[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 22 (Thursday, February 15, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1532-S1536]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     RECONCILIATION PROCESS REFORM

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, one of the most significant pieces of 
legislation ever enacted by Congress was the Congressional Budget Act 
of 1974. In my capacity as Majority Whip, as well as Chairman of the 
Senate Rules Committee's Subcommittee on the Standing Rules of the 
Senate, I was deeply involved in the preparation of the Senate version 
of that bill, S. 1541. I assembled a staff working group to make 
extensive revisions to a bill that had been reported out of the 
Committee on Government Operations. That staff group consisted of 
representatives of the chairmen of the ten standing committees of the 
Senate, four joint committees, the House Appropriations Committee, the 
Congressional Research Service, and the Office of Senate Legislative 
Counsel, and the parliamentarian of the Senate--at that time, Robert 
Dove.
  On March 19, 1974, we took S. 1541 to the Senate Floor. At that time 
I stated that, ``when Senators look back some years in the future, many 
may be able to say that this was among the most important measures 
acted upon during our entire service in Congress.''
  As I pointed out in my remarks on March 19, 1974, ``In the fifty 
years subsequent to the enactment of the Budget and Accounting Act, 
Congress had permitted its `power of the purse' under The Constitution 
to slip away, or diminish.'' That trend, as I further pointed out, had 
been magnified during the previous five years. While presidents over 
many decades had occasionally seen fit to withhold funds appropriated 
by Congress, in the years leading up to the enactment of the 
Congressional Budget Act of 1974, the President had expanded this 
practice to cover programs throughout the Government. Many billions of 
dollars had been withheld, not because of any changes in circumstances 
after the action of the Congress in approving the funding, but merely 
because the President did not agree with the priorities or the 
judgments made by the Congress. As a consequence, the confidence of the 
public in its Government processes had been diminished.
  In order to give force, then, to Congress's spending choices, and in 
order to stop this arbitrary withholding by the executive branch, it 
was necessary to put into place a new Budget and Impoundment Control 
Act. S. 1541 established a comprehensive congressional budget process. 
Under that act, a budget reconciliation process was established as an 
optional procedure to enhance Congress's ability to change current law 
in order to bring revenue and spending levels into conformity with the 
targets of the budget resolution.
  Let me repeat that sentence. There are probably Senators who wonder, 
why do we have a reconciliation process? Why was it created in the 
first instance? Let me say again, under that act, a budget 
reconciliation process was established as an optional procedure to 
enhance Congress's ability to change current law in order to bring 
revenue and spending levels into conformity with the targets of the 
budget resolution.
  At the time of the enactment of the Congressional Budget and 
Impoundment Control Act of 1974, it was thought that Congress would 
pass its first budget resolution at the beginning of the session, 
followed by the annual appropriation bills and any other spending 
measures.
  Perhaps I should say that again, just to show how far we have 
wandered from the course originally conceived by the Congress as the 
reconciliation process. At the time of the enactment of the 
Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, it was 
thought that Congress would pass its first budget resolution at the 
beginning of the session, followed by the annual appropriation bills--
all of them; today that would be 13 annual appropriation bills--
followed by the annual appropriation bills and any other spending

[[Page S1533]]

