[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 37 (Friday, March 27, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2711-S2713]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEARS
1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, AND 2003
The Senate continued with consideration of the concurrent resolution.
Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, we have before the Senate today, and will
have on into next week, the budget resolution which has been reported
from Senate Budget Committee, on which I serve. I commend ranking
member Lautenberg from New Jersey for his leadership as well as
Chairman Domenici for his work on the budget resolution. Obviously, we
have differences relative to some components of the budget resolution.
I think the current resolution is significantly lacking in many serious
ways. At the same time, however, I want to acknowledge the
extraordinary circumstance that we now find ourselves in as Americans
here in the spring of 1998.
Many of us recognize that, upon his election 5 years ago, President
Clinton faced a pool of red ink totaling around $292 billion per year,
a pool of red ink that had exploded through the 1980s. When President
Carter left office, this nation had accumulated a national debt of
around $1 trillion. At the end of the 1980s, the accumulated debt of
this country was four times that, in the $4 trillion range, and growing
beyond sight.
After five successive years in reducing the annual budget deficit, we
now find ourselves, in this fiscal year, with a budget surplus as
measured under the unified budget-scoring system. We are in the black
for the first time in 30 years. The last time the Federal Government
had a unified budget surplus was in 1969 during the Lyndon Johnson
administration when taxes were raised in order to pay for the Vietnam
war. We slipped back into deficit again and then drowned in red ink
through the 1980s.
So, we find ourselves in an extraordinary time. We must decide what
kind of framework our Federal Government should have, and what kind of
framework our budget should have, going on into the next millennium.
After 5 years of budget discipline--in no small measure as a
consequence of a very difficult vote on the 1993 budget reconciliation
bill, which laid much of the groundwork for this progress--we find
ourselves with record low inflation, record low unemployment, one of
the highest levels of housing ownership that we have seen in decades,
record low levels of crime and, again, the first budget surplus, at
least under a unified budget, that we have seen in 30 years.
Where do we go from here? That is the question that the pending
budget resolution asks. This is not just a budget issue. This is one
that really reflects the values and the priorities and the philosophy
of the American people. It has enormous ramifications for us all.
There are some very fundamental areas where the two political parties
are in agreement on the budget resolution. I am thankful for that. I am
pleased we have found common ground, first of all, in deciding that the
budget resolution should sustain and continue the budget discipline
mechanism that has been a factor in producing a budget surplus for the
first time in 30 years. We will continue on a pay-as-you-go basis. No
more new spending unless the cost is offset by spending decreases or
revenue adjustments; no more tax cuts, even in an election year, unless
those cuts are paid for by reduced spending or revenue increases
somewhere else in the budget.
This is the kind of discipline that one would have thought should
have been present in our Government for 200 years but, in fact, has
been present for just this past decade. It is the kind of discipline
that we must sustain. While there are some who, I think, are expressing
some sense of giddiness over a budget surplus, we need to recognize
that that surplus will remain only with continued budget restraint and
discipline; that we must face the question of budget priorities; and
that the election year Christmas trees that took place in the past are
no longer an accepted part of budget strategy in this day and age.
Secondly, there is agreement between the parties, at least in the
Senate Budget Committee, that the so-called budget surpluses ought to
be preserved for the purpose of strengthening Social Security. We ought
not to run off in any number of directions with tax cuts or spending
increases premised on utilizing those particular
[[Page S2712]]
dollars. These so-called surpluses are really surpluses only if the
Social Security trust funds are included in the budget, which is the
nature of the unified budget.
We have an agreement on the budget resolution that has emerged from
our committee that those two underlying principles will be continued. I
acknowledge the very great importance of those two underlying
principles.
There are some great differences, however, that I am hopeful can be
addressed with amendments during the course of debate this coming week.
One of the most fundamental differences, frankly, is how to utilize
any resources that might be generated by a tobacco settlement. We all
understand that a tobacco settlement is still only a possibility--it
may occur or it may not--and the terms of any tobacco settlement ought
to be driven by the merits of that issue itself. We should not see the
settlement as simply a revenue generator for other purposes, regardless
of how worthy they might be.
Nonetheless, the President in his budget and Democrats in their
alternative budget recognize that we do need to be thinking about how
to utilize most constructively additional resources if they are, in
fact, made possible by a tobacco settlement. Therein lies one of the
most fundamental differences between the two parties.
