[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 66 (Monday, May 19, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4669-S4670]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, we are going to, this week, enter into one 
of the most serious debates that we will have all year, one of the 
matters that I think is the most serious that we will address all year, 
and that is the question of the budget. As a matter of fact, it is my 
understanding we will talk about two budgets. One will be the 
appropriations for the supplemental budget, designed to deal with 
disaster and other matters, but then the real budget for the year which 
will outline the spending for this country.
  I think this is important, particularly important, because there is 
much more to it than arithmetic. It is not simply numbers. It is not 
simply what we will spend. I think it has to do with a number of things 
that are of particular significance. I hope that we give some 
consideration to these broader things as we talk about numbers, which 
we inevitably will do. One has to do with the size of the Government. 
It has to do with the potential and the opportunity to reduce the size 
of Government. I happen to believe that Government has become too large 
and that it could be smaller. It could be much more efficient. I 
suspect it would be more efficient if it were smaller. The budget is 
one of the ways that you do that.
  Government by its nature does not get smaller unless somehow there is 
a restriction on the amount of money available. I think it also gets 
more efficient when there is less money to do the job, and it is 
similar to what has to be done in the private sector.
  Second, it has, of course, to do with priorities. Each of us, as we 
spend our money, whether in business or personal and private family 
lives, have to set priorities. There is never enough money for 
everything. Certainly that is increasingly true with Government. So it 
is necessary to set priorities, to decide which of the many functions 
of Government are most important, which ones need to be financed, which 
ones need to be funded, which ones, indeed, could be reduced or 
eliminated.
  Third, it has to do with taxing. It has to do with how much money we 
are going to allow families to keep, to spend for themselves. Average 
family spending for taxes now is nearly 40 percent, 40 percent of 
revenue from the family. It was just recently that we had tax day, so 
that everything we earned up until just a week or so ago all went for 
taxes.
  The budget has to do with the potential, the possibility of reducing 
the burden on the families in this country. It has to do with the 
incentive for investment. Tax reduction is also an opportunity to have 
investments for people to put into their businesses, to create jobs, to 
strengthen the economy. There is a direct relationship, particularly in 
tax reductions such as capital gains which encourages people to invest.
  The budget gives us an opportunity to keep Medicare and entitlements 
available.
  I just met this morning with a great group of young people, high 
school people. We talked a little bit about entitlements. We talked 
specifically about Medicare. Frankly, all of them, 18 years old, said, 
``We really do not think there will be any Medicare for us.'' Indeed, 
there will not be unless we make some changes. Budgets, of course, are 
where it is possible to do that.

  Budgets also test our willingness to be financially responsible, to 
balance the budget and not spend more than we take in, which we have 
done for more than 30 years here in this Congress. I have to say I have 
not done it for 30 years because I have not been here for 30 years.
  Finally, and related to that, of course, budgets determine what will 
we leave to our kids to pay in terms of budgets, in terms of debts. 
What we have done, of course, over the last few years, is we have spent 
more than we took in and put it on the old credit card, and it is maxed 
out. So we will determine how much of a debt we leave to our kids.
  That is what we are talking about in terms of budgets. It will be 
difficult. It will be difficult. American voters, as someone said, and 
I think it is true, sent two teams to do the same thing, two teams with 
quite different philosophies. If everyone here had the same philosophy 
then we would have a certain kind of a budget. If everybody believed we 
ought to have smaller Government, we would have smaller Government. If 
everybody thought we ought to have more tax relief, we would have that, 
but everybody does not. There are two different points of view that 
will have to be reconciled before anything can be done.
  So we approach a budget with, I think, a certain amount of reserve. 
Certainly this is not a breakthrough budget. This is not a turnaround. 
This is not a change, a sea change, I do not believe. I do not think it 
is designed for meaningful reduction in the size of Government or 
spending reductions. It is not dedicated to real honest-to-goodness tax 
relief.
  Now, on the other hand, I think in fairness, and we will have to talk 
about it, it does provide some of the principles that most of us have 
talked about for some time. It probably comes closer, and I hope it 
does, to a real balance than any budget in recent history over a period 
of 5 years, a real balanced budget.
  Now you have to keep in mind you can balance the budget in many ways. 
You can continue to increase taxes and increase revenue and balance the 
budget up here, when the real idea that most people want to balance the 
budget is down here, and reduce some of the spending.
  Second, it provides some tax relief. We are told that there will be 
an opportunity on the floor for debate of tax relief. One will be $500 
per child for family relief. That is good. Another would be some relief 
of capital gains taxes. That is good. It will help the economy. And in 
the short term, at least, it will increase revenues. Some reduction in 
estate taxes, I think, is good.
  In my State of Wyoming, there are lots of family farmers, ranches, 
and

