[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 38 (Wednesday, March 21, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2656-S2657]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        BUDGET COMMITTEE MARKUP

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, it is a great privilege for me 
to be a new Member of the Senate, and it is a great privilege for me to 
be assigned to the Budget Committee. It is with a heavy heart that I 
have just learned that it is the intention of the chairman, the 
distinguished Senator from New Mexico, for whom I have the highest 
regard, not to have a markup in the Budget Committee and rather bring a 
chairman's mark under the lawful procedures of the Budget Act straight 
to the floor.
  I am compelled to rise to express my objection, for that is what a 
legislative body is all about in the warp and woof and crosscurrents of 
ideas for Members to hammer out legislation, particularly on something 
as important as adopting a budget.
  We first started adopting budgets pursuant to the Budget Act passed 
in the 1970s because Congress had difficulty containing its voracious 
appetite to continue to spend. Thus, the Budget Act was adopted in 
which Congress would adopt a blueprint, an overall skeletal structure, 
for expenditures and for revenues that would be the model after which 
all of the various committees, both appropriations and authorizing 
committees, would then come in and flesh out the skeletal structure of 
the budget adopted.
  How important this budgetary debate is this year for the questions in 
front of the Congress. Such things as: How large is the tax cut going 
to be, particularly measured against, juxtaposed against, how large the 
surplus is that we are expecting over the next 10 years. That, of 
course, is a very iffy projection. We have seen, if history serves us 
well, that, in fact, we don't know beyond a year, 2 years at the most, 
with any kind of degree of accuracy, if we can forecast what the 
surpluses or the deficits are going to be in future years.
  So the budget debate brings the central question of how large should 
the tax cut be counterbalanced against how much of the revenues and the 
surplus do we think will be there over the course of the next decade. 
That, then, leads us, once we know that, to be able to decide how much 
we will appropriate for other needed expenditures for the good of the 
United States.

[[Page S2657]]

  Most everyone in this Chamber agrees there ought to be a 
modernization of Medicare with a prescription drug benefit. Most 
everyone in this Chamber agrees there should be additional investment 
in education, and there is a bipartisan bill that is beginning to work 
its way through the legislative process on increased investment in 
education and accountability. Most everyone in this Chamber agrees we 
have to pay our young men and women in the Armed Forces of this country 
more of a comparable wage in competition with the private sector in 
order to have the kind of skill and talent we need in today's all-
volunteer Armed Forces.
  Most people in this body would agree we have to have certain 
expenditures with regard to health care, planning for the end game, 
encouraging additional long-term insurance, equalizing the tax 
subsidies for health insurance now from a large employer to a small 
employer, or to an individual employer, or to an individual.
  There are a number of items on which there is consensus that is built 
on this side of the Capitol where we should go with regard to 
expenditures in the future while controlling our fiscal appetite.
  That brings me back to the budget resolution, for it is the very 
essence of adopting a budget resolution that we should have as our 
watchwords ``fiscal discipline.'' That is why we need to have a full 
and fair discussion of all the issues in adopting a budget resolution. 
That is why we ought to mark it up and have that discussion first in 
the committee.
  I wrap up by saying of all the debates that will take place this 
year, the debate on how we will allocate the resources with regard to 
the budget of the United States is one of the most important. It ought 
to have a full and fair and thorough discussion.

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