[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 136 (Thursday, October 26, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11087-S11088]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[[Page S11087]]
Senate
(Legislative day of Friday, September 22, 2000)
GOP ATTACK ON VICE PRESIDENT GORE
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, last month, and again last week, the
Republican staff of the Senate Budget Committee released two reports
criticizing what they wrongly described as the economic plan proposed
by Vice President Gore and our distinguished colleague, Senator
Lieberman. I wanted to come to the floor to discuss these reports,
which I believe were inappropriate, and a misuse of taxpayer dollars.
They also were grossly inaccurate and unfair.
Let me read from a section of the Senate Ethics Manual.
Campaign Use of Official Resources
Official resources may only be used for official purposes.
It is thus inappropriate to use any official resources to
conduct campaign or political activities.
Mr. President, as we all know, and the Senate Ethics Manual makes
clear, it is inappropriate to use any official resources to conduct
campaign or political activities. Of course, it can be difficult to
draw a clear line between official Senate business and campaign
activities. And reasonable people can disagree about many of the
documents that are produced routinely here in the Congress. But, having
said that, the reports issued by the Budget Committee staff, in my
view, go well over the line. These reports are focused entirely on Al
Gore's campaign proposals, or at least the staff's erroneous
interpretation of those proposals. And their obvious purpose is not to
provide an objective analysis, but to attack the Vice President. These
staff reports aren't just biased, they're pure propaganda. And I would
note that the latest report was issued just hours before the last
Presidential debate. Not surprisingly, they issued no comparable
critique of Governor Bush's budget plan.
Now, Mr. President, I recognize that the Budget Committee is not like
the Joint Committee on Taxation, which is supposed to operate in a
nonpartisan manner. The Republican staff of the Budget Committee makes
no pretense to being nonpartisan, and serves only on behalf of
Republican Senators. So one would expect them to issue reports that
further a partisan agenda. But, Mr. President, that does not justify
the issuance of reports that are so obviously intended for campaign
purposes, and that are so blatantly misleading and factually
inaccurate.
Mr. President, I could take a long time reviewing the many flaws of
the Republican staff reports, but let me
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[[Page S11088]]
mention just a few. Perhaps most importantly, the reports dramatically
and inappropriately exaggerate the costs of the Gore plan. First, they
suggest that the Vice President's $360 billion Medicare ``lock box''
represents new spending that somehow would use Social Security funds
and increase the budget deficit. This claim is preposterous. In fact,
the Medicare lock box reserves funds for debt reduction, not new
spending. It wouldn't spend a penny of Social Security surpluses, or
any surpluses, for that matter. Yet by, in effect, counting as spending
the $360 billion Medicare lock box, and an additional $99 billion of
General Fund transfers to Medicare, the Republican staff has
artifically created a $450 billion raid on Social Security that simply
does not exist. And, Mr. President, that's just the beginning.
The GOP staff also charges the Vice President with the costs of
budget proposals put forward by President Clinton, even though the Gore
plan clearly does not endorse the entire Clinton budget. This results
in doublecounting many similar proposals put forward by both Clinton
and Gore, such as their different retirement savings plans. And, of
course, it exaggerates the real cost of the Gore/Lieberman plan.
Another way that the GOP staff inflates the costs of the Gore plan is
to adopt its own scoring rules. The GOP staff went well beyond the
scoring of the Congressional Budget Office or the Office of Management
and Budget. It created its own special methods of evaluating the costs
of the Vice President's proposals. And it shouldn't come as any
surprise that they lead to much higher cost estimates.
Take, for example, the Vice President's Retirement Savings Plus
proposal, which the Gore campaign says would cost $200 billion. The
Republican staff cites a figure of $750 billion. This number is simply
made up, and is not backed up by any official CBO or OMB estimate.
Similarly, the GOP staff exaggerates the cost of Vice President Gore's
preschool proposal. Their report characterizes the Gore plan as if it
were an open-ended entitlement, with no state match. That leads to much
higher costs. In fact, though, the Gore proposal is for block grants
that require a state match.
Another trick that the GOP staff used to create a misleading
impression about the Vice President's proposal was to deviate from
standard practice and use a so-called ``freeze baseline.'' In other
words, the GOP staff counted as a cost of his plan $1.2 trillion in
discretionary spending, and related interests costs, that simply
reflect the costs of maintaining current policy. These costs normally
are considered part of the budget baseline, not new spending. The well-
respected, nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities made this
point in a sharp critique of the GOP staff report. The Center concluded
that the Budget Committee's analysis, and I quote, ``is marred by
several serious flaws''--unquote--which the Center said inflate the
cost estimate assigned to the Gore plan.
Mr. President, the Republican staff was so intent on slandering the
Vice President as a big spender that they went to extremes in
characterizing some of his proposals. The GOP staff calls anything new
spending--even tax cuts. Look at what they include in their long list
of new ``spending and regulatory programs'':
Marriage penalty relief.
A long-term care tax credit.
A disabled workers tax credit.
Mr. President, is marriage penalty relief ``new spending''? Even
George Orwell wouldn't go that far. In fact, the GOP staff's blacklist
goes beyond tax cuts. It even includes gun control. Closing the gun
show loophole. Banning junk guns. Requiring mandatory gun safety locks.
Mr. President, would closing the gun show loophole amount to a return
of Big Government? Would requiring gun manufacturers to include trigger
locks amount to a whole new spending program? I don't think so.
Mr. President, I could go on and on about the Republican report, but
I won't. And, frankly, the misstatements and distortions in their
report are only part of the problem. This report should not have been
produced in the first place. It's obviously intended to be used in the
presidential campaign to harm the Vice President. And it's just not the
type of report that should be produced with taxpayer dollars. Campaign
materials should be produced by campaigns, Mr. President, not
congressional staff. And, at a minimum, if reports on issues related to
the campaign are issued, especially this close to an election, they
ought to at least be fair and accurate. I don't think that's too much
to ask, Mr. President.
Let me recite some facts on Gore and the size of Government.
Under the Clinton-Gore administration Government is smaller: Between
1981 and 1992, the size of the Federal civilian workforce increased.
Since 1993, however, the Federal workforce has been reduced by
377,000--a 17 percent decline.
The Federal workforce is now the smallest since the Kennedy
administration in 1960.
Under the Clinton-Gore administration Federal spending is lower:
Spending as a share of GDP increased between 1981 and 1992--rising from
21.7% to 22.5%. Since 1992, however, federal government spending as a
share of the economy has been cut from 22.2 percent to 18.7 percent in
1999--its lowest level since 1966.
Although Bush promises to reduce government, under him, Texas
government spending increased at twice the rate of the federal
government. While the Federal workforce has been reduced by 17 percent,
under George Bush, Texas has added 6,200 bureaucrats--a 2-percent
increase.
With that, I will yield the floor.
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