is not realistic, even if the President gave us a second budget 
balanced but most of the cuts take place in the last year. We know that 
that is not feasible. It is smoke and mirrors. It also happens to be 
before the Committee on National Security, when the President has said 
that he is going to increase modernization for DOD. Do Members think 
that the more liberal Members on this side are going to decrease social 
spending and increase national security in those same 2 years? It is 
not feasible, Mr. Speaker.
  We need to take a look at what reality is. We want a balanced budget. 
They say we do not have one. Well, have the President give us a 
balanced budget as he campaigned in the middle of the road and many of 
the Democratic leadership said, we are not going to support that. We do 
not want a balanced budget. That is what they are opposing this 
resolution for, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge a note vote on the previous question. If the 
previous question is defeated, I intend to offer a motion which makes 
in order the Minge-Tauscher-Stenholm amendments which would require 
both the President and the House Committee on the Budget to produce 
budget plans by April 7 that achieve a balanced budget by the year 2002 
using CBO assumptions. I believe that Members of the House should have 
the opportunity to vote on this.
  Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the amendment:

                        Amendment to H. Res. 90

       On page two, line three, strike ``The resolution'' and all 
     that follows and insert in lieu thereof the following:
       ``The previous question shall be considered as ordered on 
     the resolution and on any amendments thereto to final passage 
     without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate 
     equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking 
     minority member of the Committee on the Budget; (2) the 
     amendments printed in section 2 of this resolution, which 
     shall be considered as read, and which shall be debatable for 
     a separate hour equally divided and controlled by the 
     proponent and an opponent; and (3) one motion to recommit 
     with or without instructions. If including instructions, the 
     motion to recommit shall be debatable for five minutes by its 
     proponent and five minutes by an opponent.
       ``Sec. 2.

        Amendment (in the Nature of a Substitute) to H. Res. 90

           Offered by Mr. Minge of Minnesota or his Designee

       Strike all after the resolving clause and insert the 
     following:
       That the House of Representatives requests the President to 
     submit to the House, not later than April 7, 1997, a detailed 
     plan to achieve a balanced budget by fiscal year 2002. The 
     House further requests that the Committee on the Budget 
     report, not later than April 7, 1997, a concurrent resolution 
     on the budget containing reconciliation instructions to 
     achieve a balanced budget by fiscal year 2002. Both the 
     budget submitted by the President and the concurrent 
     resolution reported by the Committee on the Budget shall--
       (1) use the most recent economic and technical assumptions 
     of the Congressional Budget Office;
       (2) reduce the deficit through programmatic reforms rather 
     than through such budgetary procedures as automatic spending 
     cuts and the sunsetting of tax cuts;
       (3) realize a significant proportion of its total savings 
     in the first 3 years; and
       (4) offer sufficient Medicare reforms to forestall the 
     imminent insolvency of the Medicare trust funds for a 
     substantial period.

                    Preamble Amendment to H. Res. 90

           Offered by Mr. Minge of Minnesota or his Designee

       Amended the preamble to read as follows:
       Whereas a substantial majority of the Members of Congress 
     are on record in support of a balanced budget amendment to 
     the Constitution;
       Whereas the President has observed on numerous occasions 
     that a constitutional amendment is not necessary to balance 
     the budget, observing in his State of the Union Address that 
     ``. . . we don't need a constitutional amendment, we need 
     action.'';
       Whereas the President and the congressional leadership have 
     repeatedly agreed to balance the budget by fiscal year 2002 
     based on the estimates of the nonpartisan Congressional 
     Budget Office;
       Whereas the Congressional Budget Office has officially 
     estimated that the President's budget would increase the 
     deficit by $24,000,000,000 in fiscal year 1998 and result in 
     a deficit of at least $69,000,000,000 in fiscal year 2002;
       Whereas the Committee on the Budget has not proposed a 
     budget resolution that could be scored by the Congressional 
     Budget Office, and the only tax proposals introduced by the 
     congressional leadership would increase the deficit;
       Whereas article I, section 8 of the United States 
     Constitution grants Congress the power to lay and collect 
     taxes and to borrow money on the credit of the United States 
     and article I, section 9 grants Congress the power to draw 
     money from the Treasury; and
       Whereas section 301 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 
     requires that Congress shall complete action on a concurrent 
     resolution on the budget before April 15: Now, therefore, be 
     it''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Foley). The gentleman from New York [Mr. 
Solomon] has 4 minutes remaining.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, as Ronald Reagan used to say, Ladies and gentlemen, I do 
not know what all the argument is about.
  I really do not know why anyone can complain about this resolution 
that is on the floor here today. Let me just read the key part of it:
  ``The House of Representatives requests the President to submit to 
the House, not later than April 7, 1997, a detailed plan to achieve a 
balanced budget by fiscal year 2002 for the United States, as estimated 
by the Congressional Budget Office.''
  That is so we can play from the same deck of cards. What is wrong 
with that? That is what we did last year. That is what we did 2 years 
ago. The President agreed to it.
  Now, we also asked that he use these assumptions:

[[Page H903]]

  ``Uses the most recent economic and technical assumptions of the 
Congressional Budget Office,'' that is No. 1. Who can disagree with 
that?
  No. 2, that ``reduces the deficit through programmatic reforms rather 
than alternative budget procedures such as automatic spending cuts and 
the sunsetting of taxes.''
  What does that mean? That means we do not want to cut Head Start the 
same as we cut legal services. In other words, let us offer the real 
amendment. Let us see what you are actually doing, not across the board 
where you are cutting good things and not cutting bad things at all. 
Then taxes, what are we doing? In other words, the President in his 
budget is sunsetting the tax cuts so that 2 years, 3 years from now 
they go back into effect. What kind of smoke and mirrors is that?
  No. 3, ``realizes a significant proportion of its total savings in 
the first 3 years.''
  Look at this, the President's budget. The deficit at the end of 2002 
is $70 billion. We have not done anything. We said, we put out our 
press releases and, boy, are we brave. We are going to balance the 
budget. But when are we going to do it? We are going to do it 5 years 
from now. We are not going to do any cuts in year 1, 2, 3 or 4. Is that 
being fair to the American people?
  No. 4, ``offer sufficient Medicare reforms to forestall the imminent 
bankruptcy of the Medicare trust funds for a substantial period.''
  The President actually agreed to those reforms last year. We enacted 
them, but now is reneging on them.
  Then finally somebody said, let us point fingers at each other. That 
is exactly what we did. We wrote in to this budget resolution, it says 
that the House of Representatives shall consider a budget plan to 
achieve a balanced budget by fiscal year 2002 that is in compliance 
with what I have just said, what we are asking the President to do. So 
we are asking ourselves to do the same thing.
  I could go on down through this President's budget. I could talk 
about CBO by the way, their report on the President's budget. It says 
on page 2, in 1998, in fact, the net effect of the President's policies 
is to push the deficit $24 billion above the baseline level. This says, 
this coming year. In other words, instead of cutting the deficit down, 
we are actually going to raise the deficit by $24 billion. That is why 
we need this resolution.
  We treat ourselves the same as we do the President. We say, Mr. 
President, Congressmen and women, let us act fiscally responsibly. Let 
us pass this resolution here today.
  Some Members say to defeat the previous question so that the 
gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Minge] and others can offer their 
resolution.
  I went to the Parliamentarian. They told me that these two amendments 
that they wanted to offer are germane, can be offered in the motion to 
recommit and if they want to do that, fine. They are going to have 2 
hours of debate on it and then they will have an up or down vote on the 
Minge amendments. That is being fair to everybody. I move the previous 
question at this time and I ask everybody to come over and vote for the 
previous question and for the rule and finally for the resolution.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the 
previous question on the resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous 
question.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a 
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not 
present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
  Pursuant to clause 5 of rule XV, the Chair will reduce to a minimum 
of 5 minutes the period of time within which a vote by electronic 
device, if ordered, will be taken on the question of agreeing to the 
resolution.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 226, 
nays 200, not voting 6, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 41]

                               YEAS--226

     Aderholt
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Bereuter
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bliley
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Brady
     Bryant
     Bunning
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Canady
     Cannon
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Coburn
     Collins
     Combest
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Cox
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Davis (VA)
     Deal
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Doolittle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Ensign
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fawell
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fowler
     Fox
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Greenwood
     Gutknecht
     Hansen
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hill
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Istook
     Jenkins
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kim
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Livingston
     LoBiondo
     Lucas
     Manzullo
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDade
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McKeon
     Metcalf
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Molinari
     Moran (KS)
     Morella
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Oxley
     Packard
     Pappas
     Parker
     Paul
     Paxon
     Pease
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Riggs
     Riley
     Rogan
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryun
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaefer, Dan
     Schaffer, Bob
     Schiff
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (OR)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith, Linda
     Snowbarger
     Solomon
     Souder
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stump
     Sununu
     Talent
     Tauzin
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Traficant
     Upton
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     White
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                               NAYS--200

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baesler
     Baldacci
     Barcia
     Barrett (WI)
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Berman
     Berry
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Blumenauer
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Capps
     Cardin
     Carson
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Condit
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Cummings
     Danner
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Fazio
     Filner
     Flake
     Foglietta
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Furse
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gonzalez
     Goode
     Gordon
     Green
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hamilton
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Hefner
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Holden
     Hooley
     Hoyer
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     John
     Johnson (WI)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kanjorski
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     Kleczka
     Klink
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     Lampson
     Lantos
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Maloney (NY)
     Manton
     Markey
     Martinez
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McHale
     McIntyre
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (CA)
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Neal
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Peterson (MN)
     Pickett
     Pomeroy
     Poshard
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Rivers
     Roemer
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Sawyer
     Schumer
     Scott
     Serrano
     Sherman
     Sisisky
     Skaggs
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith, Adam
     Snyder
     Spratt
     Stabenow
     Stark
     Stenholm
     Stokes
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor (MS)
     Thompson
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Towns
     Turner
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Wexler
     Weygand
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wynn
     Yates

[[Page H904]]



                             NOT VOTING--6

     Coble
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Kaptur
     Kennedy (RI)
     Torres
  Mr. FAZIO of California changed his vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  So the previous question was ordered.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Foley). The question is on the 
resolution.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. This will be a 5-minute vote.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 226, 
nays 202, not voting 5, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 42]

                               YEAS--226

     Aderholt
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Bereuter
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bliley
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Brady
     Bryant
     Bunning
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Canady
     Cannon
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Coburn
     Collins
     Combest
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Cox
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Davis (VA)
     Deal
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Doolittle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Ensign
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fawell
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fowler
     Fox
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Gingrich
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Greenwood
     Gutknecht
     Hansen
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Hill
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Istook
     Jenkins
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kim
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Livingston
     LoBiondo
     Lucas
     Manzullo
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDade
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McKeon
     Metcalf
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Molinari
     Moran (KS)
     Morella
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Oxley
     Packard
     Pappas
     Parker
     Paul
     Paxon
     Pease
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Riggs
     Riley
     Rogan
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryun
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaefer, Dan
     Schaffer, Bob
     Schiff
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (OR)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith, Linda
     Snowbarger
     Solomon
     Souder
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stump
     Sununu
     Talent
     Tauzin
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Traficant
     Upton
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     White
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                               NAYS--202

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baesler
     Baldacci
     Barcia
     Barrett (WI)
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Berman
     Berry
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Blumenauer
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Capps
     Cardin
     Carson
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Condit
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Cummings
     Danner
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Fazio
     Filner
     Flake
     Foglietta
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Furse
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gonzalez
     Goode
     Gordon
     Green
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hamilton
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Hefner
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Holden
     Hooley
     Hoyer
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     John
     Johnson (WI)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kanjorski
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     Kleczka
     Klink
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     Lampson
     Lantos
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Maloney (NY)
     Manton
     Markey
     Martinez
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McHale
     McIntyre
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (CA)
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Neal
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Peterson (MN)
     Pickett
     Pomeroy
     Poshard
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Rivers
     Roemer
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Sawyer
     Schumer
     Scott
     Serrano
     Sherman
     Sisisky
     Skaggs
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith, Adam
     Snyder
     Spratt
     Stabenow
     Stark
     Stenholm
     Stokes
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor (MS)
     Thompson
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Towns
     Turner
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Wexler
     Weygand
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wynn
     Yates

                             NOT VOTING--5

     Coble
     Dixon
     Herger
     Kaptur
     Torres

                              {time}  1350

  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi changed his vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  So the resolution was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 90, I call up 
the resolution (H. Res. 89) requesting the President to submit a budget 
for fiscal year 1998 that would balance the Federal budget by fiscal 
year 2002 without relying on budgetary contingencies, and ask for its 
immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
  The text of House Resolution 89 is as follows:

                               H. Res. 89

       Whereas the President has observed on numerous occasions 
     that a constitutional amendment is not necessary to balance 
     the budget, observing in his State of the Union address that 
     ``* * * we don't need a constitutional amendment, we need 
     action.'';
       Whereas the President has also repeatedly agreed, most 
     recently on January 28, 1997, to balance the budget by fiscal 
     year 2002 based on the estimates of the nonpartisan 
     Congressional Budget Office; and
       Whereas the Congressional Budget Office has officially 
     estimated that the President's budget would increase the 
     deficit by $24 billion in fiscal year 1998 and result in a 
     deficit of at least $69 billion in fiscal year 2002: Now, 
     therefore, be it
       Resolved, That (a) the House of Representatives requests 
     the President to submit to the House, not later than April 7, 
     1997, a detailed plan to achieve a balanced budget by fiscal 
     year 2002 for the United States, as estimated by the 
     Congressional Budget Office, that--
       (1) uses the most recent economic and technical assumptions 
     of the Congressional Budget Office;
       (2) reduces the deficit through programmatic reforms rather 
     than alternative budgetary procedures such as automatic 
     spending cuts and the sunsetting of tax cuts;
       (3) realizes a significant proportion of its total savings 
     in the first three years; and
       (4) offers sufficient Medicare reforms to forestall the 
     imminent bankruptcy of the Medicare trust funds for a 
     substantial period.
       (b) The House of Representatives shall consider a budget 
     plan to achieve a balanced budget by fiscal year 2002 for the 
     United States that is in compliance with paragraphs (1) 
     through (4) of subsection (a).

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Foley). Pursuant to House Resolution 90, 
the gentleman from New Hampshire [Mr. Sununu] and the gentleman from 
South Carolina [Mr. Spratt] each will control 1 hour.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from from New Hampshire [Mr. 
Sununu].
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, we are here today with what we feel is an open hand to 
the President of the United States.
  Yesterday the Washington Post ran a story stating that 75 percent of 
the American people feel that it is incumbent on the Congress and the 
President to work together to balance the budget. They know that a 
balanced budget will bring them economic benefits in the form of lower 
interest rates, more jobs and higher wages.
  Here in Washington it is our job to hammer out an agreement that will 
balance the budget. Both Congress and the President agree that we must 
accomplish this goal. In fact, in his State of the Union Address the 
President spoke clearly. He affirmed his commitment to balancing the 
budget, and he

[[Page H905]]

affirmed his commitment and his agreement to use the estimates of the 
nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. In a departure from common 
practice the Congress agreed not to declare the President's budget dead 
on arrival and to try to use that budget as the basis for our 
negotiations.
  Unfortunately, when the President finally submitted his 5-year plan 
we found that it was inadequate. That is why we are here this 
afternoon. If we are going to heed America's call for a balanced 
budget, we must get to work today.
  This resolution moves us forward by sending an important message to 
this House. To this House and to the President and to the people of 
America, we send a message that we must take seriously and deal 
honestly with the commitment we have made to balance our Nation's 
books.
  This resolution calls quite simply for the President to work with 
this House toward a balanced budget agreement. We ask that the 
President submit a budget that meets a set of basic criteria, and in 
the spirit of bipartisanship we call on this Congress to abide by the 
exact same standards.
  This resolution is fair, it is clear, and it is intended to provide 
an opportunity to work together with the President from a platform that 
he provides.
  Just what are these standards that we ask the President to meet in 
his 5-year budget plan?
  First, we ask that the budget proposal balance in the year 2002, 
using estimates of the Congressional Budget Office. We feel it is 
essential that we work from a common set of assumptions. We need to 
work from a common set of assumptions in a dialogue as important as 
this. The administration's current plan shows a deficit of $69 billion 
in the year 2002.
  Second, we ask that the budget proposal not rely on sunsetted tax 
relief for automatic across-the-board cuts in order to achieve balance. 
The administration's current plan uses such accounting provisions that 
are triggered in its final years.
  Third, we ask that the budget proposal achieve a substantial amount 
of its deficit savings during the next 3 years. Unfortunately, the 
President's current plan defers over 98 percent of the deficit savings 
to the last 2 years of his budget after he leaves office.
  Finally, we ask that the budget proposal preserve and protect 
Medicare for our children and for future generations. The 
administration's current plan simply postpones the bankruptcy of the 
Medicare trust fund for another 2 years.
  By asking both Congress and the President to meet these four basic 
requirements in the submission of their budget plans we will establish 
a credible platform from which we can move forward together. A budget 
that increases spending by 200 billion over the next 3 years, it leaves 
a deficit of $69 billion in the year 2002, will not put money back in 
the pockets of working Americans, will not put money back in the 
pockets of American families. The results of this kind of overspending 
will be higher interest rates, higher costs to our families and 
stagnating wages. We owe the American people more than that.
  Some people have argued that this resolution is a waste of time. I am 
sorry that they feel that way, but I believe that the substance of this 
debate and its impact on America's families is too important to just 
ignore or dismiss.

