[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 137 (Monday, October 5, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11407-S11409]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               WHITE HOUSE PROPOSALS TO SPEND THE SURPLUS

  Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I have come over today to respond to the 
Office of Management and Budget and to the White House in relation to 
comments they made about our weekly radio address, which we made in 
response to the President's radio address and which I had the privilege 
to make on behalf of the Republican majority in the Senate.
  What I thought I would do is simply take a little bit of time and 
review what I said in the radio address because it is relevant, 
obviously, to the response by OMB and the White House. I would like 
then to respond to the comments they made. And I will try to do it as 
quickly as possible.
  Madam President, in the Saturday radio address I tried to make 
several simple points, the first point being that we all can remember 
vividly, when the President gave his State of the Union Address, in 
probably the most dramatic statement made by any political figure in 
1998, the President proclaimed: ``Save Social Security first.'' He then 
set out a prescription for Congress, and the prescription basically 
boiled down to: ``Don't increase spending; don't cut taxes; take every 
penny of the surplus and save it for Social Security.''
  The President kept delivering exactly the same message over and over 
and over again through February, into June; and then all of a sudden, 
during the summer and into the fall, the President's message started to 
change. And the President's message started to change because he 
started leaving out the part of the policy prescription that had to do 
with not spending the surplus.
  What the President is now saying is that Republicans are wrong in 
trying to cut taxes, eliminating the marriage penalty, providing some 
tax relief to farmers and small business and to senior citizens--that 
Republicans are wrong in doing that in the House because it takes $6.6 
billion away from the surplus. And then the President last week said if 
you take a little of the surplus here and a little of it there on tax 
cuts, then you don't have the money to put Social Security first.
  The problem is that at the very moment that the President is saying 
to the Republicans in the House not to use $6.6 billion to fund a tax 
cut, the President is proposing to Congress, in the strongest possible 
terms, that we spend up to three times that amount--roughly $20 billion 
this year--on a series of programs, most of which have nothing 
whatsoever to do with emergency spending by any definition that we have 
ever used for emergency spending.
  So the point I made, in very simple terms, was the President is not 
living up to his word. He is not putting Social Security first. The 
President is pretty clear about not wanting Republicans in the House to 
cut taxes and to use $6.6 billion of the surplus for that purpose. But 
the President is now actually threatening to veto bills and to shut 
down the Government unless we spend up to $20 billion of additional 
money this year, every penny of which would come out of the same 
surplus that the President is saying to the Republicans in the House, 
``Don't dare touch that surplus, don't take $6.6 billion to cut 
taxes.''
  The White House decided, over the weekend, that they wanted to 
respond to what I had to say. And I want to respond to a lady, Linda 
Ricci, who is the spokeswoman for the Office of Management and Budget. 
She made two statements that I want to respond to.
  Let me read you from the Reuters wire service story:

       Linda Ricci, spokeswoman for the administration's Office of 
     Management and Budget, noted the actual additional spending 
     request is roughly $14 billion, and said such emergency 
     packages have become a normal part of the budget process.


[[Page S11408]]


  She further says:

       There is nothing extraordinary about emergency spending and 
     there's nothing extraordinary about the amount of emergency 
     spending we are requesting in this year's budget.

