[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 148 (Wednesday, October 27, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13195-S13197]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE ADS

  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I rise this morning to respond to a series 
of ads that are being run in my State by the National Republican 
Congressional Campaign Committee. These ads are false. They are what 
can only be charitably termed misleading, and they diminish the 
credibility of the National Republican Congressional Campaign 
Committee.
  That is not just my conclusion, Mr. President. That is the conclusion 
of the major newspaper of my State, the Fargo Forum, which has written 
an editorial in which it says:

       Politics is often a down and dirty business, but 
     the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee's 
     early TV ads 13 months before the election, and even 
     before State Republicans have an endorsed congressional 
     candidate, are a new low in the campaign gutter. They're 
     false on every level. Decent North Dakota Republicans 
     should tell the national group to clean up its act.

  Well, amen to that because the National Republican Congressional 
Campaign Committee ought to be ashamed of the ads they are running in 
North Dakota. They are claiming that Democrats are raiding the Social 
Security trust fund here in Washington. They must have forgotten they 
are in control in the House of Representatives and they are in control 
in the Senate. It is not Democrats who are determining the spending 
priorities in the House of Representatives. The Republicans are in 
control. They are deciding the budget outcome in the House of 
Representatives. If ever there was a case of the pot calling the kettle 
black, this is it because we know that the majority party themselves 
are, in fact, raiding Social Security.
  That is not just the conclusion of the senior Senator from North 
Dakota. That is the conclusion of the Washington Post which had a major 
news story with the headline ``GOP Spending Bills Tap Social Security 
Surplus.'' It is the Republican Party's plan that is tapping the Social 
Security surplus.
  For them to then run ads claiming the Democrats are doing it is just 
a giant diversionary tactic. They are trying to avoid responsibility 
for what they are doing. It is not only the Washington Post that has 
made this point. We also have the Congressional Budget Office. The 
Congressional Budget Office, which they control, has sent a letter 
which says very clearly that the Republican spending plans have tapped 
Social Security for $18 billion. In other words, they are raiding the 
Social Security accounts for $18 billion. That is their plan, that is 
their responsibility, and to avoid accountability apparently they have 
decided, or their campaign consultants have decided, that the best 
defense is an offensive attack.
  So in my State of North Dakota, 13 months before the election, they 
are running ads that the major newspaper in my State says are ``a new 
low in the campaign gutter. They are false on

[[Page S13196]]

every level.'' And, indeed, they are. They are false on every level. 
The people of America who are being subjected to these ads ought to 
know exactly what is going on and who is doing what with respect to the 
budget of the United States.
  One of the things I find most ironic is that the National Republican 
Congressional Campaign Committee which is sponsoring these ads are the 
very same folks who sponsored a constitutional amendment a number of 
years ago that had as its base that they would raid the Social Security 
trust fund in order to balance the budget. These folks who trumpeted 
this constitutional amendment to balance the budget had as a definition 
of a balanced budget the raiding of the Social Security trust fund.
  Now they have the chutzpah to come before the American people and run 
ads saying the Democrats are raiding the Social Security trust fund 
surplus. And the Democrats are not in control. We don't control the 
U.S. House of Representatives. We don't control the Senate.
  Again, the major newspaper in my State has called these ads false on 
every level.
  Maybe it is helpful to review the record of who has done what with 
respect to budget policy.
  I am on the Budget Committee. I am on the Finance Committee. I am 
known in the Budget Committee as the ``deficit hawk.''
  I have been involved in every effort to get our fiscal house in 
order. I believe deeply in the need for fiscal discipline. That is 
primarily why I ran for the Senate. I saw back when I ran in 1986 that 
things were running amuck; that the deficits were growing; that we were 
getting deeper in debt, and this country was in real trouble. I 
believed then and I believe now that it is threatening the national 
security of the United States.
  If we go back and review the record of the Reagan years, he inherited 
a deficit of about $80 billion. Very quickly, under Reaganomics the 
deficit exploded up to over $200 billion a year. In fact, during this 
time we tripled the national debt. This trickle-down economics was a 
disaster.
  Then we saw in the Bush years, again, the deficit took off like a 
scalded cat. It went from $150 billion a year up to $290 billion a 
year.
  That is the record of our friends on the other side of the aisle. 
They were in charge. They were in control. Reaganomics was carrying the 
day.
  We saw headline after headline about how the Republicans in the House 
and the Senate in conjunction with boll weevil Democrats were passing 
Reaganomics and Reaganomics exploded the deficit and exploded the debt. 
That is the record.
  When the Clinton administration came in in 1992, we passed a plan in 
1993 that reduced the deficit--a 5-year budget plan. We can go back and 
check the record. It is not a matter of running television ads. It is a 
matter of fact. Facts are very clear.
  The deficit under that 5-year plan declined each and every year. The 
deficit went down from $290 billion in the last year of the Bush 
administration to $255 billion. And each year that deficit was reduced 
in the 5 years of that budget plan.
  By the way, we passed that budget plan without a single Republican 
vote--not one, not one. In 1997, we agreed on a bipartisan plan to 
finish the job.
  There I commend our colleagues on the other side of the aisle because 
we did join together in 1997 for a balanced budget plan to finish the 
job. But the truth is most of the heavy lifting had been done by the 
1993 plan. But we didn't have a single Republican vote--not one.
  I heard another ad this morning, this time attacking Bill Bradley and 
Al Gore. This was run by some committee called the National Republican 
Council. I never heard of it. But they were running ads attacking Bill 
Bradley and Al Gore saying they had voted for increased spending and 
increased taxes.
  Do you know they were here and they were fighting for the 1993 plan 
that eliminated this deficit? That is the fact. The fact is Federal 
spending in real terms, as measured as a percentage of our national 
income, is at its lowest level since 1974. Back in 1993 when we passed 
that plan, Federal spending was 22 percent of our national income. It 
is now down to 19 percent of our national income.