                              {time}  1400

  Honest and reasoned debate of our differences is essential to the 
strength and substance of this institution. Others have argued that it 
is inappropriate somehow to ask the President to submit a new budget 
when we have yet to complete work on our own. The fact is that Congress 
is moving forward on its own budget. We will propose a budget to the 
President, and this country, in compliance with budget law.
  Two years ago critics claimed the Congress prepared its budget too 
quickly and did not take the President's import, did not take his 
concern into regard. Today these same critics argue that the pace is 
too deliberate and too slow.
  Many of us were not here in the last Congress, but I do know the 
debate over the budget deteriorated to what a lot of American people 
thought was petty bickering. This year we want to change that mode of 
operation. We want to make things work, with the administration's 
cooperation, and fashion a solid budget agreement that balances in the 
year 2002.
  But to do this we need the President to provide a realistic platform 
for budget discussions. I am determined to keep my faith, to keep the 
commitments I made to the constituents of the State of New Hampshire to 
fight for an honest balanced budget. I urge your support for this 
resolution that will enable Congress and the President to wage this 
fight together.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to House Resolution 89. This 
resolution demands that the President send us a second budget that 
meets the specifications of the Republican leadership. All it does is 
demand. It huffs and it puffs, but in the end it accomplishes nothing, 
because it is a one-House resolution. Look at its title, House 
Resolution 89. It is not binding on the President; it is not even 
binding on the other body. That is why I said earlier in the debate 
that this resolution is a waste of time.
  It has been said that the President is obliged to send us a budget 
that balances, balances according to CBO scoring. If you will simply 
turn to the Congressional Budget Act and look at section 300, you will 
see that it says the timetable with respect to the congressional budget 
process for any fiscal year is as follows: First Monday in February, 
President submits his budget.
  That is what it says: President submits his budget.
  The President missed that by just a few days this year because he 
first wanted to make his State of the Union before he submitted his 
budget, but he has sent us a budget scored by his budget shop, the 
Office of Management and Budget, as being in balance; not just being in 
balance, being in surplus by the year 2002 to the tune of $17 billion.
  Let me back up a few years and just observe why it is that we are 
here today earnestly talking about balancing the budget by the year 
2002.
  We are here today credibly talking about that goal which we commonly 
share because 4 years ago when President Clinton came to office, he 
took this challenge head on. I am sure there were other things he would 
have preferred to do first.
  The first thing he found on his desk when he arrived there was the 
Economic Report of the President left behind a week before by President 
George Bush, and in it Michael Boskin, chairman of the Council of 
Economic Advisors for President Bush, on page 69 predicted the deficit 
for fiscal year 1993 would be $332 billion.
  Now, Bill Clinton has been blamed for a lot of things, but he was in 
Little Rock when that bill was run up. He cannot be blamed for that.
  On February 17, he laid on the doorstep of Congress a plan to get rid 
of that deficit, or at least cut it in half, over a period of 4 years. 
It did not pass the House by any substantial margin, two votes. It went 
right to the wire. It passed the other body by one vote. There were 
predictions it would cut the economy off at the knees.
  But here we are, 4 years later, and here is what happened. In 1993, 
when we closed the books on fiscal 1993, the deficit was not $332 
billion, it was $255 billion. One year later, the first full year under 
that Deficit Reduction Act of 1993, the deficit was $203 billion. When 
we closed the books on 1995, the deficit was $164 billion. And last 
September 30, 1996, the deficit was down to $107.3 billion, down 65 
percent in less than 4 years, 1.4 percent of GDP.
  That makes it the lowest deficit as a percent of GDP since 1974, the 
lowest deficit in nominal dollars since Ronald Reagan's second year in 
office. That is what has been accomplished on his watch. Say what you 
will about his budget, the reason we are here and debating a plan to 
get the budget in balance within 5 years is that those 4 years were put 
to good purpose under a plan that he proposed.
  Now, he set up a budget based upon a forecast of the economy done by 
his budget shop. Every President does that. That is what OMB is there 
for. According to their forecast, this budget will balance by the year 
2002.

[[Page H906]]

  Now, there are things that I do not accept about that, and I have 
traditionally been a supporter myself of using CBO estimates, but there 
are some things in this forecast where I think OMB has the better half 
of the argument.
  For example, OMB assumes that corporate income shares as a percentage 
of our GDP will not decline. They have increased substantially over the 
last few years because corporations are improving their balance sheets 
and improving their P&L's. That makes for a third of the difference 
between the two forecasts.
  These are things that can be argued between reasonable people, 
reasonable economists, and there is no use to have a showdown on the 
budget today. We all know what the process calls for. We know what 
regular order is. We wrote the act. The Congressional Budget Act, 
section 301(a), says the Congress shall ``complete action on the budget 
resolution on or before April 15th.'' The Congress shall complete 
action. The President started the ball rolling. Now it is our time to 
complete the action.

  Since my friends on the other side of the aisle, the Republicans, 
have been in the majority here in the House, the conference agreement 
on the budget resolution has not cleared the House on April 15 in any 
of those years; not until June, as a matter of fact, 2 months after the 
deadline. In fact, the House Committee on the Budget in the last 2 
years has not even marked up the budget resolution until a month after 
the April 15 deadline. This kind of slippage, this kind of inattention 
to the Budget Act and the deadlines we have laid down for ourselves, 
led to 14 continuing resolutions and 2 Government shutdowns in the last 
Congress.
  I do not want to see that happen again. That is why I think this 
diversionary tactic, to distract us from what we need to be doing, off 
in pursuit of this red herring, is a total waste of time.
  Let me say something else. It is now 10 minutes after 2. At 2:30 the 
House Committee on the Budget will have one of the most important 
hearings we will hold on the subject of how to get our hands around 
this problem and bring it to resolution.
  We will have before us Dr. Catherine Abraham, who is the Commissioner 
of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and her responsibility is something 
called the CPI, the Consumer Price Index. That is a critical component 
to resolving this problem.
  And where is the Committee on the Budget? We are over here debating a 
resolution that is totally ineffectual. Instead of leaning into the 
problem, earnestly trying to find a solution to the problem, attending 
the hearing and asking intelligent questions and hearing what she has 
to tell us, we are over here on the floor.
  This is the first time in 14 years in the House that I have seen a 
major piece of legislation or a piece of legislation come to the floor 
at the time the committee of jurisdiction is holding a hearing. That is 
why this is a total waste of time. But we are debating it.
  The fact of the matter is, what we are trying to do is distract 
attention from the fact that the majority would prefer not to have to 
put up its own resolution. The reason they do not want to do this is 
the same reason that they are able to use and criticize the President's 
budget. The President's budget as scored by CBO does not produce a 
surplus in the year 2002. According to CBO, per its economic forecast, 
it generates a deficit of $69 billion.
  But if you use that same economic forecast and apply it to a 
reconstruction of what I would guess to be the Republican resolution, 
which would incorporate tax cuts up to $190 billion, then the deficit 
is twice the size of the President's recommendation; or there will have 
to be deeper cuts in Medicare and Medicaid and education and other 
things that the American people broadly support, that they would not 
rather embrace themselves. So they want to be allowed to have the 
President take the hits on this.
  If we are going to get this done, the President has sent a budget up 
here, we need to have a budget resolution with the other side. That 
will frame the debate and we can then sit down and negotiate, and we 
will have to make concessions on both sides.
  The President's budget is not going to be fully carried out, I know 
that, nor is your budget going to be fully realized, and I think you 
know that. The sooner we get around to that reality and start talking, 
the better. The way to get there is for you to complete the process and 
frame the negotiation by putting your resolution on the table, bringing 
it to the House floor, getting it passed and getting a concurrent 
budget resolution adopted by April 15 or shortly thereafter.
  For all of these reasons, I suggest that the House vote down this 
resolution, send the Committee on the Budget back to its work, and not 
after this pursuit of a red herring that leads us nowhere and 
accomplishes nothing.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
Ohio [Mr. Hobson].
  Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Committee on the Budget, 
I rise to support House Resolution 89 and join the House in asking the 
President to send a balanced budget to Congress.
  The President's budget was eagerly anticipated this year and there is 
a genuine desire to work constructively with him to enact a historic 
balanced budget plan that will eliminate the deficit by the year 2002. 
The budget committees of both Houses have spent the past several weeks 
examining the President's ideas in order to give them a full hearing 
and find the areas where we can work together constructively.
  This is a very different approach than previous years when the 
Capitol was a morgue for the storage of budget plans declared dead on 
arrival. This year, however, the Capitol has been an emergency room, 
and though we are working hard to save it, the President's budget is 
gravely ill, primarily because it is $69 billion in the hole, 
backloaded to the extreme, and fails to save Medicare for any 
significant period of time.
  I can recall, as many can, the President campaigning that he was 
going to save the Medicare trust fund for 10 years. I do not see that. 
Where is it? Let us talk about it. If the President still wants his 
budget proposal to be the starting point for consideration this year, 
and I believe that can still happen, he needs to send us a budget that 
meets the minimum threshold for consideration, a budget that balances 
in 2002 according to the estimates which he said he would use, the 
estimates of the independent budget office. I remember hearing him say 
that right here in this House.
  No gimmicks, Mr. President. Our friends on the other side of the 
aisle are challenging us to offer our own budget now, but my answer to 
them today is, we have already passed 2 years of balanced budgets in 
this Chamber. Those two budgets were the first of their kind in 26 
years. We do not need to prove to anybody on this side of the aisle 
that we are committed to balancing the budget. The only reason it is in 
front and center of the congressional list of priorities right now, and 
the American people, is because we put it there. I am quite comfortable 
with our record of writing, supporting, and passing balanced budgets in 
this Chamber.
  Frankly, the President should be thankful that he has been given a 
second chance to fulfill the promises he made to this country. I hope 
he takes advantage of this second opportunity, and I hope he sends us a 
true budget that does balance without a lot of gimmicks after he is not 
even President of the United States anymore.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
Texas [Mr. Doggett].
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, at this mellow time of interest in 
bipartisanship and collegiality, I have to say that, frankly, this is a 
weird resolution. Some might call it a back to the future resolution. 
Do my colleagues remember the movie about going back to the future? 
Well, this is going back all the way to the days of the Government 
shutdowns of 1995. Those who liked those shutdowns will remember those 
good old days. It only cost the American taxpayer $1.5 billion for the 
kind of stunts that occurred in this House during 1995.
  President Clinton in 1995 came forward and submitted a budget. It was 
scored by OMB. Our Republican colleagues, as they have said today, came 
forward and they said, ``We want it

[[Page H907]]

scored. We want it scored by CBO, and we are going to shut the 
Government down until it is.'' I think some of them wanted to shut the 
Government down until it was scored by HBO. But they delayed and they 
shut the Government down in order to get the kind of budget that they 
wanted.
  Well, those costly Government shutdowns were not simply the product 
of extremism. They were the product of this Congress messing around on 
resolutions like the one we have before us today, instead of getting 
down to the hard work of trying to get a budget agreement.
  The Committee on the Budget did not comply with the law and get the 
budget resolution heard and adopted on time. The appropriations 
committees did not approve the appropriation bills. They did not 
approve more than about half of them before it was time for the 
Government to be shut down.

                              {time}  1415

  So we got caught in a trap that was very expensive for the American 
taxpayer. Today we are headed down the same path. History is repeating 
itself. The Republican Congress has done practically nothing for the 
last 2 months, and today, instead of working to try to achieve a budget 
agreement, they are basically saying: We have not done our job, but, 
Mr. President, you have completed your job and we want you to do it 
again.
  When it comes to the budget, the porridge is always too hot; and, if 
the President submitted another budget, it would be too cold. It is 
never just right for these folks.
  Anyone who has ever bought a car or a house knows there is offer and 
counteroffer. What they need to do is to shut down these kinds of silly 
resolutions instead of shutting down the government and get to work 
negotiating a balanced budget.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Texas [Ms. Granger], who is a member of the Committee on the Budget and 
has put in a great deal of effort and time in her commitment to making 
sure that this country balances its Federal budget.
  Ms. GRANGER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleagues from New 
Hampshire and Pennsylvania in offering this resolution. Our resolution 
is not about shutdowns. Our resolution is not about CBO or OMB, and it 
is not about politics or partisanship. It is not even about how we 
score budgets. This resolution is about our America's children, about 
our daughters and our sons.
  Today our children face a $5.6 trillion debt, $122,400 for every 
American. I have two sons and one daughter. That means my children owe 
$67,200. Every child born in our country today will owe nearly $200,000 
in taxes over their lifetimes just to pay interest on the debt. That is 
because the Federal Government, the Federal budget has not been 
balanced in a generation.
  Who among our children will be able to share in the American dream if 
each of them must pay $200,000 just to pay interest on the debt?
  The answer is that our children will not be able to realize the 
American dream, and they will not look forward to a future of hope, 
growth and opportunity tomorrow unless we balance our budget today. We 
can have a balanced budget for the first time in a generation. During 
the campaign both the President, President Clinton, and leaders of 
Congress promised that balancing the budget would be their top 
priority. Now is the time for both the President and Congress to come 
together to make good on this commitment. A fellow Texan, Sam Rayburn, 
once said that anything ever achieved by Congress was done in a 
bipartisan way.
  Achieving a balanced budget would be a lasting accomplishment for 
America's families. A balanced budget would reduce interest rates, 
slashing the cost of a typical family's mortgage by $38,000. The cost 
of student loans would be cut nearly $9,000. An estimated 4\1/4\ 
million new jobs would be created, and family incomes would rise.
  This resolution will make this great achievement possible by 
establishing the crucial first step for both the President and Congress 
to come together to balance the budget. Step one is for both the 
President and Congress to use the same numbers when considering budgets 
and for both the President and Congress to balance the Federal books 
the same way that hard-working families balance their checkbooks each 
month. That is all this resolution does.
  Families have to use accurate numbers when they balance their 
checkbooks, and our resolution asks the President to submit a budget 
that uses the most careful and accurate economic numbers of the 
Congressional Budget Office. Families must watch their spending each 
month. They cannot wait until the last week to use coupons or think 
about how they will pay the electric bill. So our resolution asks the 
President and Congress to present budgets that begin to save money 
today, not tomorrow.
  And families cannot ignore their most important obligations like 
paying their mortgage. Similarly our resolution asks the President and 
Congress to submit budgets that meet the Government's obligation to our 
seniors by preserving Medicare and asks both the President and the 
Congress for budgets that preserve Medicare not just for the next 
election but for the next generation. It is not just American families 
who must meet the standards contained in our resolution. Last year the 
blue dog Democrats, the Congressional Black Caucus and the Republican 
majority and others all submitted budgets that met these basic and 
simple standards. Each these budgets use the most accurate CBO numbers, 
each of these budgets achieve budget balance through programmatic 
changes. Each of these budgets help to address the long-term problem of 
Medicare. That is why each of these budgets would have met the 
commonsense standards of our resolution.
  Unfortunately, the budget that the administration submitted to 
Congress last month did not meet these basic requirements. The 
administration's budget increased the deficit while this administration 
is in office promising to balance the budget after the President leaves 
office. That is just not right for our children.
  This budget increased the deficit by $24 billion this year and would 
leave the budget unbalanced in 2002. That is just not right for our 
children.
  It used rosy scenarios and accounting contingencies, not tough 
choices, to achieve deficit reduction. That is just not right for our 
children. It failed to protect Medicare for this generation, let alone 
the future. That is not right for our children, for their parents or 
for their grandparents.
  This resolution simply asks the President to meet the same standard 
that the majority, the blue dog Democrats, and the Congressional Black 
Caucus met last year. Since we must all work together to balance the 
budget, it asks all of us to use the same basic standards in our budget 
resolution.
  I urge my colleagues to support this resolution to establish a 
bipartisan, common ground for agreement on a balanced budget. Let us 
ask both the President and the Congress to submit budgets that meet the 
same basic requirements, the requirements that our families meet every 
day.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes and 30 seconds to the 
gentlewoman from Hawaii [Mrs. Mink].
  (Mrs. MINK of Hawaii asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. MINK of Hawaii. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for 
offering me this time to participate in this debate.
  I find it very strange that we are having this debate in the first 
instance on the floor of the House. This matter should be debated in 
our committee. I am a member of the Committee on the Budget. We have 
yet to really sit down and discuss exactly what kind of budget 
resolution we are going to offer this House. We have a statutory 
obligation to have this work done by April 15, and we have not begun 
this job.
  It is simply irresponsible for the majority to abdicate its statutory 
duty. There is no way that they can pass the buck to the President. 
Under the Constitution, he offers his budget and it is for us to 
dispose of it. It is not to say to him, send another or send another 
because we do not agree with the minutia of its contents. It is for us 
to decide the details first within our committee.
  So I find this a very shameful operation here today. Besides which, 
the head of the CBO that everybody is lauding today has said that there 
is

