[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 71 (Thursday, June 4, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H4144-H4163]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
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CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 1999
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Sununu). Pursuant to House Resolution
455 and rule XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of
the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the
concurrent resolution, H.Con. Res. 284.
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In the Committee of the Whole
Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the
Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the
concurrent resolution (H.Con. Res. 284) revising the congressional
budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 1998,
establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government
for fiscal year 1999, and setting forth appropriate budgetary levels
for fiscal years 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003, with Mr. Gilchrest in the
chair.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the concurrent resolution is
considered as having been read the first time.
General debate shall not exceed 3 hours, with 2 hours confined to the
congressional budget, equally divided and controlled by the chairman
and ranking member of the Committee on the Budget, and 1 hour on the
subject of economic goals and policies, equally divided and controlled
by the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton) and the gentleman from
California (Mr. Stark), or their designees.
The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) and the gentleman from South
Carolina (Mr. Spratt) each will control 1 hour of debate on the
congressional budget.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich).
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, I want to, first of all, begin by talking about the
fact that last year we were as a Congress able to reach an historic
agreement that is going to be able to achieve for the first time since
we walked on the moon a balanced budget. We also anticipate that in the
course of this year we will have a surplus. It will be generated
primarily from the Social Security taxes as part of the budget. And
next year, I am going to predict tonight, we will see a surplus in the
general fund.
I think it was a significant accomplishment that we were able to move
to do something we have not done since we landed on the moon, but,
frankly, maybe I need to let you in open a little secret: Our effort
here was really never just to balance the budget. Our effort here was
really to transfer power, money and influence from this city back to
where people live, in every community and every family in America.
Mr. Chairman, Teddy Roosevelt rode into this century with the idea
that he should break the monopolies of the big corporations so that
people could be set free to be successful. Well, I believe and the
members of the Committee on the Budget believe that we ought to ride
into the next century and break the monopolies and trusts of the
Federal Government so that people can be set free and that we can begin
to run America from the bottom up, rather than from the top down.
Whether it is more choice for parents in education or whether it is
to allow communities to set the rules and the standards in public
housing and in job training or whether it is ultimately to set
Americans free, to be able to invest payroll taxes, to be able to
prepare for their retirement years, or whether it is beginning to break
down that big money-raising machine called the Federal Tax Code that
props up the monopolies of the Federal Government, our efforts are to
make this city a lot less important, to make this city and government a
lot more efficient and a lot more effective, and to make the budget of
government a lot smaller and the budget of the family a heck of a lot
bigger.
Now, we reached this historic agreement last year. This budget
agreement, historic only from the standpoint we have not achieved this
in over 30 years, we viewed that agreement as a ceiling on government;
not a floor of the growth of government, but a ceiling on government.
The President, however, and many of my colleagues on the other side of
the aisle, viewed the agreement last year as a floor on government and
not a ceiling.
Now, can you imagine, with an American people, an American electorate
that has very little confidence in the fact that we can get a balanced
budget, that the President came up here to Capitol Hill and he
announced a program that would increase fees and taxes by $130 billion?
Think about that. The President of the United States, who declared the
era of big government over, within a period of 6 months after we signed
an agreement and he declared the end of the era of big government,
comes to the House, comes to the House and proposes $130 billion worth
of new tax increases. And that was not enough, because the tax
increases were going to fund $150 billion worth of new spending.
The President of the United States raises taxes by $130 billion and
raises spending by $150 billion. He has 39 new entitlement programs. I
hear so many of my friends talk about the need to control entitlement
programs. He has 39 new ones.
I never heard a peep, never heard a peep out of the minority when
Franklin Raines came up here to present this President's budget. In
fact, the budget resolution that the Democrats offer will provide for
bigger government, breaking the spending caps, and having a philosophy
that ``we like government.''
At the same time that the President proposed $150 billion in new
spending and $130 billion in new taxes and 39 new entitlement programs,
we also developed 85 new spending schemes. This is the President that
said the era of big
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government was over. But, you know, he could not really stay with it,
because too many people in his party believe in running America from
the top down.
There is nothing wrong with somebody that feels that way. I just
think that we all know across this country, outside of this Beltway, in
most communities, it does not work anymore. What we are really trying
to do is to empower people and take power, take power from this city
and give it back to people all across this country.
Now, what are we asking to do in this budget resolution? I heard the
whole litany, the whole litany of all these things we were going to do.
Mr. Chairman, over the next 5 years, the Federal Government is slated
to spend $9.1 trillion. Do you know what we are asking in our budget
resolution for the government to strain under the yoke of? Instead of
spending $9.1 trillion over the next 5 years, and, by the way, in the
last 5 years we spent $7.8 trillion, we are going to go from $7.8
trillion in the last 5 years to $9.1 trillion in the next 5 years, and
we are suggesting that we really tighten our belt and we really
restrain ourselves and we spend only $9 trillion to run this Federal
Government.
Do you know what that works out to? Talk about deja vu all over
again. Tim Penny and I came to this floor in a bipartisan effort, the
same way the President and I got together on the budget agreement last
year, and we proposed that we save 1 penny on every dollar. Do you know
why? Because the President raised taxes in 1993, and Tim Penny came to
this floor and said we should have some cuts. One penny on every
dollar.
Now, I am going to ask a question: Do Members not think they can go
home and tell people that the Federal Government cannot become more
efficient and more effective and save one penny on every dollar in
Federal spending over the next 5 years and cannot live within a budget
of $9 trillion, rather than $9.1 trillion?
Because you know what they know about back home? They know about the
$800,000 outhouse. You know, the Park Service built an $800,000
outhouse at the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. The Park
Service built new employee homes in Yosemite at an average cost of
$584,000. At the Grand Canyon, the average was $390,000. More than $8.5
million was spent on planning, design and supervision at housing at
both parks.
Approximately 26,000 deceased persons in four States receive food
stamps worth a total of $8.5 million, according to the GAO. The X-
Files, the Forest Service budgeted $500,000 for a motivational
conference to help its employees explore alternative reality. I suppose
they were studying Washington. How about $34 million so that the Jerry
Springer Show and Baywatch can be close-captioned?
We look at the reports on fraud and waste and so many of these big
programs that we have not had the guts to dig in and begin to fix. And
what we are asking is we cannot get all of this accomplished this year,
to fix all of this, but what we are saying is, we can find a penny out
of every dollar. We can live with only $9 trillion in spending. And out
of those savings, those savings that every American knows is there, we
can eliminate the marriage penalty for the 22 million Americans who get
penalized because they decided to get married.
You know, the wife goes out to get a job, and all of a sudden she is
paying at the high marginal rate. She is paying at the higher tax rate.
She is being punished because her husband may earn more than her.
We want to fix that. Do you know why we want to fix that? We want to
fix that because we know that the family is the incubator of everything
good that happens in our society. And we look around at the tragedies
that we have seen in this country over the period of the last couple of
years, and we hold our breath, and you know what we all know? We need
better families to provide more love, more hope, more discipline.
But do Members know what? Families are hurting. Tax rates are going
to be at the highest level and revenues are going to flow in at the
highest level since World War II.
Look, this is just an honest disagreement among some of us about the
way we think America ought to work. I do not begrudge the fact that 50
years ago in the middle of the Great Depression that it was necessary
for us to send a lot of our power, money and influence to Washington to
fix some of the biggest problems, including civil rights and some of
the gaps in education.
But do you know what I hear people saying? I hear people saying, I am
tired of the country being run from the top down. I want to be involved
in solutions that are located in my own community. I want to break the
monopolies of government. I want to be set free. I want my power,
influence and money back so that I can fix the problems in my family
and my community and in the area where I live. And that is what we are
trying to do.
Are we getting there all at once? The fact is a penny on a dollar is
something that is not very satisfying to me. I would like to do a lot
more for people in this country. I would like to let them have a lot
more in their pockets. So what we attempt to do with this budget
resolution is to say people can get it right at home, that the
government can become more efficient, that the government can become
more effective, that we can squeeze a penny out of a dollar, that we
can live with just $9 trillion in spending, that we can save $100
billion, and we can give some of that money to the family.
Because we believe that at every turn of the road the family budget
needs to be bigger, the government budget needs to be smaller, and that
we need to transfer power, money and influence from government back
into the hands of the American people because we trust them and we
believe in them. And we are going to work on this every single day.
To my Republican colleagues, when you go home tonight, I want you to
think about why we came to power. I want you to think about the fact
that this party has always been committed to reducing the size and
scope of the government budget, empowering people at the local level.
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I want you to think about coming here tomorrow and supporting this.
But I am going to tell you, every single day that I am involved in
government and in community activities, I am going to fight the fight
to give you the power, the American people the power to solve the
problems that they know how to solve best.
I urge support for the resolution and would look forward even to
maybe a couple of my friends on the other side of the aisle supporting
this resolution.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 6 minutes.
Mr. Chairman, my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich),
the chairman of our committee, is an effective speaker, so effective
that, in listening to him, you would hardly perceive how far we have
come in the 1990s and particularly since 1993 in coming to grips with
what was the most compelling problem facing the Federal Government, a
huge, swelling deficit that we seemed not to be able to get our hands
around.
Really, the first step we took was in 1990, when Mr. Bush was the
President of the United States. He submitted to a budget summit. It was
convened at Andrews Air Force Base, and it went on and on and on and
finally came to a resolution that fall. We voted on it twice on the
House floor.
The first, it was voted down for lack of support on this side of the
aisle. We finally mustered the votes to pass a modified version of it.
It kept discretionary spending. It raised revenues. It cut
entitlements. It was the first serious effort that we had made since we
passed Gramm-Rudman, which was barely followed through on, to come to
grips with this compelling problem. Its effects were eclipsed by a
recession.
But let me not get ahead of myself. When the votes were counted in
support of that provision, that budget that Mr. Bush wholeheartedly
endorsed, only 47 Republicans voted for it.
In 1993, when Mr. Clinton came to Washington, the deficit the
preceding September was $290 billion and headed upward. Indeed, if the
President had read the economic report of Mr. Bush dated January 13,
1993, he would have foreseen, and probably did if he looked at it, that
the deficit projected by Mr. Bush for fiscal year 1993 was $332
billion. That is where we were 5 years ago.
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Today, today, there is a deficit no more. We are looking at a surplus
of $43 billion to $63 billion in September of this year. That is
considerable, phenomenal progress. It has been made on the watch of Mr.
