[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 72 (Friday, June 5, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1046]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 1999

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                       HON. CONSTANCE A. MORELLA

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, June 4, 1998

       The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of 
     the Union had under consideration the bill (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:

  Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Chairman, I voted against the rule for 
consideration of the House budget resolution yesterday and I will vote 
against the resolution itself when it is considered later today.
  I voted against the rule because it did not allow consideration of 
the Minge-Stenholm budget substitute, a proposal based on the Senate-
passed budget resolution. The Senate budget resolution closely tracks 
the Balanced Budget Act passed last summer, maintaining the 
discretionary caps set in last year's budget agreement and allowing for 
realistic tax cuts if offsets are provided. I strongly believe that we 
should follow the budget agreement that we approved by a wide 
bipartisan vote. In so doing, we could move quickly to approve the 
appropriations bills for Fiscal Year 1999 and avoid delaying our 
responsibility to pass all thirteen funding bills before October 1.
  The Budget Committee budget resolution simply goes too far. Cutting 
$101 billion over five years beyond the cuts required by last year's 
budget agreement is too extreme and would do great harm to a number of 
domestic programs. It is important to understand that all of these 
additional cuts would come from non-defense spending. Of that total, 
$45 billion in additional domestic discretionary reductions would be 
required and $56 billion in additional mandatory spending reductions 
would be necessary. The additional $101 billion in cuts would be used 
for tax cuts.
  Achieving that level of savings required under last year's budget 
agreement will be difficult enough--it is hard to imagine how we would 
achieve an additional $101 billion in cuts. The very fact that the bulk 
of these cuts are put off until 2002 and 2003 makes it clear that they 
would not only be extremely painful, they would be nearly impossible to 
achieve. We simply cannot provide a $101 billion tax cut without 
requiring unrealistic and unfair reductions in domestic programs.
  Further, the Budget Committee's resolution bypasses the ``PAYGO'' 
rules by allowing a portion of the tax cut to be financed by cuts in 
discretionary spending. As the Concord Coalition has stated, ``There is 
good reason for this rule (PAYGO). Because discretionary programs are 
funded year-by-year, temporary cuts in discretionary spending should 
never be used to fund permanent tax cuts. . . The next Congress, or the 
one after that, may decide to put back the spending that was cut this 
year. But who thinks they will reinstate the income tax marriage 
penalty? The lost stream of revenue will continue forever, but the 
discretionary spending cuts could disappear after the next election. We 
are concerned that if the PAYGO rule is set aside, it will send a 
signal that from now on, `anything goes'.''
  While I believe the Budget Committee was correct in dropping their 
recommendations for specific proposals to achieve the additional cuts, 
some of the savings are required in program areas with few options. For 
example, the Committee resolution requires a $1.7 billion reduction 
over five years in mandatory spending under the jurisdiction of the 
Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, on which I serve. Mr. 
Speaker, we have seen such attacks on federal employee and retiree 
benefits before. Because the committee's jurisdiction is limited to 
federal retirement and benefits and the postal service, it is very 
difficult to identify mandatory savings in the Balanced Budget Act. 
Each of the few remaining options are painful. It is unfair to come 
back again and again to federal employees and retirees who have borne 
more than their fair share of deficit reduction. In fact, the Budget 
Committee originally recommended limiting the annual growth in the 
government's share of FEHBP premiums to the consumer price index, which 
would result in cost-shifting $3.1 billion in premiums onto retirees 
and employees. According to a CBO estimate prepared last year, the 
added annual cost to enrollees would be $400 in 2002 and more in later 
years. This provision would undo an important change in FEHBP's formula 
that I offered as an amendment to the BBA. The formula included in the 
BBA is fair--it is derived from taking a weighted average of all the 
plans and setting the maximum government contribution at 72%; it will 
ensure that federal employee premiums do not rise and the government's 
share and employees' share will remain the same. Alternative proposals 
to cut mandatory spending could be equally harmful--we have already 
been through COLA delays and increased contributions to retirement, and 
it is unfair to keep going back to the same group for increased cuts.
  The Budget Committee budget resolution has also been changed to 
eliminate an assumed $10 billion reduction in outlays in Medicare by 
requiring instead that the savings come from other income security 
programs within the Committee on Ways and Means. In effect, it appears 
that the Committee would be forced to take almost all of this reduction 
from the block grant for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families 
(TANF)--breaking Congress' agreement with the governor on welfare 
reform. Despite large caseload reductions in many states, families who 
remain on TANF experience substantial obstacles in achieving economic 
self-sufficiency. This block grant is critical to ensuring the 
resources are there to assist families in their transition from welfare 
to work.
  The Senate budget resolution closely follows the spending cuts in 
last year's budget agreement and provides for a much smaller tax cut. A 
large bipartisan majority support the elimination of the marriage 
penalty as I do. The Senate budget resolution would provide the means 
to work toward that objective, while also preserving critical domestic 
programs.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against this rule and this budget 
resolution. Let us follow the lead of the Senate and approve a sensible 
and realistic budget resolution. Last year, we passed a strong 
bipartisan budget agreement; let's stick to it.




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