[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 41 (Monday, March 26, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2835-S2840]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       FORMULATION OF THE BUDGET

  Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I thank my outstanding colleague from 
West Virginia, Senator Byrd.
  I rise today to discuss a matter of great importance to this body and 
I believe to the country that has to do with the formulation of a 
budget for the United States for the coming year.
  Last week, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee told me he 
does not intend to hold a markup in the Budget Committee to craft a 
budget resolution for this year.
  All of the Democrats on the Budget Committee have written the 
chairman asking him to hold a markup. Today I again publicly ask the 
chairman of the Senate Budget Committee to allow the Budget Committee 
to do its work. Never in our history have we failed to have the Budget 
Committee write a budget resolution for the country--never. There is no 
reason not to try this year.
  I understand we have an unusual circumstance because the Budget 
Committee is divided equally between Democrats and Republicans. That 
has never happened before either. I do not think any of us can know 
what would happen if we met as a committee, if we debated, deliberated, 
and voted; it is amazing what can happen when we listen to each other.
  I just had the experience of the staff of the Senate Budget 
Committee, the staff of the chairman, totally misrepresenting the plan 
I have proposed--totally misrepresenting it. It is clear to me they are 
not doing that on purpose because I know they are people of good will 
and they are honest people. I know that. I know they are not 
misrepresenting it willfully. They are misrepresenting it because they 
do not understand it. They are misrepresenting it because we have not 
had a full chance to hear each other. That is why we have committees. 
That is why we have held hearing after hearing on the questions of how 
should we craft a budget for the country for the coming year. That is 
precisely what the Budget Committee has done.

  The result is there is no group of Senators that has spent more time 
analyzing what the budget should be. There is no group of Senators that 
has more fully considered the question of the revenue base, the 
question of what the spending ought to look like going forward, what we 
ought to do in terms of paying down national debt.

[[Page S2836]]

