[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 149 (Thursday, October 28, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13363-S13365]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ACROSS-THE-BOARD SPENDING CUTS: IRRESPONSIBLE BUDGETING
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we are almost a month into the new fiscal
year and Congress still has not passed an appropriations bill for the
Departments of Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services. The
work of these Departments touches the lives of nearly every American,
yet the Republican leadership has been unable to work out an acceptable
budget for them which will enable them to carry out their
responsibilities fully and effectively.
The majority has used an extraordinary array of gimmicks, such as
bogus emergency spending designations, and an unprecedented level of
advance fundings. But even those budgetary slights of hand were
insufficient to do the job.
They considered reneging on Congress' commitment to provide TANF
moneys to the States but backed off under pressure from the Republican
Governors.
They proposed increasing taxes on the working poor by changing the
reimbursement rules for the Earned Income Tax Credit. Even the leading
Republican Presidential candidate denounced that as ``balancing the
budget on the backs of the poor.'' Again, the Republican leadership was
forced to retreat from an outrageous proposal. The fact that these cuts
were even considered shows how out of control the budget process is.
In desperation, the Republicans have now proposed that we
indiscriminately cut all Government programs by 1 percent across the
board. In other words, they would treat essential health and education
programs no differently than special interest pork barrel projects.
They ignore the reality that some of the programs are far more
important than others. This type of mindless cut is an admission of
total budgetary failure.
They pretend such a cut will not have any impact on the programs, but
they are terribly wrong. The human cost of such an across-the-board cut
would be very high. It would hurt many of our most vulnerable people:
Some 5,000 fewer preschoolers in Head Start;
2,800 fewer children in the child care programs;
74,000 fewer babies receiving nutritional supplements;
2,775,000 fewer meals brought to the elderly and disabled;
120,000 fewer disadvantaged students helped;
6,000 fewer job opportunities for youth;
10,000 fewer work-study grants for college students;
10,000 fewer children helped to read;
3,000 fewer children immunized;
20,000 fewer homes for low-income families.
Each one of these is an unacceptable price to pay for the
Republicans' inability to produce a fair and fiscally sound budget.
That was with a 1% cut. Now CBO has made available to us a letter
that was sent to the Honorable John Spratt, who is the ranking
Democratic member of the Committee on the Budget in the House, with
copies also to Mr. Kasich and Mr. Domenici.
The conclusion of these letters is that the 0.97% cut that will be
included in the conference report, which perhaps we will consider
later, is going to be insufficient, according to the
latest calculations of CBO, to avoid tapping social security funds this
fiscal year. Their estimate is, it would have to be not 0.97 percent
but a total of 5.8 percent. If you were to eliminate defense, military
construction, veterans programs, it would be in excess of 11 percent.
So here on this chart are the cuts with 1 percent. And the CBO says,
if you are going to do the job and follow the pathway that is being
recommended by the Republican leadership, it will have to be a 5.8
percent cut.
So you can multiply all of the cuts to programs needed by our most
vulnerable citizens by 5.8, which yields a much more devastating
impact. Those are the circumstances we are in.
The fact is that the President and the ranking Democrats on the
various committees say: Why don't you go back and cut out the pork you
put in and cut out the excesses you have added, and send us something
that is responsible? Then we can have true negotiations.
But that isn't the way the Republican leadership is moving. They are
just favoring across-the-board cuts, which will cut valuable, helpful
programs that are indispensable to needy people, for infants and for
children, for education, and for health--the same amount as the pork
programs that have been added by the Republicans.
These consequences are all the more deplorable because they are
unnecessary. President Clinton and the Democrats here in Congress have
proposed fiscally responsible measures to keep our hands entirely off
Social Security money even while we make the critical investments
needed to strengthen our Nation in the coming year.
But the Republicans repeatedly said ``no.'' ``No'' to a cigarette tax
that would prevent teen smoking while paying for children's health
initiatives; ``no'' to making oil companies pay royalties they owe the
Federal Government; ``no'' to reducing corporate welfare; ``no'' even
to military officers when they ask to defer or delay programs the
Republicans want in their districts.
By consistently declining opportunities to reduce a balanced budget,
Republicans are on a course to raid Social Security, regardless of this
proposed 1 percent cut.
Why have Republicans proposed this latest gimmick? To avoid using
this year's Social Security surplus to pay for this year's Government
spending, they tell us. But what Republicans don't say is that the
gimmicks they have already voted for guarantee that the Social Security
money will be used in the budget this year. That is what the latest CBO
report that has been given to the leaders today has indicated.
