[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 33 (Wednesday, March 22, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1552-S1553]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, we are on the eve of establishing a 
budget priority for the budget year 2000, the one that begins in 
October and to next September.
  I am the senior Democrat on the Budget Committee. I would like to 
establish some parameters about the budget as I see it because we are 
waiting patiently for the majority to produce a budget resolution, 
which is a responsibility of the Budget Committee. That is supposed to 
be done by April 1 of this year. Other than meeting that deadline, the 
alternative would be for the majority leader to present a budget as he 
sees it.
  The question arises: Why is it, when the target as proposed by the 
chairman of the Budget Committee is for a budget resolution to be here 
by March 1--and today is considerably past March 1--we are still 
waiting?
  I was advised yesterday as the senior Democrat on the Budget 
Committee that we could expect to have a markup yesterday or today. 
That was called off at a rather late moment last night. We are sitting 
here, I will not say breathless but certainly curious, about what it is 
that prevents us from getting a budget.
  I have to do my own interpretation because I have not been given any 
explanation. I know there are competent staff people working to get the 
budget finished. We have them on both sides --on the Republican as well 
as on the Democrat side. Why isn't it finished?
  Let me tell you why I think it is not and why we on this side of the 
aisle think it isn't being done. It is because they can't get an 
agreement between the members of the committee. The tax cut package of 
George W. Bush, candidate for President of the United States, is 
something that seems to me would break the back of this economy. It 
would destroy all the rosy plans for paying down the debt, for making 
sure we rid ourselves of this obligation, this mortgage that we have 
all over our country. There isn't a family around who wouldn't look 
forward to the day when the mortgage on their home or the debt that 
they have could be retired.
  When we talk about a nice, healthy tax cut, or juicy tax cut for the 
wealthiest in the country, it doesn't ring a good bell even within the 
party of George W. Bush, the Republican Party.
  I know the chairman of the Budget Committee has had his hands full. 
He is my friend as well as a colleague. He doesn't confide in me. We 
keep our party business and our intentions separate. We discuss them in 
the open. This is less than a bad joke. It is a travesty. It worries 
people.
  We are enjoying a boom the likes of which has never been seen in this 
country or anyplace in the world. The economy is perking along--almost 
boiling along. This is a wonderful opportunity to make needed 
adjustments within our structure. We can help families, particularly 
the middle-class families, people who need a little bit of tax relief 
here and there to help accomplish specific purposes. We can keep this 
commitment, which we consider sacrosanct, sacred, to save Social 
Security first.
  We want to take the surpluses which are generated by the robust 
economy and use them to extend the solvency of Social Security. At the 
same time, we want to pay down the debt. It has been the President's 
objective to try to rid taxpayers of the public debt, that debt which 
is owed outside of Government, within about 15 years--bring it down to 
zero. What a difference it would make in our economy. We would be able 
to see people borrowing money without having to compete with the needs 
of the American Government, companies able to borrow without having to 
compete with the Government for capital. It would be an excellent 
objective if we could get there.
  Protect Medicare, provide prescription drugs, extend the life of 
Medicare some 12-15 years, that is what the Democrats want to do.
  We want to invest in education. I speak about education with a degree 
of knowledge because I came from a working-class family in New Jersey. 
My father worked in the textile factories in Paterson, NJ. My mother 
waited on tables. They struggled to make a living during those very 
lean years we were going through. We couldn't afford a college 
education for me even though it was apparent I had the ability. College 
came later on. I enlisted in the Army and was a beneficiary of the GI 
bill of rights. What a bill of rights it was for me. I was able to go 
to Columbia University. I never would have been able to afford that 
otherwise. The Government said: Frank Lautenberg, you have served your 
country in Europe during World War II at the height of the war.
  I came back and was able to get an education that helped me, with two 
very good friends, start a business in the computing field. It was a 
long time ago. We were pioneers. That company that I helped start 
employs in the area of over 30,000 people today. I am listed as a 
member of the Information Processing Hall of Fame. It is in Dallas, TX. 
Then I was able to run for the Senate. I am now in my third and last 
term. It has made such a huge difference. I made a contribution to this 
society that has been so good to me between establishing a business, an 
industry, employing people, and now being in this great body.
  It means a lot when we talk about investing in education. We can say 
to young people across America: Even if you don't have the money, if 
you have the ability to learn, we will help you achieve your 
objectives--make an opportunity for yourself, lift yourself into a 
better lifestyle or better life pattern than your parents, who so often 
struggle so hard.
  Cutting taxes for working families to achieve those objectives, that 
is the Democratic budget agenda.
  We talk about targeted tax cuts for families; help families care for 
an elderly parent with a $3,000 long-term care tax credit; Expand 
educational opportunities; Provide marriage penalty relief; Help people 
prepare for retirement; Expand the earned-income tax credit for those 
who often need it desperately. That is our mission.
  Instead, we are presented with something that hardly resembles that 
mission. We show this in graphic form by presenting this picture: a 
ship at sea facing the tip of an iceberg. The iceberg is the Republican 
tax proposal,