  I think it would be a profound mistake for us to miss the chance to 
have the Budget Committee do what it was designed to do, which is to 
make the work of the larger body easier because of the concentration of 
effort of the members of the committee on the responsibility they have.
  As I sat last week and heard my colleagues on the other side taking 
my budget proposal and completely misrepresenting it, I realized even 
more clearly why it is essential that we have a markup in the Budget 
Committee because that is one place where 22 Senators can sit across 
the table from each other and debate, discuss, explain, and vote.
  If we just come out here on the floor, it is going to be chaos. 
Trying to write a budget for the United States out here on the floor of 
the Senate will be utterly chaotic. It is not the responsible thing to 
do.
  The chairman says we are deadlocked. How do we know? We have never 
tried. We have never debated, discussed, or voted. That is the role of 
a committee. I do not think anybody can say where it would end.
  Last week our colleagues were saying that my plan has more debt 
reduction in it than there is debt available to be retired. That is 
just not the case. The plan I have offered saves every penny of the 
Social Security surplus for Social Security. It saves every penny of 
the Medicare surplus for Medicare. That is a principle I think most 
people would endorse. We ought not raid the trust funds.
  Then with what is left, my plan takes a third for a tax cut--$900 
billion--takes a third for high-priority domestic needs, such as 
improving education, providing a prescription drug benefit, 
strengthening national defense, dealing with the agricultural crisis, 
and then with the final third, it starts to address our long-term 
problem with the retirement of the baby boom generation by dealing with 
our long-term debt, the debt that is going to face us when the baby 
boomers start to retire and the requirements and the liabilities of 
Social Security and Medicare escalate dramatically.
  What my friends on the other side of the aisle have done is to take 
the money we have set aside for Social Security and Medicare and say 
that since that money is not needed immediately, all of that will go 
for paying down the publicly held debt. And that is the case. That is 
exactly how the President's plan works with respect to the $2 trillion 
of publicly held debt he wants to pay down. He is getting that money 
from the Social Security trust fund because that money is not needed 
right now. So all of that money is available to pay down the publicly 
held debt.
  That is the way my plan functions in part as well, although I set 
aside all of the Social Security trust fund and all of the Medicare 
trust fund. The President sets aside just part of the Social Security 
trust fund and none of the Medicare trust fund. The total for paydown 
of the publicly held debt under my plan is $2.9 trillion.
  We just had testimony from the man who managed the very successful 
debt buydown program under the Clinton administration, Mr. Gary 
Gensler, that there is that much debt available to pay off. And in 
fact, it is very clear there is that amount of debt to pay off because 
just in terms of debt that is maturing in this next 10-year period, 
there is $2.6 trillion. The President's people have said they can only 
pay off $2 trillion. It is just not true. I don't know a nicer way to 
say it. It is just not true. There is $2.6 trillion that matures during 
this 10-year period alone. Clearly, you can pay all that. We have done 
a detailed cashflow analysis, saving all the Social Security trust 
fund, all the Medicare trust fund.
  People have said, well, you have a cash buildup problem in the 
Federal coffers if you reserve all of the money for Social Security and 
Medicare. It is just not true. We have done a detailed year-by-year 
cashflow analysis, and it shows very clearly there is absolutely no 
cash buildup problem until the year 2010. And who knows, there may not 
be a cash buildup problem then because we are all operating off a 10-
year forecast--a 10-year forecast--that the forecasting agencies say 
themselves there is only a 10-percent chance it will come true. That is 
the forecasting agencies, the people who made the projection, saying to 
us: We want to alert you; there is only a 10-percent chance this 
projection is going to come true; there is a 45-percent chance there 
will be more money; there is a 45-percent chance there will be less 
money.
  How would you bet, based on what has happened in the last 6 weeks 
with the national economy? Do you think that forecast which was made 8 
weeks ago is going to be on the high side or the low side? I know where 
I would be betting. I certainly would not be betting the farm that that 
number is going to come true.
  That is unwise. There is not a company in America that would decide 
to make 10-year commitments of all its nontrust fund money--all of it--
based on a forecast, a forecast that has only a 10-percent chance of 
coming true. It is just not wise. It is not prudent. It is certainly 
not conservative.
  After my plan sets aside all of the Social Security surplus and all 
of the Medicare surplus, as I said, it then divides the rest in equal 
thirds--a third for a tax cut, a third for high-priority domestic 
needs, and a third for our long-term debt. That is where the confusion 
has come from with the other side. They think anything that has to do 
with debt must be the publicly held debt. Thus, they are taking the 
money I have set aside for Social Security and Medicare, which will go 
to paying down publicly held debt because that money is not needed for 
the other purpose at the present time, and adding it to the $900 
billion we have set aside in our plan to deal with long-term debt. They 
have assumed that means we are trying to pay off $3.8 trillion of 
publicly held debt.
  It is just not the case. It is not what the plan does, not what the 
plan says, and obviously we know there is only $3.4 trillion of 
publicly held debt that is currently on the books of the United States. 
We are not trying to pay off debt we do not have; we are trying to pay 
off debt we do have. We do have $3.4 trillion of debt today, publicly 
held debt. That is not the only debt we have because in addition to 
that, we have the gross debt. The gross debt of the United States as we 
sit here today is $5.6 trillion. And at the end of this 10-year period, 
if we follow the President's plan, it will be $7.1 trillion. Gross debt 
is going up as the publicly held debt comes down.