Clinton. It has been made because of the votes we cast in 1990 and the
votes we cast in 1993 when only Democrats in the House and only
Democrats in the Senate voted for the Deficit Reduction Act of 1993.
They have had a phenomenal impact on the government of the United
States. They have radically changed, fundamentally changed our fiscal
situation. It is better than it has been in a generation. Those are not
my words. They are Alan Greenspan's words. Better than it has been in a
generation.
We have got to go back to the 1960s to find numbers such as we have
today with respect to unemployment, with respect to inflation, and
certainly with respect to deficit reduction. Indeed, we will have the
biggest surplus we have experienced in history this September. That is
good news. That is good news.
What we are concerned about here is that that discipline that has
brought us this far from $300 billion deficits headed upwards to
surpluses as far as the eye can now see, the discipline may be
dissipated by the budget resolution that the Republicans have proposed,
that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) is pushing. Why is that?
Back in 1990, one of the things we passed was something called a
Budget Enforcement Act. This is really esoteric, but there were a
couple of common-sense rules in that Budget Enforcement Act.
We said, among other things, we are going to cap, numerically cap,
put a dollar cap on discretionary spending for 5 fiscal years. We did
it in 1990. We renewed it in 1993. We did it again in 1997. It has
worked. We have adhered to those limits, and we have reduced
discretionary spending, and we are seeing the results on the bottom
line in the form of surpluses that will show up.
In addition, we adopted a common-sense rule called a pay-as-you-go
rule, which said simply that, before anybody undertakes to do another
tax bill such as the one we did in 1981, they have to pay for it. They
can cut taxes, but they have got to offset the revenue losses to the
Treasury so it will be deficit neutral either by commensurate cut and
entitlements, permanent spending, or by some other adjustments in the
Tax Code that would increase revenues to offset the decrease in
revenues occasioned by the tax cut. Common-sense rule, but it has
worked. That discipline has worked.
What the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) would propose is a budget
that would unrealistically lower discretionary spending. He proposes it
as though it were 1 percent cut, but we all know it is not a 1 percent
cut. He is not cutting Social Security. He is not cutting national
defense. He is not cutting interest on the national debt. It is
obligatory. It has to be paid.
About one-quarter of the budget in discretionary spending is left
subject to cuts. Bob Reischauer has written a very compelling article
in which he analyzes the different components of this account, called
Discretionary Spending, and shows that really only about half of it is
effectively cut.
In last year's budget agreement, we effectively cut over 5 years'
discretionary spending by 11 percent. This year, the gentleman from
Ohio (Mr. Kasich) would take another 7 percent. If you consider that it
only will actually affect half of discretionary spending, that means
the cuts would have to be 35 percent. Does anybody realistically think
that will happen? No.
The Republicans have proposed a bill which backloads the cuts. They
will not happen this year. We will adopt them now, and on the strength,
the promise that they are going to be realized, we will do a big tax
cut. That is the third piece of unraveling the discipline that has
brought us to where we are. That is why this is a serious debate, and
it is a travesty that we are having it at this time of night, at this
point in the day, when this should be given the most serious attention
we possibly could.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself whatever time I might
consume.
Mr. Chairman, let me tell you about this discretionary spending that
we have just heard about and how we are going to devastate it. Again,
gang, do you know what? I appreciate the gentleman saying, you know, he
is an effective speaker. You are not an effective speaker because you
just say things. You are an effective speaker because you say things
and people go, you know, that makes a lot of sense.
We are going to go from $7.8 trillion to $9 trillion in spending, and
somebody is making the argument that we are devastating programs. Are
you kidding me?
Let me tell you a little bit about the growth in discretionary
spending. In 1990, we grew the discretionary budget by 17.7 percent. In
1991, we grew it by 11 percent. In 1992, we grew it by 8.9 percent. In
1993, we grew it by 6.7 percent. Last year, we grew it by 6.7 percent.
I mean, to talk about how we have got to scrimp and how we have got
to tighten and how we have got to starve ourselves when we are
averaging 7 or 8 percent, the American family wishes they can get 7 or
8 percent a year more in their pockets.
Do you know what we are talking about in the area of entitlement
savings? We are talking about saving approximately $50 billion out of
$5 trillion in spending so that the families can have a little bit
more.
See, the problem is, if the American people had a vote, you would not
get $9 trillion to spend. You would not get $9 trillion if we went in
their homes tonight, at their dinner tables, and we said the Federal
Government was going to go from $7.8 trillion to $9 trillion. Do you
know what they would say? Why do you not keep it at $7.8 trillion? Why
do you not freeze it, is what they would say.
We are not talking about freezing it. We are talking about saving
$100 billion. And we strain under that yoke, and we come here and
congratulate ourselves.
Let me just suggest another thing to you. I keep hearing about how
the Clinton tax increase did so great for our country. Do you know what
it did? Slowed the economy down. Drove up interest rates.
Do you know what Alan Greenspan told us? Well, it is a fact. It is a
fact. Let me just tell you what Alan Greenspan said. Alan Greenspan
came before the Committee on the Budget, and he said, if in fact you
can put a budget together that can balance, interest rates will come
down.
So what I would argue to the Committee is, it was in 1995, do you
remember the President sent us a budget that had deficits as far as the
eye could see? He sent us a budget in 1996 and in 1997 that had
deficits as far as the eye could see, and we put the plan together to
balance the budget and cut taxes, which you said we could not do.
Do you know what happened? Interest rates came down two points. As a
result of interest rates coming down two points and as a result of this
Republican Congress having some discipline to not just cut spending but
also to cut taxes, yeah, we have seen a great spurt of economic growth.
Now to make the argument that if we save more money, that if somehow
the Federal Government saves more money, that that is going to have a
negative effect on the economy, I ask you to call the Chairman of the
Fed tomorrow and ask him what would happen if we would cut Federal
spending by $100 billion and live within the strain of only $9
trillion.
Do you know what I get told? Do you know what the Fed Chairman tells
me? If we do not spend the surplus and we can learn to control
government, interest rates can come down even further. Do you know what
that will give us? More sustained economic growth and surpluses that
will allow us to transform Social Security for three generations and,
at the same time, to put us in a position to be able to have tax cuts
out of the general fund surplus that I will anticipate we will have
next year.
The fact is what we are proposing in this is just a little bit of
savings and a little bit more efficiency out of the way this government
works. I believe that we can get it done. I believe that we can achieve
it.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California
(Mr. Herger).
Mr. HERGER. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate a chance to address the body.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield to me for one
second?
Mr. HERGER. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
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Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, I just want to point out for the record,
after the President's 1993 tax bill, a year after the Clinton's 1993
tax hike, long-term Treasury rates moved up from 5.75 percent to 8.25
percent. The trend of real economic growth slowed from 3.3 percent to
1.7 percent. That is what happened 1 year after the President's tax
increase.
It was soon after that that the Republicans became a majority in this
Congress and put together a plan that balanced the budget that has
resulted in lower interest rates for this country to the tune of two
points. That is just a fact.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me.
Mr. HERGER. Mr. Chairman, I rise to express my strong support for
this budget resolution. It is amazing just how far we have come over
the past 4 years.
Just prior to the new leadership taking over our Congress 4 years
ago, we had the largest tax increase in our Nation's history of $270
billion. I might mention to the gentleman from South Carolina that is
why virtually no Republican voted for that bill.
It also was an attempt, a Federal attempt, to take over the health
care industry of our Nation, one-seventh of our entire economy. That is
also why we did not support it. It had in it a deficit of $203 billion.
In contrast, this last year with the new Congress, we passed a
historic budget agreement which placed in law our present steadfast
commitment to a balancing for the first time in 30 years the Federal
budget. The Congressional Budget Office projects not a $203 billion
deficit as it was under the last Congress but a $43 billion to $63
billion surplus this year.
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This Congress has also passed the largest tax decrease in 16 years of
$95 billion.
While much progress has been made, some still subscribe to the failed
budget policies of the past. Mr. Chairman, the President's budget calls
for $129 billion in tax increases over 5 years, more than $150 billion
in new spending, and 85 new spending programs.
We have a different vision. We know the Federal Government is still
too big, too inefficient, and too intrusive in our lives. This budget
reduces the rate of growth of government by only one penny out of $1
over the next 5 years. Making the Federal Government tighten its belt
for a change will allow us to completely eliminate the marriage
penalty, and save 21 million American couples an average of $1,400 each
year in taxes.
Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to help build upon our progress,
and vote for this budget resolution.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds to explain that
the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans) will explain from his vantage
point, as the ranking member of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, a
major discrepancy in this bill. Namely, it calls upon the Committee on
Veterans' Affairs to reconcile another $10 billion out of veterans'
benefits.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr.
Evans).
Mr. EVANS. Mr. Chairman, I rise to voice my strong objections to the
budget recommended by the Committee on the Budget. This is an anti-
veterans budget. It represents a direct frontal assault on the benefits
and programs which Congress has carefully considered and enacted into
law.
This budget proposal assumes the Committee on Veterans Affairs will
achieve 5-year savings totaling $10.4 billion, of which $10 billion is
to be achieved by prohibiting service-connected disability compensation
for tobacco-related illnesses.
Who are we kidding, here? As all of our colleagues know, and as the
Committee on the Budget certainly knows, Congress has already spent the
savings associated with this provision.
Is there a single Member of this body who does not understand that
shortly before the Memorial Day break, Congress included a provision to
prohibit service-connected disability compensation for tobacco-related
illnesses in H.R. 2400, the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st
Century, and the savings associated with that provision have already
been spent, to partially pay for the spending authorized by H.R. 2400?
As the chairman of the Committee on the Budget knows, the
transportation bill is now awaiting the President's signature. It will
become law within a matter of days.
My question to the chairman of the Committee on the Budget is simple
and direct: Will he commit to crediting the Committee on Veterans
Affairs with achieving this savings directed by House Concurrent
Resolution 284, if it reports legislation to prohibit service-connected
disability compensation for tobacco-related illnesses? If not, what
other veterans' benefits does the gentleman from Ohio, the chairman of
the Committee on the Budget, want this committee to reduce or
eliminate?
The Committee on Veterans Affairs has always fulfilled its duty to be
responsible and meet the reconciliation targets established for it.