measures. Then Congress would issue any reconciliation instructions 
that might be necessary to bring the spending and the revenues in line 
with the budget resolution. That process was to then involve the 
passage of a second budget resolution.
  Reconciliation involves a two-stage process in which reconciliation 
instructions are included in the budget resolution in order to direct 
appropriate committees to achieve the desired budgetary results, and 
then to incorporate those results into an omnibus bill which is 
considered under expedited procedures in the House and the Senate.
  In its report entitled, ``The Budget Reconciliation Process: Timing 
of Legislative Action,'' updated October 24, 2000, the CRS states that 
reconciliation was first used during the administration of President 
Carter in calendar year 1980 for fiscal year 1981. According to the 
Congressional Research Service, then, reconciliation was not used at 
all from the time of enactment of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 
until 6 years later, in calendar year 1980. During the period since 
1980, for fiscal years 1981 through 2001, there have been 14 
reconciliation measures enacted into law and three that have been 
vetoed.
  As was contemplated by the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, the 
reconciliation process has been a very important and powerful tool with 
which to enforce the policies of annual budget resolutions. As a 
properly used deficit-fighting tool, reconciliation bills that have 
been enacted have resulted in well over a trillion dollars in budgetary 
savings in the past two decades.
  I have often--at least in recent years--referred to the 
reconciliation process as a ``bear trap.'' It is a bear trap because of 
the fast-track procedures that were included in the Congressional 
Budget Act to help Congress enact quickly necessary changes in spending 
or in revenues to ensure the integrity of the budget resolution 
targets.
  This fast-track procedure limits Senate debate on reconciliation 
bills to 20 hours, and that time can be further limited by a 
nondebatable motion approved by a majority vote so that there being 20 
hours on the resolution, a majority at any time could yield back its 10 
hours, leaving only 10 hours, and then can proceed to move that the 
remaining 10 hours be reduced to 2 hours or 1 hour or a half hour or 
zero. That would be a nondebatable motion, and it needs only a majority 
to carry. Only germane amendments are allowed to reconciliation bills. 
Time on reconciliation bills, as I have already said, may be further 
limited by nondebatable motion. A determined majority could, in fact, 
as I have indicated, limit Senate consideration of reconciliation bills 
to no more than 1 hour, no more than 10 minutes, or no time at all.
  Reconciliation bills, unfortunately, have proven to be almost 
irresistible vehicles for Senators to use to move all manner of 
legislation because of these fast-track procedures. At times, the 
misuse has been gross. On June 22, 1981, when the Senate was 
considering S. 1377, the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1981, then-
majority leader, Howard Baker, called up amendment No. 171, which was 
cosponsored by me--I was then the minority leader--and by Senator 
Domenici of New Mexico, who is chairman of the Budget Committee, and by 
Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina, the then-ranking member of 
that committee.
  Let me read a brief excerpt from a colloquy that occurred during the 
debate on that amendment:

       Mr. Baker. Aside from its salutary impact on the budget, 
     reconciliation also has implications for the Senate as an 
     institution. So long as a preponderance of its subject matter 
     has a budgetary impact, a reconciliation bill could contain 
     non-budgetary amendments to substantive law, and still be 
     protected under the Budget Act. That notwithstanding, I 
     believe--

  This is Senator Howard Baker talking--

       that including such extraneous provisions in a 
     reconciliation bill would be harmful to the character of the 
     Senate. It would cause such material to be considered 
     under time and germaneness provisions that impede the full 
     exercise of minority rights.
       That was the then-majority leader, a Republican, Howard 
     Baker, speaking with reference to the protection of minority 
     rights. His party was not in the minority. His party was in 
     the majority at that time. But he spoke out on behalf of 
     minority rights.
       Senator Baker further said:

       It would evade the letter and spirit of Rule XXII.
       It would create an unacceptable degree of tension between 
     the Budget Act and the remainder of Senate procedures and 
     practices. Reconciliation was never meant to be a vehicle for 
     an omnibus authorization bill. To permit it to be treated as 
     such is to break faith--

  This is Republican majority leader, Howard Baker, speaking now --

       with the Senate's historical uniqueness as a forum for the 
     exercise of minority and individual rights.
       For principally these reasons, I have labored with the 
     distinguished minority leader--

  Referring to Senator Robert C. Byrd--

       with the chairmen and ranking minority member of the Budget 
     Committee, and with other committee chairmen to develop a 
     bipartisan leadership amendment. This amendment would strike 
     from the bill subject matter which all these parties can 
     agree is extraneous to the reconciliation instructions set 
     forth last month in House Concurrent Resolution 115. What 
     will remain in the bill is directly responsive to these 
     instructions, has a budgetary savings impact, and plainly 
     belongs in a reconciliation measure.