I have but one simple question for anyone who would disagree: Where
will the money come from to pay for the census, which Republicans have
suddenly declared to be an emergency? This money must be paid to
contractors and staff this budget year, yet it cannot be found anywhere
except in the Social Security trust fund.
By simply calling a $4 billion entirely foreseeable program an
``emergency,'' Republicans cannot escape the fact that they will
certainly spend Social Security surpluses this year, regardless of
whether there is an across-the-board cut. The census gimmick is but one
of many instances in which Social Security funds have already been
spent by Republicans this budget year. When all the smoke and mirrors
produced by the Republicans are removed, we can see that the true goal
of their 1-percent cut is not to preserve Social Security surpluses but
to gut Government spending on core education, health, and criminal
justice programs. Republicans in this Congress are returning to the
time of Speaker Gingrich when they proposed abolishing the Department
of Education, only now they are dismantling it piece by piece.
Today's Republicans have proposed a $288 million cut for the
Department of Education--continuing their longstanding assault on our
children's futures. Let's not forget that when Republicans first
assumed the control of Congress in 1995, their top agenda item was to
rescind $1.7 billion in education funding that had already been enacted
into law by the Democratic Congress. Then, in the first full funding
cycle subject to Republican control, their appropriators in the House
socked the Department of Education with a $3.9 billion proposed cut--
almost 20 percent. They tried again in the budget year 1997 when Senate
appropriators sought a $3.1 billion cut to the President's request for
education programs.
Democrats in the Congress, together with President Clinton,
successfully resisted each one of these Republican cuts in education.
So since 1997, Republicans have sought more modest education cuts of
[[Page S13364]]
$200 million or more below the President. Today's proposed $288 million
cut is consistent with the Republicans' longstanding goal of decreasing
support for education. It is wrong. It is shortsighted. It is not what
the American people want or deserve.
Of course, Senator Nickles and Representative DeLay want us to
believe their 1-percent cut won't hurt a bit. It might not hurt the oil
companies they want to protect from paying full royalties to the
Government this year, but it will hurt the real people I described when
I listed some effects of their proposed cut. The cut might not affect
the tobacco companies, now that the Republicans have rejected President
Clinton's plan to raise cigarette taxes, but it will hurt those who
rely on the programs Republicans want to cut.
In conclusion, I want to just point out--on this other chart--what
the current situation is with regard to the Head Start Program.
Today, we have, for the Early Head Start Program, only 1 in 100
eligible children who are actually enrolled. This is what the Carnegie
Commission and virtually all recent studies show is probably the wisest
investment of funds of any other Government program because these are
the earliest years of confidence building among children. And as all of
the research has demonstrated, the earliest intervention in these
years, in the first, second, third, and fourth years of life, has
enormous consequences in the child's cognitive development and future
education. Only 1 in 100 eligible children are presently enrolled in
Early Head Start. In the Head Start Program, which has been tried and
tested, evaluated and strengthened and improved, only 2 in 5 eligible
children are enrolled now; 3 out of 5 are financially eligible, and
cannot enroll in the program.
The Child Care Development Block Grant program only assists 1 in 10
eligible children. Education for the disabled, only 1 in 4 eligible
children are assisted. This is the current situation. It is against
that background we are going to see tens of millions, hundreds of
millions of dollars in reduction in those programs because the
Republican leadership, over the course of the year, have added a lot of
boondoggle programs of their own in these other appropriations.
I indicated what those reductions would be if they were going to be 1
percent. Now we know it is going to be 5.8 percent, according to the
CBO.
The proposed cut is wrong. It is an abdication of their duty to state
what they believe the nation's priorities should be. It is
irresponsible. I hope our colleagues would vote in the negative on
this.
Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. KENNEDY. I am glad to yield.
Mr. REID. I ask my friend from Massachusetts, is he aware, in
addition to this latest scheme--that is what I call it--this across-
the-board cut, in this one-a-week program the Republicans have come up
with, they also wanted to do a number of other things, such as extend
the year a month? Are you familiar with that?
Mr. KENNEDY. I am.
Mr. REID. That didn't sell very well. Are you aware it was determined
even by the very conservative Wall Street Journal they had two sets of
books they were trying to keep in an effort to hide the spending of
Social Security moneys? Is the Senator aware of that?
Mr. KENNEDY. I remember the discussion on the floor, an article by
Mr. Rogers, I think. It was an excellent article and a very accurate
one. It was included in the Record. I hope our colleagues will read
that.