Since 1986, in fact, reductions in veterans' programs and benefits have
resulted in savings to the Federal Government of over $12 billion. That
is $12 billion in veterans' benefits savings over 13 years. It is
irresponsible to call on veterans to give up another $10.4 billion in
benefits this year. America's veterans have already given enough.
I cannot and I will not support this anti-veteran budget being
proposed by the Committee on the Budget. I strongly urge the Members of
the House to reject House Concurrent Resolution 284.
Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 seconds.
Mr. Chairman, I would point out that the program that the gentleman
was referring to was recommended by the President and endorsed by this
side of the aisle.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to straighten out the record. The highway
bill visits a $10 billion hit on the Committee on Veterans Affairs. It
extinguishes benefits for smoking-related illnesses that the general
counsel's office had announced were the rights of veterans, if they
were service-connected. The highway bill takes away that right.
This bill still requires the Committee on Veterans Affairs to yield
another $10 billion in reconciliation, give up another $10 billion.
What the President recommended, that is, the extinguishment of those
benefits, has already been done in the highway bill. Yet, this bill
comes back and hits again for another $10 billion in veterans'
benefits. It is a fact. It requires reconciliation of $10 billion in
savings in veterans' benefits. After they have already paid once, they
have to pay again.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr.
Obey), ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I have to hand it to some of our friends on
the other side of the aisle. They are really something. They give their
poll-driven speeches, they bring cliches and mantras to the floor.
Regardless of subject or regardless of content, they utter them with
the alacrity that we expect from political slogans in a campaign
season.
Their campaign slogans are what passes for thought at 11 o'clock at
night in this place, I guess. Then they produce budgets which have
virtually nothing whatsoever to do with the rhetoric that they have
just expounded.
They pretend they are bringing a 1 percent cut in the budget in
discretionary spending to this floor, when in fact, in real dollar
terms over the life of this budget resolution we are talking about at
least a 18 percent across-the-board cut, and by the time we apply it
only to the programs that they expect to cut, we are, as the gentleman
from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) has told us, really talking about at
least a 30 percent cut. So get off this 1 percent baloney. That is
exactly what it is, it is baloney. It is a packaging gimmick that has
nothing whatsoever to do with what happens to real, live people under
the budget.
I would also suggest that, again, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr.
Evans) is absolutely right when he lays out that this budget has a
double cut on veterans. It doubles the reduction in veterans' health
care benefits that were mandated in the highway bill. For anyone to
pretend otherwise in my view is to give hypocrisy a bad name.
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I would simply say, there is a very good reason why the Republican
leaders in the Senate have already labeled this budget unworkable and
extreme. That is because it is. If it were not, we would have the
Republicans in the Senate rushing to endorse it, rather than running
away from it in their acute embarrassment.
Everyone knows that this is not a program designed to get through the
Congress, it is designed to get the Republican Party through the night.
They want to vote on this package. At least they want to debate it at
11 o'clock at night when nobody is watching, because they are so
embarrassed by it they would not bring it to us in the light of day.
That is because the numbers do not work. The numbers clobber real, live
Americans.
This is not a 1 percent solution, this is a 35 percent hatchet job,
so they can have a campaign slogan that once again involves their
mantra of pretend that what they suggest is they are going to cut
spending. But if we look at the Kasich budget, it does not cut anything
this year. It saves all of the cuts until after the election, so they
can package a tax cut before the election. That, too, is enough to give
hypocrisy a bad name.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield six minutes to the gentleman from
New York (Mr. Rangel), the ranking member of the Committee on Ways and
Means.
Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member of the Committee
on the Budget for yielding time to me.
Mr. Chairman, it is a little shocking how confused the majority is
tonight, that they cannot even find speakers to speak up on this
budget. I know that the Republican leadership told everyone they could
go home because there would be no votes tonight. I know that they made
it abundantly clear that there will be no opportunity to discuss the
President's budget, or Democratic alternatives, so I would think they
would have a lot of pride in the document that they have put together.
Why in God's name, in a document, in a budget that is so important,
would we wait until midnight to bring it up before the American people?
Why would Members do that? Is there any shame that they would have,
with something that is this important, that they would want Members to
hear, they would want people to hear, and that we should discuss these
things?
I know this is an election year. I know tax cuts are popular. Why can
we not talk about where the money comes from for the tax cut, who we
have to hurt? If we have to hurt the veterans, stand up and say that
they get enough. If the cuts are coming from education, and I think
that the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, the gentleman from
Ohio (Mr. Kasich), he said the used-to-be days of the Roosevelt days,
the days of the Depression, where we needed help, we needed Social
Security, we needed pension funds, we needed Medicaid, we needed
Medicare, we needed aid for education, but we do not need that now.
Ronald Reagan brought us a surplus, or was it Bush? I forgot the
rhetoric on the other side. Whatever it is, we got this surplus, so now
we have to talk about cuts.
Democrats want to talk about tax cuts, too. The only difference
between us and these rascals is that we like to tell the Members where
they come from, and they like to say they will tell us in 5 years.
If Members really do not believe that the Federal Government should
be involved in educating our young people, providing health care for
our kids, for older people, day care for mothers who have to work, why
do they not stand up in the daytime and say it?
But no, they just cover things, saying, in the bye and bye we will
tell you what we are going to do. It is shameful to have a document
like this, with no alternatives allowed, restricting the debate that we
have on the floor, and tell us that we can debate it at midnight. I
said midnight, and someone says it is not midnight yet, and they look
at their watches. That is no way to treat a budget that is going to
really affect the lives of Americans.
I know, with the coupon clippers, it just does not make any
difference, but not all of America is going through the good times.
Some want their kids to get an education, to get a decent job, to be
productive, and they need the Federal Government there. Some people do
not believe that the Social Security fund is going to to be there for
them, but they did not discuss that. No, those are the olden days, the
Roosevelt days. Everyone can take care of themselves without government
today.
Thank God they have done one thing. No one has to say that all of the
Members of Congress are alike, that there is no difference between a
Republican and a Democrat. I will tell the Members this, before this is
over, a lot of Republicans are going to wake up, when the American
people see what they are trying to sneak through in the middle of night
on them. When they do, they will be calling on Members before November
to ask them to stand up and be counted, and say, yes, we want a tax
cut, but you owe it to us to say what you have to cut in order to give
this to us.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. RANGEL. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Chairman, I applaud the ranking member for his
eloquent statement. I want to be very specific, I say to the gentleman
from New York (Mr. Rangel), on what the Republicans are going to do
regarding welfare reform.
Any Republican who votes for this budget is voting to undercut
welfare reform of 2 years ago. They had $10 billion in cuts in
Medicare. They grew nervous, so what did they do? Last night they take
$10 billion, instead, out of Function 600.
The heart of that is TANF. They are going to say to us on the
Committee on Ways and Means, cut Function 600, and therefore, cut
welfare reform, TANF, by 10. It is going to take $20 billion.
This is what State legislators say about this: ``This budget would
disproportionately cut State programs, and abrogates a fundamental
agreement reached among State legislators, Governors, and Congress in
1996 regarding welfare reform.''
If Members adopt the resolution, ``It will prove that the States
cannot trust Congress,'' i.e., you, ``to abide by its word.''
{time} 2345
Here is what the governors have to say: ``Your budget resolution is a
serious violation of the welfare agreement reached in 1996, and would
erode the Federal-State partnership and the future success of welfare
reform.''
And they go on to say, ``We urge you in the strongest possible terms
to uphold the historic welfare agreement reached in 1996, and reject
any cuts in TANF, Medicaid or other welfare-related programs as part of
the budget resolution.'' Signed Tom Carper, John Engler, Tommy
Thompson, Tom Ridge.
Any Republican from Michigan, from Wisconsin, from Pennsylvania, who
votes for this is going to be voting to undercut welfare reform. We are
telling the majority this at midnight, and we are going to tell them
this tomorrow at 10 o'clock in the morning.
Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from
Michigan (Mr. Smith), who can address the entire Nation, even those in
California where it is 15 of 9:00.
Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Chairman, what is disconcerting is that I
think that side of the aisle, I think the Democrats after experiencing
success 2 years ago in demagoguing what the Republicans were doing in
trying to slow down the growth of the budget, when they realized some
success at the polls suggesting that Republicans were taking health
care away from the elderly for tax cuts for the rich and taking food
out of the mouths of children for tax cuts for the rich, that
demagoguery resulted in some Americans believing it.
I think most Americans are now realizing that government is growing
much faster than it should and the United States Congress, along with
the President, is taking more and more money out of those taxpayers'
pockets.
Let me show the chart of what is happening in spending of the Federal
Government in the 10 years from 1994 to 2003. In the first five bars of
this chart representing the last 5 years of spending, it is going to be
a $7.8 trillion expenditure over those 5 years. The last five bars of
the chart representing what is in this budget is $9.1 trillion, going
from $7.8 trillion to $9.1 trillion. And just imagine for a moment this
budget that we are having grows faster than inflation, yet what we are
seeing
[[Page H4149]]
is the other side of the aisle saying it is not growing fast enough.
So imagine what would happen in the future if we projected this line
out for the next 10, 20, 30 years, and imagine how much money is coming
out of the pockets of the American taxpayer if we continue to expand
Federal Government almost twice as fast as inflation. That is what we
do here.
1994, we have a budget of $1.4 trillion; 2003, we have a budget of
$1.9 trillion. If we followed the President's recommendation, the
President's recommendation was that we have $102 billion of tax
increases, that we have $27 billion of fee increases for a total of
$129 billion of fee and tax increases. So where would that have left us
is with a much steeper rate of expenditures. And in the year 2003, in
the year 2003 if the Democrats had their way with the President's
budget, we would be spending $67 billion more that year than we are in
this particular budget.
Look, this budget goes up pretty steep; and if we project the next
few years, one can see that it is going to go all the way to the
ceiling. Does anybody here or in America think that this government,
that this Congress, that this President cannot make government more
efficient and save some of the money we are spending?
I just want to mention briefly Social Security. Social Security in
this budget, we do not spend any of the surpluses. That could be as
high as 60 or $70 billion this year, could go up to 110, 115 billion
next year. We do not spend that surplus. We are saving it for Social
Security. This budget says from now on any money we borrow from the
Social Security Trust Fund it is going to be in negotiable Treasury
bills, not the blank IOUs that has been happening for the last 20
years.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. SMITH of Michigan. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, there are 150 job training programs
scattered across 15 Federal agencies; 340 programs in housing,
including 18 involving community development, 49 concerning public
housing, 8 concerning the homeless and 103 that are enacted. There are
660 programs in education and training, spanning 39 Federal agencies,
boards, and commissions.