  That is the end of my excerpt of Senator Baker's remarks.
  Mr. President, I followed Senator Baker's comments in 1981, as 
follows:

       Mr. Byrd. Mr. President, if the reconciliation bill is 
     adopted in its present form, it will do violence to the 
     budget reform process. The reconciliation measure contains 
     many items which are unrelated to budget savings. This 
     development must be viewed in the most critical light, to 
     preserve the principle of free and unfettered debate that is 
     the hallmark of the United States Senate.
       The ironclad parliamentary procedures governing the debate 
     of the reconciliation measure should by no means be used to 
     shield controversial or extraneous legislation from free 
     debate. However, language is included in the reconciliation 
     measure that would enact routine authorizations that have no 
     budget impact whatsoever. In other cases, legislation is 
     included that makes drastic alterations in current policy, 
     yet, has no budgetary impact.
       The reconciliation bill, if it includes such extraneous 
     matters, would diminish the value of Rule XXII. The Senate is 
     unique in the way that it protects a minority, even a 
     minority of one with regard to debate and amendment. The 
     procedures that drive the reconciliation bill set limits 
     on the normally unfettered process of debate and amendment 
     because policy matters that do not have clear and direct 
     budgetary consequences are supposed to remain outside its 
     scope, talking about the scope of a reconciliation bill.

  I went on to say at that time:

       The amendment offered by the majority leader--

  Meaning Mr. Baker--

       and me omits several nonbudget related authorizations which 
     should also be stricken from this bill. The fact that they 
     were not included in this amendment should not be construed 
     as accepting their inclusion in the bill.
       We have gone as far as we can go in this amendment, but we 
     have not gone as far as we should go.

  And then, Mr. President, the amendment was agreed to by voice vote.
  The Senate's first several years' experience with reconciliation was 
described in a Congressional Research Service report entitled ``The 
Senate's Byrd Rule Against Extraneous Matters in Budget Reconciliation 
Bills,'' updated July 9, 1998. In that report, CRS states that 
reconciliation legislation often contained many provisions that were 
extraneous to implementing budget resolution policies. Reconciliation 
submissions by committees have included things that had no budget 
effect, that increased spending or reduced revenues when the 
reconciliation instructions called for reduced spending or increased 
revenues, or that violated another committee's jurisdiction. It was for 
this reason that I put forth what has come to be known as the ``Byrd 
rule'' as a means of curbing such practices.
  The Byrd rule has been extended and modified several times over the 
years and in 1990 was incorporated into the Congressional Budget Act of 
1974 as section 313 and made permanent, 2 U.S.C. 644.
  I will not take the time of the Senate to go into great detail about 
the operations of the Byrd rule as applied to reconciliation measures. 
Suffice it to say, however, that, in general, a point of order 
authorized under the Byrd rule

[[Page S1534]]

may be raised in order to strike extraneous matter already in the bill 
as reported or discharged--or in the conference report--or to prevent 
the incorporation of extraneous matter through the adoption of 
amendments or motions.
  A motion to waive the Byrd rule or to sustain an appeal of the ruling 
of the Chair on a point of order raised under the Byrd rule requires an 
affirmative vote of three-fifths of the membership of the Senate. It 
takes 60 votes to waive that Byrd rule.
  That Byrd rule has been criticized up one side and down the other. It 
has been criticized by the other body, by Members of the other body 
critical of the Byrd rule, but they should be thankful for the Byrd 
rule.
  What I am attempting to lay out for the Senate today is the fact that 
this reconciliation process, while being very effective in enabling 
Congress to meet its deficit reduction targets over the past two 
decades, is fraught with opportunities for abuse because of its fast-
track procedures.
  When we created this reconciliation bill process, it was unthinkable 
that it would be used in ways that it has come to be used. The 
procedures have been abused. The abuse consists in the fact that those 
procedures take away from Senators the opportunity to offer their 
amendments and to debate them fully. That is the Senate's raison 
d'etre, its reason for being.

