[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 48 (Tuesday, April 22, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3400-S3402]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            BUDGET REALITIES

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, on this past Sunday, the Outlook section 
of the Washington Post published articles regarding Uncle Sam's red 
ink. The unfortunate part is that these stories highlight is that debt 
is nothing new for the United States. While it is making us poor, one 
article claims that is has made us prosperous.
  I rise today to make the point that our debt is not only making us 
very poor, it is making us totally inadequate at the governmental level 
in Washington, DC. All our moneys are being expended for interest costs 
on the debt rather than active Government.
  Specifically, I want to talk about the here and now rather than the 
next millennium. Dick Morris detailed in his book, Mr. President, that 
he had counseled President Clinton, running for reelection last year, 
that the budget deficit was a boring subject. He claimed that nobody 
was really interested in it and that the President should instead focus 
on school uniforms and child curfews, family values and everything 
else.
  Mr. President, people are interested in the crushing burden of our 
federal debt, and to show specifically what concerns them, I have a 
chart that I would refer to. It is in enlarged fashion. I ask unanimous 
consent that we have printed in the Record at this particular point 
this one budget document ``Hollings' Budget Realities.''
  There being no objection, the chart was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                           HOLLINGS' BUDGET REALITIES                                           
                                            [In billions of dollars]                                            
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                                        Annual  
                                                                Unified       Actual                  increases 
        President and year          U.S. budget    Borrowed     deficit      deficit      National   in spending
                                     (Outlays)   trust funds   with trust    without        debt         for    
                                                                 funds     trust funds                 interest 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Truman:                                                                                                         
  1945............................         92.7          5.4        -47.6  ...........        260.1  ...........
  1946............................         55.2         -5.0        -15.9        -10.9        271.0  ...........
  1947............................         34.5         -9.9         -4.0        +13.9        257.1  ...........
  1948............................         29.8          6.7         11.8         +5.1        252.0  ...........
  1949............................         38.8          1.2          0.6         -0.6        252.6  ...........
  1950............................         42.6          1.2         -3.1         -4.3        256.9  ...........
  1951............................         45.5          4.5          6.1         +1.6        255.3  ...........
  1952............................         67.7          2.3         -1.5         -3.8        259.1  ...........
  1953............................         76.1          0.4         -6.5         -6.9        266.0  ...........
Eisenhower:                                                                                                     
  1954............................         70.9          3.6         -1.2         -4.8        270.8  ...........
  1955............................         68.4          0.6         -3.0         -3.6        274.4  ...........
  1956............................         70.6          2.2          3.9         +1.7        272.7  ...........
  1957............................         76.6          3.0          3.4         +0.4        272.3  ...........
  1958............................         82.4          4.6         -2.8         -7.4        279.7  ...........
  1959............................         92.1         -5.0        -12.8         -7.8        287.5  ...........
  1960............................         92.2          3.3          0.3         -3.0        290.5  ...........
  1961............................         97.7         -1.2         -3.3         -2.1        292.6  ...........
Kennedy:                                                                                                        
  1962............................        106.8          3.2         -7.1        -10.3        302.9          9.1
  1963............................        111.3          2.6         -4.8         -7.4        310.3          9.9
Johnson:                                                                                                        
  1964............................        118.5         -0.1         -5.9         -5.8        316.1         10.7
  1965............................        118.2          4.8         -1.4         -6.2        322.3         11.3
  1966............................        134.5          2.5         -3.7         -6.2        328.5         12.0
  1967............................        157.5          3.3         -8.6        -11.9        340.4         13.4
  1968............................        178.1          3.1        -25.2        -28.3        368.7         14.6
  1969............................        183.6          0.3          3.2         +2.9        365.8         16.6
Nixon:                                                                                                          
  1970............................        195.6         12.3         -2.8        -15.1        380.9         19.3
  1971............................        210.2          4.3        -23.0        -27.3        408.2         21.0
  1972............................        230.7          4.3        -23.4        -27.7        435.9         21.8
  1973............................        245.7         15.5        -14.9        -30.4        466.3         24.2
  1974............................        269.4         11.5         -6.1        -17.6        483.9         29.3
Ford:                                                                                                           
  1975............................        332.3          4.8        -53.2        -58.0        541.9         32.7
  1976............................        371.8         13.4        -73.7        -87.1        629.0         37.1
Carter:                                                                                                         
  1977............................        409.2         23.7        -53.7        -77.4        706.4         41.9
  1978............................        458.7         11.0        -59.2        -70.2        776.6         48.7
  1979............................        503.5         12.2        -40.7        -52.9        829.5         59.9
  1980............................        590.9          5.8        -73.8        -79.6        909.1         74.8
Reagan:                                                                                                         
  1981............................        678.2          6.7        -79.0        -85.7        994.8         95.5
  1982............................        745.8         14.5       -128.0       -142.5      1,137.3        117.2
  1983............................        808.4         26.6       -207.8       -234.4      1,371.7        128.7
  1984............................        851.8          7.6       -185.4       -193.0      1,564.7        153.9
  1985............................        946.4         40.5       -212.3       -252.8      1,817.5        178.9
  1986............................        990.3         81.9       -221.2       -303.1      2,120.6        190.3
  1987............................      1,003.9         75.7       -149.8       -225.5      2,346.1        195.3
  1988............................      1,064.1        100.0       -155.2       -255.2      2,601.3        214.1
Bush:                                                                                                           
  1989............................      1,143.2        114.2       -152.5       -266.7      2,868.3        240.9
  1990............................      1,252.7        117.4       -221.2       -338.6      3,206.6        264.7
  1991............................      1,323.8        122.5       -269.4       -391.9      3,598.5        285.5
  1992............................      1,380.9        113.2       -290.4       -403.6      4,002.1        292.3
Clinton:                                                                                                        
  1993............................      1,408.2         94.3       -255.0       -349.3      4,351.4        292.5
  1994............................      1,460.6         89.2       -203.1       -292.3      4,643.7        296.3

