[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 72 (Wednesday, May 23, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5522-S5524]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            MORNING BUSINESS

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                         A PROCEDURAL TRAVESTY

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, just a couple words. The fact is, Mr. 
President--and I speak advisedly--this is a travesty; it is a travesty 
economically and, more than that, a travesty procedurally with respect 
to the Senate. I speak as having served on the Budget

[[Page S5523]]

Committee since its institution--and as having been its chairman--and I 
have never seen such a gross abuse of the process.
  Specifically, Mr. President, in 1993, which has been compared by the 
present chairman of the Budget Committee to the action just recently on 
the floor, in 1993, President Clinton presented his budget. We had 
hearings on that budget, and we had a markup within the Budget 
Committee under the rules. There were some 30 votes--and 1 more vote 
for final passage. Thereafter, when we brought it to the floor of the 
Senate, we had an additional 52 votes on amendments. Compare this with 
the majority leader's bragging now about 54 votes--like that was really 
a task.
  The truth of the matter is we didn't get to reconciliation until 
August. At that particular time, they were really gloating with glee at 
the passage of the bill and reconciliation, stating that when we 
increased taxes on Social Security, they were going to hunt us down in 
the street like dogs and shoot us. They said, when we passed that bill, 
it was going to cause a depression. The distinguished chairman of the 
Finance Committee, Senator Packwood, said if this procedure worked back 
in 1993, which we voted for without a single Republican vote either in 
the House or in the Senate, that he would give us his home downtown 
here in the District. And Congressman Kasich, later chairman of the 
Budget Committee on the House side said, if this thing worked, he would 
change parties. I want to be a good memory.
  I will never forget a conversation once with Bernie Baruch, when he 
talked about President Truman. He said Truman had a good memory, but he 
said he had a good, bad memory. That crowd over there has a good, bad 
memory for the simple reason that they know it is an abuse. They rammed 
it. Instead of the President presenting a budget, we in the Budget 
Committee went through make-work hearings--just blather. They could not 
hear on the President's budget because the President would not submit 
it.
  Of course, when we debated the so-called budget on the floor of the 
Senate, it was merely a tax cut. It wasn't a budget. The President had 
yet to submit his budget. It had not been submitted when they voted on 
it in the House; it had not been submitted when they voted on it in the 
Senate.
  Then, of all things, we did get appointed to the conference 
committee--only to be told: Get out, we are not going to confer. So we 
got out.
  Then, of all things, they abused the reconciliation process, bringing 
the tax bill to the floor--not to reconcile, not to lower the deficit, 
as was intended--and I know because I helped write it--the 
reconciliation process was used as an abuse to ram it. I know of one 
Parliamentarian who said it could not be used that way, and then I know 
of that same Parliamentarian who changed his mind. Oh, yes. Anything to 
go along and ram it through and give us the bum's rush, and then have 
the unmitigated gall to call us bums. They have been putting it out 
that we are just delaying and delaying. But we're not delaying. This is 
our first opportunity on this bill to financially discuss education, 
housing, defense, which are all important matters; we are trying to get 
some break in this bum's rush from leadership.
  When I turned on the Republican Policy Committee's channel, channel 
2, they said, ``Votes will continue ad nauseam.'' The votes were just 
nauseous. I have never seen such arrogance. I have been here 34 years, 
and it is the worst that we have ever experienced. I can tell you that.
  But, more importantly, Mr. President, this is a travesty 
economically. Of course, they make no bones about it. When we did 
increase Social Security taxes, they complained, but you don't find a 
decrease of Social Security taxes now. When we increased the gasoline 
tax, they complained, but you don't find a decrease of the gasoline tax 
now.
  You do not find anything in this bill for working Americans only 
paying payroll taxes. Instead, they are indirectly increasing the 
burden on these people by giving everyone but them relief and taking 
away Government resources.
  We approached the budget process in 1993 in a very deliberate 
fashion. We said: Look at these rising deficits in the national debt 
and the interest costs on the debt. In 1992, President Bush ran a 
$403.6 billion deficit. Ergo, the Government was spending over $400 
billion more than it was taking in, and, yes, we are for tax cuts.
  I have been in politics for a long time, and I have not found a 
politician yet who was not for tax cuts. But we said the way to give a 
better tax cut was to lower these long-term interest payments. Alan 
Greenspan can play around with the short term, but only the fiscal 
policy of this Senate can change the long term.
  In the 1993 package, we downsized the Government by reducing the 
federal workforce by almost 300,000; we cut spending by $250 billion; 
and we increased taxes by slightly less than $250 billion--and it 
resulted in the greatest prosperity in the history of the entire Nation 
for an 8-year period.
  The reason why the present President Bush cannot sell tax cuts--he 
has been to over half of the States in America trying to sell them and 
giving us the bum's rush--is because the people know, the financial 
markets know, the bankers know, the automobile salesmen know that 
government borrowing will explode, and everybody is uptight.
  This is not a wonderful thing that has occurred in this Chamber and 
to be congratulated. Economically, it is a travesty. We did it before 
in 1981. Yes, we picked up 38 votes today. We only had 11 votes then. 
We had one Republican, Mack Mathias of Maryland, but we did have, as 
they call now with even one vote--we had a bipartisan opposition. I say 
that with tongue in cheek, but that was all, just 11 votes, against so-
called Reaganomics which the first President Bush called voodoo. Now, 
Mr. President, you have voodoo II.
  There is no education in the second kick of a mule. That first kick 
within 4\1/2\ years put the economy into the dumps. That is when we had 
no resources and we were trying to hold on, and we were cutting 
spending under President Reagan.
  I know, yes, during the Reagan administration we increased defense, 
and I supported those increases. But after eight years of Reagan's 
domestic cuts and four years of cuts under President Bush, we ran 
enormous deficits because of the $750 billion revenue loss from the 
Reagan tax cut.
  Now we are on course for at least a $1.35 trillion tax cut, but they 
say after the alternative minimum tax, after the interest costs, that 
this ought to be in excess of $2 trillion, compared to $750 billion.
  There it is. We passed the bill and everybody is going to champion 
it. We have agreed on this side that it will be conferenced and it will 
go to the President, but let's not have a third kick of the mule, with 
more of these coming across the deck as if we had the resources.
  Look at the public debt to the penny today on the Treasury Web site 
and you'll see that currently we are running a $19 billion surplus. 
However, this tax cut means at least $10 billion in lost revenues this 
year--with defense, under Secretary Rumsfeld, asking for an additional 
$10 billion, and agriculture, $10 billion. Then, June comes and we make 
the big interest payments to the trust funds, the likes of $79 
billion. Instead of bringing Government back down to the black, like 
under the Democrats with President Clinton for 8 years, we are now 
starting back up today with this vote. Somewhere in the Congressional 
Record there ought to be registered that what we have done, in essence, 
is increased taxes and not lowered them because we are going to 
increase the debt and we are going to increase the interest costs, 
already at $366 billion, which are taxes for nothing.