It is interesting because would it not be a great thing if the people
who had the jobs had the power to train the people who needed the jobs,
rather than having the job training occur from this town out to where
we live?
Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Listen up, Democrats. Listen up, America.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, there are a lot of bureaucrats in America
who do not know what the time zone is in Ohio, let alone what our job
needs are.
When I say we should break the monopoly of the Federal Government,
would it not make sense if that computer company or high-tech company
that needed that employee that they would have the incentive to train
me rather than me marching into a Federal building for job training
that has no relation to the jobs located in my community?
Would it not make more sense that instead of dictating all the rules
of the way we ought to run public housing in my district in Columbus,
Ohio, that we ought to set the standards and the rules for the way in
which we want to run public housing in our communities rather than
dictate it from a bunch of people down here who do not even know what
is going on out in my district?
Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Chairman, they are not dumb in Columbus,
Ohio, or Jackson, Michigan.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, do you not think it is time that mothers
and fathers have the power to be able to get their kids the best
education they can possibly get and that most of the money ought to be
put in the classroom?
Those are the kind of things that I think most Americans want. I
think they want to be in charge. I think they want to be in control. I
think they want to have their job training run at home. I think they
want local control of education. I think they want public housing at
the local level to reflect local values.
Now, that is the new way. The old way is we run it from here. We
train a few people who really do not know what goes on in our
community, then they tell us what to do. That makes some people happy,
but it does not make most Americans happy. That is why we are winning.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.
Mr. Chairman, let my give some quick numbers. In the height of the
Reagan years, the government was spending 23.3 percent of our GDP, our
total economy. The bite of the government was 23 cents out of every
dollar. Today it is 19.8 cents under Clinton, down 3.5 percentage
points. That much decreased by.
As for discretionary spending, in 1993, when Clinton came to office,
in outlays it was $540 billion in 1993. In 1997, it was $548 billion.
In 4 to 5 years, it grew $8 billion. I think that answers abundantly
the effort, the argument that was just made.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms.
Rivers).
Ms. RIVERS. Mr. Chairman, there are two issues I want to raise. I
want to talk a little bit about the so-called 1 percent solution, but
before I do that I want to speak to the issue that was just raised
about decisions being made about eliminating programs.
It is interesting when we were in committee in the Committee on the
Budget when we asked repeatedly for the specifics of the proposal, what
was going to be cut, what was going to be changed, it was very clear
that we were not going to get that information. The argument that was
put forward was that we really want to leave this to the committee
chairs to make those decisions.
Interestingly, tonight the committee chairman has a lot of arguments
to make about programs that are not under his jurisdiction, about how
many are too many. Now, why is that? Why could we not have some
specificity about what we thought was going to be cut and what was bad
in committee, but now we have arguments?
Mr. Chairman, if in fact there are far too many training programs,
far to many housing programs, far too many programs in general, why
have the majority's appropriation people not come forward with those
cuts in the 4 years that they have been controlling the procedure? Why
did we have to wait until tonight for the chairman of the Committee on
Budget to say in fact that the appropriation chairs have been making
all of these bad decisions over the last few years? I do not
understand.
Now, I want to talk about the 1 percent solution, so-called. It was
just said all these things that the public wants, all the things that
families want. I can tell my colleagues what families do not want. They
do not want to be misled, and the 1 percent proposal is being put out
there to lead people into believing that in fact these cuts are going
to be spread across all programs and that the burden will be an easy
one for all to bear. That, of course, is not true.
When we look at facts, we find that all programs will not share this
burden; and that, in fact, more than two-thirds of the budget will not
be available to be a part of this reduction.
Let me go through what these are. These numbers are beyond the
agreement that was made as part of the balanced budget agreement:
International affairs, beyond the balanced budget agreement, would be
cut 21.2 percent. 21.2 percent in an increasingly perilous world.
Natural resources and the environment, 8.5 percent. Commerce and
housing credit, the chairman just made comments about that, 30.5
percent. That is Section 8 housing for low-income people.
Rural housing, FHA, the Patent Office and the Census Bureau also
within this function, 30 percent. A third of every dollar spent in that
function would be eliminated. Transportation, we just as a Congress
affirmed overwhelmingly increased spending in transportation. This
budget says 22.7 percent reduction. Community and regional development,
16.3 percent reduction. Not 1 percent, 16 percent.
The gentleman from New York (Mr. Solomon) argued passionately for us
to be responsive to the needs of our communities just a couple of hours
ago. Apparently, this is not much of a concern to him.
12.1 percent, not 1 percent, 12.1 percent reduction in administration
of
[[Page H4150]]
justice. That is law enforcement. That is the judiciary. That is
prisons. 12.1 percent. Not 1 percent.
Even education programs take a 4 percent hit. Now this is argued that
it is a penny on the dollar. Something that families can understand.
Let us put it in terms that families can understand. Let us say that
our families decide we have to make a 10 percent cut in our spending.
Seems reasonable. But then they sit down and look at their budget and
say, well, we cannot stop paying our mortgage. We cannot do that.
Cannot stop paying our child care cost because we are going to keep
working. Cannot put aside our credit card debt or paying our health
insurance. We do not want to cut our contributions to our children's
college fund. Okay, we are going to make a 10 percent cut, and it is
all going to come out of our grocery money.
It does not feel like 10 percent anymore when it is 1 percent of
something you need. This is not a 1 percent cut. You know it, and the
public will know it once the information gets out. And to say it is 1
percent and it does not hurt is not right.
Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Washington (Mr. McDermott).
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, we are headed down the same road we were
in 1995: Cut services for the elderly and the poor and give tax breaks
to the rich.
Let me take one specific. When we went into the Committee on the
Budget we said, give us the specifics. They would not. But if we look
in the budget document they put out, there is $10 billion in cuts in
Medicare.
Now, we start talking about that. There is $12 billion cuts in
Medicaid. That is $22 billion of the $100 billion in tax cuts coming
right out of health care. That is out of the same place that we took
$115 billion last year in Medicare and untold billions also out of
Medicaid. So they are going right back to the same well.
Now they got nervous about that and last night about 9:30 or 10
o'clock up in the Committee on Rules they said, oh, my goodness, we
better get this Medicare stuff out of here. Let us shift it all over
into Medicaid or unspecified health care cuts.
{time} 2400
What are the unspecified health care cuts? The children's plan we put
in last year, $16 billion, most of it has not been spent yet, and they
are now going to cut $10 billion out of the children's program that
they will be on the campaign trail in about three months saying, ``We
did this great program for children.'' Meanwhile they are going to gut
it with this particular proposal.
Why are they getting this money? Well, it is for the marriage tax
penalty. I offered that amendment in the Committee on Ways and Means
and in the Committee on the Budget and in the Committee on Rules, and
every single one of those committees, every single Republican Member
voted against it last year. I guess maybe a miracle has occurred or an
epiphany, I do not know what it is.
The problem is, mine was a little tax cut for families below $50,000
who really need the benefit. But if you are going to use $100 billion
in a tax cut for a marriage penalty, it is going to people above
$50,000, most of it above. It is a bad, bad budget.
Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 seconds to just say that
only in Washington when you spend more do people call it a cut. That is
the line that the gentleman from Washington is getting into. We are
going to spend $1.3 trillion on Medicare in the next five years. The
last five years we spent about $900 million.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes and 30 seconds to the gentleman from
Ohio (Mr. Portman).
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, the last speaker said it is just like
1995. It is just like 1995. We have, again, on the other side folks
saying we are cutting spending to give tax cuts to the rich. Neither is
true.
The gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) may not like the idea
of eliminating the marriage penalty but that is something that actually
will benefit middle income families, and he may not like the idea of
not spending as much as we would otherwise would have spent, but that
does not make it a cut.
The gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) specifically talked about
the Medicare numbers. Those numbers apply to the entire budget. We are
talking about spending a little less than we would otherwise have
spent. This is where we are.
Last year we all got together and we passed a balanced budget
agreement to balance the budget over five years. The American people,
through their hard work and productivity, did it quicker than that, but
there was a lot of pain, a lot of agony. We gave. The Democrats gave.
The Clinton administration and the House Democrats and Senate Democrats
gave, and we ended up with this common ground balanced budget
agreement.
It is only natural that this year we Republicans would come back and
we would say, okay, we gave a little, now we are going to get back to
our fundamentals. We are going to roll up our sleeves and we are going
to spend a little bit less than the $9.1 trillion that was agreed to.
We are going to spend 1 percent less, and we are going to give some of
that back in terms of tax cuts because we are actually spending, as a
percentage of GDP, more in taxes every year as Americans than we have
historically in this country, so we have a relatively high tax burden
right now even with the good economy.
It is also natural Democrats would do the same thing. They are back
this year saying they want to go beyond the balanced budget agreement
that was agreed to last year also, but they are saying that they want
to spend more. The President's budget, 85 new spending programs, 39 new
entitlement programs, over $150 billion in new spending, over $150
billion in new spending over five years. $129 billion in tax increases
over 5 years is how it is paid for, largely, again, from the same
President who in 1993 put in place the largest tax increase in our
history.
So that is where we are, and I would just say I would cast my lot
with those who believe we can do more. I would cast my lot with those
who think we can do a little better. Yes, the chairman gave some
examples earlier in response to the gentlewoman from Michigan. She
criticized the chairman.
Today on a partisan basis in this House we voted to reform the SSDI
program. We improved the program and we saved $40 million to the
American taxpayer. There is darn good example. Yes, we can streamline.
Yes, we can consolidate. Yes, it takes rolling up our sleeves and
looking anew and thinking outside the box on some of these Federal
programs, but sure we can do that. Instead of spending $9.1 trillion,
we are going to spend $9 trillion over the next five years. And
remember, we only spent $7.8 trillion over the last five years.
So I thank the chairman for putting together this good budget, and
the Committee on the Budget. I wholeheartedly endorse it.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds to remind him
that the President's budget, which he misconstrued, is not on the
floor. Our resolution is. It does not increase spending. It is in
complete sync with the balanced budget agreement and it calls for $30
billion in tax relief paid for within the Tax Code itself.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes 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. Chairman, my constituents are listening to
this debate, even though it is midnight, because it is only 6:00 p.m.
in Hawaii. I thank the majority for the courtesy extended to my
constituents.