[[Page S4670]]

small businesses. People have worked all of their lives--and many times 
the lives of their forebears--to put together a business or a ranch or 
a farm, often with relatively little flow of cash but lots of assets. 
Under the present circumstances, that is taxed at nearly 50 percent. 
Many have to sell those assets in order to pay the taxes. That ought to 
be changed.
  There will be some effort made at entitlement reform. That is good. 
It helps preserve Medicare for people who will be on it in the future. 
There has to be some changes made to do that. So it is a kind of a 
mixed bag, it seems to me.
  There are some other items I would like to see changed. I would like 
to see some incentives to increase the capital gains so that there is 
incentive to invest in the economy.
  I would like to see some real long-term meaningful changes in 
Medicare so that our kids will have a chance.
  The President has sort of tinkered around the edges, and takes down 
the providers' cost a little here and there to avoid any real tough 
decision, but he is doing a little something. We have to make them. The 
sooner we make them, the less costly they will have to be. We need to 
allow families to keep more of their dough.
  We need to be careful about balancing the budget and about making 
very optimistic projections in the future. Suddenly, there was $200 
billion-plus because of the projections for the future.
  We ought to make kind of a level projection, it seems to me. And 
then, if we are fortunate enough to have revenue growth, why not apply 
that to the debt? Wouldn't that be a nice idea? But no, we put that on 
so that we continue to spend and see the Government grow larger.
  These are some of the things we will be grappling with this week. I 
think they are very difficult ones, and some things I hope we do 
regardless of what we do with the tax bill, regardless of what we do 
with the budget. I hope we move on past that to reform the tax system. 
The tax system needs to be changed.
  People are increasingly complaining about the IRS. And I understand 
that. The tax issue is not going to change the IRS a great deal until 
you change the system that they have to enforce. We ought to do that.
  This budget should not mean we are going to leave it as it is for 5 
years. We need meaningful reductions in taxes.
  We need a smaller Government. We need to change the situation so that 
the Government doesn't compete with the private sector in those things 
that the Government does that are commercial in nature. We ought to 
allow for contracting, and let private small businesses be able to 
compete to do things that the Government does that are basically 
commercial.
  Mr. President, there is something else that I think we ought to do 
that would help us. We ought to have a biennial budget.
  We spend almost all of our time with this budget. We started this 
thing just about this time in January when the Congress came in. We 
will be very fortunate if we are through by the middle of September or 
the 1st of October. And, as you know, Mr. President, it has been longer 
than that in the past.
  It wouldn't take any longer to do it on a biennial basis. We could 
know those figures just as well. The agencies would have 2 years of 
knowing where their money is going to be. But, most important of all, 
we could have the budget one year and the next year do oversight. That 
is part of Congress' responsibility, to oversee the things that the 
Government is doing. We can accomplish a great deal, if we can do that.
  So, Mr. President, I look forward to this week's debate and 
discussions. I am confident we will come out of it with something 
better than we have had.
  Thank you for the time.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. SANTORUM addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, thank you.

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