[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 147 (Thursday, October 15, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12622-S12624]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           A BUDGET AGREEMENT

  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I also want to note that we have now had a 
budget agreement. I just heard the announcement of our colleagues that 
we have reached a conclusion. I know there are details still to be 
sorted out, but this is good news. But I must say, I do not think we 
are ending on a proud note. We are going to wind up with eight 
appropriations bills grouped together in one omnibus package.
  That isn't the way we ought to do business here. And, frankly, this 
situation with omnibus appropriations bills has been getting worse 
every year. Five bills were grouped together 3 years ago; six bills 
were grouped together two years ago; and now eight bills will be 
grouped together this year. This is not the way we ought to conduct 
ourselves. And I think there was a failure this year, a failure for the 
first time in 24 years, with no budget resolution. The budget 
resolution, after all, is the blueprint that guides us in the 
appropriations process.

  I think there was a substantial failure this year, the first time 
since we have had a Budget Act, a failure to achieve a budget 
resolution. That slowed the appropriations process and left us in this 
posture of having to group all of these bills together--which comprise 
a third of all federal spending--and pass them, perhaps in a vote that 
won't even be a recorded rollcall vote. It is a sorry spectacle and one 
which I think brings dishonor to this Chamber.
  I hope very much we find a way to avoid this practice in the future. 
I hope very much that next year we would have a budget resolution, we 
would have it on time, or close to on time. After all, the budget 
resolution was supposed to have been done April 15. For the first time 
in 24 years we did not have a budget resolution. In addition, we missed 
the deadlines, although that has happened often, but always before we 
have achieved a budget resolution. This year, for the first time in 24 
years, there was none.
  I remember very well President Reagan said in his 1987 State of the 
Union Message that we should never again have a continuing resolution 
that had multiple appropriations bills all stacked together. In his 
budget message in February of 1988 he said very clearly to Congress, 
``Don't do this anymore. Don't do it again. It is wrong.'' Yet here we 
are, falling back into these old ways. It is unfortunate.
  With respect to this agreement, I think it is also important to say 
that the surplus has, by and large, been preserved. There are emergency 
spending measures, that Congress and its Leadership must designate as 
``emergencies.'' I think one could question whether all of them really 
constitute emergencies, but, by and large, they are emergencies. The 
agriculture emergency, certainly that is an emergency response; the 
spending for the embassies that were destroyed by terrorist attack, 
certainly that constitutes emergency spending; much of the spending 
that is in the defense bill constitutes emergency spending.
  Those items, under our own budget rules, are considered outside the 
normal budget process. We have avoided what some were advocating--a 
very massive multi-year tax reduction, which would have come directly 
from the Social Security surplus. I think that would have been a 
profound mistake. I, for one, believe the American people deserve a tax 
cut, but I don't think it should come from raiding Social Security 
surpluses.
  Some of the language we use in this town is somewhat misleading. We 
say that there is a $70 billion surplus on a unified basis. That means 
when you put all of the revenue of the Federal Government in the pot 
and all of the spending of the Federal Government into the same pot, we 
have $70 billion more in terms of revenue than we have in terms of 
spending. But it is important to remember that is counting the Social 
Security funds. This year Social Security is running a $105 billion 
surplus. If we put the Social Security money aside--which we should 
do--we would still be running a budget deficit of $35 billion.
  Until and unless that operating deficit is ended--and we now project 
that will end in 2002, and we won't be using any Social Security 
surpluses in that year, and we will actually balance on what I consider 
a true basis--until that is achieved, I don't believe it is appropriate 
to have new nonemergency