[[Page H908]]

substantial agreement and that the administration's budget actually 
comes to a balance. We may not agree how it balances it, but the fact 
is the majority chose 2002 as the magic date and the President has come 
up with a budget that essentially does the job.
  Now, who is the responsible body to make judgments as to forecasts? 
Forecasts are very difficult. It depends upon what the individual 
assumptions are, how we look at the future, the unemployment rate, how 
much taxes are coming in, and so forth.
  I have a chart here which I would like to point to my colleagues 
where the Congressional Budget Office is off the mark. They are very, 
very conservative. Each year they projected far deeper deficits than 
occurred. And as a result, we cannot put much confidence on the CBO 
estimates.
  To make the final point, the budget figures which the President 
offers have been equally conservative and equally conservative in 
looking at the economic projections. They have not been any further 
away from it than the CBO. So at this point bringing this resolution 
today out of the Rules Committee, charging that rosy scenarios are the 
culprit on the part of the administration budget, is absolutely wrong, 
not based upon fact and, I think, pure politics.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to draw attention 
to the fact that since 1993 there have been 20 deficit projections by 
OMB and CBO, and in 16 of those 20 projections CBO was more accurate 
than OMB in predicting the deficit.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes and 30 seconds to the gentleman from 
Mississippi [Mr. Pickering].
  (Mr. PICKERING asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. PICKERING. Mr. Speaker, today I rise in support of the resolution 
as a new Member of Congress, coming with what I hope will be a new 
start, a clean slate. There is much at stake, and we have great 
opportunity to do something that has not been done in 28 years. That is 
to actually reach agreement on balancing our budget.
  I am disappointed in the President's budget that, as both the 
President and Members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, we all 
ran on the same themes of a smaller government, of balanced budgets, of 
tax relief for families. Unfortunately, the facts of the President's 
budget do not meet the words and the rhetoric.
  The facts are that the President's budget increased taxes, increases 
taxes $23 billion over the next 10 years. In fiscal year 1998, it 
increases the deficit $24 billion. It undoes more than 50 percent of 
the savings in last year's welfare reform bill. It is $69 billion short 
of a balanced budget in the year 2002. And instead of providing 
entitlement reform, it creates $70 billion in new entitlement spending 
over the next 5 years.
  The saddest or the most troubling component is that it leaves 98 
percent of deficit reduction until after the President leaves office.
  Those are the facts, but it affects our families. I am here today 
representing the Third District of Mississippi, which has been 
represented in a tremendous way by G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery. He met the 
challenge of his day. He built a strong defense, contained Communism. 
Helped win the cold war. My children today have freedom and prosperity 
in large part because he was willing, and his generation was willing to 
sacrifice.
  I have four small children, four boys, ages 7, 5, 3 and 1. At the end 
of my days, I want to say, I was part of giving them the same freedom, 
the same opportunity, the same prosperity. To do so, we must create a 
new foundation, a new framework to reach a balanced budget.
  Mr. Speaker, today I rise in support of House Resolution 89 as a new 
Member of Congress, coming with the hope for a new start, a clean 
slate. I am here today not only as a Representative from the great 
State of Mississippi, or the successor to the legendary G.V. ``Sonny'' 
Montgomery, but as the father of four young boys.
  There is much at stake in this budget cycle, and we have a great 
opportunity to do something that has not been done in 28 years. That is 
to actually reach agreement on balancing the Federal budget. I am 
disappointed in President Clinton's rhetoric concerning a balanced 
budget because his words do not match his actions.
  As the father of four boys, age 7, 5, 3, and 1, I would like to leave 
a nation as great as the one I received from my father. Unfortunately, 
at the rate our Government spends money, my four boys, and millions of 
other children across this great land, will not receive an inheritance 
from those of us in this generation.
  No, Mr. Speaker, we cannot be confused, the children of today will 
not inherit the legacy that we did. They will not inherit the classic 
American dream. They will inherit our debt.
  The President spoke often during the campaign of his bridge to the 
21st century. And I look forward to the start of the 21st century--the 
next American century.
  However, we will not, and cannot stand by while this administration 
builds a bridge to the 21st century on the backs of our children.
  As of today, each child in the United States, will inherit over 
$188,000 of debt from us.
  Mr. Speaker, that is not the American dream. This is not the American 
way. This is not how we restore public trust in our Government.

  In America we have always passed on the hope for a better, bigger, 
and brighter future. Yet the children of today can only look forward to 
debt, our debt.
  Mr. Speaker, this is not the right thing to do. Nor is it right for 
the President to promise a balanced budget during the election and then 
provide us with yet another budget that simply does not balance.
  While the President claims his budget comes into balance by 2002, it 
includes new spending initiatives and savings gimmicks that could cause 
the deficit to balloon in the subsequent years.
  The tax cuts he provides are temporary while his tax increases will 
be part of the inheritance for our children.
  Mr. Speaker, the tax increases are permanent while the tax cuts are 
temporary. In the President's budget, if the deficit reduction targets, 
based on rosy economic scenarios, aren't met, the President repeals the 
tax cuts in 2001 but the tax cuts are still in place.
  We have many choices to make in this Congress that will effect the 
next generation. While we contemplate and debate which path to take, I 
recommend that we use our God given common sense.
  I would suggest that it is only common sense to balance the budget. 
Millions of families across the Nation balance their checkbooks on a 
monthly basis. Is it too much to ask that the Federal Government does 
the same thing?
  Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that while we journey toward the 21st 
century that we take the road to action to ensure that our children are 
not stuck in a future with little or no hope.
  We have made great strides toward balancing the budget, but we have 
more to do. Balancing the budget is just the first step.
  House Resolution 89 will ensure cooperation between the Congress and 
the White House in working toward a balanced budget.
  By using the same economic assumptions we can find the middle ground 
necessary to make the tough choices that lie ahead.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Washington [Mr. McDermott].
  (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, we are engaged today in a very fraudulent 
exercise. I will enter into the Record a letter from Dr.O'Neill, the 
head of the Congressional Budget Office.
  The question was asked whether the alternative set of policies 
proposed by the President would achieve a budget balance in fiscal year 
2002, which would be balanced.
  And her answer is, ``Our analysis, which provides CBO's estimate of 
the effect on the deficit of the President's alternative budgetary 
policies, shows a zero deficit in fiscal year 2002.''
  The President has submitted a bill, a budget that is balanced, 
according to the very person that we hear the Members on the other side 
saying they would worship at her feet. If she says it is balanced, it 
is zero, if the deficit is zero, that is good enough for them. We have 
the letter. This is fraudulent.
  The question we have to ask ourselves is, why are we going through 
this exercise? I will tell you. It is very simple: 1995-96, the 
Republicans got burned by coming out here with policies that were 
unacceptable to the American people.

                              {time}  1430

  And now we are engaged in what I call the grand stall. The budget is 
supposed to be ready by the 15th of April. Will that budget be done on 
the 15th of April? We have 13 working days between now and then and we 
are not in the committee.
  We have not had a single discussion about any alternative or a 
modification that we will make to the President's proposal. We are 
getting a case

[[Page H909]]

built here that the reason we did not do it on the 15th of April was 
because the President never submitted us a budget.
  Now, some of the freshmen out here do not understand the game. But 
let me tell them what it is. We will blame it on the President as long 
as we can, and then, finally, we will try to jam something through here 
without any discussion, the discussions about taking away quality of 
care for senior citizens and a variety of other things.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote against this.
  The information referred to is as follows:

                                                    U.S. Congress,


                                  Congressional Budget Office,

                                    Washington, DC, March 4, 1997.
     Hon. Frank R. Lautenberg,
     Ranking Member, Committee on the Budget, U.S. Senate, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator: You asked whether the alternative set of 
     policies proposed by the President in the event that 
     Congressional Budget Office projections are used in the 
     budget process would achieve unified budget balance in fiscal 
     year 2002.
       As we described in our March 3 preliminary analysis of the 
     President's 1998 budgetary proposals, ``the alternative 
     policies proposed by the President were designed to fill 
     exactly any size deficit hole that CBO might project under 
     the basic policies.'' Therefore, Table 6 in our analysis 
     which provides CBO's estimate of the effect on the deficit of 
     the President's alternative budgetary policies shows a zero 
     deficit for fiscal year 2002.
       I hope that this answer meets your needs.
           Sincerely,
                                                  June E. O'Neill,
                                                         Director.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to 
draw attention to the CBO report. In fact, to be clear, I will quote 
from it directly. ``The CBO estimates that there will be a deficit of 
$69 billion in 2002 under the President's basic policy proposals.''
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Missouri, 
Mr. Blunt.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here to support this 
resolution. I think it is no accident that this resolution is 
introduced by fellow freshmen, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. 
Pitts; the gentleman from New Hampshire, Mr. Sununu; and the 
gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Granger, who are joining me in this 
Congress and who come to this Congress from an understanding of how we 
believe responsibility ought to be taken in the real world and in real 
world budgeting.
  Really, responsibility has to begin at the top. And this Congress, 
the last Congress, has shown the willingness to do that by giving the 
President for the first time ever the line item veto, saying to the 
President, we know there are some things that you can do that nobody 
can do as well. The President really has to lead in this area, and for 
the President to lead in this area effectively, we all do have to talk 
about the same numbers.
  A great Missourian, Mark Twain, said that forecasting is always 
difficult, particularly when you are talking about the future. And it 
is difficult when we are talking about the future to predict. Everybody 
understands that. Everybody understands that we ought to be talking 
about the same numbers.
  The President has said over and over again that we ought to be using 
the same numbers. Over and over again the President has turned to the 
Congressional Budget Office and verified that their numbers, over the 
course of time, have been better than other numbers available. As late 
as January, the President said we will work with the Congress to use 
numbers that everybody believes, numbers that come from the 
Congressional Budget Office.
  This budget is out of balance. It has to be brought back into 
balance. We need the President to submit that budget.
  The Federal Government is not doing a lot of terrible things. The 
tough choices in life are not between bad things and good things. The 
tough choices in life are determining what kinds of things really have 
to have priority, and that is what submitting a budget is really all 
about, submitting a budget with priorities.
  I was a president before I came here. Was not the President of the 
United States. I was the president of a private university. We had a 
$23 million budget. We had 300 employees. They all vigorously advocated 
what they needed to have happen. We were able to balance that budget 
over and over again primarily because we made those tough choices. We 
prioritized.
  That is what we need the President to do with this budget. We need to 
get started with numbers that we can work with and agree with and move 
toward paying the bills of the country for the first time in 28 years.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
Ohio, Mr. Kasich, the distinguished chairman of the Committee on the 
Budget.
  Mr. KASICH. Mr. Speaker, let me make it clear that we will, of 
course, have a budget and it will be delivered to the House. This is 
not out of the ordinary, that the Congress has not brought this budget 
up. In the last 20 years, 19 of the times the budget resolution has 
come beyond a certain date required in the law.
  The issue is not a hard fixed date, really. The issue at hand is 
whether we are able to either reach agreement with the administration 
and be able to bring a proposal forward; and absent an agreement with 
the administration, we will bring one forward that we will draft 
ourselves and that we will have an opportunity to consider in this 
House.
  The issue today is really rather one of no matter what budgets come 
to this floor, they ought to be counted as being in balance. The Blue 
Dogs have brought a budget. It is in balance. They are going to appear 
before the Committee on the Budget. I have praised the Blue Dogs for 
their budget. The Black Caucus, in the past, has brought balanced 
budgets, as has the Republican majority, and we will bring one.
  We are going to bring one on some date certain. I have already said 
that the administration could bring a budget and slip a date. Who cares 
about the specific date on a calendar? It is the work product we are 
most concerned about and the quality of the product.
  So today what we are trying to say, both to the administration and to 
the Congress, and to anybody else that wants to draft a budget, use 
honest numbers. No gimmicks. Balance the budget and put the children 
first.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, 
before yielding to the gentleman from North Dakota, to simply note for 
the record that in 1993 the House Committee on the Budget produced a 
budget resolution on March 10; in 1994, on March 3.
  Unfortunately, the last 2 years we have been May 10 and May 9, and 
under the current schedule, debating things like this, that seems to be 
where we are headed this year.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North 
Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy].
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, the people I represent in North Dakota are 
tired of the debate in this House where one side points to the other 
side and says they are terrible and get a ``they are terrible'' back, 
and more of the fracas just continues. Unfortunately, a lot of the 
debate this afternoon sounds much like that tired old partisan 
dialogue.
  We can do better than that. We stand at a great point of opportunity. 
The deficit is down 63 percent from where it was 4 years ago. We have 
made real headway. There is just that final push to get us to a 
balanced budget. What is more, we stand at this point in time in 
agreement that there ought to be a balanced budget. We stand at this 
point in time that we ought to have that balanced budget achieved by 
2002.
  So with so much agreement, it seems to me we ought to be working hard 
at negotiating our way to a balanced budget rather than having a 
spurious debate of the kind before us.
  No budget plan is perfect. There will always be a great deal of give 
and take in crafting the final product. Now, the budget process is 
structured in a formalized way. The President advances his budget, and 
at that point in time all eyes turn to the majority party for their 
budget plan. When they have their budget plan on the table, the sides 
get together and negotiations begin in great earnestness in terms of 
how the differences can be resolved.
  So the President has advanced his budget. All eyes turn to the 
majority caucus. They do not have a plan. They, in fact, want to waste 
our time this afternoon asking the President to submit another budget. 
They know very