  Reconciliation is a nonfilibusterable ``bear trap'' that should be 
used very sparingly and, I believe, only for purposes of fiscal 
restraint. That was the intention in the beginning. It was not intended 
to be used as a fast track in order to ram through very controversial, 
very costly tax cuts or to ram through authorization measures that 
otherwise might entail long and vigorous debate. In other words, 
reconciliation should be used only for reducing deficits or for 
increasing surpluses in years when no deficits are projected.
  Relevant to this matter is a statement made on the Senate floor by 
the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Domenici, and 
repeated in the ``Budget Process Law Annotated, 1993 edition,'' on page 
204. Here is what he said:

       Mr. President, will the distinguished minority leader--

  Senator Byrd--

       permit me to respond to what ``extraneousness'' means thus 
     far in its evolution in the Senate? Let me suggest that, 
     going back to 1981, we have evolved these four definitions, 
     and I believe they are used by minority and majority members 
     of the committee now. I would just read them quickly:
       One, provisions that have no direct effect on spending and 
     which are not essential to achieving the savings.
       Two, provisions which increase spending and are not so 
     closely related to saving provisions that they cannot be 
     separated.
       Three, provisions which extend authorizations without 
     saving money, and which are not so closely related to saving 
     provisions that they cannot be separated.
       Four, provisions which invade another committee's 
     jurisdiction, whether or not they save money.
       And I am not saying that is all inclusive, but, up to this 
     point, that is what we have been using.''

  So, Mr. President, there we have it, the statement in 1985 of Mr. 
Domenici, our distinguished Budget Committee chairman, as to what 
should be considered ``extraneous'' in reconciliation bills going back 
to 1981.
  Nevertheless, in recent years, regrettably, the Republican 
congressional leadership has chosen to stray from the definitions set 
forth by Mr. Domenici. In fact, our distinguished Democratic Leader, 
Mr. Daschle, came to the Senate Floor on May 21, 1996, during 
consideration of the fiscal year 1997 budget resolution, and delivered 
very eloquent remarks concerning the fact that the budget resolution 
then before the Senate contained reconciliation instructions which in 
our distinguished leader's view should not have been in order, 
essentially because that budget resolution for fiscal year 1997 
instructed a committee to produce a reconciliation measure that 
actually increased the deficit. At that time, Mr. Daschle pointed out 
what I believe most Senators felt in their hearts was the proper use of 
the reconciliation process, namely, that reconciliation instructions 
should be used to ensure that authorizing committees achieved their 
deficit- reducing targets and that they should be used as a way of 
forcing deficit reduction on committees. That should be the sole reason 
for using the highly restricted vehicle called reconciliation.
  As our Democratic leader, Mr. Daschle, stated, ``We deprive Senators 
of their normal right to debate and amend only because we seek to 
ensure that the committees follow through in the crucial business of 
exercising fiscal responsibility.'' Nevertheless, the Chair ruled that 
the reconciliation instructions in question were in order, and the vote 
on the appeal of that ruling sustained the chair by a party-line vote 
of 57 yeas to 43 nays. And, so, those reconciliation instructions were 
included in the fiscal year 1997 budget resolution. It bears noting 
that the conference report on the budget resolution for 1997, on pages 
82-83, contained a discussion concerning that year's reconciliation 
process. I quote from page 82 of that conference report as follows,

       ``Notwithstanding the fact that the authors of the 1974 
     Budget Act were neutral as to the policy objectives of 
     reconciliation, since 1975, reconciliation and reconciliation 
     legislation has been used to reduce the deficit. The 
     conferees note that, while this resolution includes a 
     reconciliation instruction to reduce revenues, the sum of the 
     instructions would not only reduce the deficit, but would 
     result in a balanced budget by 2002.''