[[Page S1553]]

one that says you can spend more than you have and not admit that if 
you want to keep on living, you may have to borrow money.
  From where is that borrowing going to come? It will come from Social 
Security--that trust fund we hear everybody on each side, who would say 
under oath, ``I want to make sure Social Security is there for those 
who work and pay the taxes.'' They want to know when the time comes for 
retirement they will have something to look forward to.
  Instead, what we have seen from the House Republican budget 
presentation that was sent over to the Senate is that we will have a 
surplus, non-Social Security surplus, in our financial account, our 
balance sheet, of $171 billion. However, the tax cut proposal we have 
seen is $223 billion. One doesn't have to be a mathematician to know if 
one takes $223 billion away from $171 billion, one has to go elsewhere 
to pay the bills.
  We made this very sacred promise, this commitment to the senior 
citizens of this country. I am one of those senior citizens; I like it. 
It is not bad.
  The fact is, we made a promise, almost on bended knee, that we 
absolutely will not touch, to paraphrase, a hair on yon gray heads for 
retirement opportunities. But the proposal we are looking at is one 
that says we will spend $50 billion more on tax cuts than we have in 
our non-Social Security surplus.
  That is not very good arithmetic. One does not have to be a 
mathematician, accountant, or economist to see that puts America deeper 
into a hole that we will have to dig our way out. Just take it from the 
Social Security, after we so diligently studied and agree that it is 
the most sacred obligation this country has.
  Where do we go from there? This graph ought to be presented 
differently. It shows a tip of the iceberg. The whole iceberg ought to 
be lifted up because this is a crash we can see coming. If this program 
stays in place, the economy is going to run into a full-sized iceberg 
with an enormous negative economic impact.
  We are not going to be able to protect Social Security. We are not 
going to be able to pay down the debt. We will not be able to take care 
of obligations we have to veterans in education and health care. We 
cannot do that if we go ahead as planned.
  We need to pay down our obligations. We need to give some targeted 
tax relief, to take care of the commitments we have. But, no, we cannot 
do it because we are not going to have any money left with which to do 
it unless we borrow once again from Social Security. We have been 
through that. We had years and years of borrowing from Social Security 
to make up for the lack of revenue coming from the non-Social Security 
side of the ledger.
  Finally, we are at a place in time where, with President Clinton's 
leadership and with the work of people on both sides of the aisle 
working on a balanced budget, we have developed a surplus and now we 
are ready to start taking care of the financial structure of the 
country in a way so that we know we will be able to assure people 
Medicare will be there for them, that prescription drug costs, which is 
such a problem for so many elderly, will be taken care of in some form.
  But we are not going to be able to do it if we put in place this tax 
scheme--and certainly, if not this one, Presidential aspirant George W. 
Bush's tax plan, which is more than twice, almost three times, the size 
of the one that has been proposed in the House budget.
  So the question for the American public is, Why is it that a 
Republican majority, a significant majority, cannot get an agreement 
out that says: This is where we stand. Let the public judge the value 
of it. Let Democrats, let people outside, make judgments about the 
truth in the presentation.
  We have all kinds of smoke and mirrors that disguise what we are 
going to try to do here. But we know in the final analysis we are going 
to be borrowing money from the Social Security trust fund. So let's get 
it out here. Let's let the public see what it is that is going on 
behind closed doors, because that is not the way we can operate 
anymore. We cannot operate with significant proposals and not permit 
the public to scrutinize what it is we are doing.
  We have to get to the job. We are way past the deadline we thought we 
would be through. I am not happy about the prospect that a budget 
resolution will be dropped on the floor without having had the benefit 
of a committee discussion, some debate, some analysis in the public eye 
before we go ahead and start voting on it.
  With that, I conclude by saying I and I know other members of the 
committee--Democratic members of the committee and I am sure many of 
the Republican Members of the Budget Committee--are anxious to get out 
the budget. If the leadership will accommodate us in the obligation we 
have to the public to present it, we will have a chance to talk about 
something other than what is whispered about through the halls here.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Allard). The Senator from California.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I ask to speak in morning business for 
10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mrs. Feinstein pertaining to the introduction of S. 
2269 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced 
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

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