  So the truth about Mr. Bradley, who voted for that 1993 plan, and the 
truth about Mr. Gore, who was Vice President and argued for that 1993 
plan, is that in real terms they supported a reduction in Federal 
spending. That is the truth. That is the truth of the matter.
  But I guess political consultants don't have to worry about the 
truth. They are more interested in scoring rhetorical points. They 
don't have to worry apparently about the factual record.
  Let's look at the factual record. Here is the history going back 20 
years in Federal receipts and Federal outlays.
  The blue line shows expenditures of the Federal Government. The red 
line is the income of the Federal Government, the receipts. You can see 
during the Reagan years there was an enormous gap between the two. That 
is why we had these budget deficits because we were spending more than 
we were taking in.
  In 1993, right here when we passed the plan, again, without a single 
Republican vote, that cut spending. You can see the blue line--the 
spending line--is coming down, and it raised revenue. Yes, it did. We 
raised taxes on the wealthiest 1 percent in this country; raised income 
taxes on the wealthiest 1 percent. And it was that combination of 
cutting spending and raising revenue that eliminated the deficit.
  That is how we balanced the budget. Thank God we did. Thank God there 
was a Bill Bradley who was courageous enough to stand on this floor and 
cast a tough vote to get our fiscal house in order. Thank God there was 
an Al Gore as Vice President of the United States who had the courage 
to stand up and support a plan to get our fiscal house in order after 
the disasters of the Reagan and Bush administrations when it was all 
talk about fiscal responsibility and it was all deficits and debt. That 
is their legacy.
  If we want to debate, I am ready to debate this anytime anywhere with 
anyone about what happened and when and what the results have been. But 
they have these smear ads running in my State and smear ads running 
nationally that distort the truth.
  That is going to get a response because we are not going to allow 
people to tell falsehoods about what occurred. Too many people took 
real risks in order to get the fiscal house of our country back in 
order, and the record is abundantly clear about who did what.
  This is the reality. In 1993, a 5-year budget plan was passed that 
worked, that cut spending in real terms, that raised revenue, and that 
balanced the budget. The result is a dramatically strengthened 
economy--the longest record of economic expansion in our history, and 
an economic performance that is the envy of the world.
  The inflation rate is the lowest in 33 years. Here we went. In 1993, 
the plan was passed. Inflation came down. The unemployment rate is the 
lowest in 41 years. The central reason was the budget plan that was 
passed in 1993 that moved us toward a balanced budget and towards 
fiscal discipline to getting our fiscal house in order.
  Debt held by the public is coming down dramatically. In 1993, the 
first year of the plan, publicly held debt in comparison with our gross 
domestic product was 50 percent. If we stay on the course that we have 
set now, we will have this debt down to 9 percent of our gross domestic 
product in 2009. We can eliminate publicly held debt in 15 years.
  That is the course we are on. That is the course the Democrats 
established. That is the course which is the result of the 1993 plan 
that brought fiscal discipline back to this government and led to an 
incredible economic expansion.
  Welfare caseloads: Another benefit of getting our fiscal house in 
order.
  This is also not only a result of a good economy, but it is also a 
result of welfare reform, which in fairness I should say was done on a 
bipartisan basis. We had help from our Republican friends, and many of 
us felt strongly that welfare reform was required, and, indeed, it has 
produced incredibly positive results. Welfare caseloads are the lowest 
they have been in 29 years.
  Republicans, this year, have engaged the Congress in a series of what 
I can

[[Page S13197]]

only call sort of baffling gimmicks, in order to try to make it look to 
the American people that they are not raiding Social Security.