  How can that be? That can be because what is happening here is a 
transfer. As the publicly held debt gets paid down, it is getting paid 
down under the President's plan and any other plan by the surpluses of 
the Social Security trust fund. And guess what happens. That money from 
the Social Security trust fund--under the President's plan, $2 trillion 
of it--is being used to pay down publicly held debt. So the Social 
Security trust fund has money in surplus at the present time. Part of 
that money is being used to pay down the publicly held debt. Guess what 
happens. The general fund of the United States that is receiving that 
money to pay down debt now has an IOU to the Social Security trust fund 
for the same amount. It is similar to taking one credit card and paying 
off your other credit cards and thinking you are debt free. We are not 
debt free. The gross debt of the United States is growing.
  What my plan intends to do is not only address that short-term debt, 
the publicly held debt, and pay that down, but also to address our 
long-term debt crisis that is going to get much worse--not because of 
projections, not because of the forecasts, but because of what we all 
know is true: The baby boomers have been born, they are living, and 
they are going to retire. That process starts right beyond this 10-year 
period when we are all talking about these big surpluses. If we really 
honestly account for things, if we do it the way any company accounts 
for things, we do not have a surplus.
  All this talk about surpluses. Well, I hate to rain on the parade, 
but there really is no surplus. If we were really being straight in the 
accounting systems, we would find we do not have a surplus because we 
have these long-term liabilities that we do not account for in the 
Federal system, and they are real; they are here to stay. We can just 
kind of forget about them and wish them away or put them off until 
tomorrow, but the hard reality is they are there, and they are growing. 
During this period when we are all talking about surpluses and we are 
all talking about paying down the debt, the gross debt of the United 
States is actually growing--$5.6 trillion today. It is going to be $7.1 
trillion at the end of this 10-year period. Those are not Kent Conrad's 
numbers; those are the numbers that are right in the President's

[[Page S2837]]

book he sent us, the budget blueprint. It says very clearly that gross 
national debt is growing.