  Madam President, I take great exception to these statements because 
they are not true. I mean, other than the fact that they are not true, 
I do not have much objection to them. But one of the standards that we 
normally set in debate is a standard that we cannot have much of a 
meaningful dialogue if we are not sticking with the facts. One of the 
things that is often said in these kinds of debates is that you have a 
right to your own opinion, you just do not have a right to your own 
facts.
  Let me remind the Senate, and anybody who is listening, of the 
following facts: No. 1, we have already passed a $6 billion emergency 
spending bill earlier this year. If you add up all the requests the 
President has made for additional emergency spending, it is $14 
billion. And when you add the two, that is a $20 billion emergency 
spending increase that was requested in calendar year 1998.
  The OMB says, ``There's nothing extraordinary about the amount of 
emergency spending we are requesting in this year's budget.''
  Let me tell you what is extraordinary about it. Everything --
everything--is extraordinary about it.
  First of all, the level of emergency spending is far beyond any level 
of emergency spending ever proposed by any President under the budget 
agreement that was reached in 1990 that started this current loophole 
of emergency spending.
  I remind my colleagues, and anybody who is interested, that the first 
year that this ability to designate something as ``emergency'' and 
exempted from the budget--the first year it was in effect, in 1991, 
President Bush signed into law $.9 billion worth of emergency spending. 
President Clinton this year has asked for $20 billion of emergency 
spending. In fact, if you take the 3 years that President Bush was in 
office while we have had this emergency spending designation, in those 
3 years President Bush averaged $4.6 billion of emergency spending, 
virtually all of it for things like hurricanes, floods, natural 
disasters, or what we normally refer to as acts of God.
  In the years, since President Clinton came into office, if this 
year's request is granted, President Clinton will have requested $9.9 
billion worth of emergency spending a year. And, as I said, this year's 
total is roughly twice what the President has requested, on average. 
And that is what Bill Clinton has requested since he has been 
President. So to say there is nothing extraordinary about the request I 
think is simply not true.
  But there are two other things that are extraordinary. First of all, 
we have never had emergency requests for money to be spent in years 
where we have not even appropriated the money yet. And, finally, what 
we have in the President's proposal is a designation of emergency 
spending for ongoing programs of the Federal Government. I could talk a 
long time about this, but let me give you three examples.
  The President tells us that he needs $3.25 billion because he has 
discovered since he submitted his budget in January that the year 2000 
is coming. Apparently he was unaware of this in January when he 
submitted his budget, because he did not ask for the money to be used 
for year 2000 computer problems of the Government in January, but since 
then it is an emergency because he did not ask for it in January.
  I went back and looked, Madam President, at when we first started to 
keep time in Anno Domini, ``in the Year of Our Lord.'' And the first 
time we did was when the Julian calendar was amended so that the 
measurement of time started at the birth of Christ. And that was in the 
year 525. The point is, we have known for 1,470 years that the year 
2000 was coming. Everyone in the world knew it was coming. In fact, we 
hardly hear a political speech that does not talk about the 21st 
century or the President rarely opens his mouth that he doesn't talk 
about the new millennium.

  Many people have actually planned where they are going to be on New 
Year's eve of next year. The only people on the planet who were 
surprised that the year 2000 is actually coming, are people in the 
Clinton administration. The reason they are surprised is they knew the 
year 2000 was coming, they knew we had these computer problems, but 
they didn't include this in their budget in January so they could try 
to hide the fact that they are busting their own budget, so that they 
could hide the fact that they are taking money away from Social 
Security to spend, at the same time that they are criticizing the House 
of Representatives for trying to have a modest tax cut.
  Now, a second example of nonemergency spending is Bosnia. I know the 
Presiding Officer is aware that we have troops in Bosnia because I have 
heard her demand that the administration establish a policy on numerous 
occasions. Her feelings and leadership on this are well-known. But we 
have an emergency in the President's mind because we don't have funding 
in his budget for Bosnia.
  I remind my colleagues the President sent troops to Bosnia 3 years 
ago. Then he extended the mission for our troops to Bosnia 2 years ago, 
and he extended it again last year. Finally, he said they would be 
there indefinitely. You might ask yourself a question: Given that we 
have had troops in Bosnia for 3 years, given that no one on the planet 
is surprised that there are troops in Bosnia, why does the President 
now ask for funding for troops in Bosnia as an emergency?
  Now, this lady, Linda Ricci, with the Office of Management and Budget 
says that there is nothing extraordinary about the President's 
emergency requests. I find it extraordinary, when we are in our fourth 
year of troops in Bosnia and the President has an emergency because he 
has discovered that we have troops in Bosnia, that we have no money in 
his budget to pay for troops in Bosnia. I find that extraordinary.
  The next item is my last. The Constitution, in article I, mandates 
that there be a census; that every 10 years we go out and count the 
number of people in the country and that we allocate representation in 
the House of Representatives based on the census. It has been in the 
Constitution for over 200 years. We have never had the change of a 
decade occur that we have not done a census. We have known from the 
first day that the Constitution was ratified in 1779 that we were going 
to do a census in the year 2000. Yet now we are considering declaring 
an emergency because we are going to have to do a census in the year 
2000. Now, why is there an emergency? There is an emergency because the 
Administration did not include enough money in their budget to provide 
the funding for the buildup to the census year. In fact, they and 
Congress have systematically underfunded the census.
  Now, the Office of Management and Budget may not find it 
extraordinary that we have $20 billion worth of requested emergency 
spending by the President. But I find it extraordinary. They may not 
find it extraordinary that the President is asking for twice as much 
emergency spending this year as he has on average since he has been 
President, and on average since President Clinton has been in office. 
He has asked for twice as much as President Bush. In fact, his request 
in calendar year 1998 is over 20 times as big as President Bush's 
request for emergency spending in 1991, the first year that we had this 
emergency designation. I find it extraordinary. OMB may not, but the 
fact that they don't, it seems to me, simply shows that either they 
don't know what the history of the use of emergency spending is or they 
don't want to know.
  Now, the second response I wanted to give is a response to the brand-
new White House spokesman. Joe Lockhart, in his first day on the job, 
White House spokesman Joe Lockhart rejected my comments saying that the 
emergency requests only total $14 billion and that it would not come 
out of the surplus. As I have already said, in calendar year 1998 the 
President has requested a total of $20 billion. The fact that he 
already has gotten $6 billion does not change the fact we are talking 
about $20 billion worth of new unbudgeted spending.
  I suggest that Joe Lockhart, in one day at the White House, has 
either shown that he is getting bad habits at the White House very 
quickly or he knows absolutely nothing about the budget. The only way 
these ``emergency spending programs''--like fixing