I think the whole matter of our legislating has at its kernel the
idea of conveying confidence to the American people that they should be
able to rely on the promises and the agreements that we make with
respect to the programs that we enact.
Less than 2 years ago this Congress enacted the welfare reform bill,
and it was hard fought. And one of the ingredients in that welfare
reform bill was an agreement that was struck with the governors. There
was a commitment made to the States that there would be even funding
over the length of that program, 5, 6 years. And the governors went and
made this agreement with
[[Page H4151]]
the Congress in the assumption that we would keep our word, that we
would not go back on this deal.
Sometime around 9:00 last night the majority decided that they would
breach that agreement that was struck with the governors. Today we have
a letter sent to us by the National Governors Association, signed by 10
governors, expressing their dismay that the Congress is being asked by
the Republican Party to renege on their agreement.
What they did in the Committee on Rules was to take $10 billion
additional from the TANF program, the welfare program that we just
enacted. They said cut the function 600 program, which is the income
security item. But if we look in it, all that is vulnerable for a cut,
for a raid, is the TANF program, and it completely decimates the
agreement that the governors are relying on. So they have asked this
Congress to reject this resolution, and so have the National Conference
of the State Legislators.
I ask my colleagues here tonight, is our word good or are we going to
go back on it?
Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong opposition to the Kasich Budget
Resolution, which sets this nation on a budgetary course that will end
in disaster.
At a time when our nation is experiencing its greatest economic boom
in decades we should be asking ourselves what can we do for the people
of America, not what can we take away from them. This budget resolution
proposes to take away $100 billion from programs critical to the
overall health and well-being of this nation. The American public will
not stand for cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, education, health care,
health research, and social services. Even programs that have strong
bi-partisan support, like Head Start and WIC will not receive enough
funds to maintain current services under this budget.
Hasn't the Majority learned by now that we can balance the budget,
and still address the most pressing needs of our people. The budget
before us today is a shift back to the draconian cuts and radical
proposals that forced a budget showdown and government shut down.
Bringing forth this proposal, which even Senate Republicans agree is
too radical, only proves that the Majority can't keep a promise. They
can't keep the promise made in last year's balanced budget agreement
and they can't keep the promise made in the 1996 welfare law.
I am outraged to find out that at the last minute in the wee hours of
the night this resolution was changed to cut $10 billion of the welfare
program (TANF). This cut is on top of cuts already in the bill which
totally eliminate programs to move families from welfare-to-work.
Some may argue that the $10 billion is not specified to come from
TANF, but it is a cut required in the Income Security Function which
includes TANF. Well, let's look at some of the other programs in the
Income Security Function that would have to take the cut--unemployment
compensation, SSI, Child Support, Child Care, the EITC, and Foster
Care. I don't think anyone is willing to take a $10 billion chunk out
of any of these programs.
Certainly, states cannot live up to the mandate of moving welfare
recipients to work, if their funds are cut by $10 billion.
During the debate on welfare reform in 1995 and 1996, the Majority
constantly preached the ethic of work and championed the idea that
welfare mothers must work. Now, they seek to eliminate the very
programs that help these disadvantaged women find jobs.
The Resolution eliminates $1.5 billion dedicated for welfare-to-work
programs. The elimination of these funds would result in direct loss of
funds to 44 states and jeopardize the job training and job placement of
300,000 welfare recipients.
And with an additional cut of $10 billion from the TANF program,
there will be virtually no federal training funds dedicated to moving
families from welfare to work. The 1996 Welfare law becomes an unfunded
mandate under this Resolution.
The Resolution compounds the problem by eliminating the employment
and training money under the Food Stamp program. The 1996 welfare
reform law limits Food Stamp benefits to able-bodied adults with no
children between the ages of 18 to 50 to 3 months unless they are
working or in a training program. The Resolution eliminates funding
states use to help train and employ these individuals so that they can
achieve self-sufficiency or meet the work rule under the Food Stamp
program.
This Budget Resolution unfairly targets the most vulnerable in our
nation--families that are struggling to make ends meet and striving for
self-sufficiency.
The Democrats in great contrast seek to lift up those who are
struggling in our society, by helping to ease their every day burdens.
Nothing signifies this more than the huge investment the Clinton
Administration and the Democrats have proposed in expanding the
availability of child care in this nation.
Currently the federal government spends about $9.4 billion (FY 1998)
on child care programs including after-school and child care nutrition
programs. We propose the President's child care initiative unveiled
earlier this year, which adds a $16 billion investment over five years
in child care and early childhood education programs. This includes the
expansion of existing programs such as the Child Care Development Block
Grant and Head Start.
In 1996, we passed a Welfare Law which requires welfare mothers to
work, but it fell short $1.4 billion short of the funding necessary to
provide child care for those welfare parents. The President's child
care initiative would allow us to take care of the working welfare
families as well as low-income working parents who are not receiving
public assistance.
It also includes $3 billion over five years for a new Early Learning
Fund to improve the quality and safety of services to children ages 0
to 5 years. In the past year we have all heard about the ground
breaking research which revealed the significant capacity for learning
in the first three years of a child's life. Assuring quality child care
and early childhood education is critical in those early learning years
and important to the future success of our nation's children, and
indeed our entire nation.
$800 million over five years would go to expand after-school
programs. This funding would support an estimated 4,000 programs
serving half a million children. After-school activities are a way to
keep children in a safe place, to provide additional learning
experiences and tutoring and most importantly, it keep children off the
streets and involved in productive activities rather than destructive
or delinquent activities.
Unfortunately, the Majority not only rejects these much needed child
care programs, but freezes the current child care programs so that they
won't be able to keep up with inflation. The Child Care Development
Block grant will lose $107 million over five years, the Head Start
program will lose $536 million over five years, and the Title X Social
Service Block Grant will be cut by $3.1 billion.
Mr. Chairman, I oppose this Resolution also because it is clearly an
attempt to undermine federal education programs in the Budget
Resolution. The Chairman's May 12th draft clearly stated the intention
to turn the Title I program for disadvantaged students into a voucher
program, and to block grant other education programs.
During the Committee debate, the Chairman was unclear about his
intentions but made specific references to block granting Title I and
other education programs.
Whether it is a block grant proposal or a voucher proposal, it is
clear that the Majority is once again attacking federal education
programs that send billions of dollars to our states and local school
districts.
I am deeply concerned about any effort which would virtually
eliminate the Title I program and replace it with a voucher program.
Title I was enacted in 1965 to assist low income communities in
educating their most educationally disadvantaged. It was an attempt to
equalize educational opportunities for our most needy students.
Based on current funding levels, individual Title I vouchers are
likely to be about $700 dollars per student, hardly enough for parents
to pay for private education as intended by the proponents of this
proposal.
Title I dollars helps to raise the individual achievement of
disadvantaged children, but also, it helps the overall educational
opportunities within the school. Taking the dollars away from these
most needy schools through a voucher system, will do nothing but leave
the school with less resources and at a greater disadvantage.
Criticism about Title I during Committee debate focused on the
ineffectiveness of some programs and how the federal bureaucracy was to
blame. This criticism is really not about the federal government, but a
complaint against state and local school districts which manages the
Title I program. Only .1% of the Title I funds stay at the federal
level, for evaluation and administrative costs. That means that states
and locals have responsibility for $99.9% of the money. So when the
Republicans complain about how that money is being spent, they are
criticizing the states and local school districts.
What is ironic is that Majority's criticizes the state and local
management of the Title I, yet at the same time they propose to block
grant even more federal programs, with less accountability to the very
same people they contend are running ineffective Title I programs.
While there is always room for improvement, the reality is that in
the vast majority of school districts throughout the nation Title I is
making a significant difference in the lives of
[[Page H4152]]
disadvantaged students. To eliminate the Title I program as we know it
today is a terrible mistake that would have serious consequences in
many low-income communities throughout the country.
In my estimation, education should be this nation's highest priority,
and the Majority's budget, block grant and voucher programs fall far
short of what is necessary to improve education in this nation.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, I need to mention the elimination of the
Native Hawaiian Health Care program, assumed under this budget. It is
clear that the Majority lacks the understanding of special relationship
between the Native Hawaiian people and the federal government, much
like the relationships forged between Native American Tribes and the
federal government. Programs like the Native Hawaiian Health Care Act
were specifically enacted to acknowledge the federal government's
responsibility and relationship with the Native Hawaiian people.
Elimination of this program would mean the end of valuable services
which address the significant health needs of the Native Hawaiian
population and it abrogates the federal government's responsibility to
assist in improving the overall well-being of the Native Hawaiian
people.
Mr. Chairman, this budget fails the American people. It fails to set
forth a vision for our nation worthy of our economic prosperity; it
fails to invest in our most precious resource--our human capital; and
it fails to address the needs of the most disadvantaged in our society.
I urge my colleagues to reject this radical budget, which turns away
from the balance budget agreement and the welfare law of 1996. We can
do better, we must do better.
Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Miller).
Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the
budget resolution we are debating here tonight of the gentleman from
Ohio (Mr. Kasich). This is my sixth year on the Committee on the
Budget. The first 2 years was as we were part of the minority and then
4 years as majority now.
In our budget, in each of the budgets we have had the same philosophy
of reducing the size and scope of the government and shifting power,
money and responsibility back to the States, and this budget continues
that philosophy. It shows the real difference with the Democratic
philosophy.
Back in 1993 when the President proposed a budget to increase taxes,
the largest tax increase ever, more spending programs and more new
programs that we had to take responsibility for here in Washington, the
Republicans had cut spending first, and we showed how we really can
reduce the size and scope of the government. And the voters back in
1994 said, ``That is what we want to do,'' and so starting in 1995 we
have had great success in moving this country to fiscal responsibility.
This year we are going to have the first balanced budget since 1969,
a tremendous accomplishment. We are going to have a surplus for the
first time. One of the most important things is the issue that we have
reformed entitlements. The previous speaker talked about, oh, my gosh,
we are hurting the entitlement programs. We have had major change in
the welfare program.
Let me tell my colleagues what happened. Welfare case loads have
declined by 30 percent nationally since 1994. In 1997, States spent
only 72 percent of their available welfare funds because case loads
have declined and more welfare families have entered the work force.
