[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 92 (Thursday, June 26, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6438-S6440]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   REVENUE RECONCILIATION ACT OF 1997

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.


                           Amendment No. 537

  (Purpose: To implement the enforcement provisions of the Bipartisan 
 Budget Agreement, enforce the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, extend the 
   Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 through fiscal year 2002, and make 
   technical and conforming changes to the Congressional Budget and 
Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and the Balanced and Emergency Deficit 
                          Control Act of 1985)

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized for 
an amendment.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I believe it is my turn to offer an 
amendment. I am going to offer an amendment on behalf of myself and 
Senator Lautenberg of the State of New Jersey.
  Before I send the amendment to the desk, let me just talk a little 
bit about what I am trying to do. In the agreement reached with the 
White House, on the very last page of it, the White House, members from 
both sides, and the House, agreed that we would, as part of enforcing 
this 5-year budget, that we would extend and revise the discretionary 
caps for 1998 to 2002 at agreed levels shown in tables included in the 
agreement, and to extend the current law of sequester, which had its 
early origins in T. Gramm-Rudman-Hollings.
  We also agreed within the discretionary caps we would establish what 
we call firewalls. They have been in existence for some time. We struck 
a compromise and said for now we would only extend them for 2 years 
instead of for the entire agreement, meaning we will have to bring 
those up in about a year, but we will have an opportunity on the next 
budget resolution, or the one after that, for those who want to extend 
it beyond that time, and I do.
  We also agreed, and I want everybody to understand this one, to 
return to current law on separate crime caps at levels shown in the 
agreed tables. That has to do with a matter that is of real importance 
to Senator Byrd, Senator Biden, and the distinguished Senator from 
Texas, Senator Gramm. That is an extension of the trust fund for crime 
prevention, to fight crime, which was established here in the Senate 
when Senator Gramm on one day sought to use up the savings attributable 
to a reduced workforce, as I recall, and then said in that, if we are 
going to save the money, we ought to spend it for something everybody 
understands and would be worthwhile.

  That trust fund then came into being with the amendment of the 
Senator

[[Page S6439]]

from Texas, supported by Senator Byrd and others. Now, that law expires 
in 2 years, but we agreed in the sessions with the White House and the 
leadership that we would extend the trust fund within the caps for the 
2 remaining years of that law, meaning 1998 and 1999, after which the 
Congress is free to pass a new law on the trust fund or whatever they 
would like with reference to the trust fund.
  But I think it is clear that without a new law, since that is a trust 
fund, you couldn't just continue to appropriate, and the trust fund is 
a fund set aside within the caps and getting the highest priority 
because it is already there in trust.
  We agreed to four or five other things that are less important, and 
then we agreed to extend the pay-go, pay-as-you-go provisions which had 
heretofore been adopted and become part of the Senate's working process 
from the year 1990. Those pay-go provisions essentially said, if you 
are going to raise entitlement spending, you must offset it with 
entitlement cuts or tax increases. If you are going to cut taxes, you 
must offset that with entitlement cuts and vice versa.
  We have in this amendment done all of those things. The distinguished 
Senator from New Jersey, who was part of the agreement and also my 
ranking member on the Budget Committee, joins me in sending a Domenici-
Lautenberg amendment to the desk on this matter, and we ask for its 
immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from New Mexico [Mr. Domenici], for himself and 
     Mr. Lautenberg, proposes an amendment numbered 537.

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading 
of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The text of the amendment is printed in today's Record under 
``Amendments Submitted.'')
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I want the Senate to know that this 
amendment is subject to a point of order, and I won't wait around for a 
point of order. I want the Senate to know that I am fully aware that 
this amendment is subject to a point of order, because it is obviously 
not part of deficit reduction. I am fully aware that a point of order 
could be made. I knew that from the beginning, and we knew that when we 
discussed extending this and putting in the caps for 5 years, which is 
the only way to enforce the discretionary savings in this budget. So I 
won't wait for a point of order. When the time is expired, I myself 
will move to waive the Budget Act in order to allow this legislation to 
be considered on this bill.
  I say to my fellow Senators, there are many process amendments 
around. When the Senator from New Mexico said I would not offer this on 
the first bill, about 12 amendments came tumbling down because they are 
all waiting for process reform. Some of those amendments I would 
sympathize with, others I would not, which is not necessarily very 
relevant. But I must make a point of order on each and every one of 
those, if the sponsors do not, that they, too, will take 60 votes, 
unless somebody has some magical way--and maybe Senator Gramm will try 
a magical way, maybe he won't--to try to get these amendments in at 50 
votes. But I think everybody who wants to do these kinds of process 
changes ought to get 60 votes or they ought not get it done. That will 
be applying the law to everybody who wants to change our processes.
  I hope everybody knows we could be here for the entire remainder of 
this bill if everybody who has a process change intends to offer it.
  I will use no more time other than to shortly yield to Senator 
Lautenberg with reference to the amendment which he cosponsors. But let 
me make it very simple, if we do not adopt this amendment, or something 
like it, there is no way of enforcing the 5-year caps on 
appropriations. This was a three-legged stool. We get savings on the 
caps on appropriations, we get savings in entitlements, and we would do 
that sufficient to allow for a $85 billion tax cut, the third leg. 
There will be no enforcement of the appropriations total accounts that 
they can spend, and there will be no firewall between defense if we 
don't adopt something like this amendment.
  I think it is properly drawn, and I hope that we can adopt it later 
on this evening when the debate is finished.
  I yield the floor to Senator Lautenberg.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Madam President, I join with Senator Domenici in 
offering the amendment. It implements a provision in the bipartisan 
budget agreement that relates to the budget process. Without the 
support that comes from this, I think the work that had been done would 
be relatively penetrable in so many ways that we would not be able to 
come up with the final target that we are shooting for, and that is to 
make certain that we have the deficit down to zero at the end of 2002, 
and then we have preserved the caps that were placed there to achieve 
that objective.