[[Page H910]]

well the process. The process is it is their turn. Bring a budget 
forward. It takes two to tango. It takes two budget plans to get 
negotiated.
  For the freshmen that for the first time are directing, I think 
impressively, a floor debate, I would just say they are in Congress 
now. There is something wonderful that comes with that. If they do not 
like the President's budget, they should write their own. The Blue Dog 
Democrats have already done precisely that. Other Democrat plans, I 
expect, will emerge.
  Rather than carp and gripe about the shortcomings of the President's 
plan, just put pen to paper and come up with one. That would advance 
the process very significantly. That would get us to the table with the 
differences clearly etched so that they might be negotiated.
  One final comment. We do not have much time. We want to get this done 
by 2002. We need 5 years to get it done. If we fritter away this year 
in partisan finger-pointing nonsense instead of earnest negotiation to 
a settlement, it will be only much harder to do in the future.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SUNUNU. I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform the Chair that I will be 
yielding my time to the gentleman from Washington [Mr. McDermott] 
before I go to a committee hearing.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. Hutchinson].
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Speaker, they say the difference between a good 
baseball player and a great baseball player is the followthrough. Now 
is the time for Congress and the President to knock one out of the park 
for the American people and follow through on the promise to balance 
the budget.
  The distinguished gentleman from Washington referred to a comment 
about my freshmen colleagues, and said, well, the freshmen do not 
understand the games that are played in Washington. I agree that 
perhaps we do not, and the American public does not. Whenever the 
President promises to submit a balanced budget, and it is scored as not 
being in balance, the American public understands that there is a need 
for the President to go back to the drawing board, to resubmit his 
budget, and that is what this resolution calls for.
  The President has thrown us a curve ball with the budget he has 
submitted. It claims to be in balance by the year 2002, and yet it is 
not. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which the President 
has agreed to abide by, concludes that the administration's budget will 
produce a $69 billion deficit by the year 2002. This takes us in the 
wrong direction. And in fact next year, if no action was taken under 
the President's budget, there would be a $24 billion increase in the 
deficit. We cannot get to zero by going the wrong direction.
  I am concerned about the families of America. A government that 
spends 15 percent of its income on interest on the debt is an 
impediment to hope and prosperity for the average taxpayer. The 
American people cannot bear the weight of an excessive and out-of-
control Federal Government.
  We need only to look at the difficulties faced by the average 
American family. There was a time in the not too distant past, when I 
grew up as a child, when one parent could work in a factory or a store 
or an office and the other stay home in order to take care of the 
family.
  My parents are examples of this. My father had a high school 
education and was limited in his job opportunities. He worked as an 
inspector in a chicken plant in northwest Arkansas, but yet despite the 
modest income, he was able to provide for his family, raise his 
children, allowing Mom to stay at home, and that is because the 
government did not eat up his paycheck as is done today.
  The American family cannot do that today and that is why we need to 
balance the budget and that is why I support this resolution to give us 
hope in America once again.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Maryland [Mr. Cardin].
  (Mr. CARDIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend for yielding me 
this time.
  Mr. Speaker, in the 11 years I have been in Congress to receive 
Presidential budgets, this budget is the best received I have ever seen 
by our colleagues. And there is good reason for that. The track record 
of the Clinton administration has been excellent in reducing the 
deficit.
  It is the first administration in recent times that had 4 years in a 
row in reducing the deficit. It has submitted a budget that balances in 
the year 2002, according to OMB projections. There is a disagreement 
between CBO and OMB. Why do we not look at the track record and look at 
the past 4 years? In the past 4 years, OMB has been more accurate than 
CBO. The deficits have actually been smaller than we thought they were 
going to be. The President's has been more accurate.
  The President goes one step further. He says if his economic 
projections are wrong, he puts an enforcement mechanism in his budget 
that guarantees us a balanced budget by the year 2002. That is why the 
gentleman from Washington is correct when he says that Dr. O'Neill has 
said that the President's budget will have a zero deficit in the year 
2002.
  The Congressional Budget Act says the President should submit his 
budget by February. He has done that. It then says that Congress shall 
pass a concurrent resolution by April 15.
  Now, we have heard from the distinguished chairman of the Committee 
on the Budget that we are not going to meet that deadline. I know that 
the leadership has instituted a new process known as Correction Day. 
Maybe we should put the Congressional Budget Act on Correction Day and 
eliminate the time limits that are put in here.
  Rather than wasting our time on this resolution, I would support a 
resolution that would direct the Committee on the Budget to bring out 
its budget in time so that we can act by April 15.

                              {time}  1445

  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to note that with 
regard to the triggers that have been discussed, there is a fair amount 
of accuracy. There are triggers in the President's budget, and here is 
what the triggers do: Head Start cut $400 million over 2 years; special 
education cut $370 million over 2 years; Pell grants cut $680 million 
over 2 years; veterans' hospitals cut $1.4 billion over 2 years. That 
is what a trigger is all about.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. 
Shadegg].
  Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time, I commend him for bringing this resolution forward, and I support 
it.
  Let me begin by pointing out that this resolution does matter. I sat 
on the Budget Committee 2 years ago when Alan Greenspan pointed out 
that if this Congress could balance the budget, it would make a real 
difference to Americans. Interest rates would drop.
  This chart shows that following the 1994 elections, interest rates 
began to drop. But when we failed to agree with the President on a plan 
that would balance the budget, interest rates began to go back up. This 
debate does matter. It is critical that we balance the budget.
  Mr. Speaker, I sat in this room and listened to the President 
announce that the era of big government is over. I sat in this Chamber 
and listened to him pronounce that this should be the Congress which 
finally balances the budget, and yet the budget which the President has 
submitted does not do that.
  I rise in good faith to ask the President to join us in this effort, 
and to point out that a budget which increases the deficit in the 
coming year by $24 billion over doing nothing is not, in good faith, an 
effort to balance the budget; that a budget such as the President has 
submitted, which results in a $69 billion deficit in the year 2002 when 
it is supposed to be balanced, is not a good faith effort.
  This is not a partisan fight. Both sides of the aisle agree we must 
balance the budget. I call on the President to join us in this fight, 
to join us so that we can benefit the American people by the kind of 
falling interest rates

[[Page H911]]

which will occur, the lower car loans, the lower student loans, the 
lower home mortgage loan interest rates that Americans would enjoy if 
we had a balanced budget. I call upon the President to submit a budget 
which does balance and to join in this effort.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Texas [Mr. Bentsen].
  (Mr. BENTSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. BENTSEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution. 
This is nothing but a diversion, a political exercise and a futile 
attempt to shift the blame where it does not belong.
  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are trying to cover 
their tracks. Having promised too much in their recent election 
campaigns, they now find that they are unable to produce a budget that 
is both in balance and fair. So instead they are taking the highly 
unprecedented step of requesting the President to submit a second 
budget, something which we have not seen with previous administrations, 
including those who submitted budgets that were out of balance.
  Before we vote, we should consider some important facts. The 
Constitution of the United States clearly states that it is the 
Congress and not the executive branch which enacts laws and 
appropriates funds. Article 1, section 8, clause 18 states:

       The Congress shall have the power to make all laws which 
     shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the 
     foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this 
     Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in 
     any Department or officer thereof.

  So, therefore, the Constitution is quite clear as to who is 
responsible for forming a budget. It is the Congress. Second, while the 
Congressional Budget Act of 1973 sets the procedure for the President 
to submit a budget for consideration by the Congress, ultimately it is 
up to the Congress to pass the laws enacting a budget for the United 
States. In fact, if we are to rely on the 1973 act, we find that the 
105th Congress is woefully behind, with only 10 legislative days left 
in which the Committees on the Budget are to submit and the Congress to 
adopt a budget resolution. Yet only yesterday the Republican leadership 
stated that no budget would be submitted or debated until May.
  We all know the President has submitted a budget, and while it may 
not be perfect, and few budgets are, he has met his goals in both form 
and substance. The administration can honestly state that using the 
assumptions of the Office of Management and Budget, the President's 
budget achieves balance by 2002. I might add that the CBO has also 
agreed with that statement. We can disagree with the President over 
assumptions and substance, but we cannot disagree with the fact that he 
has submitted his budget and it is in balance using his assumptions.
  So what is the problem that requires the other side to ask that the 
administration submit a new budget? They have the power to submit their 
own budget. Many of my colleagues on the other side were here during 
the Reagan and Bush years. No one ever asked them to submit another 
budget when in fact their budgets were never in balance.
  The problem, my colleagues, is that the Republican leadership cannot 
produce a balanced budget that cuts taxes by nearly $200 billion and 
does not make deep cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the 
environment. They have simply overpromised and now they are stuck. They 
want the President to do the heavy lifting and that is why we are 
considering a bill here today that is nothing more than subterfuge. Let 
us be honest. The President has his budget, the Blue Dogs have their 
budget. It is time for the Republicans to put their budget on the table 
and let the American people compare.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht].
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment the gentleman from 
New Hampshire [Mr. Sununu] and the other freshmen who have put this 
together because far from being a senseless debate, as we have heard 
from some of our colleagues on the other side, this is a very important 
debate. Let me explain the consequences. Who is right and who is wrong 
is not as important as what happens if we are wrong.
  As we have seen, we believe the President's budget is not in balance. 
That is important. That is significant. The deficit actually goes up 
and at the end of the budget cycle, according to the Congressional 
Budget Office, which is our official scorekeeper, the budget is still 
out of balance by $69 billion come the year 2002.
  What does that mean? What are the consequences? The gentleman from 
New Hampshire [Mr. Sununu] tried to explain, and I think Members need 
to understand that if the Congressional Budget Office is correct, here 
is what is going to happen in the year 2002. I daresay no Republicans 
nor no Democrats want to vote for this, because it means that Head 
Start will be cut $422 million, special education will be cut $369 
million, education to the disadvantaged will be cut $707 million, Pell 
grants for college students will have to be cut $680 million, the 
National Institutes of Health will have to be cut over $1 billion.
  Veterans hospitals, does anybody want to have to vote in the year 
2002 to cut veterans hospitals by $1.4 billion? Or the women, infants 
and children program, the WIC Program, by $353 million? The FBI would 
have to be cut by $230 million; the Immigration and Naturalization 
Service, $147 million; the Federal Aviation Administration, they are 
the people who keep our airways safe, by $783 million; Federal highways 
by $1.4 billion; the National Science Foundation, $269 million worth of 
cuts if the President's triggers go into effect. Finally let me say, 
and we all care about national parks, do my colleagues really want to 
vote for a budget that could cause national parks to be cut by $105 
million?
  I say the answer to that question is no. That is not the budget that 
we want. The debate that we are having today is an important debate for 
this reason, and I am still wearing my name tag from Hershey because I 
think we need a bipartisan budget. I think we have to work together. I 
think we have to have an honest debate. But how can we have an honest 
debate about the most important issue this Congress will deal with, the 
budget, if one side is speaking Greek and the other side is speaking 
Latin?
  What this debate is about today, what this vote is about today is let 
us all speak the same language, because if we are right and the 
President is wrong, it is going to have dramatic consequences for lots 
of our constituents. That is not what we want, that is not what you 
want, and frankly I do not think that is what the President wants. What 
we want is an honest and fair debate using honest and fair numbers. Let 
us agree on the assumptions, let us agree on the language, then let us 
have an honest debate.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I take 1 second to remind the gentleman 
that last year he proposed the same kind of trigger in Medicare. He 
trusted it then. I am not sure why he does not trust it now.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island 
[Mr. Weygand].
  Mr. WEYGAND. Mr. Speaker, I have some prepared comments which I would 
like to submit, but I would like to depart from those if I could, 
because in this discussion and debate today I have found some unusual 
rhetoric that I think really does not strike home to anybody outside of 
the beltway. I am just a poor kid from Pawtucket, RI, and when we talk 
about work, we mean about rolling up your sleeves, working together, 
agreeing to disagree but coming out with a budget.
  What we have seen, though, unfortunately is a lot of political 
rhetoric about it is not fair to the children, we are not following 
through, this is a curve ball. The fact of the matter is whether you 
are in Pawtucket, RI; Westerly, RI; Texas; Washington; or Washington, 
DC, the issue before us is, let us get together and work on a budget 
that works.
  The President submitted a budget on February 6. It balances by 2002. 
The Blue Dogs submitted a budget. The Black Caucus submitted a budget. 
But the Republicans have not yet, not today and not tomorrow, submitted 
one issue that is regarding a budget. Not even an amendment. Not a 
plan.

[[Page H912]]

  If we are really talking about bipartisanship, if we are talking 
about Hershey, PA, if we are talking about doing the things that all 
the people in my district in Rhode Island believe in, we should be then 
debating the issues of the President's budget, the Blue Dog budget, the 
minority caucus budget, and hopefully elements that you believe in, but 
let us debate them. Let us put them on the table.
  Let us work to resolve the issue, rather than this political 
buffoonery that is before us today. This is wrong. This is not 
legislation. These are people being political pawns, and quite frankly 
everyone outside of the beltway is cringing today and saying, ``What is 
wrong with these people in Washington? They just don't get it.'' Let us 
get it, let us get on with it, let us pass a budget that balances.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to note that of 
the budgets mentioned in the last presentation, the coalition budget 
meets the criteria placed for it here. The budget put forward by this 
Congress 2 years ago meets the criteria in this resolution. The Black 
Caucus budget discussed meets the criteria in this resolution. This 
resolution simply calls for Congress and the President both to fall 
into the criteria outlined here.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
[Mr. Pitts] who has put forward a great amount of work in supporting 
this resolution and working toward a balanced budget.
  (Mr. PITTS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the resolution urging 
President Clinton to submit a budget that balances by 2002. We are all 
aware that balancing the budget is a top priority with the American 
people.
  The budget submitted by President Clinton was touted as a legitimate 
plan to balance the budget by the year 2002. It does not do that. 
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the independent source 
which the President himself has suggested we use, this effort falls 
short of the balance goal by $69 billion. Not only does the President's 
budget not balance by 2002, it leaves 98 percent of the deficit 
reduction until after he leaves office.
  President Clinton increases the deficit by $24 billion next year over 
what would be if we did nothing, which is considered the baseline. If 
we maintained spending next year at the same level as it is today, we 
will have a budget deficit next year of $121 billion. That is the first 
year. The President would increase that deficit spending by $24 billion 
over that baseline, to $145 billion. That deficit spending increases 
and continues every year until 2002. So we would be better off if we 
did nothing, rather than using the President's plan.
  Also, Mr. Speaker, looking at the President's budget, on page 331 we 
see the amount of the debt over a 5-year period, the debt today being 
$5.4 trillion, in 2002, $6.6 trillion. I would like to submit this for 
the Record. In other words, we increase the debt in this 5-year period 
by $1.2 trillion. Need I say more about needing a balanced budget?
  We have not balanced the budget since 1969. To quote Thomas 
Jefferson, ``There is nothing more important for our children and the 
next generation of Americans than to leave them a Nation that is debt 
free.''
  For the sake of our children and our grandchildren, the out-of-
control spending must come to an end.
  President Clinton said, ``We don't need a balanced budget amendment. 
We need action.''
  Well, we need action. He has given us neither. It is action that we 
are calling for with this resolution, action that does not mean higher 
taxes. This proposal does raise taxes. According to the independent 
Joint Committee on Taxation, the President's budget would increase 
taxes by $23 billion through 2007, hitting middle-income taxpayers 
first. This will directly impact over 100 million workers across the 
country. Another tax hike in the President's budget penalizes American 
companies that create export jobs, changing the tax formula to increase 
the amount of their taxes on income derived from sales abroad.

                              {time}  1500

  That is a real disincentive for companies who rely on trade and 
exports.
  Another harmful tax is the capital gains tax, which is a tax hike on 
10 to 15 million Americans that will occur. They are predominantly 
middle-income families who own mutual funds and stocks, and these tax 
hikes are all permanent, but the tax cuts are temporary. For example, 
the $500 child tax credit is scheduled to disappear when a child 
reaches age 13, just about the time when kids get expensive. That means 
that single moms are left out in the cold after their kids are 13 and 
growing.
  That is irresponsible. To shut down a tax credit when the going gets 
tough on parents like single moms is unwise.
  The President's budget also calls for this tax credit to expire on 
December 31, year 2000, just when he leaves office.
  Mr. Speaker, it is vital that the President resubmit a budget that 
serves as a starting point for discussion. Step one to an agreement is 
the need to use the same numbers. By assuring that both the President 
and the Congress use the same numbers, we begin to travel down the same 
road to a balanced budget, and this resolution would do that.
  Mr. Speaker, we are hearing a lot about ethics today in Washington. I 
would like to ask a question. Is it ethical to spend money that we do 
not have and to stick our kids and grandkids with the bill? Most of us, 
when our parents die, expect maybe to inherit a house or maybe some 
savings, but how would my colleagues feel if their parents went into 
such debt that they had to spend the rest of their life just retiring 
their debt? That is what we are doing to the next generation. The only 
people who lose in this deal are the kids.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge the Members to support this resolution.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
North Carolina [Mrs. Clayton].
  Mrs. CLAYTON. Mr. Speaker, this resolution really trivializes what is 
perhaps the most significant legislative initiative we will undertake 
this session. Our colleagues may disagree with the President's budget, 
but it does indeed balance. Our colleagues may not like how it 
balances, they may think it should balance early, but CBO really said, 
``If you use his assumptions and his trigger, it would balance at the 
year that he indicated it would.'' The budget, however, provides 
guidance for how we spend our resources, who will we spend it on; it 
determines indeed what our resources will be spent on and indeed who is 
important.
  The budget for our Nation is the most important plan that our people 
will have. We will decide whether small family businesses spanning 
generations will be able to survive through relief from unfair estate 
tax, we will decide the kind of assistance we will give to those who 
are aspiring for education, higher education, for Head Start, we decide 
whether American children will get a healthy start or any assistance at 
all. So this is no small matter talking about the budget, but it is a 
small matter what we are doing on this floor.
  Mr. Speaker, right now as we are talking about this budget the 
Committee on the Budget is having a hearing that is on the issue that 
we should all be there. It is no accident they establish a date of 
April 15, tax day, the day that our citizens assume their share of the 
budget of our Nation that we in Congress should have a budget 
resolution. But at the rate we are going we will not meet that goal. 
Why? Because of such activities as we are having today.
  The President's budget has been submitted.
  Now there are some issues I disagree with, but nevertheless I am 
generally pleased by that budget and know that there are issues that I 
disagree with and I will have an opportunity to express. I urge my 
Republican colleagues to use that same effort: Go to the hearings, 
express their view, submit their budget, find a better way to improve 
this budget. If they want to submit a balanced budget, why not put that 
balanced budget on the floor?
  Mr. Speaker, I urge that this resolution should not be voted on, and 
it should not be on the floor in the first place, and certainly we 
should vote against it.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New 
Jersey [Mr. Franks].