Mr. REID. In addition to having two sets of books, in addition to
extending the year another month, as my friend from Illinois has said--
that is great, because in doing that, we will never have a Y2K problem;
we just keep adding months to the year--are you aware also that the
earned-income tax credit, the program Ronald Reagan said was the best
antiwelfare program in the history of this country, they tried, as one
of their schemes, to take that money away from the working poor in
America so they could balance their so-called budget? Is the Senator
aware of that?
Mr. KENNEDY. I was aware of it. The particular need for that program
is to provide help and assistance for low-income working families who
have children. This is basically the children. That program benefits
the children of working poor, to try to give some assurance they will
at least have some measure of quality of life. That was the program
targeted by the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives
to be undermined, that program and the resources in that program, in
order to offset the other benefits they had given to their special
projects.
Mr. REID. As part of their scheme-of-the-week program to have this
blue smoke and mirrors, is the Senator also aware--I know he answered
this question, as he so aptly pointed out--that now they want an
across-the-board cut, saying they want to eliminate waste and fraud,
but that across-the-board cuts are indiscriminate; it doesn't go to any
one pocket; it cuts programs across the board? Is the Senator aware of
that?
Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator is absolutely correct. It does not, for
example, even give the military, give the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff and the commanders, the range of options they could have in
order to meet their responsibility. We are up to 270-odd billion
dollars in terms of defense appropriations; 1 percent is $2.7 billion.
As a member of the Armed Services Committee, we heard from the Joint
Chiefs that it would be a devastating cut in terms of personnel and in
terms of readiness. They don't give the flexibility to any of the
administrators to be able to do it. They are just mandating the
requirement right across the board. That is the most inefficient way of
doing it.
Mr. REID. I ask the Senator, is he aware that instead of their scheme
of the week, they have now done two schemes this week? So maybe next
week they will use one of the old ones. Is the Senator aware that one
of the latest schemes is to withhold money from the National Institutes
of Health for 11 months of the fiscal year so all the money comes in
the 12th month? It helps their bookkeeping. Is the Senator aware of
this scheme they are floating around here?
Mr. KENNEDY. Well, I had heard that, that they were going to hold
some $7.8 billion. Maybe they could, with $1 billion, hold for some
period of time. NIH might be able to deal with that. They are talking
about $7.8 billion, effectively undermining the most significant and
important basic research that is taking place any place in the world at
a time of extraordinary possibility and breakthroughs in terms of
health, in order to fund a number of military pieces of equipment that
were never requested by the military and other special projects that
were never requested by the administration. They don't want to cut
those out, but they want to tamper with the greatest research center in
the world, which is the NIH, doing so much on so many of these diseases
that affect every family in America, whether it is cancer, whether it
is on the issues of Alzheimer's, whether Parkinson's disease, you name
it, lupus, whatever it is, osteoporosis that affect our senior
citizens. They are tampering with those funds. I have seen a lot of
shenanigans in the budgeting of the Federal budget, but I would
certainly agree with the Senator that tampering with the NIH funds in
the way this is done would have a dramatic adverse impact in our whole
basic research programs at the NIH and would cause enormous harm. I
welcome the Senator's observation, because, if there weren't other
problems in this report, that in and of itself would justify the
rejection of it.
Mr. REID. If the Senator is going to yield the floor, I would like to
claim the floor.
Mr. DORGAN. I would like to ask the Senator a question.
Mr. REID. I wanted to ask the Senator from North Dakota a question,
but please proceed. I have the floor, and I yield to the Senator from
North Dakota.
Mr. HOLLINGS. If the Senator will yield, we have been going back and
forth. So please be short, if you can. We want to have that comity
continue.
Mr. REID. I ask my friend from South Carolina, are we in a hurry
around here?
Mr. HOLLINGS. It is the comity and not the time. Please talk until
tomorrow, when we vote.
Mr. REID. The Senator from Massachusetts still has the floor then.
[[Page S13365]]
Mr. KENNEDY. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID. I have the floor. We will speak very shortly so the Senator
from Illinois can be recognized.
Mr. DORGAN. The Senator from Illinois should be recognized. If I
could ask forbearance, I wanted to ask the Senator from Massachusetts a
question. Since he doesn't have the floor, let me at least propound the
question.
Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I would like to have unanimous consent
to speak for a couple of minutes on our departed colleague, John
Chafee, after which I have to preside. I will just take a couple
minutes.
Mr. REID. I say to the Chair, I am happy to yield my time for 2
minutes to the Senator from Illinois. I will reclaim the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the Senator from Illinois
is recognized.
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