  The distinction between this publicly held debt and gross debt is the 
following: The publicly held debt is held outside government hands. The 
economists argue that is where you should pay attention because it is 
that debt of government which is competition with other debt. That is 
debt that is in the public marketplace. That is debt that has to be 
financed by somebody. That is the debt that is in competition with 
other, private sector players who are seeking to finance what they do--
whether it is build a building, build an Internet highway, or build new 
housing. That is why economists say: Pay attention to the publicly held 
debt.
  It is also true that this other debt, the gross debt of the United 
States, has exactly the same legal claim on our government as the 
publicly held debt. Just because the Social Security Administration 
holds the bonds and says, Federal Government, you have to pay us back, 
that is no different than a German bondholder, holding that bond, 
saying, we want to be paid back. Both of them constitute legal claims 
against this government. Both of them require our attention. So far the 
President only talks about the publicly held debt. He says he is paying 
off as much of it as can be done. We disagree on that point. We think 
we can pay off much more of the publicly held debt than he asserts. We 
think the hearing before the Budget Committee last week demonstrated 
that quite clearly, that there is more publicly held debt to be paid 
off than the President asserts.
  The much larger point is the President is not addressing this long-
term debt, this gross debt that is growing every day. He is doing 
nothing in terms of setting aside money to deal with that long-term 
debt.
  That is why the plan I have proposed uses 70 percent of these 
projected surpluses--70 percent--for debt, both short term and long 
term. The President's proposal reserves about 35 percent of these 
projected surpluses for debt. The plan that I have proposed on behalf 
of Democrats pays down about twice as much debt as the President's 
plan. He has a much bigger tax cut; we have a much smaller tax cut. Our 
tax cut is about half as big as his because we are paying down twice as 
much debt. That is the biggest difference.
  There are also some differences in spending, although they are more 
modest differences than the difference between what we are doing on the 
debt and what he is doing with respect to tax cuts. The big difference 
is, we are more aggressive at paying down debt; he is more aggressive 
with the tax cut. He says it is the people's money. He is exactly 
right; it is the people's money, but it is also the people's debt. 
Don't make a mistake about this. We are the ones who are going to have 
to pay this debt. It is the people's Social Security and it is the 
people's Medicare and it is the people's defense.
  This is not a question of the government versus the people--not at 
all. The truth is, this is the people's money. I don't think any of us 
ever forget that. This is the people's money. It is also the people's 
debt. And that debt will come due just as certainly as we are standing 
on this floor today. If we have failed to be responsible about getting 
ready for when that debt comes due, all of us who are here now who make 
the fateful decisions are going to be held to account. It will be our 
names in the book of history as to what was done at the critical time 
in our Nation's economic future. It is our responsibility to be good 
stewards of the people's money.
  I end by urging the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee to have a 
markup in the committee to establish a budget for the country for the 
coming year. We have that responsibility. The suggestion that we are 
deadlocked before we even start misses the point. We are often 
deadlocked before we debate and discuss and vote. That is why we have 
debate, discussion, and votes--to break deadlocks.
  I hope very much that the Budget Committee will meet its 
responsibility and attempt to write a budget resolution. That is our 
obligation. I hope we will meet it.
  I thank the Chair.
  Mr. BYRD. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. CONRAD. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. BYRD. I congratulate the Senator on his very illuminating 
remarks. I heard his talk about the gross debt, which really doesn't 
get mentioned very often as far as I can tell, and his discussion about 
the publicly held debt. I think this is very useful knowledge.
  This is the people's money, as we hear. I take it that the interest 
we pay on the debt is also the people's money, am I correct?
  Mr. CONRAD. The Senator is exactly correct. And of course that money 
we are using to pay interest on this debt can't be used for any other 
purpose. It can't be used for a tax cut; it can't be used to build a 
road; it can't be used to build a bridge; it can't be used to build a 
school; it can't be used to pay a teacher. It is money down a rathole, 
but it has to be paid.
  Mr. BYRD. It can't be used to buy even a pencil.
  How much money are we talking about in interest on the debt? We are 
talking about the people's money. The interest that is being paid on 
the debt is the people's money, as well. That comes out of the pockets 
of the taxpayers.
  Does the Senator have information at his fingertips as to the amount 
of the people's money we pay in interest on the debt annually?
  Mr. CONRAD. The gross interest that we are paying a year would be 
over $300 billion. If you think about that, that is a stunning amount 
of money. The gross interest is over $300 billion.
  Perhaps one of the staff people has the budget book in front of them 
and can tell us a precise number.
  While we are waiting for that--the point is very clear. Although you 
owe $5.6 trillion, which is the gross debt of the United States, 
interest on the publicly held debt is what gets all of the attention. 
The press and our colleagues and our President have all focused on the 
publicly held debt. That is $3.4 trillion as we sit here today--$3.4 
trillion. But that is the debt the Federal Government owes people who 
are outside the government. That is what we owe to bondholders. That is 
what we owe to kids who have a savings bond. That is what we owe to 
people who buy Treasury bills. That is what we owe to people who are 
holding instruments in other countries, who have loaned money to the 
United States. That is the publicly held debt, $3.4 trillion.
  But the gross debt includes the debt of the general fund to trust 
funds, money we have borrowed over time to trust funds to use for other 
purposes. We have borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars from the 
Social Security trust fund. We are paying interest on that, too. That 
is part of the gross debt, and that has to be paid just as certainly as 
this publicly held debt. It has the same legal position as the publicly 
held debt and it, of course, is much larger. As I said, that is $5.6 
trillion of gross debt that the Nation has today.
  Mr. BYRD. Madam President, will the Senator yield further?
  Mr. CONRAD. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. BYRD. What is the rate of interest that the people are paying on 
the debt? I know it varies. Generally speaking, is there a figure we 
can use?
  Mr. CONRAD. Generally speaking, we are paying between 5 percent and 6 
percent on the debt of the United States.
  Mr. BYRD. Is that the people's money?
  Mr. CONRAD. That is the people's money, the people's money that we 
are paying to service the people's debt.
  Again, I wish to be very clear. I agree with the President absolutely 
when he says it is the people's money--absolutely that is true. It also 
happens to be the people's debt. It also happens to be the people's 
Social Security and the people's national defense and the people's 
education.
  The thing that worries me the most--I have been reading David 
Stockman's book, ``The Triumph Of Politics.'' I hope every Member of 
this body will read that book before we vote on the budget. It goes 
back to 1981 when we had a massive tax cut, massive increase in 
spending for defense, and we put this country in a deficit ditch from 
which it took us 17 years to get out. We exploded the national debt, 
quadrupled the national debt.
  That could happen again. Back in the 1980s we had time to recover. 
This time there is no time to recover because this time the baby 
boomers start to retire in 11 years. Back in the 1980s we had 17 years 
to get well. It took tax increases, it took spending cuts, it took 
tremendous political will to change the fiscal