  If I pay a gas tax, I get a highway. If I pay a sales tax, I get a 
schoolhouse. If I pay interest taxes, just profligacy, absolute waste.
  I will never forget last year when President Clinton was giving his 
State of the Union Address, the distinguished majority leader remarked: 
That man is costing us a billion dollars a minute. He talked for an 
hour and a half. That was $90 billion.
  President Bush wants to cut taxes $90 billion a year. We can pay for 
the Clinton and the Bush programs, $180 billion, and still have $186 
billion left over

[[Page S5524]]

to increase defense, to increase research at the National Institutes of 
Health.
  We are spending the money, and no one is talking about it. We are not 
getting anything for it.
  In 1968-1969, when we balanced the budget last under President Lyndon 
Johnson, the interest cost was only $16 billion. We have increased the 
interest costs without the cost of a war incidentally--$350 billion a 
year. We cannot afford it.
  When the Budget Committee meets, first, before we tackle defense and 
anything else in the budget, we have to immediately spend $366 billion. 
The economy is cool, people are not going to be able to save enough 
money to send their kids to college, they are not going to make their 
house payments, and we in the Government are thinking that what we have 
done is really good--the Government is too big, the money belongs to 
the people and all that childish gibber.
  Come on. What we have done has, by gosh, sidelined the people and 
sidelined this Government and, in essence, politically bought the vote. 
I do not know where my friend Senator McCain is, but he ought to hasten 
to the Chamber because the biggest campaign finance abuse has just been 
voted through the Senate. The majority has bought the people's vote 
because they would not go back home and explain to the people what is 
going on here. They went along with the singsong--the money belongs to 
the people, surplus, surplus, surplus.
  We cannot find a surplus. We have not had one in 40 years, and we 
will not have one this year, and if anybody believes differently, tell 
them to come see me and we will make the bet and give them the odds. I 
yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith of Oregon). The Senator from 
Florida.

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