  So, Mr. President, the fiscal year 1997 reconciliation instructions, 
according to the conference report, resulted in deficit reduction, 
despite the fact that one of those reconciliation instructions allowed 
for a tax cut.
  Now that brings us to the problem we have faced in the last two 
years. In 1999, the reconciliation process was used by the Republican 
leadership to allow for a $792 billion tax cut to be brought to the 
Senate using fast-track budget reconciliation procedures, taking away 
the rights of Senators to debate fully and amend that tax cut bill. I 
believe this was the first time (or at least one of the rare times) 
that reconciliation instructions were issued that mandated a worsening 
of fiscal discipline for the Federal Government. Unlike the fiscal year 
1997 budget resolution, I do not believe that the budget reconciliation 
instructions in 1999 resulted in improving the fiscal status of the 
Federal budget. Again, in the year 2000, the reconciliation process was 
used to allow for major tax cuts to be brought before the Senate in 
reconciliation bills. In short, we have, in my view, abused and 
distorted beyond all recognition the original, very limited purpose for 
the optional reconciliation procedure.
  Now, Mr. President, we have reason to believe the majority will again 
this year, put together a budget resolution which will contain 
reconciliation instructions to the Senate Finance and House Ways and 
Means Committees directing them, this time, to bring forth a $2 
trillion tax cut bill. Bad habits tend to perpetuate, it seems.
  In a recent article entitled, ``Budget Battles, Government by 
Reconciliation,'' in the National Journal on January 9, 2001, the 
author, Mr. Stan Collender, states that, ``. . . At this point, there 
is talk about at least five different reconciliation bills--three for 
different tax proposals and two for various entitlement changes. Still 
more are being considered. Taking advantage of the reconciliation 
procedures in this way would not be precedent-shattering, though it 
would clearly be an extraordinary extension of what has been done 
previously. Nevertheless, it would be the latest in what has become a 
steady degradation of the congressional budget process.''
  Amen. Amen. A steady degradation of the congressional budget process. 
``Reconciliation, which was created to make it easier to impose budget 
discipline, would instead be used to make it easier to get around other 
procedural safeguards with the result being more spending and lower 
revenues.'' We have virtually turned reconciliation on its head.
  Mr. President, there is no reason whatever to consider the 
President's tax cut proposal as a reconciliation bill. The Senate 
should take up that massive tax cut proposal, which could result in 
loss of revenues to the Federal Treasury of over $2 trillion over the 
coming decade, as a freestanding measure, and today I'm writing to the 
two leaders urging that be done. It should be fully debated and 
amended. That is what was done in 1981 when Howard Baker was majority 
leader and I was minority leader.

[[Page S1535]]

  President Reagan sent to Congress his tax cut proposal, as well as 
numerous proposals to cut spending. Appropriately, Congress used the 
reconciliation process to accomplish the spending cuts in the Omnibus 
Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981, but the Reagan tax cuts were brought 
before the Senate as a freestanding bill and were fully debated without 
depending on reconciliation fast-track procedures. More than one 
hundred amendments were disposed of and the Reagan tax cut bill was 
debated for twelve days prior to its passage. The Senate Republican 
leadership chose to do the right thing by bringing the Reagan tax cut 
bill to the Senate as a freestanding measure, rather than to use fast-
track reconciliation procedures. It was thoroughly aired and the 
President's leadership was strengthened in the process. Taking the easy 
way, doing the expedient thing rarely requires much leadership. The 
Republican Leader, Howard Baker, did the right thing for his President, 
for the Senate, and for the country.
  In 1994, my own leadership pleaded with me--my own Democratic 
leader--at length to agree to support the idea that the Clinton health 
care bill should be included in that year's reconciliation package. Not 
only did then Majority Leader Mitchell attempt to persuade me to go 
along, President Clinton also pressed me to allow his massive health 
care bill to be insulated by reconciliation's protections. And 
particularly the request to me was, ``don't make a point of order under 
the Byrd rule.'' That would require 60 votes to overcome. There was the 
key: the Byrd rule.