Six States have turned down welfare-to-work grants enacted by the
balanced budget agreement because they did not need the money and they
objected to the red tape required to get the grants. Welfare reform has
worked. It is saving money. But more important, it is helping those
people that have been trapped in a cycle of poverty.
On the discretionary spending side we have had great success. While
defense spending has been kept fairly level for the past decade, the
Democrats kept increasing discretionary nondefense spending, the
domestic spending side.
{time} 0010
Our first time in control of the House of Representatives in 1995 and
1996, we actually had in real dollars a reduction in domestic
discretionary spending. That was our promise to the American people. We
got rid of 300 programs in the Federal Government. But then important
programs that we thought were important, for example, like National
Institutes of Health, have gotten larger increases under a Republican
Congress than they received under the Democratic Congress. In fact,
last year they got a 7.1 percent increase whereas President Clinton
only asked for a 2.6 percent increase.
We have established priorities, programs that are important, like
biomedical research, and we have said we do not need some programs and
we have cut out many programs. This budget that we have this year is a
continuation of that philosophy and a clear contrast with what
President Clinton has proposed. President Clinton's budget proposed 85
new programs, $150 billion in more spending over 5 years, $129 billion
in more taxes. What does this budget have? No new spending programs,
$100 billion of tax cuts, and just a 1 percent cut in spending. Support
this budget.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).
Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Chairman, I find it so curious that the majority
refuses to discuss their budget tonight and instead want to discuss a
budget that is not even on the floor. I have been on the Committee on
the Budget for 6 years and I have never seen such a fiasco in all my
life. Usually the budget is when a party lays forward their plan, their
vision of government.
What have you done tonight? Brought this to the floor after midnight,
not that the press who is not here, the American people who are long
asleep are missing much, because you have not had the integrity, the
courage, to tell the American people what your plan is. You do not
specify the cuts. You get up here and make lofty language, and you do
not specify the cuts. What is more, this plan changes all the time.
Take Social Security, what I think is the most vital function of
government. In the Committee on the Budget we debated, one of the
highlights of the chairman's bill, a plan to take all the surplus out
of Social Security, embark on a new venture, no more Social Security, a
new venture of private accounts. We debated. Every one of you voted for
it. Your colleagues would not stand for it apparently.
You go to the Committee on Rules, the bill comes out, and there is no
aspect of that dimension of this budget. Where did it go? We have all
this debate, you are going to end Social Security as we know it and it
comes out of the Committee on Rules and we are just supposed to be left
with an ``oops, never mind''? This is ridiculous.
I would feel comfortable if Social Security was secure. But of course
it is not secure. Because you take revenue out of the Federal
Government without telling us how we are going to match in spending
reductions.
You have done this before. This was a David Stockman technique in the
early 1980s. It produced deficits then. Now it will produce spending
the surplus. That is why the Washington Post called this a triple
fraud, and I quote, an election year tax cut on the strength of
unlikely spending cuts to be named later, all the while preaching
fiscal responsibility.
What happens when you do not come up with the spending cuts you are
so afraid to talk about tonight is that they do not get made, and this
surplus that we so need to reform Social Security is dissipated. And
you do not even lay out the plan to the American people.
This budget is a failure. One of the things about the chairman, like
him or not, like his ideas, do not like his ideas, he would always tell
you where he was going, he would always be square with you about the
details. This plan tonight is such a disappointment in that respect.
You fail to lay out the details of your plan. You fail to advance a
budget that makes sense. Most important to me, you fail to
fundamentally protect the Social Security surplus until we can come up
with a comprehensive overhaul plan for Social Security. You have failed
with this budget, and that is why I think there is a fighting chance
your own colleagues will reject it with us in the vote tomorrow.
Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from
New Hampshire (Mr. Sununu).
Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Connecticut for
yielding me this time.
[[Page H4153]]
Mr. Chairman, I will begin by emphasizing that the colleague who just
spoke was correct in one regard, and that is a simple point that the
President's budget is not on the floor tonight. It is not on the floor
tonight because nobody on the other side had the guts to bring it to
the floor tonight. Even the ranking member of the Committee on the
Budget refused to bring the President's budget to the floor, because it
raises taxes $130 billion, it raises spending $150 billion, it creates
new entitlements, it creates new programs, and not a single Member on
the other side was willing to bring that sham to the floor. Instead we
are talking about a Republican budget plan.
Perhaps the problem is that it is too simple a vision for some on the
other side to understand. It does three principal things. It pays down
public debt. It reduces the amount of debt held by the public by taking
surpluses and using it for that important cause. It shrinks the rate of
growth of government by 1 percent. And it uses that controlling the
size of government to eliminate the marriage penalty.
I do not know what the other side is opposed to. Maybe they are
opposed to paying down the debt. Maybe they are opposed to eliminating
the marriage penalty. And we have heard that they certainly may be
opposed to reducing the size of the government from $9.1 trillion to $9
trillion. Maybe $9 trillion just is not enough. Maybe they need $10
trillion or $11 or $12 or $15 trillion. But the fact is we have spent
$7.8 trillion over the past 5 years and under this budget we spend $9
trillion.
Government will grow at greater than the rate of inflation. Maybe it
is not enough for some on this side of the aisle. Maybe government has
to get bigger and bigger and bigger. But what we are trying to do is
just control the rate of growth. Three goals, pay down the debt,
control the rate of growth of government, and eliminate the marriage
penalty.
Paying down debt, why is it important? It is important because it
brings down interest rates. We reduce public borrowing, we let the
private sector borrow more and we reduce interest rates, lower cost of
home mortgages, lower student loans, lower cost of auto loans.
We heard what happened with the President's tax increase in 1993.
Interest rates shot up. Over the next year they shot up 2 percent, from
6 percent all the way up to 8 percent. That is tens of thousands of
dollars more in home mortgage costs, thousands of dollars more in
student loan costs or automobile loan costs, right out of the pockets
of the American consumer.
Today interest rates are low. If we continue to pay down debt with
these surpluses, they will go even lower; 1, 2 percent less if you talk
to Alan Greenspan. Paying down debt keeps money in the pockets of the
average American family.
Second, controlling the rate of growth of government. We talked about
that. From $9.1 trillion to $9 trillion. Earlier this evening, much
earlier this evening, not at midnight or 11 o'clock or 10 o'clock, but
around 9 o'clock or 8 o'clock, we saw a nine foot belt out here and
said, can we not just take a nine foot belt and bring it in one notch,
from $9.1 trillion to $9 trillion. We can reduce the rate of growth.
And finally, eliminate the marriage penalty. Bring tax relief to the
American people, more money in their pockets, take a little bit of
power away from Washington, and give it back to the American people. I
think any time we take power away from Washington and give it back to
Americans, we are doing right thing. I urge my colleagues to support
this resolution.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, 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. Chairman, in last year's balanced budget, we had a
bipartisan agreement to protect the environment. But this year the
Republicans in their budget proposal throw away that commitment, out
the window.
The Democratic alternative, however, does restore the vital
environmental funding that we know as Members of Congress we have a
responsibility to fund. We must fund projects to ensure clean air and
clean water, to ensure that our public lands are preserved, and that
our toxic and hazardous sites are cleaned up.
The Democratic budget provides funding for water quality improvement,
because 40 percent of our Nation's waterways are too polluted to swim
or fish in. The Democratic budget provides assistance to States and
communities to reduce non-point pollution, clean up streams and improve
coastal water quality.
The Democratic budget provides vital funding for our Superfund
cleanup sites. One in four children under the age of 12 live within
four miles of a Superfund site. It is time, time for Republicans to
join us and clean up the toxic waste dumps near our schools, our parks
and in our neighborhoods.
{time} 0020
The Democratic budget includes funding to enhance national parks,
national forests and other public lands.
The final and crucial environmental area addressed by the Democratic
budget provides funding for water infrastructure improvements. These
improvements give localities greater ability for compliance and
construction of much needed wastewater and other facilities.
Mr. Chairman, as we consider this budget resolution this year, we
must also protect our environment. But as usual, when it comes to our
children's future, the Republican budget is way off course. By
supporting the Democratic alternative we create a budget that moves
this country forward without leaving our environment and our children
behind. I urge my colleagues to support the Democratic budget
alternative.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Roybal-Allard).
Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the
Republican resolution and in support of the Democratic alternative. The
Republican plan unravels last year's budget deal by cutting over $100
billion from important programs like education, veterans' benefits and
crime prevention. The Democratic alternative, however, builds on the
balanced budget agreement, and it invests in the future of our country
and in the priorities of our people by protecting Social Security,
allowing for a reasonable tax cut to end the marriage penalty, and by
making a real investment in the education of our children.
An example of this commitment to education is the school construction
initiative in the Democratic budget. This initiative is critical
because our schools are in worse shape today than any part of our
nation's infrastructure. As a result, millions of our children in
urban, suburban and rural districts are forced to attend schools in
desperate need of repair. Also, thousands of our schools are tragically
overcrowded. It is estimated that we need to build 6,000 new schools
over the next 10 years just to maintain our current class size.
These appalling conditions are not merely annoyances and
inconveniences, they are barriers to learning, and sadly these
conditions serve to diminish the self-esteem of children who must
attend these run-down and overcrowded schools.
Mr. Chairman, the Republican budget ignores this crisis. The
Democratic budget, however, creates a tax credit to help States and
localities build new schools and to make desperately needed repairs.
The Democratic plan sends a clear message that the education of our
children is a top priority vital to our Nation's future.
I urge my colleagues to reject the failed Republican budget and to
vote in favor of the Democratic alternative.
Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from
Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra).
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague for yielding this
time to me.
For the last 18 months we have had the opportunity to go around
America and we have had hearings in 17 States about what works and what
does not work in education. We have also had an opportunity to take a
look at education and what education means in Washington, and we have
found that in Washington education means hundreds of programs, and we
say ``Hallelujah, at least they're all in the Education Department,''
and it is kind of like, no, they are spread over 39 agencies, and we
say, ``Well, at least they're effective
[[Page H4154]]
and efficient which means that we're going to get those dollars down to
kids,'' and it is like, no, that is not true either because for every
time we take a dollar out of a local community and send it to
Washington, we only get about 65 cents back to a child and back to a
classroom.
That is not very good, and that is not helping kids.