[[Page S2838]]

course of the country, to get us back on track. But, make no mistake, 
this time there is no time to get well because the baby boomers start 
to retire in 11 years. If we get it wrong this time, that debt will eat 
our country alive.
  I wish every Member could have heard the briefing we got from the 
Comptroller General of the United States, who warned us, who alerted us 
to where we are headed with debt. Yes, we have a surplus now. That 
surplus is temporary, and we are headed for big debt. We can either dig 
the hole deeper before we start filling it in--which is a very 
attractive thing to do because that means we all get to vote for a 
massive tax cut. I am advocating a tax cut, about half as big as 
the President's. But I think we all should be alert to what we are 
facing.

  Mr. BYRD. Madam President, will the distinguished Senator yield 
further?
  Mr. CONRAD. Yes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. How much of this money, the people's money--the people of 
the United States--how much of that money that is being paid for 
interest on the debt is going into the pockets of foreign holders of 
these securities? What percent?
  Mr. CONRAD. I do not recall the exact percentage that foreign debt 
holders have. It is interesting; I looked at those numbers last week, 
but as I am getting older, my mind retains things less well. Although I 
look young, I am aging rapidly.
  Mr. BYRD. Is it not sufficient to say that a considerable amount of 
this money, which the Senator and I would probably agree is something 
like 40 percent--40 percent of these securities are held by foreign 
countries----
  Mr. CONRAD. The Japanese and Germans and the Belgians--the Belgians 
have a lot of this debt.
  Mr. BYRD. The Japanese are foremost; Great Britain is second.
  Mr. CONRAD. Yes.
  Mr. BYRD. I believe China is fourth or fifth or sixth; China.
  This is the people's money, isn't it, that we are talking about? The 
Senator is trying to reduce that interest on the debt by reducing the 
debt. We are talking about the people's money. He is trying to save the 
people the people's money.
  And a lot of it is going overseas. The interest that is paid on the 
debt, 40 percent of it, is not of securities held by Americans but by 
peoples overseas. Is that what we are saying?
  Mr. CONRAD. That is exactly, in part, what we are saying. This debt 
is real. It is there. It is growing. We are paying interest on it.
  One of the things we learned in the 1980s is it really works to 
reduce deficits and reduce debt. Alan Greenspan alerted us to this and 
Secretary Rubin alerted us to this, by saying: Look, when you are 
paying down debt instead of building debt, you take pressure off of 
interest rates because it means the Federal Government is borrowing 
less money. When we borrow less money, that means there are fewer 
people in there competing for the funds to loan. That means interest 
rates are lower. That means the economy is stronger. That means our 
competitive position in the world is better. That means we have 
stronger economic growth.
  In fact, I remember Secretary Bentsen saying for every 1 percent we 
are able to reduce interest rates, that lifted the economy by over $100 
billion because of the debt burden taken off the economy.
  That is a bigger assistance to the American economy and American 
taxpayers than any tax cut we are contemplating around here.
  Mr. BYRD. That is a real tax cut, isn't it? The equivalent of a real 
tax cut?
  Mr. CONRAD. It is a real tax cut. It is a real cut in costs for 
Americans. It is a real lift to the economy. It is something that puts 
us in a much stronger competitive position. It puts us in a much 
stronger position when the baby boomers start to collect on their 
Medicare and Social Security because the country is then in a stronger 
financial position to deal with those liabilities.
  Mr. BYRD. And that is a tax cut that is across the board, isn't it? 
It is across the board; it benefits everybody.
  Mr. CONRAD. It benefits every taxpayer.
  Mr. BYRD. Madam President, will the distinguished Senator yield 
further for a question?