  They are running ads that the major newspaper in my State has 
described as ``a new low in the campaign gutter. They are false on 
every level.'' That is what the Republican Congressional Campaign 
Committee is instituting in my State. The facts show something quite 
different.
  The Congressional Budget Office says the non-Social Security surplus 
for the year we are working on, fiscal year 2000, is $14 billion. What 
does that mean? That means if we take out the Social Security surplus, 
we have $14 billion of what I call a true surplus in fiscal year 2000. 
If we take the House and Senate committee actions to date, the Budget 
Committee directives to CBO spent $18 billion of that.
  Emergency spending: The Republicans have labeled a whole series of 
spending initiatives ``emergencies'' to avoid the requirements of 
fiscal discipline--$13 billion is declared emergencies, including the 
census. The census is provided for in the U.S. Constitution. We have 
been instituting the census for 200 years in this country, and they 
declare it an emergency. They declared the low-income heating program 
in this country an emergency--a program we have had for 24 years. That 
is absolutely nonsense.
  Social Security administrative costs: They have taken those and don't 
want to count them, debt service costs and others. Add this up, and 
they are into Social Security by $21 billion. They are raiding Social 
Security by $21 billion and are trying to hide the raid by running 
television ads that some clever campaign consultant told them is their 
best strategy for avoiding their own responsibility. To try to avoid 
their own accountability, they are claiming the Democrats are 
instituting it. The problem with that: Democrats are not in control. 
Republicans are in control, and this is what they are instituting. They 
are raiding Social Security. The record is abundantly clear.
  One of the last times I came to the floor was when the Republicans 
came up with the gimmick--and they have come up with a whole series of 
them to try to avoid the charge that they are instituting precisely 
what they claim Democrats are instituting--of having a 13th month. They 
came up with kind of a clever idea to get around the problem by 
declaring a 13th month in this country. The last time I checked the 
calendar, there were only 12 months. But the Republicans decided they 
would come up with a 13th month to make it look as though they were not 
raiding the Social Security trust fund surplus. That is a novel idea. I 
came to the floor and wondered, what would they call it? ``Spend-
tember''? Would they call it ``Fictionary''? What would we call a 13th 
month?
  Why stop there? Why not have 14 or 15 months? What would be the 
additional month that would be added? Would we have two Augusts or two 
Decembers? I favored two Octobers because I enjoy baseball; we could 
have two World Series. Maybe we could have two Decembers so we could 
celebrate Christmas twice.
  I know it sounds far fetched, but this is the headline in the 
Washington Post: ``GOP Seeks to Ease Crunch with 13-Month Fiscal 
Year.'' That is the length to which they go to avoid accountability and 
responsibility. That is what happened.
  That is not the only gimmick they came up with. They got the 13th 
month. They have the census emergency--the census we have been 
instituting for 200 years they claim is an emergency. They declared 
LIHEAP an emergency, the low-income heating program. We have had that 
program for 24 years. They proposed delaying earned-income tax credit 
payments to people. They were even chastised by their own leading 
Presidential candidate. He made it very clear they were way out of tune 
with the American people when they proposed that gimmick.

  That is what is going on to cover this mismanagement and to cover 
this fiscal irresponsibility. The National Republican Congressional 
Campaign Committee is running television ads in my State claiming 
Democrats are raiding Social Security. That dog doesn't hunt. That is 
not going to fly. We are going to respond very forcefully when people 
try to misrepresent the record.
  As I began, I conclude: The major newspaper in my State called these 
ads ``a new low in the campaign gutter. They are false on every 
level.''
  That is the truth. I hope the National Republican Congressional 
Campaign Committee will stop running these ads because they are false. 
They are irresponsible. They are misleading. They ought to be stopped. 
That is the record. That is the fact. I hope people, as they evaluate 
candidates in this next election, will inquire: What is the record of 
candidates on the question of spending Social Security surpluses, on 
raiding Social Security trust funds?
  I am prepared to answer that question. Every budget plan I have 
offered, every budget plan Senate Democrats have offered, has 
maintained the Social Security surplus. We haven't touched the Social 
Security surplus. We wouldn't engage in a raid of the Social Security 
surplus. That is true of the plan Senate Democrats offered in the 
Finance Committee. That is true of the plan Senate Democrats offered in 
the Budget Committee. For anyone to say anything else is an absolute 
falsehood.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ashcroft). The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I understand under a previous order the 
Senator from Wyoming controls 30 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. GREGG. I ask the Senator from Wyoming to yield me 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire is recognized 
for 10 minutes.

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