[[Page S3401]]

                                                                                                                
  1995............................      1,514.6        113.4       -163.9       -277.3      4,921.0        332.4
  1996............................      1,560.0        154.0       -107.0       -261.0      5,182.0        344.0
  1997............................      1,632.0        130.0       -124.0       -254.0      5,436.0        360.0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Historical Tables, Budget of the US Government FY 1988; Beginning in 1962 CBO's 1997 Economic and Budget      
  Outlook--April 15, 1997.                                                                                      

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, on the matter of the budget realities, I 
have listed here beside the different Presidents from 1945 right on 
through President Clinton's first term including estimates for 1997--
the different years of the U.S. budget, the actual budget.
  Incidentally, these are Congressional Budget Office figures. These 
are not tricky figures. They are the ones that we all rely upon.
  Then I have listed the borrowed trust funds. That is all the trust 
funds that are borrowed--not just Social Security but the military 
retirees trust funds, the civil service retirees trust funds--there is 
still a surplus in the Medicare account--Medicare trust fund, the 
Federal finance bank, the moneys we have been using from the airport 
and airways improvement fund, the highway trust fund. You can go right 
on down the different trust funds that are borrowed.
  And then the unified deficit which is the real culprit here in this 
particular budget fraud. I refer directly to the fraud that occurs when 
we cannot get the truth out. That is the purpose of my rising again 
today, to somehow, somewhere, sometime talk the truth because it is not 
an accurate figure when you say unified. They say, well, that is the 
net amount in and out. It is not net amount in and out. It is the 
amount you borrow and you have to replace.
  The distinguished Presiding Officer, being a certified public 
accountant, knows exactly what I am speaking about. If you were trying 
to use that unified deficit on your return, the borrowed moneys on 
April 15, they would cart you off to jail. You are not allowed to do 
that. But we do that in Washington, and then the media, the market, the 
Government and everyone else continue to cite the unified deficit as a 
sort of net figure as to what the real deficit is.
  On the contrary, the real or actual deficit is listed in the next 
column with the national debt going up and the annual increase in the 
amount of spending in order to take care of the interest costs.
  So I will be glad to show this particular chart in an enlarged 
manner. What we have here, Mr. President, is again the Presidents. You 
have the years. You have the United States budget, the actual budget, 
the borrowed trust funds, the unified deficit with trust funds. Then 
the actual deficit without trust funds. That is without the borrowings, 
what the actual deficit is.
  Those are the terms upon which we must speak. If we are going to 
continue to talk of a unified net kind of deficit, which is not net, 
the fraud will continue. There is not any question in my mind that 
taxes are too high. But taxes are too high because of the interest cost 
on the national debt.
  All you need do is go to look at our actual interest costs, let us 
say, before President Reagan came in, just a few short years ago. The 
interest costs in 1980, going straight across, are $74.8 billion. Well, 
that is $74.8 or $75 billion. You now in 1997 have listed $360 billion. 
We have increased spending $285 billion for nothing. You are not 
getting a road paved. You are not getting a library built. You are not 
getting research over at the National Cancer Institute. You are not 
providing for a stronger defense. You are not engaging more in foreign 
assistance or anything else of that kind. You are getting absolutely 
nothing for the past profligacy and waste.
  Bottom line. The crowd that came to town in 1981, against taxes and 
against waste, has taxes on automatic pilot, waste on automatic pilot 
of $1 billion a day.
  Now, let me say that one more time. At $360 billion--this figure, of 
course, is the January figure from the Congressional Budget Office, and 
it does not take into account the recent increase in interest rates by 
Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve. So that is bound to be at least 
365.
  So we have interest payments, that is, annual increases in spending 
on interest that total $1 billion a day. And it has to be paid just 
like taxes. It is not like increases in other spending which we could 
forego, but it has to be paid. So that is why I categorically say the 
crowd that said they were going to come to town in the early 1980's and 
do away with taxes have put taxes on an automatic pilot of $1 billion a 
day.