  Mr. CONRAD. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. BYRD. Our time is short. We are about to use all of our hour. Let 
me ask the distinguished ranking member of the Budget Committee this 
question. First of all, I assume the Budget chairman's mark will 
include budget instructions. When does the ranking member expect to 
receive from the distinguished Budget Committee chairman information 
concerning the resolution that the chairman intends to send to the 
Senate without its being marked up by the Budget Committee?
  Mr. CONRAD. The chairman of the committee has not told me that. After 
I asked him last week to reconsider the decision not to hold up a 
markup, he told me he would give me a final answer today. I still 
retain some hope that he will permit a markup in the committee.
  Mr. BYRD. Yes. I hope so also.
  I ask the distinguished ranking member of the Budget Committee, 
inasmuch as the budget resolution will contain instructions, the 
distinguished ranking member asked this Senator to move to strike those 
instructions; am I correct?
  Mr. CONRAD. That is correct.
  Mr. BYRD. If the resolution were marked up in committee, I assume the 
same motion would be available there.
  Mr. CONRAD. It would. It would require a simple majority in the 
committee. When we get out here on the floor, as the Senator well 
knows, we have a different situation.
  Mr. BYRD. I believe that the motion to strike even on the floor would 
require only a majority vote.
  Mr. CONRAD. That is correct; on a motion to strike. As the Senator 
knows, we may face a series of different parliamentary circumstances 
both in the committee and on the floor, and the test, based on the 
parliamentary circumstance we face, may be different in the committee 
rather than on the floor. On the motion to strike, the Senator is 
correct.
  Mr. BYRD. Let me ask this question: The committee is required to 
report the Budget Committee resolution no later than April 1, which 
will fall on a Sunday. So it would be April 2. Does the Senator 
contemplate that on April 2 it is the plan, as having been announced I 
think by the majority leader, that the Senate would proceed to the 
consideration of that budget resolution on that day or does the ranking 
member contemplate that the committee chairman might give us an extra 
day by not reporting the matter to the Senate, or at least by helping 
us to get consent to delay that for a day so we can study the 
resolution?
  Mr. CONRAD. First of all, I am still retaining some hope that the 
chairman of the committee will go to markup in the committee. I really 
believe that is the right thing to do. Failing that, the Senator is 
exactly right. The Budget Committee is discharged on April 1, so we 
could have a budget resolution on the floor on April 2.
  I hope that in the spirit of comity and bipartisanship we are 
permitted some time to review what the Budget Committee chairman will 
offer before we are expected to debate it and discuss it on the floor 
of the Senate, amend it, and vote on it--we would have an opportunity 
to review it.
  Mr. BYRD. If the plan of the majority in the Senate is to complete 
action on the budget resolution by the end of next week, that would 
mean, would it not, that the Senate would have completed action on the 
budget prior to the submission of the budget by the President to the 
Senate, which I understand now is going to be on April 9, the first day 
of the 2-week Easter break?
  If that is the case, what are the disadvantages to Members of the 
Senate as they act on a Budget Committee resolution without any 
knowledge other than what we have seen in this blueprint, which I hold 
here in my hand, of the President's--this is the outline, ``A Blueprint 
For New Beginnings''--outline of his budget?
  We don't have any idea, of course, what the President is going to 
recommend in filling out this bare skeleton outline, what kind of a 
position--I realize it was 1993 when the Senate acted on a budget 
resolution prior to the submission of the budget by the

[[Page S2839]]

President. That was a far different situation. What are some of the 
differences between the situation then and the situation now?