[[Page S11409]]

the computers of the government, the census, funds for Bosnia--can be 
funded is taking every penny of it directly out of the surplus.
  When Mr. Lockhart, in his first day at the White House says that none 
of this money will come out of the surplus, it is obvious that Mr. 
Lockhart either doesn't know how the budget works, or he has gotten a 
very bad habit in only one day at the White House.
  I suggest that Mr. Lockhart set the record straight.
  Now, what is relevant here is the following: There were a few 
people--and I am one of them, so I am sensitive about it--who took the 
President at his word back in January. That word was ``save Social 
Security first.'' I would like to vote for a tax cut but I have said, 
given that we have problems in Social Security, given that we need next 
year to restructure Social Security and build the financial base of it, 
I have been willing to forego a tax cut so that we could set aside the 
whole $70 billion of the surplus to put Social Security first. I feel 
in this area that I have been trying to do what the President 
requested. Now I find that the President is not doing what the 
President requested, that while I have been trying to say no to 
spending and while I have been trying to say no to tax cuts, the 
President is saying no to tax cuts, but he is trying to force-feed 
Congress the largest increase in emergency spending in history.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. GRAMM. Let me finish this thought and I would be happy to yield.
  Mr. BAUCUS. What is the pending order?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana, by unanimous 
consent, does control the time between 1 o'clock and 2 o'clock.
  Mr. BAUCUS. I am happy to yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Texas.
  Mr. GRAMM. That is more than generous and I can complete what I have 
to say.
  Madam President, I have tried to live up to the President's challenge 
in that State of the Union Address by putting Social Security first, by 
delaying until next year a tax cut so that we could rebuild the 
financial base of Social Security and have the money to do it with.
  However, I have to say I am very distressed in that while I am trying 
to carry out the President's policy on a bipartisan basis and not 
supporting something that I am very much for--a tax cut--the President 
now is trying to say to Congress I am going to veto your spending bills 
and shut down the Government unless you spend $20 billion more than you 
have written into your budget and $20 billion of additional spending 
that the President didn't even ask for in his budget back in February.
  Now we have people at the White House and at OMB who are saying there 
is nothing extraordinary about what the President is doing and that the 
amount of money he is spending is not coming out of the surplus. My 
point is, everything about what the President is doing is 
extraordinary. It is twice as much as the President, on average, has 
requested in the past.
  It is 20 times as much as the last President requested for 
emergencies in 1991; it is for programs that have nothing to do with 
conventional emergencies: Funding for Bosnia, when we have been there 3 
years. Why doesn't the President put it in his budget? Funding for the 
census, which we have done every 10 years since 1789. Why doesn't the 
President put it in his budget? Funding for the computer problem for 
the year 2000, when we have known since 525, when the world went to 
measuring time from the birth of Christ, that we were going to have a 
year 2000.
  Clearly, every penny that the President spends, or forces the 
Congress to spend, is coming right out of the surplus and right out of 
Social Security. So I don't believe the President is living up to his 
word. I don't think he is putting Social Security first, and I don't 
think it is right.
  I thank our dear friend from Montana for allowing me to finish my 
statement.
  I yield the floor.

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