[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 77 (Wednesday, May 26, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H3684-H3685]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        A CRISIS IN AGRICULTURE, AND THE NEED FOR BUDGET REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Thune) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. THUNE. Madam Speaker, agriculture is in incredible crisis. 
Earlier today we voted on a number of amendments to the agricultural 
appropriations bill, and the bill funds programs that are very 
important to my constituency, programs that provide credit, dollars for 
conservation, income support for our farmers and ranchers.
  For that reason, I have been very frustrated as I have watched this 
process and the tactics that have been employed here on the floor to 
try and slow this process down. It is a bill that is important to me, 
it is important to those I serve, and so I would hope that we can move 
this bill forward in a timely way.
  Even though the spending does not take effect until October 1, the 
next fiscal year, we need to get these appropriation bills done. It is 
the work that the American people sent us here to do.
  I appreciate what the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn) is trying 
to do. I do not believe he is taking issue with the agriculture bill 
itself, with the spending in the agriculture bill, as much as he is 
with the process by which we accomplish our work here.
  On that point, I believe he happens to be right. We need budget 
process reform here in Washington. This process is an embarrassment to 
the people of this country. It is an embarrassment to me, and it ought 
to be an embarrassment to every Member who serves here in the House or 
in the Senate.
  There is a bias in the budget process toward higher spending. I want 
Members to think about what the current budget process has given us. We 
have $5.5 trillion in debt, or $20,000 for every man, woman, and child 
in America today.
  In fact, people have a hard time grasping what $1 trillion is. We are 
$5.5 trillion in debt. If you started a business on the day that Christ 
was born and lost $1 million every day, every day up until the present, 
you would not even have lost $1 trillion. We are $5.5 trillion in debt. 
That is what this budget process has gotten us.
  The other thing it has gotten us is a $1.7 trillion annual budget 
because of a Washington gimmick known as baseline budgeting, where 
every year we have increases that are built into the budget. Nobody 
else in America has to get the budget that way, but here in Washington, 
that is what we do.
  The tax burden in this country is at the highest level since any time 
since 1945, where every American essentially works 2 hours and 51 
minutes of every working day just to pay the cost of government.
  Last fall we had a debate here as we got to the end of the year, and 
of course, as usual, we had not done our work. We had not completed the 
appropriations process, so everything was wrapped into this huge 
omnibus continuing resolution which was some $600 billion, a bill most 
of us had not even seen, let alone read, done in the middle of the 
night with a handful of people, and we are asked to vote on it.
  This is a process which begs and cries out for reform. We are the 
guardians here of the public trust in Washington. This is a national 
tragedy. The American people ought to get engaged on this issue, 
because there is nothing that we could do that would more fundamentally 
change the way Washington operates and the way the taxpayer dollars are 
spent than for us to reform the budget process.
  The American people need to be engaged, because it is their money we 
are talking about. We go about it with the process that we have in 
place today, and frankly could make the argument that if we had the 
political courage to make the hard decisions we could get it down, and 
we could.
  But the fact of the matter is that the process lends itself to the 
very worst instincts I think of all of us here in Washington. There is 
a bias towards higher spending.
  There is a proposal on the table this year to reform the budget 
process. The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), this is a bipartisan 
bill, and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) have come up with a 
proposal to reform the budget process. Last year I was a cosponsor of 
the bill of the gentleman from California (Mr. Chris Cox) that would do 
the same thing.

[[Page H3685]]

  But we need safeguards that protect the American people. We need to 
see that we have an emergency reserve contingency fund, so we do not 
end up at the end of every year having to come up with an omnibus 
emergency disaster bill and not get the process done or the bills done 
in a timely and orderly way.
  We need to have some enforcement in the budget process, so that when 
we pass the resolution, that it is binding, not only upon us but upon 
the administration.
  We need to have this debate about the budget earlier in the process, 
so we do not end up at the end of the year with all this pressure and 
with nowhere to go but to get into a bidding war, where we continue to 
spend more and more and more of the American people's money.
  We need budget reform in this town more than just about anything else 
that I can think of. Watching the debate today reaffirmed in my mind 
how important it is that we deal with this issue now, we do it this 
year.
  I urge all my colleagues to get on board and the American people to 
get on board with this issue.

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