  Let me preface that question by saying that last week the very 
distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee, for whom I have a very 
high regard, came to the floor and, in response to a statement I made 
on the floor, indicated that the budget resolution in 1993 was reported 
to the Senate and was acted upon by the Senate before the President of 
the United States had submitted his budget to the Senate.
  That is one of the things about which I and others have been 
complaining. That is what is going to happen now.
  The schedule, as I understand it, is that we are going to be acting 
on the budget resolution. It will be reported from the committee 
without a markup in committee, and, after the 50 hours have run their 
course, the Senate will act on the Budget Committee resolution. I 
complained about that.
  The distinguished Senator from North Dakota pointed to the fact that 
the Senate had acted on the budget resolution in 1993 prior to the 
submission to the Senate and to the House of the President's budget. 
But there were very important differences. One was that in 1993 the 
Budget Committee marked up its resolution in committee before that 
resolution was sent to the floor. That is a very important difference.
  The distinguished chairman of the committee, Mr. Domenici, said last 
week that we should consider the 1993 action on the budget resolution, 
prior to the submission to Congress by the President of his budget, to 
be a role model.
  But I add, if that is going to be the role model, we should also have 
a markup prior to the committee reporting that budget resolution to the 
Senate, because the Budget Committee reported the resolution in 1993 to 
the Senate, did it not? If that process is going to be the role model, 
why not include that? I think it should be included.
  What does the ranking member have to say about that, and what are 
some of other differences that confronted the Senate at that time with 
what we are going to be facing here?
  Mr. CONRAD. The Senator may recall, I was here in 1993, as was the 
Senator from West Virginia. The Senator from West Virginia, as always, 
was in a critical role in the Appropriations Committee. I was serving 
on the Budget Committee.
  There are a series of differences from 1993. First of all, the budget 
outline we had from that President was far more detailed than the 
budget outline we have from this President.
  Mr. BYRD. That is correct.
  Mr. CONRAD. We had a good deal of detail from that administration 
with respect to their recommendations to us on how much money we should 
spend on various items--what the tax base of the Federal Government 
should be; what we should be doing with respect to the deficits.
  There was really a rather detailed outline that is, frankly, missing 
from what we have been sent so far this year.
  When you think about it, it is really a very odd circumstance. Not 
only did we have a full markup in the Budget Committee at that time, so 
that when it got to the full Senate they had guidance, they had a 
blueprint for the administration that had substantial detail, and they 
had full detail from the Senate Budget Committee.
  What they are proposing this year is little detail from the President 
and no help from the Senate Budget Committee: Let's just put the budget 
of the United States out here. It is going to be chaotic because you 
don't have substantial guidance from the President; you have none from 
the Senate Budget Committee. There is going to be a free-for-all out 
here.
  When they say 1993 should be a role model for what we should do now, 
there is no comparison. There is no ``there'' there.

  Mr. BYRD. Madam President, will the Senator yield?
  Mr. CONRAD. I am happy to yield.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. This is a 10-year plan that we are being told will be 
encompassed in the budget resolution of this year. Was that a 10-year 
plan in 1993?
  Mr. CONRAD. No. That was a 5-year plan. That was a 5-year plan; this 
is a 10-year plan. And, of course, that means the whole basis for the 
plan is even more uncertain.
  Now, I tell you, I used to have to project the revenue for my State. 
That was one of my jobs. I had to do it for 30 months--30 months. That 
was very difficult to do. The truth is, nobody can foretell 10 years 
into the future. There isn't a soul who knows what is going to happen--
what we are going to face in terms of international conflict, what we 
are going to face in terms of natural disaster, what we are going to 
face in terms of a health threat, what we are going to face in terms of 
what this human genome research is going to mean to medical costs. 
There isn't a soul who can tell us today what we are going to face in 
terms of international threats, in terms of requirements for our 
military.
  There isn't a soul who knows, with any certainty, what is going to 
happen for 10 years. Yet we have people who are betting the entire 
farm--I am from North Dakota. That is a phrase we use. We talk about 
betting the farm. You don't bet the farm in a cavalier way. And that is 
what is happening. We are betting the farm on a 10-year forecast that 
the forecasting agency itself says has only a 10-percent chance of 
coming true.
  Mr. BYRD. Madam President, will the Senator yield further?
  Mr. CONRAD. Yes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. The Senate will be contemplating, in the consideration of 
the budget resolution this year, a massive tax cut. As one who had an 
important role in writing the Budget Reform Act of 1974, I had no 
inkling--young men dream dreams and old men have visions--I never had 
any dream or a vision at that point that we would ever use the Budget 
Committee resolution, that process, for increasing or for cutting 
taxes.
  The idea was to bring about a resolution that would contemplate 
income and outgo in such a way that we would balance the budgets. We 
would have control over spending, control over outgo, and manage the 
income and the outgo in such a way that we would balance the budget. We 
never contemplated using that process--which is a beartrap because of 
its limitations on time for debate and on amendments--we never 
contemplated it would be used in the manner that it is being used and 
has been used more recently. The idea was to manage our affairs in such 
a way that we would keep our budgets balanced. We would balance the 
budgets.
  That is not the case. The budget resolution, the budget process is 
going to be used now to bring about a huge tax cut. That is not going 
to balance the budget. That was not contemplated when we wrote that 
law. But is that not another major difference between the actions that 
were taken in 1993 with reference to the budget resolution and the 
actions that are being contemplated now?
  Mr. CONRAD. Well, the Senator is quite right. What is being 
contemplated now is to use this special process that avoids the rules 
of the Senate called reconciliation. The reconciliation process was 
designed to reduce deficits. That is the whole purpose it was put in 
place. That was back in the time when we had massive red ink, running 
huge deficits, again, because of what happened in the 1980s, which I am 
very much fearful we could repeat this year. So a special provision was 
put in place back at the time that the Senator has addressed, a special 
procedure that avoided the rules of the Senate, that circumvented the 
rules of the Senate; and it was designed for one reason, which was to 
reduce deficits. And now it is being used to expand debt. It is 
standing the whole purpose for reconciliation on its head.