[[Page S12623]]

spending or to have unpaid-for tax cuts. If we are going to have new 
spending that is nonemergency spending, it ought to be paid for. If we 
are going to have tax reductions, they ought to be paid for. New 
spending and new tax breaks should not be paid for by taking it from 
the Social Security surplus. That is truly robbing Peter to pay Paul.
  I am pleased that other than the emergency spending, we don't have 
new spending that is not offset by cuts in other spending. I am also 
pleased that we didn't embark on a risky tax cut scheme that would have 
been paid for, in whole, out of Social Security surpluses. I believe 
that would have been irresponsible.
  I am remiss if I do not end on a note on agriculture. As I indicated, 
agriculture is critically important to my State. North Dakota has 40 
percent of its State's income, 40 percent of its State's economy, based 
on agriculture. North Dakota, like many agricultural States, is in deep 
trouble. From 1996 to 1997, we saw farm income decline 98 percent. That 
is a disaster. That is an emergency by any definition. It is the result 
of a combination of the lowest prices in 52 years, coupled with natural 
disasters that have spread the disease called scab through our fields 
which have reduced production, coupled with bad policy. Frankly, it is 
a trade policy that allows unfairly traded Canadian grain to sweep into 
our country, displacing our own grain, reducing our own prices, putting 
enormous pressure on our farm producers.
  In the midst of all of this, our chief competitors, the Canadians and 
the Europeans, are spending 10 times as much as we are to support their 
farm producers. They are spending nearly $50 billion a year while we 
are spending, under the new farm bill, about $5 billion a year.
  Those are the pressures that our producers are under. It is an 
emergency. It is a disaster. I am very pleased that we have responded 
with a $6 billion package. I want to be swift to say that is not 
enough. The pain felt by farm families and the hole in income in farm 
country is so deep that even $6 billion won't fill it, but it will 
certainly help. We have come a long way from the moment in July that I 
offered on this floor a $500 million indemnity payment plan for those 
areas devastated by natural disaster.
  I say a special thanks to my colleague, Senator Dorgan, who 
cosponsored that amendment, and to Senator Craig, of Idaho, who is on 
the floor, who gave great help and support to us in that effort and who 
has played a leading role in trying to win greater support as the need 
increased, as natural disasters spread from our part of the country to 
other parts. We saw later this year drought conditions in Oklahoma, 
Texas and Louisiana, and hurricanes that affected much of the coastal 
areas of the southeastern United States. It started in our part of the 
country but it spread. That required a greater response. Again, I thank 
my colleague, Senator Craig, for the very constructive role that he 
played in assisting us to get a much stronger, more robust package of 
disaster assistance.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. CRAIG. Let me thank my colleague from North Dakota for those kind 
words. While he and I might disagree on policy as it relates to how we 
respond to American agriculture, we did not disagree and we do not 
disagree on the need. There are consequences if we fail to respond to 
that need at a time when markets are being taken away from production 
agriculture in this country. We have seen dramatic declines in 
commodity prices across the board.
  He and I agree on Canadian trade policy. We are very frustrated by 
what appears to be a one-way flow of commodities out of Canada with 
very little moving from our side into Canada; and when it attempts to 
move, finding all kinds of restrictions.
  I must tell the Senator from North Dakota I have been very frustrated 
with this administration, that they have not taken a more aggressive 
role in trying to determine why those differences have come about and 
responding to them. Thanks to our Governors, collectively, and our 
urging, the administration is now making some response in that area. I 
hope it is very, very productive.
  Canadians need to understand that under the North American Free Trade 
Agreement it is not a one-way street, nor should it be.
  I would agree also with my colleague from North Dakota as it relates 
to the response by the chairman of the Federal Reserve today. We 
probably would not differ on our concern over the analysis of the 
current world economic situation. I hope that our economy will respond 
to lower interest rates, but I must say that our economy also responds 
to tax cuts. Our economy also responds when consumers are having to pay 
less to their Federal Government and are allowed more of their own 
hard-earned money to stay in their pockets.
  But this administration was adamant this year, and we were unable to 
effectively respond to what I thought, and others thought, was a need 
for a reasonable tax cut in certain areas. There is an interesting 