[[Page H913]]

  Mr. FRANKS of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, let me begin by observing that 
in my opinion both sides in this discussion are fundamentally committed 
to balancing the budget. Nobody ever said that that goal would be easy 
to attain. If it were easy, I suspect it would have been done long ago. 
But it is now clear that reaching that goal will require not only 
determination, but real leadership if we are to fundamentally change 
Washington spending habits.
  Against that backdrop the budget submitted by the President, in my 
judgment, defers simply too many of the tough decisions. It leaves them 
for someone else to figure out.
  According to the CBO, fully 98 percent of the savings needed to 
balance the budget will not come until the last 2 years. In those years 
that responsibility will fall to a different Congress and indeed a 
different President.
  But let us be honest. Any plan to balance the budget relies on the 
greatest portion of savings to be achieved in the final years. That is 
because when we make changes in the way that Washington spends money we 
do not see instant results. It takes time to accumulate substantial 
savings. But the President's budget simply relies too heavily on back-
loaded savings.
  But there is a different problem, and it is just around the corner. 
For 4 consecutive years the deficit has been going down. That is to the 
President's credit and to ours. But the deficit now we find is at its 
lowest level in 15 years, but next year for a variety of reasons the 
deficit will begin going back up.
  All of us should find that change in direction very troubling, and we 
should seek to limit the increase in next year's deficit to the 
greatest extent possible. But unfortunately that is not what the 
President's budget would do. According to CBO, the deficit next year 
will be $24 billion worse than if his budget had been lost on its way 
up to Capitol Hill. The CBO estimates that if we stayed on our current 
path and did nothing, the deficit next year would be $121 billion. That 
is $24 billion lower than under the President's recommended spending 
plan.
  There is another reality that we simply must face. We cannot expect 
to credibly balance the budget and keep it in balance beyond 2002 
without making some structural changes in entitlement spending. 
Entitlements now account for over 55 percent of all Federal savings, 
and they are going up every year at an astonishing rate. We owe it to 
the American people to make the changes needed to keep entitlement 
spending under control while preserving the essential purposes of those 
programs.
  We are committed to working with the President to end deficit 
spending. This resolution takes us in that direction by asking the 
President to take a second look at his proposal.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  The gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Franks] makes the best case for 
not reducing taxes. The President's budget would continue down if we 
did not reduce taxes.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. 
Davis].
  Mr. DAVIS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, the American people sent us here 
to get the job done, not to play games. As a freshman member of the 
Committee on the Budget, I am eager to get to work on a plan that will 
balance the budget, but here it is the second week of March and we have 
yet to really begin an open and honest discussion as to Federal 
spending and the priorities that we must face as a Congress.
  There are legitimate differences over the merits of a tax cut and how 
to best achieve savings in Medicare and Medicaid spending, but we must 
start to work through these difficulties and begin debating the issues. 
Unfortunately, today the House is debating a resolution which serves no 
useful purpose. At best this resolution is a waste of time; at worst it 
is a diversion from our work in the Committee on the Budget, which 
should be meeting right now.
  We have a legal obligation to submit a budget resolution by April 15. 
We have an obligation to our constituents to work toward a plan which 
will balance the budget. The time for action is now. The responsibility 
is ours as a Congress. We should commit ourselves to reconciling our 
differing visions of how to balance the budget and get to work on an 
honest and open debate on the issues before us.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
Michigan [Mr. Hoekstra].
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Hampshire 
[Mr. Sununu] for yielding me the time. I would just like to take a look 
at what the President is proposing in the area of education.
  We all recognize that much work needs to be done in education. We are 
currently engaged in a process which we call Education at a Crossroads 
which examines what is working and what is wasted in education in 
America today. We are taking a look at the Washington response, which 
is 760 programs going through 39 different agencies, spending about a 
$120 billion per year, and what we believe is that before we put 
another overlay of new programs and spending on this education 
bureaucracy, let us take a look at what is working and what is wasted, 
and, if we have new priorities, let us find some money in the old 
programs that appear not to be working, and let us reestablish 
priorities.
  There is enough money in education. We do not need more money.
  The President is proposing a building program, recognizing that when 
we put Federal dollars into building programs we prohibit the use of 
volunteers on those projects and we have to pay premiums through the 
Davis-Bacon law. And then the President on the other hand wants to 
encourage volunteerism by expanding the Corporation for National 
Service, its involvement in tutoring programs. So on one hand we are 
saying volunteers are bad, on the other hand we are going to say we are 
going to have more volunteers paid $27,000 per year involved in 
teaching our kids to read. It is great that they are teaching our kids 
to read because the Corporation for National Service cannot keep its 
books, and just recently there was another report that said their trust 
fund is now unauditable. These people cannot teach our kids math, so 
maybe they can help on reading.
  What is the President's vision for education? He wants to build our 
schools, put in the technology, develop the correct curriculum, test 
our kids, certify our teachers, teach them about sex, teach them about 
drugs, feed them breakfast, feed them lunch, do midnight basketball, 
and other than that it is your school. He has got a vision of big 
government and more spending, proposing $55 billion of increased 
spending, new spending, $11 billion per year for the next 5 years. That 
means that 2.2 million American families will have to pay $5,000 a year 
for increased spending on education when that money already exists.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Hoekstra] raises the 
question. I say Put your alternative on the table; we would love to see 
it.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California 
[Ms. Woolsey].
  (Ms. WOOLSEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, today's debate sounds like a line from a 
popular song: ``Isn't It Ironic?''
  Is it not ironic that the majority party is demanding the President 
submit a second budget when they have not yet come about to present any 
budget plan? Is it not ironic that the budget process is behind 
schedule for the third year in a row under Republican leadership? Is it 
not ironic that one Member of the majority party's leadership has 
stated it would be inappropriate for Republicans to produce a budget 
while another Member of the same leadership had said they will produce 
a budget resolution in May. Is it not ironic?
  Enough of this budget gridlock, Mr. Speaker. The President has 
submitted a budget; the Republicans have not.
  Today's resolution is nothing more than a diversion. It is simply an 
attempt to distract, an attempt to distract the American people from 
the fact that the majority is not doing its job.

[[Page H914]]

  Do not fall for this trick. Vote no on House Resolution 89.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Minnesota [Mr. Minge].
  Mr. MINGE. Mr. Speaker, earlier this afternoon we had before us the 
proposition of whether we should adopt a rule that controls the debate 
on this matter that is pending. We did adopt a rule, and unfortunately 
that rule denied the minority a chance at asking this body to vote on 
an equitable proposition. That proposition would have challenged both 
the leadership of this Congress and the administration to produce a 
budget that complies with the standards that are set forth and have 
been so frequently addressed here.
  I for one feel that these standards are important, that we should 
have conservative forecasting, that we should have a glidepath to 
deficit reduction or eliminating the deficit, that we should deal with 
the problems of the Medicare system.

                              {time}  1515

  Unfortunately, we are now grappling with just the politics of how 
this is to be presented. It is cosmetics, and that is one of the 
tragedies. We should be insisting, as newer Members of Congress, that 
both the Republican leadership and the Democratic White House meet the 
same standard and do so simultaneously. Both groups should be putting 
their cards on the table and saying, this is what our hand looks like, 
now let us sit down and negotiate the next step.
  We all know those negotiations have to take place. The longer we 
delay those negotiations, the greater the risk that we will again 
experience the tragic shutdown of the Federal Government that occurred 
in 1995.
  It is my fervent wish that we put to one side this type of a dilatory 
tactic and say: time to get on with the task; time, as Republican 
leaders to present a budget; time for the White House to present a 
budget that complies with the standards that we all know ought to be 
the standards that govern budgeting in this institution.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Delaware [Mr. Castle].
  Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from New 
Hampshire for yielding and congratulate him on his work in this area.
  I do rise in support of the resolution, but I really take the floor 
not so much because of this resolution, which I do not consider to be 
either dilatory or a waste of time, because it is getting its focus on 
what I think we should be talking about here in the U.S. Congress 
today, and that is balancing the budget of our country. I think it is 
absolutely vital.
  Let us not forget that people such as Mr. Greenspan has said that we 
will reduce interest rates by 2 percent if we can balance the budget. 
We are all talking about balancing the budget, and I think we should go 
with doing it. I think this is a good exercise to put some of these 
issues on the floor.
  I am not critical of the White House. As a matter of fact, I had a 
very good meeting this morning with Mr. Franklin Raines, the budget 
director, and Mr. Gene Sperling of the White House, and about a dozen 
of us to talk about the budget issues, the numbers. I think they showed 
some flexibility in terms of revisiting, relooking at some of the 
numbers which are here.
  However, I do become concerned when we do not move forward, and I do 
become concerned with some of the numbers that we are dealing with with 
respect to this particular budget. I think, first and foremost, it 
really has not recognized the parameters of using the Congressional 
Budget Office estimates and assumptions, and I think we should get to 
that point so we can at least argue from the same set of numbers. I 
realize there will still be some differences, but we did promise to do 
that.
  I think without the same economic baseline and numbers used for 
comparison purposes, it is too difficult to decide which is more and 
which is less. It simply allows no political accountability under the 
President's assumptions as we have now.
  I do congratulate, by the way, the Blue Dog Coalition budget makers. 
I think they did an extremely good job of recognizing the issues before 
us that are making the kind of hard decisions that I think each of the 
435 of us should make and the President and his advisors should make 
with respect to balancing the budget.
  I might point out that it is not only the Republicans that called on 
the President to issue a balanced budget, but the nonpartisan Concord 
Coalition as well, that concurs with the Congressional Budget Office 
that his budget postpones most spending cuts until after the year 2000 
and after he actually leaves the White House.
  So we have some serious problems with the delays, and I think we need 
to address these and deal with it, and I hope we can keep moving 
forward.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from California [Mr. Sherman].
  (Mr. SHERMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, we are called here in this Chamber today 
not to do the people's business but to engage in what I think is 
dilatory tactics. We are called upon to spend a day in this Chamber not 
making laws, but engaged in a ritualistic attack on President Clinton 
and his fiscal record. So I figured we ought to take a minute just to 
look at the President's fiscal record.
  This chart here shows where we were headed in terms of a deficit 
before President Clinton took office. We see this line exceeding $100 
trillion. Now, I have only served in Congress for a short time. I 
remember when $1 billion was a lot of money. And we used to explain it 
as a line of $100 bills going from Washington all the way across the 
country or a stack of $1 bills all the way to the Moon. We were headed 
for a $100 trillion deficit. That is a stack of $100 bills going all 
the way to whatever planet Yoda lives on.
  Instead, we have fiscal responsibility in the White House, and we 
have been able to bring long-term prospects represented by that lower 
line to a position where a balanced budget, a long-term and permanent 
balanced budget, is within reach.
  Now, the laws says that we are supposed to have a budget resolution 
just 10 legislative days from today. Instead of passing resolutions, we 
should start by writing a budget in the Committee on the Budget. And I 
felt, why have the Republican majority not put forward a budget? And I 
thought maybe it was in absence of pen and paper and a chance to sit 
down and actually write some numbers down. So I brought this here.
  Mr. Speaker, as we can see, it sets forth everything we have been 
told about the majority's budget. It comes equipped with a pen, and I 
would hope that in the spirit of Hershey, PA, some of my colleagues 
from the other side of the aisle would come down here and give us some 
numbers, because a journey toward a trillion-dollar budget starts with 
the first digit.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Maine [Mr. Allen].
  (Mr. ALLEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, last weekend half of the Members in this 
House participated in a bipartisan congressional retreat to help 
restore civility in our debate. The American people want us to do the 
people's work and to do so in a bipartisan fashion.
  Today's resolution requesting the President to submit a second 
balanced budget is partisan and counterproductive. The President 
submitted a balanced budget in February. While we may honestly disagree 
about the President's budget priorities, the Constitution gives this 
Congress the power of the purse. Section 301(a) of the Congressional 
Budget Act requires this Congress to complete action on the budget 
resolution on or before April 15, 1997. That date is less than 5 weeks 
away. To request a second balanced budget from the President is simply 
irresponsible. He has done his job.
  The Committee on the Budget must not duck the tough choices necessary 
to balance the Federal budget, but that is what is going on today. Let 
us do our job. Let us vote against this resolution and urge the 
Committee on the Budget to submit a budget resolution to this Congress 
by April 15.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
New York [Ms. Velazquez].
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, this resolution is a waste of time. Why 
do

[[Page H915]]

my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to stall the budget 
process? I thought that the clock was ticking for us to enact a 
balanced budget, which I support. In the rush to pass a fiscal year 
1998 budget, the Republicans are setting up another scenario for last-
minute legislation. In that rush, the most vulnerable populations will 
be targeted again for the highest spending cuts and the lowest 
assistance. It is remarkable how far the Republicans will single out 
poor families.
  The deadline grows near for our national budget to be balanced. Note 
that my Republican colleagues have not submitted a budget proposal. 
They must not be serious about negotiating a balanced budget agreement. 
What is their strategy now? To shut down the Federal Government again? 
Remember, it did not work before; it will not work again.
  I ask my colleagues to consider the human face on this debate. 
Consider Miguel Pena from Brooklyn, a 72-year-old Dominican legal 
immigrant with mental illness who will lose his SSI disability benefits 
within months because he is not a citizen. He, like hundreds of 
thousands of other legal immigrants, has no other source of income.
  Consider the 30 percent of the 30,000 Hasidic children in 
Williamsburg who will lose their Federal assistance. Consider Maria 
Rodriguez, 27 years old, a legal secretary with two children and no 
subsidized daycare options. Hardworking people have to make painful 
decisions on a daily basis about keeping a roof over their heads or 
putting food on their table. We should not be spending precious time on 
political posturing at the expense of America's future.
  The families I represent in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens carefully 
manage their limited incomes to make ends meet. They cannot postpone 
their budget; neither should we. Let us get on with the people's 
business.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Maine [Mr. Baldacci].
  (Mr. BALDACCI asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. BALDACCI. Mr. Speaker, today we are considering a resolution 
which demands that the President submit yet another balanced budget 
plan. Apparently the first one was not to the House leadership's 
liking. Such an ironic twist and somewhat bold in light of the fact 
that the House leadership has failed to submit a balanced budget plan 
of their own, one that meets the criteria that they have set forth that 
they have asked the President to meet. To date we have the President's 
balanced budget plan, we have the coalition's balanced budget plan, and 
I have yet to see a plan from the Republican leadership.
  Now, reasonable people can disagree over what should or should not be 
in the plan to balance the but. The President's plan is very strong on 
education and children's health care, and some may disagree about that. 
But the President made a good-faith effort to meet the demands of the 
House leadership, only to be told that he must submit a second budget 
before they even submit the first one.
  The President has submitted a detailed balanced budget plan that 
includes the economic and accounting analysis, information on Federal 
receipts and collections and detailed priorities. It is a good-size 
document weighing more than a few pounds with a little over 1,200 pages 
of great detail.
  I urge my colleagues who dislike the President's budget plan to meet 
him halfway and submit a plan of their own. The President cannot 
negotiate with himself and should not be asked to submit a new plan 
until those who disagree with him have an approach all their own.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Kansas [Mr. Snowbarger].
  (Mr. SNOWBARGER asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. SNOWBARGER. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about one particular 
aspect of the budget that is before us and the subject of the comments 
today, and that is the issue of tax relief. The fact of the matter is 
that over the next 10 years this budget proposes a tax increase of over 
$23 billion.
  Mr. Speaker, if a budget is going to promise tax relief, it should be 
permanent tax relief. It is better to have no tax relief than phony tax 
relief. The child care tax credit for children under 13 is only $300 
for the first 3 years. Then it supposedly increases to $500. But the 
budget also proposes that all the tax reductions will automatically be 
repealed in the year 2000 if the rosy scenario and the imaginative 
arithmetic conflict with reality, as CBO has said it will, and it turns 
out the budget then will not be balanced.
  A tax credit for children should not be scheduled to expire in a few 
years. Neither should a tax credit for children disappear when the 
child turns 13, just when children become the most expensive. You know, 
when they eat everything in sight and go through two or complete 
wardrobes a year. Under the administration's plan, a family will get 
relief only if its children were born between 1985 and 1999.
  While promising tax relief with one hand and taking it away with the 
other, the budget also belies the President's assertion that the age of 
big Government is over. The President claims to have reduced the 
Federal civilian work force by 299,600 employees from 1993 through 
1998. This is misleading on several counts, including the following: 
two-thirds of these reductions are from the Department of Defense. 
These personnel reductions actually come from the Defense downsizing of 
the Bush administration, which occurred because the United States and 
its allies won the cold war under the leadership of the Reagan-Bush 
administrations. The new budget claims to reduce 26,600 additional 
employees by the end of fiscal year 1998. But the President fails to 
emphasize the fact that he is actually cutting 27,800 workers from the 
Department of Defense, when the non-DOD Government labor force will 
actually increase by 1,200.
  The administration's budget also uses creative accounting to hide 
increased spending. The President's budget actually makes substantial 
increases in discretionary spending. Compared to 1997 levels the budget 
increases discretionary spending by $100 billion over next 5 years.
  I served in the Kansas State Legislature for 12 years. During that 
time I worked with Republican and Democratic Governors, and reached 
principled compromises. I want the Congress and the President to reach 
an agreement on a budget that is balanced, and that will stay balanced. 
But it has to be an honest agreement, with honest numbers. The only way 
to accomplish that is for the President to submit a budget that is 
truly balanced. Then we can engage in the true give-and-take of the 
legislative process.
  The difference between the President's current budget and what needs 
to be done on this issue is the difference between saying we're going 
to balance the budget and actually balancing it. To pretend we are 
balancing the budget when we're not dishonors us, betrays our 
constituents, and endangers programs like Social Security, which the 
President insists he wants to protect. In the long run, the promises of 
a bankrupt Federal Government are worthless. The best thing we can do 
to ensure that Social Security is here tomorrow is to start balancing 
the budget today.
  For these reasons the House must pass this resolution calling on the 
President to prepare another budget, one that really balances.

                              {time}  1530

  A tax credit for children should not be scheduled to expire in a few 
years. Neither should a tax credit for children disappear when a child 
turns 13, just when the child becomes most expensive: when they eat 
everything in sight and go through two or more wardrobes a year.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
North Carolina [Mr. Price].
  (Mr. PRICE of North Carolina asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. speaker, one of my first experiences 
in this body in 1987 came when we were voting on the floor on four 
competing budget resolutions, including one offered by the majority 
party, as is always done, at least until this year.
  I remember at the end of the day it struck me that 140 Members of 
this body had voted ``no'' on all four resolutions, in the spirit of a 
comment made by the then-minority whip, Mr. Lott, who said, ``You do 
not ever get into trouble for those budgets which you vote against.''
  I am sure Members in this body also remember 1993, when we passed a 
5-year budget plan that has since reduced the deficit by $700 billion. 
Yet we barely passed that plan, by only one vote in both Houses.
  It is easiest to vote ``no,'' and it is hard to produce a budget, but 
it is our

[[Page H916]]

obligation to produce a budget. Particularly, it is the obligation of 
the majority party to deliver what every majority party has delivered 
in the past: A budget proposal which then serves as a blueprint for 
subsequent congressional action.
  The majority apparently does not want to put its fingerprints on any 
budgetary unpleasantness, so they are trying to shift the blame onto 
the President. But the President has already produced a budget. No one 
is claiming that it is perfect, but our Republican friends are 
exaggerating the difference between CBO and OMB projections as a 
diversionary tactic, trying to divert attention from their own failure 
to do the tough work of writing and passing a budget resolution. If 
they do not like the President's budget they can produce a different 
budget, but it is the Republican majority's turn to put its own budget 
on the table so we can move forward to confront the country's 
challenges.
  Surely we do not want to repeat the scenario of deadlock and 
Government shutdown. Time is almost up. The statutory deadline is April 
15. Only 9 legislative days remain to pass a budget resolution. The 
majority party is way overdue in putting their own budget on the table, 
a budget proposal which we could be debating today rather than this 
irrelevant and diversionary resolution.
  Let us get the budget process back on track. Defeat this resolution 
and bring a budget resolution to the floor, as the majority party has 
always done and is still obligated to do.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Maryland [Mr. Ehrlich], a distinguished member of the Committee on the 
Budget.
  Mr. EHRLICH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to 
me, and congratulate him for his important work on this issue.
  Mr. Speaker, this is about principle. We have talked about what the 
President has said, and the President's words are important. The 
President has said, and we have repeatedly relied on these statements, 
because words should have meanings, Mr. Speaker; the President said, I 
have made it clear we will work with Congress, the Congressional Budget 
Office, and we are going to do this. We are going to do the right 
thing.
  We are taking the President at his word. We are taking the President 
at his word that he means to make the difficult decision and that he 
means to be a leader and not a politician.
  Politics have ruled this debate for too long on both sides of the 
aisle. I have heard about Hershey and the spirit of bipartisanship, and 
we need to treat each other civil. We should not have to be reminded 
about that. We are adult politicians. But the fact is that we have very 
legitimate policy differences, and they are subjective differences.
  What is objective, Mr. Speaker, is that the President has said he 
will abide by CBO. CBO has said his budget is not in balance. We expect 
the President to give us a balanced budget. We want the President to 
give us a balanced budget. The American people deserve a balanced 
budget.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro].
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the majority leader announced 
that the Congress will not consider a budget resolution until May, 3 
months after the President submitted to this House a balanced budget 
plan. Yet today my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to 
vote on a resolution to force the President to submit another balanced 
budget. They continue to criticize the President's plan, despite a 
letter from the director of the Congressional Budget Office asserting 
that the President's plan is truly a balanced budget.
  Where may I ask is a Republican plan to balance the budget? My 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle are too busy with partisan 
attacks to focus on actually submitting a budget proposal of their own.
  It is time for House Republicans to stop holding press conferences 
and to start crunching numbers. The only bill today reflecting the 
Republican budget priorities is a proposal by the majority leader of 
the Senate, and it is a tax bill. This legislation, according to 
Citizens for Tax Justice, would mostly benefit the wealthiest 5 percent 
of Americans.
  It sounds to me like the Republicans are up to their old tricks: 
Balancing the budget on the backs of working American families while 
cutting taxes for the rich. The American people deserve to see how the 
Republicans plan to pay for these large tax cuts. Let us work together 
on the issues that matter to the American people.
  We cannot afford to have another Government shutdown because the 
Republicans are too busy attacking the President to work on a balanced 
budget. It is time for us to work together on the issues that matter to 
the American people.
  We have seen the Democratic proposal to balance the budget. The 
American people deserve to see the Republican budget proposal.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to note that this 
resolution is precisely about working together. This resolution is 
about working to get a platform from the President from which we can 
conduct bipartisan budget negotiations.
  If we truly want to move in that direction, we need a substantive 
balanced budget, one that does not include triggers, one that does not 
include a $69 billion deficit in the year 2002, one that does not 
increase the deficit $24 billion in 1998. That is all we seek. We lay 
out criteria that will give us this platform, and we apply the exact 
same standards to this House that we ask the President to abide by.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. 
Parker].
  Mr. PARKER. Mr. Speaker, the matter before us today is viewed by many 
as a useless exercise in political finger-pointing. That is precisely 
the way it was defined in the Committee on Rules yesterday.
  Perhaps we are being a bit too subtle. This is not an attack on the 
President or on his budget. House Resolution 89 is simply a message to 
the White House. It is an appeal to the President to recognize the 
historical opportunity available to him to actively participate in a 
bipartisan effort to finally craft a balanced Federal budget.
  There is a genuine desire on the part of the Republican Members of 
this House to work with the President in such an effort. We anxiously 
awaited submission of his budget last month in order to let him 
establish the starting point in this process. My feeling is that he 
passed on that opportunity. Instead, he sent us a political document. I 
think perhaps it is the best political document that I have seen in my 
tenure here in the House.
  Still, many of us remain prepared to work with the President and our 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle. That is what this resolution 
is all about. We need to debate policies, programs, and spending cuts. 
Instead, we are debating, once again, whose economic assumptions, 
either the OMB or CBO, should be the basis for more substantive debate.
  The fact is, the House will use CBO assumptions. The matter is no 
longer subject to debate. The Committee on the Budget will present a 
balanced budget, a proposal scored by CBO, in the near future. This 
process could be eased somewhat if the President worked from the same 
assumptions. In the past he said that he would, but as his budget 
proposal demonstrates, he will not.
  This exercise today is simply one last appeal to him to join us, 
rather than confronting us. It is my belief that we will work with him.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Fattah].
  Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Speaker, what we have is seemingly a disagreement 
between two groups of economists about what might happen some 5 years 
out in terms of the largest economy in the world, a slight difference 
of opinion about that between the President's economists and the CBO. 
But we should not waste our time here today with this resolution. This 
has no import or impact on the President of the United States in terms 
of any legal meaning.
  The result of the passage of this resolution is just that the House 
will have taken up the time of the House, rather than working on 
producing a budget that could be scored by CBO and that could take into 
account the President's

[[Page H917]]

priorities which, by the way, are the Americans' priorities, as 
illustrated in the last election. The public wants more investment in 
education and environmental protection. These are issues we should be 
debating, we should be working toward. This political one-upsmanship 
between the House and the White House does not make a lot of sense.
  We have a role here in the Congress to play. We are one of two 
Houses, and along with the White House, and we have to do the most 
important thing we do every year, which is to pass a budget. I would 
ask that my colleagues vote ``no'' on the resolution, and then urge 
ourselves to get to work, not through the words we speak on the floor, 
but in the hard work of designing a budget to take this Nation into the 
next century.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Connecticut [Mr. Shays].
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to 
me.
  Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to this debate from the beginning. 
One of the things I am very impressed with is the demeanor on both 
sides of the aisle. I am particularly impressed with the contributions 
of the freshmen Members from both sides of the aisle, and my colleague 
who introduced this resolution, the gentleman from New Hampshire [Mr. 
Sununu]. We are talking about ideas, we are talking about policies, and 
we are talking about the direction this country should head.
  This congressional majority has three major objectives. We want to 
balance the Federal budget and get our financial house in order; we 
want to save our trust funds for not only future generations but for 
present generations, because Medicare in particular is running out of 
money; and third, we want to transform this caretaking society into a 
caring society. We want to transform this caretaking social and 
corporate and agricultural welfare state into a caring opportunity 
society.
  In the process of doing all three of those things, we want to move 
the power and the money and the influence back home and away from 
Washington. That is our objective. That is what we will seek to do. 
That is what we will do with our budget when we present our budget, 
which we will do, and which we are required to do.
  The President deserves a tremendous amount of credit for deficit 
reduction since he has been present. The first 2 years he achieved 
deficit reduction with a Democrat majority by tax increases. The last 2 
years of his 4 years as President he reduced the deficit, with the help 
of this new Republican majority, by spending cuts. It is clear that we 
are going to continue to go on a downward path by spending reductions, 
not tax increases.
  What is alarming, however, is the President still insists on not 
using the same budget numbers that we are required to use, the 
Congressional Budget Office. This resolution soundly requires that we 
use the same set of numbers so we do not have a Government shutdown. It 
argues that we not have automatic spending cuts so we do not have a 
Government shutdown. It argues as well that major savings take place in 
the first 3 years, not the fourth and fifth year, so we do not have a 
Government shutdown.
  Why is it important? Because we are in Congress for the next 2 years. 
And why is that significant? Under the President's budget, scored by 
CBO, they say the deficit goes up $24 billion. This year it would go up 
an additional $1 billion from his plan, and next year it would go up an 
additional $24 billion, to a $145 billion deficit.
  For 4 years the President and Congress have succeeded in going down, 
and under his plan it is now going up. It goes up the next year and the 
year after that, and only slightly goes down the third year, and then 
the fourth and fifth year, when we are not in Congress, when he in fact 
is not President, in the fifth year we do most of the deficit 
reduction.
  Mr. Speaker, I have a big problem with the argument on the other side 
that it is balanced in the fifth year. It is balanced in the fifth 
year. It is like the person who says I am going to lose 50 pounds in 
the next 5 years, and seeks to gain pounds in the first 2 years, and 
then in the fifth year basically says, I am going to lose 49 pounds out 
of my 50.

                              {time}  1545

  Technically, it is balanced, but it is just a fraud. We know the next 
White House cannot do that, and we know that the Congress, from the 
next one and the one beyond, will not do that. We have got to make 
constructive reductions each and every year.
  This resolution requires that we work together in both the White 
House and Congress and in using the same budget numbers so we can 
compare apples to apples, so we do not have automatic spending cuts. It 
requires Congress to do that as well and that we make substantive 
savings in the first 3 years of the 5-year plan, not in the fifth year. 
So for that, Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to be associated with this 
effort.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Connecticut heard Mr. 
Rubin yesterday say that if the----


                             Point of Order

  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I have a point of order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Foley). The gentleman will state his 
point of order.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I mean this graciously, but if the gentleman 
would yield time instead of just speaking without yielding himself 
time, I think it would be fair for both sides.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman recognizes it is 
taken off my time by the timekeeper.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Washington [Mr. McDermott].
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume. The gentleman from Connecticut knows that, if we took the tax 
increase out of the President's budget, we would have balance now. The 
question is, where is the gentleman's budget? The gentleman says 
everything is wrong with the President's budget, but he will not put 
anything on the table.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California 
[Ms. Sanchez].
  Ms. SANCHEZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to House Resolution 
89. This resolution unnecessarily singles out the President by telling 
him to submit a second budget while ignoring the fact that the 
Republican leadership has yet to present a budget of its own.
  We are fast approaching the statutory deadline by which we must adopt 
a budget resolution. Now, I have seen plenty of budgets around here: 
the President's, the blue dog budget, the progressive budget and 
several others; I might add, all of which were put forward by the 
Democrats. Some of them I like some pieces. Some I do not agree with. 
I, for one, believe we can balance the budget before the year 2002. But 
the problem is, without having a budget from the Republican leadership, 
we have nothing to talk about and no debate to go on.
  Today's vote is really a waste of time, and it is so sad that we show 
up here every day, doing the work of the people and have nothing to 
show for it in the end.
  It is time that we get beyond this. It is time that we get to work. I 
ask the other side to please put forward their budget, and I ask my 
colleagues to stand strong and work together to bring forward a budget 
that the American people can live with for the next year.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Texas [Mr. Stenholm].
  (Mr. STENHOLM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, it is difficult not to be discouraged by 
this debate today. Why in the world are we wasting time debating a 
meaningless one-sided resolution which has little or no value other 
than seeking political points?
  I must clarify several points. First, those of us who were gagged by 
the closed rule today are not interested in letting the President off 
of the hook. We wanted to include every single requirement on the 
President, even though he had already met his legal responsibilities 
that the majority created. We simply wanted to demand the same sort of 
responsible behavior from the Congress. We were denied an opportunity 
to debate our amendment.
  Second, the last-minute provision added by this resolution's sponsors 
does not set the same requirement on

[[Page H918]]