  The amendment extends several provisions in the Budget Enforcement 
Act that otherwise will expire and preserves the existing system for 
enforcing the fiscal policies established by the Congress.
  Madam President, current law establishes an overall cap on the amount 
of spending that Congress can appropriate each year, but discretionary 
spending--I am referring to the programs appropriated annually by the 
Congress, including the entire gamut of Federal Departments and 
Agencies and most of their day-to-day operations. By contrast, 
discretionary spending does not include entitlement spending, Social 
Security, Medicare, which flows without the need for annual 
congressional action.
  Under current law, total spending on discretionary programs cannot 
exceed the prescribed limits. However, these limits expire in fiscal 
year 1998, and the amendment would extend these limits to 2002 in 
accordance with the budget agreement. The levels established are the 
same as those adopted in the agreement and in the budget resolution.
  In addition, the amendment extends the so-called pay-as-you-go or 
pay-go system. Under that system, all tax cuts, all increases in 
entitlement spending have to be offset by either revenue increases or 
reductions in other entitlements. The amendment will extend this system 
through 2002.
  There was little disagreement in the bipartisan budget negotiations 
that the discretionary spending limits and the pay-as-you-go system 
ought to be extended. These two budget mechanisms are at the very core 
of the Budget Enforcement Act. The act has been in place since 1990 
when it replaced the old Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law, and the system has 
proven to be successful.
  There are many ways to measure success, but I begin by pointing to 
the bottom line. Since BEA, the Budget Enforcement Act, was put into 
place, our deficit has been reduced from $270 billion plus down to 
about $70 billion, a $200 billion reduction. By contrast, the old 
Gramm-Rudman system had promised dramatic deficit reduction, but when 
it came to producing results, frankly, it laid an egg.
  When Gramm-Rudman came into effect in 1986, the deficit was $221.2 
billion. By 1990, when Gramm-Rudman was repeated, the deficit had moved 
from $220 billion to the same level, $221.2 billion. That, Madam 
President, is not my idea of progress. Beyond helping to implement the 
real deficit reduction, the Budget Enforcement Act has avoided many of 
the political and policy distortions that were originally created by 
the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings legislation. The old system created an 
incentive for both Congress and the White House to use unrealistic 
economic assumptions and other gimmicks in order to game the system.
  Since BEA was enacted, while there are still plenty of games in 
Federal budgeting, the process has dramatically improved. For example, 
Presidential budgets have used much more realistic economic 
assumptions, and we have largely been free of the threat of massive 
across-the-board cuts in defense and domestic appropriated programs 
that used to be so disruptive.
  So, Madam President, I, along with Senator Domenici and Congressman 
Kasich, Congressman Spratt and the administration, all in the 
negotiations agreed we should retain the basic framework of the Budget 
Enforcement

[[Page S6440]]

Act system. That is what we are proposing in the amendment before us. 
It is a fairly simple proposition.
  In addition, this amendment includes separate spending limits for 
defense discretionary programs and nondefense discretionary programs in 
the next 2 fiscal years. This also reflects the bipartisan budget 
agreement.
  Along with many other Democrats, I have long been skeptical of 
firewalls, but I remind my colleagues that these firewalls apply 
equally to both sides of the discretionary budget and could protect 
domestic initiatives from those who would shift funding from domestic 
discretionary to the military. I will also note that the separate 
defense and nondefense caps expire after 2 years.
  Another provision in this amendment, which also implements the 
bipartisan budget agreement, would revise the rule governing scoring of 
asset sales. Under the proposal, asset sales could be counted in budget 
calculations only if they do not increase the deficit. This should help 
ensure we don't sell assets only for short-term income if those assets 
would generate significant revenues in the future. An example might be 
a Government-owned recreational facility that generates significant 
user fees.
  Madam President, this amendment also includes provisions that 
establish reserve funds for Amtrak, highways and transits. These 
provisions will allow us to implement the comparable reserve funds that 
were included in the budget resolution, and they have been top 
priorities for me and, given my longstanding commitment to 
transportation investment, I worked very hard to make sure that we were 
going to provide the funds necessary to provide the investment in 
infrastructure so critically needed in our country.
  Finally, Madam President, this amendment includes a variety of 
technical changes that are designed to correct errors and eliminate 
unnecessary reporting requirements and to revise the outdated 
provisions. So, I hope my colleagues will support us in this amendment. 
I express my appreciation, once again, to Senator Domenici and the 
staff, especially Sue Nelson, my Budget Committee staff, for their hard 
work and cooperation in the development of this legislation. I yield 
the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished majority leader is 
recognized.
  Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I have a unanimous consent request that I 
have cleared with the Democratic leader.

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