analysis that we have just done as it relates to the obstructive nature 
of policy used on the floor of the Senate this year by our colleagues 
on the other side. In the last four years, the need for cloture--that 
is a term used here in a procedural effort to shut down a filibuster 
effort so that we can proceed to deal with a bill--had to be used four 
times more than in the preceding years under a Democrat-controlled 
Senate. In other words, there was a concerted effort this year by my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle to simply stop the process, 
to slow it down, to force cloture, to seek endless debates.
  So it becomes very frustrating when you are trying to do the business 
of the citizens, to move a timely budget process, a timely 
appropriations process that requires the necessary voting on 13 
different appropriations bills to fund Government, to get it done when, 
day after day, debate is made on issues that are not relevant to the 
procedure and, in some instances, not relevant to the policy at hand. 
But that is a tactic that can be used and is legitimate before the 
Senate. I am not denying its legitimacy; I am denying the 
repetitiveness in which it was used as compared to the prior four years 
under a Democrat Senate, with George Mitchell as leader of the U.S. 
Senate. There has been nearly a four times greater need to file cloture 
so as to move the process forward. In other words, was there a directed 
effort to slow down the Congress, to slow down the Senate this year? I 
think the statistics and the history will clearly demonstrate that is 
the case.
  Be that as it may, it was important that we ultimately finish our 
work and that we adjourn. We are now on the eve of an adjournment 
because our work is done. We now have completed the appropriations 
process. We have done so in a way that dealt with the needs of this 
administration and the balance of power that, by Constitution, must and 
does occur in our Government. I will tell you that the end product 
isn't all that I would like, and there is a lot in it that I don't care 
for. But that is not unusual in any process where compromise is 
necessary to produce a final product.
  So I am pleased to say that that final product has been produced, 
that our majority leader labored mightily with the speaker, with 
representatives from the administration, and with representatives of 
our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to resolve this issue. 
Should it have been done here on the floor in open debate? Yes. If we 
hadn't had to file over 100 cloture motions in the last four years, the 
process would have been much different. But that is the character of 
the Senate itself, and those are the rules under which we operate. 
Having to deal with those rules and the obstructive nature that can be 
applied to the process, I think we can declare a successful session. I 
hope that is the case in the end.
  Is the surplus produced by a balanced budget, which Republicans are 
proud of, intact? Yes, it is, by a very large amount. But it is also 
important to say that we never argued in the first place that all of 
the surplus would be held intact, and that it must be guaranteed to 
Social Security. That was a marker the President laid down. And while 
we agreed with him that there was adequate money in the surplus to 
reform Social Security for present and future purposes, it was the 
President that laid that marker down and, just in the last 48 hours, 
has tried to redefine what he

[[Page S12624]]

meant by the marker. I am sorry, Mr. President, ``is'' is. Let me 
repeat that for the President. Mr. President, ``is'' is. We don't need 
to redefine it. We explain it. We totally understand it. We know what 
you said in your budget statement. All of the surplus went to Social 
Security, except you wanted about $20 billion of it to go somewhere 
else without getting blamed for it, and were simply saying that the 
argument is much different. We have used a very limited amount of 
moneys that we had not appropriated that could arguably be called 
surplus.
  But the surplus is intact. The budget is balanced. There is adequate 
money to begin what I think is a generational opportunity to not only 
assure and guarantee Social Security in the outyears beyond 2020 but, 
most importantly, to guarantee that it is done in a way so that our 
children and our grandchildren will not have to pay excessively to get 
a reasonable return on a guaranteed retirement annuity as Social 
Security has become. Those are the issues that we will deal with in a 
new Congress, and those are issues that are going to be paramount to 
the strength and stability of our country, and to the well-being of our 
citizens. I hope that we will deal with them in a reasonable and 
bipartisan fashion, because the correct solution to Social Security 
must be bipartisan by its nature and by its definition, and I am sure 
that we can accomplish that.
  Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence 
of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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