  I conclude by saying we are talking about coming to the floor to do a 
budget resolution before we ever receive the President's budget. This 
is the point the Senator from West Virginia was making. We have 
received an outline from the President. It does not have much detail in 
it--a lot of pages but not much detail about where the money is 
supposed to go. We have not yet received the President's budget. Yet we 
are talking about the Senate passing the budget resolution for the

[[Page S2840]]

year before ever seeing the President's budget.
  It makes no sense at all. It makes no sense. It seems to me we should 
spend that week--instead of debating a budget when we have never seen 
the President's recommendations--to provide for a stimulus package so 
that we are dealing with the immediate weakness in the economy and then 
come back to this longer term plan that the President proposes after we 
have seen the President's budget.
  Mr. BYRD. Madam President, will the Senator yield to me, finally?
  Mr. CONRAD. Yes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. Would the Senator take the few remaining minutes under my 
control and sum up the points that have been made here this morning as 
to the differences between what the Senate was confronted with in 1993 
and what we are being confronted with today anent the budget resolution 
and the budget process? There are several items. Will the Senator sum 
them up?
  Madam President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has 2 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I would be happy to try to sum up by 
saying, first of all, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee told 
us last week he does not intend to mark up the budget in the Budget 
Committee. We urge him to reconsider. We urge him to have a public 
markup in which there is debate, discussion, and votes so that the 
Budget Committee meets its obligation and responsibility.
  No. 2, when talking about 1993--because some have said, well, this is 
what happened in 1993; that we did not have the budget from the 
President before we wrote a budget resolution on the floor of the 
Senate--the differences are quite clear. In 1993, the Senate Budget 
Committee marked up fully a budget. No. 2, we had a good deal more 
detail from the President in 1993 in terms of functional totals, in 
terms of what each of the areas should get or what kind of cuts they 
could expect.
  We do not have that this time. So now, in 2001, we do not have the 
Budget Committee doing a markup. At least that is what the chairman so 
far has said. We hope he will reconsider. We do not have the level of 
detail we had in 1993. So what is about to happen is really quite 
remarkable. We are going to have the Senate write a budget resolution 
without ever seeing the President's budget and without the Budget 
Committee ever doing its job to write a budget and to mark it up.

  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  Mr. BYRD. I thank the distinguished ranking member of the Senate 
Budget Committee. I assume that consumes all of the time on this side.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Roberts). The Senator's time has expired. 
Under the previous order, the Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Thomas, or his 
designee is recognized for 1 hour.

                          ____________________