Congress. It does not set a deadline for action. It does not 
acknowledge Congress's constitutional and statutory responsibilities. 
It does not reference, in an equal manner to the President's budget, 
the shortcomings or the outright absence of the Republican budget 
efforts. It is a false statement to make on the House floor that the 
resolution creates the exact same standard for Congress as it does for 
the President.
  Americans are tired of us making unfulfilled promises about balancing 
our budget and trying to place the blame on the other side. The public 
wants us to roll up our sleeves and just do it. The current standoff in 
which both the congressional leadership and the President refuse to 
move until the other side goes first simply increases the public 
cynicism about us all.
  That is why the blue dogs have stepped up to the plate with a 
balanced budget plan that we believe represents a credible fair 
approach to balancing the budget. We have already received a good deal 
of editorial praise for our approach. We have the support of the most 
credible fiscal group out there, the Concord Coalition, received warm 
reception on the Senate Budget Committee the other day. Frankly, I 
appreciate the praise, but we would like to have some support.
  That is what we are looking for now. I appreciate the fact that we 
are beginning to sense that on both sides of the aisle.
  The chart that I have up here, the blue line shows the blue dog 
budget. It brings the deficit down. The other line, the red line, is 
the criticism that we join in on the President's budget because it does 
increase the deficit. But the yellow line is the baseline with the 
Senate recommended tax cuts, which we have to assume. And I know this 
is a relatively cheap shot and I am not taking it as a cheap shot. I am 
just pointing out that, until we have a budget resolution, that is all 
we have to go by.
  I share the disappointment, as I mentioned, the shortcomings of the 
President's budget. And I know that my good friend, the gentleman from 
Ohio [Mr. Kasich], the chairman, is soon to be on the floor with a 
budget. And I know that, once we get through this little exercise 
today, we are not doing irreparable harm, but it has been a great 
disappointment that we are even here debating this today. It is not 
helpful in finding a solution when we have a one-sided finger-pointing 
operation.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, may I have a quantification of the time left 
for each side?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New Hampshire [Mr. 
Sununu] has 10\1/4\ minutes remaining, and the gentleman from 
Washington [Mr. McDermott] has 11 minutes remaining.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the previous speaker 
for his generous qualification of his rhetoric as a relatively cheap 
shot, and I want to further commend him in all seriousness for the 
quality of the budget that the coalition has put forward.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state it.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire on a parliamentary basis, 
is this being credited against the gentleman's time?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Yes, it is, indeed; as was that of the 
gentleman from Washington, the Chair might state for the record.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, the coalition budget, as I have mentioned in 
remarks before, has met the four criteria placed out in this 
resolution, and this resolution further asks that Congress consider a 
budget that meets these criteria and that the President submit a budget 
that meets these criteria. It is in the essence of fairness and 
bipartisanship that we put this resolution forward.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Radanovich].
  Mr. RADANOVICH. Mr. Speaker, in hearing the debate today, I wanted to 
announce myself as being one of those freshmen of the class of 1994 who 
during the course of the 104th Congress had the unfortunate, felt the 
unfortunate necessity of voting to shut down the government. A little 
bit earlier in the debate it was mentioned that the reason that we 
voted to shut down the Government was because of the fact that we did 
not get the budget that we wanted. I wanted to come down and clarify 
the record that the reason that we unfortunately had to go through a 
Government shutdown 2 years ago is that we felt that rhetoric was not 
being matched with deed as far as the seriousness of putting forward 
straight proposals to balance the budget.
  The budget process, many of us believe, is an opportunity to 
accomplish four things for this country, for America. The budget 
process could end with better health for Americans. It could end with 
better protection for every senior citizen in this country, better 
environmental protection and better education. A budget that serves as 
a blueprint toward these things would work. Unfortunately we have to 
get serious about our budget. This one is not serious.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
New York [Mr. Engel].
  Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, what is happening today is a classic saying 
of an old adage, the Republicans are doing that, it is, do as I say and 
not as I do. They are criticizing the President for purportedly not 
submitting a balanced budget when in fact they have not submitted a 
balanced budget. They have not submitted any budget at all.
  So how can they be critical of the President's budget when they have 
not even put forward their plan? We saw the Republican plan last 
Congress in the 104th Congress when they put forth their balanced 
budget, which gave huge tax breaks for the rich at the expense of 
cutting Medicare and cutting Medicaid and giving us the largest 
education cuts in the history of the United States and gutting the 
environment and hurting working men and women in this country. That was 
their proposal for a balanced budget in the 104th Congress. They were 
burned by it. The voters saw what it was, and the voters answered it. 
And a lot of them were burned by it.
  So being afraid to be burned again, they are just sitting tight on 
their hands, not submitting a budget, and pointing fingers at the 
President. It would seem to me that it is absolutely preposterous to 
point a finger at the President when at least he submitted a budget. 
You may disagree with his budget. You may not like his budget. You may 
say it is not balanced, and that is in question. Some say it is; some 
say it is not. But how do you point a finger and criticize when you 
have not even put forward one of your own?
  The fact of the matter is, under this President the deficit has gone 
down 3 years in a row. That has not happened since Truman's 
administration. It has gone down. It needs to come down further. We 
need to have a balanced budget. No one is disputing that. But it would 
seem to me in a deliberative body like this, when we have to make 
decisions, we need to have a budget. We need to have the Republican 
budget.
  And so we have the President's budget and the Republican budget and 
then we can compromise somewhere in the middle. But when you have not 
even played the game and you will not play the game, how do you point a 
finger at anybody else? This is preposterous and this resolution ought 
to be defeated.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Pitts].
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, we have heard the argument that we are 
wasting our time. Nothing could be more important than relentlessly 
pressing for a budget that truly balances by the year 2002.
  On a bipartisan basis, the President's plan has left many Members 
very disappointed. We just heard a representative of the blue dogs 
recognize that Clinton's plan does not balance. The concern is not just 
coming from Republicans. Members of the press have expressed 
dissatisfaction. Even Members on the other side in the Committee on the 
Budget have expressed concern about backloading tough decisions.
  We do not want to punish President Clinton for a disappointing first 
attempt. We just want him to try again and use the same numbers that 
Congress has to use, CBO numbers. Unless we use the same numbers, we 
are never going to reach agreement. I urge Members to pass the 
resolution.

[[Page H919]]

  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Neal].
  Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, before I begin I would just 
like to make a brief comment about the gentleman from California's 
suggestion just a few moments ago that he was guided by principle when 
it came to shutting down the Government. The most telling quote about 
the Government shutdown came from that sage of wisdom in the Republican 
leadership on the Senate side when he looked at the House at that grim 
moment and said, ``It is time for adult leadership over in the House.'' 
For anybody to suggest that the Government shutdown ought to be used as 
an example for not getting the budget resolution out on time fails 
under any sort of scrutiny.
  As of last night in this institution, we had cast about 38 rollcall 
votes. We have been in session since the beginning of January and we 
have had few legislative days. Now I know we all would say that that is 
a welcome contrast to what we had done 2 years ago. But who even in 
this institution today speaks of the Contract With America? Who even 
remembers the term the ``Contract With America''?
  What I think is more telling is that there must indeed be a middle 
ground between what we did 2 years ago and what we are doing so far in 
the 105th Congress.
  It strikes me as being odd that while we have had, since January 3 or 
January 4, an opportunity to proceed with a budget resolution, that we 
have accomplished so little.
  I used to do a lot of contract negotiations. I can tell you that in 
successful contract negotiations, both sides offer up opening 
positions. To have meaningful, substantive accomplishment at the end of 
the day, we simply go back and forth until we reach a resolution that 
all might not love, but all can learn to live with. Have we seen any 
evidence of that from the other side? The flat response is, absolutely 
not. We should have seen some guidelines for spending. We have seen 
none on this occasion.

                              {time}  1600

  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to note that this 
resolution is not about Government shutdowns. In fact, the three 
principal sponsors of this resolution are the three new members of the 
Republican Committee on the Budget. We were not here 2 years ago.
  Our interest is not in moving to the past, it is to move forward and 
it is to move forward in cooperation with this President.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas 
[Ms. Granger].
  Ms. GRANGER. Mr. Speaker, wasting time pointing fingers is not what 
we are about here. This resolution is about working together in a 
bipartisan way to balance the budget. That is why our resolution 
invites our President to take the lead and for this Congress to follow 
the President's leadership.
  As a freshman, I was sent by my district to work in a bipartisan way 
to solve our problems. They believed and I believe also that we can 
solve the problem of the deficit if we work together. This resolution 
makes this possible by asking the President and the Congress to use the 
same numbers.
  I spoke about our responsibility to children, the children of this 
Nation. I have spoken to the young people who have sat in this Chamber 
listening to this debate. We must work in a bipartisan way to leave 
them a nation that does not spend their future.
  I say no to partisanship rancor and debate over numbers, but I do say 
yes to bipartisanship and a balanced budget.
  Mr. Speaker, I support this resolution and hope we have support in 
this Chamber.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New 
Jersey [Mr. Pascrell].
  Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Speaker, working families from the Eighth 
Congressional District in the State of New Jersey elected me to solve 
problems, to work together across the aisle and, specifically, to bring 
closure on issues such as campaign finance reform, environmental 
sensibility, and balancing the budget.
  Mr. Speaker, it is ironic that the majority is bringing a resolution 
to the floor to demand that the President submit a second budget when 
the majority has yet to present their first budget. Where is the 
Republican budget?
  Section 301(a), the Congressional Budget Act, requires that the 
Congress complete action on the budget resolution on or before April 
15. Since the majority became the majority party in the House, the 
conference agreement on the budget resolution has not cleared both 
houses until June, 2 months after the deadline.
  Over the last 10 years, the House Committee on the Budget marked up 
the budget resolution well in advance of the April 15 deadline. Six out 
of the eight times it was controlled by the Democrats. In 1992, the 
Committee on the Budget markup was on February 27. In 1993 the markup 
was on March 10, and March 3 in 1994.
  This budget resolution is behind schedule for the third year in a row 
under Republican leadership. And there is a simple reason why 
Republicans have not released the budget. They want $200 billion in net 
tax cuts, but they have not figured out how to balance the budget and 
enact huge tax cuts without imposing deep cuts in programs such as 
Medicare, Medicaid, and education.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee].
  (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member 
very much for allowing me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I think we are confused here this afternoon. We are 
confused because even in the Washington Times it clearly says that for 
most of the Nation's history, Congress simply did the budgeting.
  This resolution shows that we are overly confused. The President has 
done what he needed to do, and that is to offer us an advisory budget. 
The Congressional Budget Office indicated that the estimate of the 
effect on the deficit of the President's alternative budgetary policy 
shows a zero deficit for fiscal year 2002. What more do we want?
  Actually, what we are saying is that the President has offered a 
balanced budget; but while we need to move forward and discuss Medicare 
and Medicaid, affordable housing in the 18th Congressional District, 
the need to preserve education and higher education for our youth 
around the Nation, and, yes, in my district, NASA and the space 
station, and ISTEA 69 and the provisions for transportation, we are 
here debating whether the President has offered a budget.
  If we ask the American public, they recognize that not only has the 
President offered a budget, but he has his philosophy. He agrees we 
should enforce and be concerned about children's health care, he 
believes we should be the education Congress and the education Nation, 
he believes that Americans should have affordable housing.
  The real issue is that we will be jeopardizing our business if we, in 
this Congress and the Republican leadership, do not insist upon putting 
forth a budget that does not have the drastic tax cuts that will have a 
negative effect on bringing down the deficit.
  The failed balanced budget amendment took up most of the time when we 
here can actually balance the budget. I voted for a balanced budget, 
and I believe we can do it, considering the responsibilities to 
education, to senior citizens, to affordable housing, to 
transportation, to the space station, to science. We can balance the 
budget. The real question becomes: Do we know our job to handle the 
pursestrings for America and to do it right?
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to the absurdity of this motion. 
The Constitution gives Congress authority over the Nation's purse 
strings. This authority bring with it responsibility. And it is a 
responsibility that the Republicans seems eager to dodge.
  The President is required by law to submit his budget proposals to 
Congress. He has done so. The President's budget proposal is not law, 
it is precisely that, a proposal. It is nothing more than his request 
or recommendation to Congress. Once he has made these recommendations, 
it is the responsibility of the Members of this Congress to review the 
budget and to pass a concurrent resolution on the budget by April 15.
  I believe the President's budget, deserves our serious consideration. 
In it he provides $100 million for a new access to jobs and training 
initiative; $10 million to expand HUD's

[[Page H920]]

Bridges-to-Work project, which links low-income people in central 
cities to job opportunities in surrounding suburbs; provides an 
increase of funding by more than 50 percent for basic skill, high 
school equivalency, and English classes for disadvantaged adults; and 
expand the Community Development Financial Institutions fund, thereby 
expanding the availability of credit, investment capital, financial 
services, and other development services in distressed urban and rural 
communities.
  But whether you support every item of the President's budget 
proposal, or even support the budget as a whole, is irrelevant. The 
point is that we need to move forward. It is our responsibility to move 
forward. If there are problems with the budget, we can hammer them out 
here.
  The Republicans have yet to show us an alternative to the budget 
proposal that is now on the table. Obviously, they have discovered that 
it is awfully easy to sit back and criticize and poke holes. It is 
considerably more difficult to actually put together a responsible 
constructive proposal.
  Let's stop this posturing, vote against this motion, and move forward 
with the people's business.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to 
close in the same manner that I started.
  This resolution before us today accomplishes very little. We will 
have a vote in just a little while. The House will declare itself, 
probably in favor of asking the President to send up another budget, 
and little will be noted after that.
  I understand the other body has no intention to follow up and, in any 
event, this is designated House Resolution 89. It is not binding on 
anybody, barely binding on us. What we need to do is take the 
resolution, the earnestness that we have seen here on the floor today, 
and put it to work getting a budget resolution produced by the 
Committee on the Budget and on the floor of this House according to 
regular order, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
  Mr. Speaker, I will offer at the close of debate a motion to recommit 
which will go just to that objective, getting on with the business at 
hand, getting the budget resolution passed in the House, sending it to 
the Senate so that we can complete our work on time this year.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to offer a closing 
note before yielding to the chairman of the Committee on the Budget.
  I want to make the point, Mr. Speaker, that we have attempted today 
to carry on a reasoned debate about an important subject matter, not a 
waste of time. Terms like ``political buffoonery'' were used, and I do 
not think that those are the most appropriate terms to discuss the 
important matter of balancing this Nation's budget, of putting money 
back in the pockets of working American families, and trying to move 
forward in a bipartisan way with the President.
  We have encouraged the President with this resolution to put forward 
a budget that can be used as a platform for bipartisan negotiations, 
and that is the intention of the resolution. The goal of the resolution 
is to apply to the President the exact same set of standards that we 
applied to this House of Representatives.
  By treating each other fairly, by trying to move forward together, by 
trying to work with a budget that the President submits, meeting some 
basic criteria of fairness and financial legitimacy, I think we will 
have that opportunity.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. 
Kasich], chairman of the Committee on the Budget.
  Mr. KASICH. Mr. Speaker, let us try to get to this all in 
perspective. The President came up here several years ago and stood 
right at this podium and the President said, we are going to use the 
same arithmetic; Congress is going to use the arithmetic that I use, I 
am going to use the arithmetic they use, and we will use the most 
conservative numbers.
  Some of the Republicans booed him when he said that, but we decided 
to take him up on the challenge. We might argue a lot about policy, but 
we should not argue about arithmetic.
  The simple fact of the matter is the President sent us a budget and 
it is not in balance. It is $69 billion short. So for the Americans out 
there hoping that we can finally get this done, they need to understand 
that we now have the first part of this. The President sent us a 
budget. It does not balance. It is almost $70 billion in the hole in 
the last year. Plus, in the very first year, the first real test of the 
intent of the President's budget, the deficit is $24 billion higher 
than if the President's budget had never gotten here.
  In other words, if the guy coming from the White House with the 
documents up to Capitol Hill stopped at a pizza shop and somebody broke 
into his car and stole the documents, next year's deficit numbers would 
be $24 billion less than if that budget had never gotten up here. So in 
the very first year we go up.
  Let me say there are also six new entitlement programs. The President 
says he wants to declare an end to the era of big government. He can 
hardly declare an end to the era of big government while creating six 
new entitlement programs to drain resources from hardworking families 
in this country. We want to let families keep more of what they earn so 
that they can stay together, be stronger and more prosperous.
  In addition to that, we have the typical Washington diet budget. The 
typical Washington diet is, I am going to lose 50 pounds this year. In 
the first 51 weeks, I am going to lose 1 pound, but in the last week, I 
am going to lose 49. Now, that is the way we do things in Washington. 
And it is time to stop that process.
  In other words, let us start doing the job right today. Let us not 
push up the deficit, push up the spending, keep the spending real high, 
and then when the President leaves office, it falls off of a cliff 
using a bunch of gimmicks.
  We do not want to do that anymore, and I do not think the President 
wants to do it, honestly. This is really an opportunity for the 
President to come back and to complete his job, to give us a document 
that meets the arithmetic as he promised.
  Now, what about us? What about our budget? Why have we not seen it 
yet?
  What is interesting is that the President of the United States is the 
leader of the free world. He is the big man. He ought to be. He is the 
man we revere and respect regardless of what party or what personality. 
He is the leader. The country, the American people have a right to 
examine carefully, closely, and take some time in understanding exactly 
what the leader of the free world is proposing for the way the 
Government of the United States ought to look.
  Frankly, what we are saying today is the President has fallen short. 
We need a better effort on his part. And Congress will have to meet the 
same standard. Congress cannot weasel out. We cannot wiggle out. We 
cannot go out the back door. We have to send the budget that has the 
integrity where the arithmetic adds up.
  And when will we bring it here? We are going to bring it here really 
very soon, and we are going to bring it here like we have, and I have 
been involved with, since 1989. I brought budgets up here in 1989 and 
1990 and 1991 and in 1993. Two in 1993 with Penny-Kasich, and in 1994 
and in 1995 and 1996, and there will be one in 1997.
  Have no doubt we will produce a budget and have no doubt that it is 
going to meet the arithmetic challenge. In fact, we will start to 
improve the lives of Americans by beginning that road to improving 
their standard of living by raising wages and giving their children a 
chance at the future.
  Let me just suggest to my colleagues here today that the bigger 
disappointment in some respects than the President not balancing the 
budget is he does not have a plan to save Medicare. He does not have a 
plan to solve the long-term problems of Medicaid. He has not addressed 
the Consumer Price Index and the way in which we can have more accurate 
projections. These are big issues and we have to get at them and we 
have to get at them together.
  At the end of the day, we will come forward with our plan. Maybe 
before we come forward with our plan, we will be able to reach an 
agreement with the White House. But that plan ought to put us on the 
road to using honest arithmetic, leveling with the American people, 
starting the progress now, letting people keep more of what they earn, 
addressing the problems that provide security for our senior citizens