  The crowd that came in town in 1981 and said they were going to be 
against waste, fraud and abuse--and I was appointed on the Grace 
Commission, got an award for it and recognition. It was a wonderful 
instrumentality that went through the Government and tried to cut out 
all the waste. But we have really increased the waste because we get 
absolutely nothing for it.
  Now, we increased spending since 1980 by $285 billion. If we had not 
done that, we would have $285 billion here for us to sit around in the 
Senate Chamber and spend or give back to the American people. It would 
be a wonderful thing. We could get all the highways. We wouldn't have 
any ISTEA bill. We could take care of all the demonstration projects 
you could possibly imagine. We could go ahead with star wars 
immediately. We could have all these things that they want for 
education, student loans and everything else. But instead, we are 
spending the money and not getting anything for it.
  That is the cancer that we have in the fiscal affairs of the U.S. 
Government that is totally obscured by news articles like those that 
claim to show how debt has made us prosperous, like all we have to do 
is borrow again and that debt has always been with us.
  Well, Mr. President, it has not been with us all the time for the 
simple reason you can see that when President Reagan came to town--we 
have it here--the national debt was $994.8 billion. When President 
Reagan came to town, after 204 years of history, after 38 Presidents, 
Republican and Democrat, after the cost of all the wars, the 
Revolutionary, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Mexican War, the 
Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the 
cost of all the wars never gave a national debt of $1 trillion. It was 
less than $1 trillion after 204 years of history. But in 16 years 
without a war, because the cost of the war in Desert Storm was paid for 
by the Saudis and others, so in 16 years without the cost of a war, we 
have gone from less than $1 trillion to almost $5.5 trillion. Up, up, 
and away with the interest costs, interest spending, interest taxes 
going up, up and away and added to the debt to the tune of $1 billion a 
day and we never want to seem to recognize that.
  Right to the point, Mr. President. If you take all the deficits from 
President Truman, the actual deficits and average them out right on 
down to President Reagan, 25 years, if you took all those deficits, the 
average would be about $20 billion a year.
  Now, in contrast, take the deficits for the last 16 years without the 
cost of a war, without the so-called guns and butter, as they say; but 
rather, with spending cuts of President Reagan for 8 years, spending 
cuts of President Bush for 4 years, spending cuts of President Clinton, 
because he brought the deficit down--his 1993 plan included $500 
billion in deficit reduction. Even with all the cuts, we have been 
giving an average deficit each year to the American people of $277 
billion more in Government than we are willing to pay for. Let us not 
just talk abstractly about a deficit. We are actually giving away $277 
billion more in Government than we are actually willing to pay for.