  Mr. President, I could not--and I stated so to my own majority 
leader, and I stated so to my own party leader in the White House--I 
could not in good conscience look the other way and allow what was 
clearly an abuse of congressional intent to occur. I intended, if 
nobody else did, to make that point of order under the Byrd rule.
  So confronted with that situation, our majority leader and the others 
who were calling on me to go along accepted in good grace the fact that 
there was no point in pursuing that course.
  I felt the changes, as dramatic as the Clinton health care package 
which would dramatically affect every man, woman, and child in this 
Nation, had to be subject to scrutiny by the people of this country 
through amendment and debate. I said to the President, and I said to my 
majority leader, and I said to others who importuned me to go along, I 
said I cannot in good conscience allow the rule to be abused. The 
people of this country are entitled to know what is in the bill. It is 
a very complicated bill. It will be a very costly bill, a very far-
reaching bill. Not only the people of this country but also the 
Senators who are voting on the bill need to know what is in it. They 
have a right to know what is in it. So I could not and I would not and 
I did not allow that package to be handled in such a cavalier manner.
  That wasn't easy to do. I stood up against my own majority leader. I 
stood up against the President of my own party and the White House.
  It was the threat--the threat--of the use of the Byrd rule that 
bolstered my position. I had 60 votes; that 60-vote provision was in my 
hand. In other words, I make the point of order, and if the Senate 
waives it, it takes 60 votes. It would be pretty hard to do. So my view 
prevailed, and ultimately, the Clinton health care proposal was not 
passed.

  It is time for this abuse of the reconciliation process to cease. We 
should not be using tight expedited procedures to take up measures that 
worsen the fiscal discipline of the Federal budget and that have far 
reaching, profound impacts on the people of this Nation.
  Take up measures of that kind and debate them for only 20 hours, if 
the full 20 hours allowed should be taken? Or debate them for half that 
long? Is that the way to fulfill our obligation to the people of this 
country? Is that the way that we live up to the oath we take to support 
and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, 
foreign and domestic?
  It is an undermining of the legislative process to use the 
reconciliation instrument in order to enact a huge tax bill which is 
very controversial. There will be a lot of division of opinion on it. 
There are Senators who would want to offer amendments. But that 
beartrap of reconciliation measures, if that instrument is used, 
Senators will be denied the right to stand on their feet and debate at 
length and to offer amendments to that huge tax bill.
  It is not just the Senators who would be denied the right to debate 
and amend, it is the people, the people who send Senators here, the 
people back there on the Plains and the prairies and on the stormy 
deep, in the coal mines of this country, in the factories, in the 
offices. They are the people who would be denied the opportunity. They 
are going to pay for whatever mistake or mistakes such a huge tax cut 
measure will promote.
  The Bush tax cut bill should be brought up and debated as a 
freestanding bill, just as all appropriations bills are handled. Even 
emergency supplemental bills, to provide assistance to those who are 
hit by natural disasters, are fully debatable and amendable by the 
Senate.
  If any proposal ever did, the President's tax proposal requires 
extensive debate, thought, and caring concern. There are too many 
issues, too many unanswered questions. We are finding that out in the 
Budget Committee, which is chaired by Mr. Domenici and the ranking 
member of which is Senator Kent Conrad. We have had good hearings, good 
witnesses, good questions.
  The tax proposal could sap the budget of the resources needed to 
solve the Social Security and Medicare crises that loom just over the 
horizon, due to the impending retirement of the baby boom generation. I 
am talking about those people who are sitting out there in front of me; 
that is the baby boom generation. I was around a long time before the 
baby boom generation came along. A long time. After just 4 years of 
surpluses, this bill could put us back on a course towards deficits, 
returning us to the days when we had to spend the Social Security 
surplus for day-to-day Federal operations. Do you want to go back to 
that? Is that where we want to go back to?
  This bill would allocate over 42 percent of the tax cuts to the 
highest 1 percent of the taxpayers; over 42 percent of the tax cuts to 
the highest 1 percent of the taxpayers. One might say they are the 
people who pay that, pay most of the taxes. Well, wouldn't you like to 
be among that group? I would like to be in that group that pays most of 
the taxes. So shouldn't we have a discussion about this? Shouldn't we 
have a debate about it?