We are in agreement on preserving the Social Security trust funds; we
are in agreement that we need to shore up Medicare. I think few people
have done more to protect, preserve and strengthen Medicare than my
colleagues on the Democratic side. We are pleased, however, to have
support from our Republican colleagues on an issue that ought not to be
partisan and one where we should be able to find common ground.
The budget resolution that is coming to this floor, over the
objections of the White House and over the objections of Democrats on
the Budget Committee, sees to it that none of the potential new
resources from a settlement will be used for health care for children;
for schools; for child care; for expanding the National Institutes of
Health research on cancer, heart disease, and so on; for rural
development, or for deterring youth smoking. That is not to say that
there are not attempts in other areas of the budget to touch on some of
these issues, but certainly none of the tobacco funds could be used for
these purposes.
I have to say, simply being candid and looking across the political
landscape in the Budget Committee, that what we have here is not so
much a concern about the long-term viability of Medicare--we all share
a concern for that. It seems to me that those who are making certain
that none of the tobacco money may be used for many of the other
problems created by use of tobacco, or for child care or education, are
less concerned about Medicare, than they are simply opposed to creating
a better partnership among the Federal, State, and local governments,
and public and private entities, to address the problems of education
and child care and health care in general.
Mr. President, we have some enormous needs that the Federal
Government cannot fix by itself, nor should it attempt to fix by
itself, but where a constructive partnership makes a lot of common
sense.
We have found over the last several budget debates that the American
people are not terribly ideological in the sense that they are far
right or they are far left, they tend to be fairly pragmatic and down
the center. That is why Democrats on the Budget Committee attempted to
pass an alternative budget. In doing so, we recognized that replacing
and renovating schools has always been and will always be primarily a
function of local school districts and local citizens, taking it upon
themselves to determine whether a particular school needs to be
replaced or renovated. Those are local decisions and will remain so.
But we have suggested that a small portion of these resources ought to
be used to help buy down interest rates for the bond issues that are
supported at the local level.
Because of the enormous backlog of school repair and renovation work
that is out there--it is in small towns, it is in large cities,
suburban areas, rural and urban alike. As we head into this next
millennium, we understand that those countries which focus on quality
education and developing the brain power of the next generation are
nations that will do well; those nations that neglect those resources,
those nations that think these needs will somehow take care of
themselves will slide backwards.
We need a new commitment to education and to providing the resources
for education, not simply for the intrinsic value of increasing the
intellectual capability of our young people--although that certainly is
the principal goal--but also from even a purely dollars-and-cents point
of view. Our economy cannot thrive, our communities cannot prosper,
unless we do better at making sure that every young person in this
country has an opportunity to develop his or her God-given talents to
the maximum extent possible, and that the resources are there to make
it happen. We must have a public and private, a Federal, State, and
local partnership that can make it happen.
So it is with some frustration that I view this budget resolution, in
its current form, as a wasted opportunity.
I am hopeful that we can restore some of these priorities in the
context of a balanced budget in a way that does, in fact, make some of
these key investments in other areas as well.
In the area of child care, we have an increasingly stark reality of
more and more children being unsupervised, not having constructive
after-school programs, that they are getting along on a latchkey basis.
More and more often we have single-parent households. We also have more
dual-income households, not necessarily because they want that to be
their circumstance but because economic reality dictates that
circumstance.
Yet, at the age when children have the greatest brain development,
when it is determined how well these children will succeed in their
later years in terms of their fitting into society and being
constructive citizens, that is the one age where we make the least
commitment, where we have the greatest patchwork system, where quality
is uneven, where affordability is uneven.
I have held child care meetings all around my State with parents and
child care providers and other concerned citizens. I am pleased that
the Republican Governor of my State is very supportive of strong new
initiatives for after-school programs and for child-care. We ought to
be able to bridge this nonsensical partisan gap and look after the
needs of our kids and the future generations of this country. That
means, again, some level of partnership, not a system that is
micromanaged out of Washington or that involves a new bureaucracy out
of Washington. We do none of that in the Democratic alternative budget.
We allow the decisionmaking to be made at the local level. We allow the
initiative to be there. We allow tremendous innovation at the State and
local level, but we believe there is a partnership needed for those
communities and for those nonprofit organizations and for those schools
to make a viable investment in our children.