[[Page S3402]]

  Let us go to just last year and the campaign, when both Senator Dole 
and President Clinton used $107 billion, the unified deficit figure, 
like it was net. That was not the case at all. In order to get to a 
$107 billion deficit, they had to borrow from all the pension funds. 
Why not borrow another $107 billion and call it balanced? The actual 
deficit was $261 billion. You could not get that cited or printed in 
the press. We gave it to them time and time again. We will give it to 
them again this morning. I defy you to find it in the morning paper or 
cited in the evening news on TV. They do not want to say what the 
actual deficit is. They want to use this obscure figure of unified, 
trying to act like we ought to be encouraged. That is why they are 
getting together on a budget deal. They will get together on a deal 
that will obscure truth in budgeting.
  This fraud has to stop somehow, somewhere, because it is not a bridge 
to the next millennium. We are going over a cliff by the year 2000. Our 
domestic budget is $266 billion. Our defense budget is $267 billion. 
Those two budgets together are slightly over $500 billion. But you will 
soon have interest costs exceeding the combined cost of both the 
domestic and defense budgets. We are not building a bridge, we are 
digging a hole.
  The first order of business, they say, when you are in a hole and you 
are trying to get out, is stop digging. We continue to dig, and we do 
it in a dignified fashion around here and praise each other. The 
President and the Congress have gotten together on a budget agreement 
and all of that kind of stuff. But watch for the gimmicks in it.
  The biggest gimmick that is never talked about is the fact people 
consistently obscure the actual size of the deficit. To get it down to 
$254 billion, we still have to find $110 billion, that is without any 
cuts, just continuing what we call current policy. I sat at the budget 
table today to try to get to a budget now of $1.632 trillion. That is 
current policy. That is domestic of $266 billion, defense of $267 
billion, entitlements of $859 billion. That is $1.382 trillion. Just 
put in the minimal figure $360 billion, that is $1.742 trillion. To 
bring it down, then, to the $1.632 trillion, I have to find $110 
billion. I have to cut entitlements, domestic, defense combined $110 
billion.
  That is my job, conscientiously going to the budget table to sit as a 
member of the Budget Committee, where I have been since we instituted 
the budget process in 1974. But, instead of discussing the cuts and how 
are we going to get on top of this downward spiral of interest costs or 
interest taxes being increased $1 billion a day, instead of that, we 
are getting letters now to do away with the inheritance tax. We are 
getting letters now to do away with the capital gains tax. We are 
getting letters now from Steve Forbes and that other crowd: Let's just 
get a flat tax and do away with the IRS, the Internal Revenue System, 
and everything else of that kind.
  Mr. President, we ought to understand once and for all that we are 
engaged in a fraud that continues to be obscured, due to the fourth 
estate. The fourth estate has taken it on as a religion, almost, of 
reciting the unified deficit as if it were the actual deficit. The 
truth of the matter is, the actual deficit is substantially more. It 
has averaged $277 billion last year, the year before, and the last 16 
years. We have been giving out some $277 billion in Government that we 
are not willing to pay for.
  We had that Reaganomics. Yes, there is even talk about that--cut 
taxes and we will get growth, we will grow out of deficits. No mayor in 
his right mind of a city tries that. No Governor in her right mind has 
tried that. There was an exception up in New Jersey. Governor Whitman 
up there said, ``Whoa, tax cuts work.'' But look at the papers last 
week. She is now doing two things. She is borrowing, raiding the 
pension funds, just like we are doing in Washington. She has learned 
from Washington. And she is calling for a bond issue to cover her 
financial situation. It does not work.
  There is no free lunch. Long since, we should have understood it. If 
I have to come every day and point this out, I will because these facts 
and figures are not disputable. They are not political. They are not 
Democratic figures or Republican figures. These are Congressional 
Budget Office figures. That is the actual debt that has gone to exceed 
$5 trillion.
  I see from the Presiding Officer that my time is just about up. Let 
me just say one word. I thank the distinguished Chair and the 
distinguished Senator from Georgia for indulging me just one second 
more.
  What we have is a fraud on the American public. We have to expose 
this fraud. We have to speak to truth in budgeting. We have to come up 
with an actual plan that will eliminate this deficit financing by 
raiding the trust funds in America.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Allard). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________