  Hear me, shouldn't we have a debate on this matter? I urge the 
leaders of this body to consider this. Give us a debate on this matter. 
Let the Senate work its will, after thoughtful debate and with Senators 
having an opportunity to offer amendments.
  If this bill undermines the financial markets' confidence that our 
Government is committed to long-term fiscal discipline, it could return 
us to the days of high interest rates, making the average wage earner's 
mortgage, education, and automobile more expensive. I think that 
possibility deserves a little debate. Don't you? How about you, who are 
watching through those cameras up there?
  Mr. President, the Budget Committee, to the credit of the chairman 
and ranking member of that committee, has held numerous thought-
provoking hearings, and the testimony from those hearings has provoked 
excellent questions from the members of that committee. But the 
testimony has been, by no means, conclusive about the wisdom of huge 
tax cuts.
  I will support a tax cut. I like to vote for tax cuts. That is the 
easiest vote that one can cast. I have cast 15,877 rollcall votes in my 
tenure here in this body, and what an easy matter it is to vote to cut 
taxes. It doesn't take any courage. It doesn't take any backbone to 
vote to cut taxes. That is easy.
  But the testimony has not been conclusive about the wisdom of huge 
tax cuts, about the size of the surplus, about the accuracy of 10-year 
projections--and they are all over the lot, those projections, believe 
me. It is like predicting the weather. To predict what a surplus will 
be a year from now, 2 years from now, 10 years from now?--the efficacy 
of large tax cuts as a tool for stimulating the economy; the wisdom of 
having some sort of trigger mechanism before proceeding with these tax 
cuts; the ability to protect Social Security and Medicare in light

[[Page S1536]]

of giant tax cuts; or the ability of our economy to continue its 
present rate of growth. Serious doubts have been expressed by many of 
those testifying and in the Budget Committee, itself, by members on 
both sides of the aisle.
  Yet I believe that the majority fully intends to bring the budget to 
the Senate floor with the President's tax proposal shrouded in this 
protective armor of reconciliation, virtually shutting out debate and 
precluding amendments by the full membership of this body--by the full 
membership of this body.
  Why hold these excellent, thought-provoking hearings at all, if that 
is the plan? Why do we have to have hearings, if that is the plan from 
the beginning?
  Hearings are intended to try to discover the flaws in a proposal, and 
to help Members make an informed judgment about the wisdom of 
proceeding with a matter. We who serve on the Budget Committee may have 
our chance to exercise our judgment on the budget, but what about the 
rest of the body? There are many, many views in this Senate on both 
sides of the aisle, and these views deserve to be heard.
  We are talking about a gargantuan tax cut--a behemoth, which 
threatens to eat up the surplus, drain the Social Security and Medicare 
trust funds, cripple domestic discretionary spending, siphon off needed 
defense dollars, and leave us fully unprepared to deal with natural 
disasters or foreign upheavals. We are talking about making very 
dramatic changes in our fiscal policies based on--what? Based on 
projections. And your projection is as good as her projection or as 
good as his or as good as mine--projections which are admitted by the 
projectors, themselves, to be very, very tenuous, indeed.
  I believe that the American people, those people out there, out in 
the mountains, in the coastal areas, those to the Pacific, to the 
Atlantic, from the Canadian-U.S. line to the Gulf of Mexico--all of you 
ought to have the benefit of a full and thorough debate about the 
choices before us. Do we pay down the debt with surplus monies? Do we 
reserve some of the surplus to protect the solvency of the Social 
Security and Medicare Trust Funds? How do we go about creating a wise 
and thoughtful plan concerning prescription drugs? Do we spend more on 
education, and public infrastructure? Do we allow more for Defense 
abroad and anti-terrorism at home? These are questions which need to be 
put before the full membership of the Senate and the House, and, 
through spirited debate and the offering of amendments, before the 
American people.