Going around and spending time at local school districts, we find out
what has worked. What works is when we leave control at the local
level, when we leave the money at a local school district and do not
take it to Washington and siphon off 30 to 40 cents, when we leave
control at the local level, and we do not get people at the local level
begging for money from Washington and getting the money back with a
whole lot of rules and regulations. What works is when we focus on
basic academics, and what works is when we empower parents.
Now is not the time to come up with a whole new range of education
programs in Washington that move control away from parents and away
from the local level and move it to Washington.
What is the mantra in Washington? Where have we gotten to today?
Where we are moving to in Washington is we say, ``We want to build
your schools, we want to put in your technology, we want to hire your
teachers, we want to determine your class size, we want to teach your
kids about sex, we want to teach your kids about drugs, we want to feed
them breakfast, we want to feed them lunch, we want to feed them
snacks, and other than that they are your local schools.''
Let us keep control with parents.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from
Michigan (Ms. Rivers).
Ms. RIVERS. Mr. Chairman, I will take just a brief amount of time to
point out that in the committee meeting I did put forward a proposal to
do what several of the Republicans on the committee as well as other
members of the party have suggested, which is to send back 40 percent
of all special education dollars to the States, to local school
districts. Made a very strong case for that.
The majority declined to do that, and instead substituted for my
motion a motion to make it a sense of the Congress. So the gentleman
from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), along with others on the committee who
were given an opportunity to make a very clear and concrete statement
to send dollars back to schools, declined to do so.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, 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. Chairman, it is really kind of a joke that we are
here at 12:30 in the morning Eastern time debating this. We heard about
families sitting around the dining room table and what they could end
up cutting. None of the traditional families in my district in Texas, I
believe, are sitting around the dining room table at this time, and I
doubt they are in Columbus, Ohio either, but I do not know a lot about
Columbus. And if this is the best my colleague can do, he probably
ought to try and keep the job he has got.
But, Mr. Chairman, this is not a blueprint for the Nation's fiscal
policy. This is a testament to the continuing inability of the
Republicans to govern the House.
The truth be known, the budget process has already been hijacked by
the Committee on Appropriations and the Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure. Last week, 2 weeks ago, we were racing to get out of
here so we could pass a highway bill that everybody could pave up their
State, that busted the budget by $22 billion. We forgot all about the
Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Democrats and Republicans were in a real
big hurry to spend as much money as possible. We gutted the veterans'
program by somewhere between $11 billion to $17 billion, depending on
what committee and whose numbers are used, and then we found out that
it was not done properly. So we race back in here quietly on Tuesday,
and when no one was looking we passed by voice vote a correction of
that.
That is what Republican control has been all about. They stuck it to
the veterans, they stuck it to the budget process, and now at 12:30 in
the morning we are going to debate this grand budget resolution. They
cannot even get the senior team down here to debate the bill.
{time} 0030
This is just ridiculous. And then you think that after the fact we
are going to have to, under the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, have to
continue to make reductions in discretionary spending, both defense and
non-defense, we are going to continue to make reductions in that, and
then you want to go in and make another $100 billion of reduction, $50
billion approximately in non-defense. And you talk about waste. You
could not find one dollar, not one dollar of waste in defense. What
happened to those ashtrays and the toilet seats that we were paying all
that extra money for?
But you really think those cuts are going to be made, and then you
are going to go spend the money on the tax cut. What you are going to
do is end up spending the surplus, just like you are trying to do with
the transportation bill, and running up the debt.
You know what that is going to do in the end? It is going to make the
Social Security problem worse, and then you are going to come around
and try to privatize it and do away with the safety net. That is why
you are doing it at 12:30 in the morning, because you know this is a
joke.
Mr. Chairman, the Republican budget resolution is both hollow and
meaningless because it doesn't recognize reality and responsible fiscal
policy. Rather than provide a blueprint for the nation's fiscal policy,
this is a testament to the continuing inability of the Republicans to
govern. Truth be known, the budget process has already been hijacked by
the Appropriations Committee and the Transportation Committee.
This budget resolution is a sham. It proposes $100 billion in budget
cuts beyond the Balanced Budget Agreement we approved last July, but it
doesn't tell us where to cut and postpones the tough choices for a
future Congress. It ignores the reality that Congress just approved a
highway bill that exceeds the budget agreement by $22 billion. And in
its latest incarnation, it plays games with the projected budget
surplus to hide the fact that the majority would rather use the surplus
to pay for tax cuts than to buy down the $5.4 trillion federal debt and
strengthen Social Security.
Not only does this budget resolution renege on the good faith,
bipartisan agreement reached last year to balance the budget, but it
goes even further by destroying our hard work to achieve that
agreement. Last year's hard work has given way to magic asterisks,
false hopes, and irresponsible promises. It's only now that we are
finally balancing the budget and escaping the pit of red ink that has
quadrupled our national debt and made interest payments the third
largest federal program. It's the height of irresponsibility that the
majority would now propose that we go down that road again.
The ``one percent plan'' is a pithy slogan, but it's the biggest sham
of all. The truth is that this budget doesn't cut just one percent. By
exempting three-fifths of the budget and failing to take the highway
bill into account, this bill would actually cut some domestic programs
by as much as 19 percent below a freeze. That means deep cuts in
education, social services, environmental protection and other vital
programs, and leave our nation unable to increase vital investments
such as medical research. Despite what the majority may say today, it
also means draconian cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, and even in the
newly enacted Children's Health Insurance Program that we worked so
hard to create just nine months ago.
Most prominently, the budget resolution neglects that fact that we
have a $5.4 trillion debt and that we spend $250 billion on interest
annually. that's about three percent of GDP. By sticking to the 1998
Balanced Budget Agreement, interest payments on the debt would fall to
just one and a half percent of GDP by 2008. Paying down the debt yields
ample rewards because interest payments on the debt would fall. This
would free up private and public investment. Long term interest rates
would fall further as well. Then, a responsible tax cut or even greater
investment in education, children's health care, and research become
possible. These productive investments help keep our economy growing.
If we abandon fiscal discipline, by the early 2040s, CBO projects
that federal debt will exceed 100 percent of GDP. That is nearly twice
as high as the current ratio and is a level previously reached only at
the end of World War II.
Included in the $5.4 trillion debt is $600 billion of Treasury bonds
owned by the Social
[[Page H4155]]
Security trust fund that will have to be retired after 2013. The budget
resolution should give serious attention to paying down the debt to
reduce interest and principal costs to ultimately strengthen the Social
Security Trust Fund. Raiding the surplus to pay for tax cuts will put
us in worse shape. In fact, if only half the surplus was spent,
interest payments would rise $12 billion over the next five years.
According to the CBO, spending the annual surplus would cause the
fiscal gap, which is the size of the permanent tax increase or spending
cut needed to keep the ratio of federal debt to GDP at or below its
current level, to increase to 2.3 percent of GDP from 1.6 percent of
GDP. This translates into an estimated $200 billion tax increase or
spending cut.
Additionally, some on the other side of the aisle might argue that
the surplus is scandalous because it's expected to grow to $1.34
trillion over the next five years and that money should be returned to
the American people in the form of a tax cut. But, that money is
essentially today's profit that needs to repay yesterday's debt. No
business would carry such a debt much less make no effort to repay it.
Enacting a tax cut this year would like a business that carries
significant debt, has a great year, and then pays out its new profits
in dividends instead of paying down its debt. Companies know that
paying down debt is the only way to increase its value in the long
term, which would make more money for investors. So both tax cuts and
personal savings accounts are irresponsible before paying down the
debt.
So before we start tinkering with half-baked notions of
privatization, it is important that we begin a debate on Social
Security with a clear understanding of what Social Security is and why
it was created before we begin proposing radical solutions. And we must
not confuse problems while trying to solve them.
First and foremost, we must remember that Social Security is a safety
net below which no American will fall. It is a retirement security
program, it is a disability insurance program and it is a survivor
insurance program. It is not a 401(k) or an individual retirement
account. It is also an income transfer program whereby higher income
workers support lower and moderate income workers through the
establishment of the safety net. Without the cross-subsidy the net is
pierced. Any reform must not destroy the safety net, or it will destroy
the essence of the program.
If we squander the surplus without beginning to retire the national
debt to a more manageable level, in the long run, we may have to borrow
more to pay off bonds as they come due, including the Social Security,
and we will be shortchanging the American people. Without maintaining a
course of fiscal discipline, the Congress' hard work since 1990 will be
compromised. Federal budget surpluses will be short lived and we will
return to deficit spending. Given the impending retirement boom and the
economic and political uncertainty brought on by the Asian economic
debacle, that's not a direction we want to move.
Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Maryland (Mr. Ehrlich).
Mr. ERHLICH. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me
time.
I guess there are some first-teamers still around here. I see some
first-teamers behind me.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Kasich budget. There are four
relatively easy planks that the American public does understand. Pay
down debt. Forty percent of public debt is Social Security debt. You
pay that down, you save Social Security. It makes sense. You shrink the
government by 1 percent, and you relieve families of the marriage
penalty.
Under the balanced budget agreement, and that is really the crux of
the problem here tonight, some viewed it as a ceiling, some viewed it
as a floor. It is not a ceiling. We can do better. We get paid to do
better. The American public expects us to do better.
Last year was not a stopping point. They still feel overtaxed, feel
that the government does too much in this country. $9.1 trillion to $9
trillion. That is not a whole lot to ask in most cities in this
country. Maybe not in this town.
We talk about marriage tax relief. We had an interesting comment from
the other side earlier on. The rhetorical question was, where do the
tax cuts come from? Where do the tax cuts come from?
Tax money is our money. We send it here, hopefully to be used
appropriately, and we ask for some of it back. That is where the money
comes from. We know where the money comes from, from the people who
work.
Last January we saw the old Bill Clinton, the post-election-year Bill
Clinton, the nanny state Bill Clinton came back. You heard the numbers,
85 new programs, $150 billion in new spending, new tax increases, the
whole nine yards.
What led to this? What do we hear tonight and every day on this
floor? The politics of yes, because the politics of yes is real easy.
The politics of no means leadership. It is not easy to say no. It is
not easy to say maybe a cent from every Federal dollar over 5 years.
It is easy to get votes when you say yes, because the politics of yes
is easy, and the politics of yes ruled this town for 40 years, and a
bunch of us came here a couple of years ago to exhibit some leadership
and say no for a change. And sometimes no is not pleasant and sometimes
no leads to negative ads against you on TV, and that is the way it goes
in the United States in the 1990s.