Mr. President, there is no funding for President Clinton's education
initiatives in this budget resolution. There is no help for school
construction. Fourteen million children currently attend classes in
buildings that need major renovations; 7 million kids in our country go
to school in buildings that currently have safety code violations; 16
million children are in classrooms without proper ventilation, heating,
or air conditioning.
This is where we get on to a particular concern of mine involving
Native American children. We have currently 60 BIA schools that need
complete replacement. We are replacing them at the rate of one per
year. I thank Chairman Domenici for his sharing a concern with me about
this. We haven't really reached an entirely satisfactory solution to
this problem, but I do appreciate that we have joined together in the
inclusion of report language expressing our concern to the
appropriators that additional funds be allocated for these Indian
schools. These schools have some children from the most difficult
circumstances imaginable, with 40 percent studying in portable
classrooms, with dropout rates and other attendant problems of poverty
and desperation at such high levels.
I thank the chairman for his work with me on this very significant
problem, and I understand his profound appreciation of the challenges
we face in that regard.
[[Page S2713]]
So, we have a budget resolution, Mr. President, that contains some
strong underlying principles, and I am very, very pleased at that,
because I think by maintaining a balanced budget, we can do more than
almost any other single thing the Federal Government can do to reduce
the cost of borrowing money. That makes going to college, buying a
house, buying a car, expanding a business, hiring more employees, all
more affordable. That will do more to maintain America's role as the
world's great economic superpower than any other single thing we can
do, and there is strong bipartisan support in that regard.
But we have these other fundamental differences that I am hopeful can
be addressed, at least in part, in the course of this coming debate on
the Senate budget resolution. We can create a framework for investment
in our communities, investment in our kids, in our schools, in health
research, in a more meaningful way than the budget resolution that we
currently have on the floor allows.
We can do that. We can sustain Social Security, we can sustain
Medicare, we can make other needed investments, while keeping the
budget in balance. This is a remarkable point in time, one that many
people thought would never occur in our lifetime. This, along with the
fall of the Berlin Wall and some other events, are things that many
people thought would not happen, but they are on the verge of
happening. Now it is our responsibility in this body, the U.S. Senate,
to make sure it happens in a responsible, sustainable way and we
continue to make the key investments that will create the framework,
create the foundation, for our country to prosper and to continue to
grow, to create greater opportunity for all of its citizens. Not to
guarantee success for anyone--that comes only about through their own
labor, their own efforts, and their own talent--but to create the
tools, the starting point for every American, regardless of his or her
background, as an opportunity to prosper and to succeed.
Mr. President, I want to make one additional comment unrelated
directly to the budget resolution but on an issue which does impact our
overall economy. I wish to express great, great concern over recent
action by our colleagues in the other body who have failed to extend
the ethanol fuel tax incentives that the Senate, by a large bipartisan
majority, included in the ISTEA legislation.
It appears, at this point, that our colleagues on the other side
managed in effect to terminate a critically needed tax provision. This
provision will not only allow ethanol fuel usage an opportunity to
reach critical mass, a substantial benefit to farmers, but also will
help clean our air and make this Nation less reliant on unstable Third
World nations as sources of petroleum. At this point, however, it
appears that there will not even be an opportunity for members of the
other body to vote for an extension of the ethanol tax incentives.
I am very concerned about this, and it is certainly my hope and
expectation that Senate conferees, in the course of negotiating
differences between the Senate and the House highway legislation, will
give this a very high priority. It is important that we make the proper
investments in our Nation's transportation infrastructure.
It is also important that we move forward with a commonsense, cost-
efficient strategy for expanding use of clean, American alternative
fuels. That can only be done by the conferees on the Senate side
looking after the interests of the American people in that regard when
the conference committee comes about.
So, Mr. President, this coming week should be tumultuous but very
important for the American people as we deal with the fundamental
issues in the budget for the coming fiscal year, as well as
transportation and fuel strategy into the next century.
With that, Mr. President, I yield back my time and suggest the
absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Roberts). If there is no objection, time
will be divided equally between both sides. The clerk will call the
roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GRAMS. Also, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be
allowed to speak for up to 3 minutes as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is
so ordered.
Mr. GRAMS. Thank you very much.
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