[[Page H921]]

while, at the same time, not bankrupting our adult children, and 
beginning to restore the American dream as we all knew it as children.
  Mr. Speaker, I would say to this House, let us pass this resolution. 
And this is not just a signal to the President of the United States. 
Frankly, it is a signal to my colleagues as well. My Republican 
friends, we have to do it. We will do it right and we want the 
President to join us.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I am supporting House Resolution 89 today 
because it is vital that the President submit a true balanced budget 
proposal so that serious bipartisan talks on balancing the budget can 
begin. Unless both the President and Congress are willing to confront 
the hard choices a balanced budget requires, we cannot succeed. The 
burden of starting the process rests squarely on the President.
  The truth is that there are no gimmicks, no sleight-of-hand tricks or 
silver bullets to magically make the Federal budget balance. We have to 
cut spending and change programs to spending cuts work. We cannot flip-
flop, reversing our course depending on how close we are to an 
election. Republicans offered the President clear examples of the hard 
choices that need to be made when we offered our Balanced Budget Act of 
1995--much of which the President would later sign into law. For a true 
bipartisan effort, we need the President's budget to show where he and 
his party are willing to make hard choices now.
  The President's February budget does not do the job. First, it will 
leave us with nearly a $120 billion deficit in the year he leaves 
office and a $69 billion deficit 2 years after he is gone. In fact, the 
Congressional Budget Office says 98 percent of the spending cuts 
proposed in his budget are scheduled to occur after the President 
leaves office. The new spending he proposes, including $60 billion in 
new entitlements, goes on forever.
  The President's budget also produces a $23 billion tax increase, not 
a tax cut, over its lifetime. The targeted tax breaks he offered people 
for education, savings, and several other things completely vanish in 3 
years when he leaves office. The tax increases he proposes are 
permanent.
  With regard to Medicare, the President certainly missed the mark. We 
should be striving to save Medicare for current and future retirees by 
dealing with the factors that make Medicare spending grow by billions 
of dollars every year. The President's budget proposes to hide 
Medicare's problems through illusory savings that are actually 
accounting tricks.
  We want a bipartisan budget that gets results. The President claims 
to want one but he opposes amending the Constitution to require a 
balanced budget. If he's serious about making discipline the key to 
Federal budgeting, he can end the mistrust of his policies by 
submitting a new budget that actually meets the goals he says he wants 
to meet.
  Mr. COSTELLO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this 
resolution calling for the President to submit a new budget using the 
most recent CBO assumptions. Last month, our President presented a 
budget that did exactly what both parties have identified as a priority 
and that is having a balanced Federal budget in 2002. The President's 
budget proposal makes tough choices but is responsible economic policy.
  I strongly oppose the efforts of this resolution. The President 
should not be required to submit two budgets before Congress even comes 
up with one. Does this resolution's sponsors have a prepared 
alternative for us to review? Since the President introduced his 
budget, there have been no concrete alternatives proposed by the 
Republican leadership. In fact, the Republican leadership has indicated 
it would be May before a budget resolution is passed. By law, the 
conference report is supposed to be done by April 15. Even as recently 
as 1992, with a Democratic Congress and a Republican administration, 
this body has passed the budget resolution on March 5--well over a 
month before the required April 15 deadline.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so 
that we can move on to the real work before this Congress, and that is 
getting the budget resolution ready as quickly as possible. The 
President has done his part; this body must do ours.

                              {time}  1615

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Foley). All time for debate has expired.
  Pursuant to House Resolution 90, the resolution is considered as read 
for amendment and the previous question is ordered.


                Motion to Recommit Offered by Mr. Spratt

  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman the designee of the 
minority leader?
  Mr. SPRATT. I am, Mr. Speaker.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman opposed to the resolution?
  Mr. SPRATT. I am, in its present form, Mr. Speaker.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to 
recommit.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. SPRATT moves to recommit the resolution, House 
     Resolution 89, to the Committee on the Budget with 
     instructions to report a detailed budget plan to achieve a 
     balanced budget by fiscal year 2002 in sufficient time for 
     the House of Representatives to fulfill its obligations under 
     section 301(a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, which 
     requires Congress to complete action on or before April 15 on 
     a concurrent resolution on the budget for the fiscal year 
     beginning on October 1 of such year.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. 
Spratt] is recognized for 5 minutes in support of his motion.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I do not need to take the allotted time of 5 
minutes to explain this motion because it does not need much 
explanation.
  What we are calling for is purely and simply regular order. What we 
are asking for in this motion to recommit is to follow the procedures 
that this House, this Congress has laid down for our own internal 
processes that have been observed ever since the Budget Act of 1974 was 
first adopted, for more than 20 years.
  This resolution, House Resolution 89, does not advance the budget 
process. It does not move us one single inch. In fact, it retards the 
process. It slows us down. It does not focus the House on the hard 
decisions that have to be made, on what needs to be done here in the 
House itself, in the Committee on the Budget, and on the floor, in the 
well of this House.
  What we need to be about is the formulation of a budget, making the 
hard choices that will go into our budget resolution and bringing them 
to debate here on the House floor before April 15, well before April 
15. Instead, what we do with this resolution is shift attention from 
the work at hand by trying to shift the blame, by pointing the finger 
at the President and saying to him that he should come, present another 
budget even though he has complied, literally complied with the Budget 
Act by sending his budget up within the time that is required under the 
law.
  This is no way to advance the budget process. This is no way to move 
us toward a balanced budget in 5 years, pointing fingers, wasting a 
whole legislative day on a fruitless resolution.
  The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] says the President needs to send 
us a plan to save Medicare. He sent a plan up to save Medicare. Part A 
would be rendered solvent for years to come. They do not agree with the 
manner in which the President does it. They do not want to see part of 
the cost of home health care shifted out of part A into part B. Fine. 
Put up your substitute. Put up your alternative. Put up your plan to 
save Medicare.
  The same with Medicaid. The President has taken a bold step there, 
bold enough that almost all the Governors in this Nation have opposed 
him. He says we are saving substantial sums because the cost of 
Medicaid has come down 4 percent in 1995, 3.3 percent in 1996. We need 
to hold those cost savings in place, and if we can, we can realize as 
much savings in Medicaid or more than we were attempting in the last 
session of Congress.
  He has proposed per capita caps. The chairman of the Committee on the 
Budget does not support per capita caps. Fine. That is what this 
process is all about. Put up your alternative. That is the point which 
we are now on. What we need to do is frame this debate.
  The other part of the frame that is missing and required at this 
point in time is a budget resolution adopted by the House which we can 
put on the table, and at that point we can then sit down and talk about 
everything, including CPI adjustments as part of the whole mix.
  We need to be about regular order, we need to be focused on the 
procedure that is time-tested and been shown to work. We need to be 
about our own business. We need to bring a budget resolution to this 
floor so that we can have a concurrent resolution by April 15. That is 
exactly what this motion to recommit calls for, regular order towards a 
successful outcome.

[[Page H922]]

  Mr. Speaker, I urge everyone to support this motion to recommit so we 
can get on with the business at hand.
  Mr. KASICH. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Ohio is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. KASICH. Mr. Speaker, it is a good thing I have been lifting 
weights. This is what I could accumulate in terms of what the 
Republicans and any budget team that I have been associated with since 
1989 have put together in terms of details. See this? This is pretty 
heavy. Most Americans would probably have a little trouble, and I am 
not sure if the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt] could hold 
this up, actually. This is pretty heavy. But, nevertheless, all that is 
detailed work to provide for a balanced budget.
  This was an effort that some of us started in 1989. When it was not 
cool to be for balanced budgets, we were out here doing it. We got as 
many votes as you could put in a telephone booth, but the fact is that 
we came in 1989 and I came on this floor against a Republican 
President. I came on this floor in 1990 against a Republican President.
  I came on this floor twice in 1990, the first time in 1990, the 
second time I went to the Rules Committee with about $780 billion worth 
of savings and the Rules Committee would not let me offer it on the 
House floor because it was $10 billion short. Then in 1993 the 
President said show us your budget, and the Committee on the Budget 
wrote the most detailed and extensive budget ever produced since the 
Budget Act of 1974. And then we came back in 1994 and then we came back 
in 1995 and in 1996.
  I have got to tell you this. I am so proud of my colleagues, the ones 
that voted for the first effort, frankly the first effort, real effort 
since 1969 to actually put our detailed program on the floor. You have 
got to give me a break when you start wondering whether we are going to 
have a budget. Of course we are.
  This motion to recommit is designed to send this back to committee 
and kill this whole idea that the President has fallen short in his 
arithmetic. The simple fact of the matter is that we have got to defeat 
the motion to recommit, we have got to pass the resolution, and of 
course we are working. We are working right now with the 
administration. We are working right now internally to develop our 
package, and at the end of this year I suppose I will be able to come 
back and add to this amount that is the most detailed work by any 
congressional committee in recent memory to actually meet this 
challenge, and I suspect at the end of the day I am going to have to 
have lifted more weights, because that next document is going to make 
this even heavier.
  So let us defeat the motion to recommit, pass the resolution, and let 
us get off to a good start in terms of fairness for America, a good 
future for our children, and a stronger American family.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. KASICH. I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman makes my case. All of 
that is the handiwork of the Budget Committee. We have done it in years 
past. All this resolution calls for is that we do it again this year, 
all of that effort there.
  Mr. KASICH. Let me tell the gentleman two things. First of all, I am 
the one that worked to get the President the economics as early as was 
possible, and I am the one that said to the President and his 
administration officials, ``You don't have to meet some deadline on 
your budget. If you need more time, you take it.'' You see, I think 
that deadlines and calendars are not the key. What is key is the 
quality of the work.
  Unfortunately the quality just is not there with the President when 
it comes to meeting the challenge. The quality has been there for us in 
the past. No one ever criticized the intellectual honesty of our 
proposals. You may disagree with the policies.
  And we are going to try to come in with an April 15 deadline if we 
can, but deadline is not the deal. What is important is that we reach 
agreement, and we will, and you have got my word on it in terms of 
coming before us with a proposal.
  Let us not send this thing back to committee and kill this whole 
resolution. Let us reject that, let us get on with it, and this 
resolution will force the Congress to do precisely what we are asking 
the President to do. If we ask for anything less than that, it would 
not be fair. Let us pass the resolution and defeat the motion to 
recommit.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is 
ordered on the motion to recommit.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a 
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not 
present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 202, 
nays 225, not voting 5, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 43]

                               YEAS--202

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Baesler
     Baldacci
     Barcia
     Barrett (WI)
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Berman
     Berry
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Blumenauer
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Capps
     Cardin
     Carson
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Condit
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Cummings
     Danner
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Fazio
     Filner
     Flake
     Foglietta
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Furse
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hamilton
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Hefner
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Holden
     Hooley
     Hoyer
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     John
     Johnson (WI)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kanjorski
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     Kleczka
     Klink
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     Lampson
     Lantos
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Maloney (NY)
     Manton
     Markey
     Martinez
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McHale
     McIntyre
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (CA)
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Neal
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Peterson (MN)
     Pickett
     Pomeroy
     Poshard
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Rivers
     Roemer
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Sawyer
     Schumer
     Scott
     Serrano
     Sherman
     Sisisky
     Skaggs
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith, Adam
     Snyder
     Spratt
     Stabenow
     Stark
     Stenholm
     Stokes
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor (MS)
     Thompson
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Torres
     Towns
     Traficant
     Turner
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Wexler
     Weygand
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wynn
     Yates

                               NAYS--225

     Aderholt
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Bereuter
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bliley
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Brady
     Bryant
     Bunning
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Canady
     Cannon
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins
     Combest
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Cox
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Davis (VA)
     Deal
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Doolittle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Ensign
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fawell
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fowler
     Fox
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Greenwood
     Gutknecht
     Hansen
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hill
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Istook
     Jenkins
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kim
     King (NY)

[[Page H923]]


     Kingston
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     LoBiondo
     Lucas
     Manzullo
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDade
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McKeon
     Metcalf
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Molinari
     Moran (KS)
     Morella
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Oxley
     Packard
     Pappas
     Parker
     Paul
     Paxon
     Pease
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Riggs
     Riley
     Rogan
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryun
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaefer, Dan
     Schaffer, Bob
     Schiff
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (OR)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith, Linda
     Snowbarger
     Solomon
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stump
     Sununu
     Talent
     Tauzin
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Upton
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     White
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                             NOT VOTING--5

     Andrews
     Dixon
     Kaptur
     Livingston
     Souder

                              {time}  1642

  Messrs. DUNCAN, BONO and POMBO and Mrs. CUBIN changed their vote from 
``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Mr. FLAKE and Ms. VELAZQUEZ changed their vote from ``nay'' to 
``yea.''
  So the motion to recommit was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Foley). The question is on the 
resolution.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Ms. GRANGER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 231, 
nays 197, not voting 4, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 44]

                               YEAS--231

     Aderholt
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Bereuter
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop
     Bliley
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Brady
     Bryant
     Bunning
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Canady
     Cannon
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Coble
     Collins
     Combest
     Condit
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Davis (VA)
     Deal
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Doolittle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Ensign
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fawell
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fowler
     Fox
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Greenwood
     Gutknecht
     Hall (TX)
     Hansen
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hill
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Istook
     Jenkins
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kim
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Livingston
     LoBiondo
     Lucas
     Manzullo
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDade
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McKeon
     Metcalf
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Molinari
     Moran (KS)
     Morella
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Oxley
     Packard
     Pappas
     Parker
     Paul
     Paxon
     Pease
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Riggs
     Riley
     Rogan
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryun
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaefer, Dan
     Schaffer, Bob
     Schiff
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (OR)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith, Linda
     Snowbarger
     Solomon
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stump
     Sununu
     Talent
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Upton
     Visclosky
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     White
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                               NAYS--197

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Baesler
     Baldacci
     Barcia
     Barrett (WI)
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Berman
     Berry
     Blagojevich
     Blumenauer
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Capps
     Cardin
     Carson
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Coburn
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     Cummings
     Danner
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Fazio
     Filner
     Flake
     Foglietta
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Furse
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hamilton
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Hefner
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Holden
     Hooley
     Hoyer
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     John
     Johnson (WI)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kanjorski
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     Kleczka
     Klink
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     Lampson
     Lantos
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Maloney (NY)
     Manton
     Markey
     Martinez
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McHale
     McIntyre
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (CA)
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Neal
     Nussle
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Pickett
     Pomeroy
     Poshard
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Rivers
     Roemer
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Sawyer
     Schumer
     Scott
     Serrano
     Sherman
     Sisisky
     Skaggs
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith, Adam
     Snyder
     Spratt
     Stabenow
     Stark
     Stenholm
     Stokes
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Thompson
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Torres
     Towns
     Traficant
     Turner
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Wexler
     Weygand
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wynn
     Yates

                             NOT VOTING--4

     Andrews
     Dixon
     Kaptur
     Souder

                              {time}  1700

  So the resolution was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________