  This Senator just strenuously, strenuously objects to having these 
far-reaching, critical matters swathed in the protective bandages of a 
reconciliation process and ramrodded through this body like some self-
propelled missile. Nobody who has listened to the testimony in the 
Budget Committee could possibly claim that the right choices are clear. 
They are not clear. There is vast uncertainty and disagreement about 
nearly every aspect of our future budget policy.
  The President's proposals are not an edict, and the Senate is not a 
quivering body of humble subjects who must obey under any and all 
circumstances.
  I suggest that, if the faint dream of effecting some sort of true 
bipartisanship in Washington for a time is ever to jell into something 
tangible, reliance on reconciliation as the torpedo to deliver a knock-
out punch for the President is a tactic which must be abandoned.
  It is not a fair course. It is not a wise course. And, it is a course 
which shortchanges the American people.
  We must not shackle the intellects of one hundred Members of the 
Senate in this way.
  That is what we would be doing. We would shackle, hand and foot, the 
intellects of 100 Members. One-hundred representatives of 280 million 
people would be shackled in this body, and shackled, as well, on the 
other side of the Capitol in the House.
  We must not ignore the viewpoints of millions of Americans. We should 
not fear the wisdom of open and free-ranging debate about a proposal 
which is, at best, risky business. Now is no time to circle the wagons. 
Now is the time to hear all the voices and build consensus among 
ourselves and among our people.
  There will be no victory here, if we make the wrong choices and 
plunge this Nation back to deficit status. I implore the Leadership to 
bring whatever tax bill we write to the full Senate as a freestanding 
non-reconciliation bill for a thorough examination by this body. The 
President has said that he wants bipartisanship. He has said that he 
has faith in his plan. There is no need to hide behind the iron wall of 
reconciliation. Let us not damage the President's leadership with the 
ruthless misuse of a process in this body, which may hand him a very 
hollow victory, indeed.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I had the opportunity to hear a good part 
of the statement by the Senator from West Virginia. As on so many 
important occasions, he has spoken for this institution and for our 
country. He has reminded us once more that as we care about the sum and 
substance of an issue, the process can be a more powerful factor and 
force as it is in this particular case almost on the substance because 
what we are looking at is a process and a procedure which will deny 
this Senate its true role as defined by the Founding Fathers when they 
met in Philadelphia and devised this institution of the Senate to be a 
place where ideas clash and where the Nation's business is to be 
considered in an open and deliberate way. That was going to permit the 
opportunity for the fashioning and the shaping of the legislation after 
adequate debate and consideration.
  He is reminding us once again about our responsibilities to meet our 
Founding Fathers' intentions for this institution and how their 
definition is actually being corrupted by a procedure which is known as 
the reconciliation process, which is a phrase that is probably not well 
understood in terms of its significance and importance in the 
consideration of this tax reduction but will have a very dramatic 
effect on the opportunity for the American people's will to be 
expressed by a good debate and by the opportunity for the Senate to 
work its will.
  This is one of the most important speeches we will hear this year.
  I commend the Senator for taking the Senate's time in making it. I 
have listened to him as he has studied the propositions during the past 
several weeks. I watched him on CNN the other night while he was in 
attendance at the Budget Committee and listening to those talking about 
providing adequate defense of our country. I watched him for several 
hours listening to those presentations. I watched him, as well, in the 
Budget Committee when he was listening to those who spoke about the 
economic conditions in this country and about the details of the 
President's budget. As always, no one studies these issues more deeply 
and more thoroughly or more comprehensively.
  His speech today is not one of partisanship but one of statesmanship 
in reminding the Senate and, most importantly, also the leadership 
about its responsibilities to the American people. I thank him for 
making it.
  I hope, although this Chamber is not well occupied at this moment, 
all of our colleagues will take the time to examine this speech in the 
Record tomorrow.
  I hope he will continue to press these points as we go through this 
process in the days and weeks ahead because it is in the interest of 
this institution and our country.
  I thank the Senator for the time he has taken and for the thoughtful 
presentation.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, I thank the 
Senator from Massachusetts for his time, for his waiting, and for his 
very wise words.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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