I rise in support of the Kasich budget for this reason: We should
reject the politics of the old and the politics of yes, as the American
people have done, and give the American family a break for a change,
because they deserve it.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from
North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton).
Mrs. CLAYTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me
time.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to the proposed Republican
budget resolution. This resolution is very similar to the very one we
discussed last year, proposing spending cuts to pay for tax cuts.
However, the difference in the last time and this time is we are not
certain where they propose to cut the $100 billion. We know it is
supposed be in domestic, but we do not know where. We only know they
intend to cut $55 billion from entitlement programs, including some $10
billion from Medicare, until last night. Then that became too
political. We said we do not want to be political, but that became too
political and risky to do.
Guess what you did? You decided to cut that from the most vulnerable
people in America, the poorest of the poor. Yes, your Welfare Reform
Act that you wanted to keep there, you reneged on your commitment to
the States that you would provide welfare reform, but made sure that
your objective had $10 billion now that will be taken from there. $12
billion from Medicaid. You are not fair to the poor, you are certainly
not fair to seniors, and, in fact, you are really cruel to the most
vulnerable people in the community.
Yes, this may sound like rhetoric, but it is the basic truth. You are
also cruel to veterans. It is cruel that you would treat veterans,
those who protect this country, in the way they have.
Mr. Chairman, I support fair cuts, and most Americans do. In the
Spratt substitute that will be offered tomorrow, there will be $30
billion in fair tax cuts. Fair tax cuts.
Mr. Chairman, I will also tell you, the gentleman from South Carolina
(Mr. Spratt) tells you where those offsets will be. It is paid for.
There is no ambiguity around it, no mirrors and smoke.
I suppose fairness is to be for certain citizens and not for others.
We should have a budget resolution that speaks to the needs of all
America, including all citizens, not just some of the citizens. And
this program does not do that, because in addition to the $10 billion
coming from welfare, what we call assistance to the dependent children,
in addition to that, food stamps will be cut, training, welfare-to-work
will be cut, WIC will be cut, LIHEAP will be cut, Title I education
will also be cut.
By repealing our vital education programs, the Republican plan just
fails to understand that the American people put education first as
their main priority.
The Spratt commitment, yes, it does have a new initiative. The new
initiative says 75,000 new teachers. Again, you say that is spending
more. Yes, but he tells you how that will be paid for. $10 billion over
5 years, $2 billion a year, and it is paid for. That is not spending
more money. It is simply changing the priorities to speak to the needs
of the people.
Mr. Chairman, I urge a ``no'' vote on the Republican resolution.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
North Carolina (Mr. Price).
Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, much of our debate tonight
[[Page H4156]]
has focused on the fiscal irresponsibility of the Republican majority's
budget, on its failure to reserve the surplus, its failure to ensure
the future of Social Security and to reduce the national debt, its
failure to take account of the huge transportation bill we just passed,
its failure in double counting the savings from veterans health care
and Social Service accounts.
But the Republican budget is not only fiscally unrealistic and
irresponsible, it also gets the priorities wrong, and that is what I
want to address in the few minutes that I have tonight.
It gets the priorities wrong. I want to stress one priority,
education, which is number one in my district and number one to me
personally and which represents an investment in the future of our
children and our country.
The Republican budget would cut the education and training portion of
our budget by some $4.4 billion below, below, the balanced budget
agreement.
Details are few and far between, but the Republicans claim to find
savings by consolidating higher education programs. While the budget
promises to increase Pell grants, there is no way of telling what might
be cut in order to achieve that. Will work study be cut? Will State
student incentive grants be eliminated? Will the Republican budget
limit the access to higher education that is the key to a higher
standard of living, that is the key to equipping people to meet their
goals and better serve their families and serve their communities?
{time} 0040
The House has just passed a Higher Education Act which promises to
open up opportunities, and yet this budget takes little or no account
of that.
In the area of elementary and secondary education, the Republicans
propose to repeal the current Title I program and create a voucher
program in its place. Title I provides opportunities for disadvantaged
young children who are the most vulnerable in our society. The
Republican budget will put Federal efforts to meet the needs of these
at-risk children in jeopardy. Education is the key to equal
opportunity.
The House Republican budget would do more damage to the goal of
expanding opportunity than any budget in recent memory. The Democratic
budget, by contrast, is fiscally responsible, and it recognizes the
priority we place on education.
It includes the provision to reduce the classroom size in this
country in grades one through three with the hiring of 75,000 new
teachers. It provides tax credits to enable working parents to afford
good child care. It provides a tax break so that school districts can
more easily finance the bonds necessary to modernize and build schools.
These modest initiatives are all paid for, and not a penny, not a penny
comes from the surplus.
The Democratic budget is consistent with the balanced budget
agreement and observes the budgetary rules that have produced surpluses
and a booming economy. It gets our country's priorities straight,
including the education of our children. I urge support for the
Democratic alternative.
Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I am delighted to yield 4\1/2\ minutes to
the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg).
(Mr. SHADEGG asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, there has been some talk about whether or
not we are defending the Republican budget and whether we are proud of
it. I am very proud of this budget. This budget does set the right
priorities and takes this country in the right direction. If there were
a little more truth on this floor and a little less rhetoric, perhaps
we would see that.
We have heard our colleagues on the other side say time after time
after time that this budget cuts spending. Let me make it very clear.
Nowhere outside of this beltway that surrounds this city is an increase
in spending from $7.8 trillion over 5 years up to $9.0 trillion a cut.
It is simply not a cut. We cannot go from $7.8 up to $9.0 and call it a
cut. So let us get that point of truth on the record to begin with.
Then let us go to what this debate is really about, because it really
is a very simple debate. It is a simple debate between their belief in
bigger government and higher taxes because they do not trust people;
our belief in a slightly smaller, more efficient government with lower
taxes because we do trust people.
That is the fundamental debate going on here tonight. They want to
reach deeper into the pockets of the American people and take more
money out so that they can spend it because they do not trust Americans
to spend their own money.
The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) talks about a $30
billion tax cut in his budget. Unfortunately, that just is not true.
There is not a $30 billion tax cut in the Spratt budget because there
is not a $1 billion cut in the Spratt budget, because there is not a
one penny tax cut in the Spratt budget.
Because do you know what the Spratt budget does? It raises taxes on
some Americans by $30 billion and includes a sense of the Congress that
we ought to give that $30 billion back. Do you know what? The American
people are going to figure that out. If we raise taxes on some by $30
billion and we lower it on others by $30 billion, that is a net tax cut
of zero, not a net tax cut of $30 billion.
So how does that fit into the scheme? That fits into the scheme that
they want more of the American people's money, and we want to leave
more of the American people's money with them.
The President, the President told us in 1994, right after I got
elected, that we could not balance America's budget in 7 years; and we
shut down the government over that fight. Three years later, I am proud
to be standing here, and we did not balance it in 7 years, we balanced
it in 3 years. They brag about the surplus, the surplus their President
fought us tooth and nail over.
Let us talk about the President and his record. He says the era of
big government is over. Do you know why? Because for him the era of
bigger government had just begun. In his budget, which they do not have
the guts to propose, taxes go up by $130 billion. New spending goes up
by $150 billion.
There are 39 new entitlement programs. They talk about controlling
entitlement spending, but their President proposes 39 new entitlement
programs. Do you want to burden the American people? That is the way to
do it. And 85 new additional programs.
Let us talk about the other issue that has really gotten to them
tonight, and that is the fact that this is a 1 percent cut in spending.
That has really bugged them all night long. They have come to the floor
and said, by, gosh, this is a fraud to call it a 1 percent cut. Do you
know what? In a technical sense, they are right, because it is not a
cut in spending.
Spending is going up. In our budget, it goes up at about the rate of
inflation. In their budget, it goes up dramatically above the rate of
inflation. They want bigger. They want more. They want deeper into the
people's pockets because they think only government is the answer. But
do you know what? Our budget is a 1 percent reduction in the planned
increase in spending.
My friend, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) just said it:
Well, take a 1-inch notch out of a belt that is 9 feet 1 inch long. I
think the American people understand we can do that, and they are darn
proud of us for trying and darn proud of this budget for doing it. It
is a 1 percent cut. Deal with it.
Now, details. They say, oh, we lack all the details. There is a
process for details. It is damned if we do and damned if we do not.
They want to see the details because they want to ridicule the details.
Then they do not want to deal with the fact that the process here
says the budget resolution is supposed to set numbers. The details are
supposed to come from the appropriators and the authorizers. In this
case, that is the process we are going to follow, and it is the process
the American Constitution and the laws and the rules that govern this
Congress are arranged to deal with and are designed to deal with.
They believe in government. We believe in people. Do you know what?
The American people sent us here to do that.
The Spratt budget says one more thing. It says that in the balanced
budget agreement of last year we set a spending floor. Do not go below
it by a dime. Do not try to save another penny.
[[Page H4157]]
Do you know, I have a family that I run. In my family, in the Shadegg
family, because we built a budget last year, we do not quit trying to
save money next year. Do you know what? In every family budget in
America, if they can figure out a way to save a little bit more money
next year, they try to do it.
In every business in America, the entire rubric is efficiency.
Produce more with less. That is what the genius of America is about.
But inside the beltway, inside the Congress, inside this highway,
inside this House, the only thing we can do is more means more means
more means spend more. It means reach into the pockets of the American
people deeper, and it is wrong.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes to respond.
Mr. Chairman, first let me respond with respect to the tax cuts. We
see a code replete with deductions and credits and exemptions and
preferences and concessions, and most of them work to the advantage of
well-heeled taxpayers. We are saying in this resolution to the
Committee on Ways and Means, can you not give the code a scrub and see
if you cannot tilt the code a little bit more in favor of working
families so we can increase the child tax credit, and, yes, mitigate
the marital penalty? Can we not do that within the code?
Let me say something about the growth of government. I am reading
from a CBO report, the Economic and Budget Outlook of the Government.
Discretionary spending once again. When President Clinton came to
office in 1993 it was $540 billion. Last year it was $548 billion,
1997. In 4 years it grew by $8 billion.
Let me remind my colleagues again, the middle of the Reagan years,
1986, the government was taking 23 cents out of every dollar made in
this economy. Today it is down, under the Clinton administration, to
19.9 cents, down three full percentage points.
{time} 1250
Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr.