[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 83 (Thursday, June 14, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6313-S6314]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             BUDGET PROCESS

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, in this morning's Washington Post we 
finally hear the truth. President pro tempore Robert C. Byrd tells it 
like it is. Republican and Democrat, White House and Congress, and the 
people generally take heed.
  I ask consent that an article from the Washington Post be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, June 14, 2001]

                             Inherited Mess

                          (By Robert C. Byrd)

       The president's budget director, Mitchell Daniels, has made 
     an impassioned plea [opted, June 5] for Congress to achieve 
     an ``orderly and responsible budget and appropriations 
     process'' this year despite the sudden turn-about in the 
     Senate from Republican to Democratic control
       While lauding the president's continuing efforts to 
     civilize the tone of business in Washington, Daniels blamed 
     Congress for routinely circumventing budget resolution 
     ceilings to fund runaway appropriations. This year, he 
     predicted, would have been different had the Republicans 
     maintained control of the Senate, and he exhorted Democrats 
     to withstand the siren song of ``games and gimmicks'' in the 
     appropriations process so as to avoid upsetting the budget 
     apple cart.
       Unfortunately, the deck is stacked against the 
     appropriators. The dice are loaded. The wheel is rigged. 
     Regardless of whether a Democrat or a Republican chairs the 
     Appropriations Committee, the unrealistically low budget 
     targets and tax-cut combo will again perpetuate a yearly hoax 
     on the American people.
       Despite all the brave talk of fiscal restraint, the 
     Appropriations committees will quietly be asked to spend more 
     money than the budget allows. We know the president will ask 
     us to spend billions more on defense. We know we will be 
     asked to spend billions more on education. We know we have 
     billions of dollars in both unmet and unanticipated needs 
     that we will have a responsibility to fund.
       We know this. The president knows this. The president's 
     budget director well knows this. The American people should 
     know this. The American people are entitled to truth in 
     budgeting. These programs are not just the priorities of a 
     Democratic Senate. These are the priorities of the president. 
     They are the priorities of the nation. They have to be 
     addressed.
       Here is the true state of affairs. The budget pays lip 
     service to sizable funding increases for national security, 
     but it doesn't back up its promises with the necessary 
     resources. For non-defense programs, the budget falls $5.5 
     billion below the level necessary just to keep pace with 
     inflation. What this means is that the nation is fiscally 
     frozen in time, unable to reduce massive backlogs in critical 
     programs that have been piling up for years, and equally 
     unable to anticipate emerging needs.
       Simply put, the budget resolution and the tax cut combined 
     deny the resources that Congress--regardless of which party 
     is in power--needs to meet a growing nation's requirements. 
     The scarce dollars that are needed for education, Social 
     Security, Medicare, prescription drug benefits and the 
     many other important priorities of the American people 
     will have to come from somewhere.
       Democrats do not want to resort to gimmicks or game. We 
     were outraged when the Republicans resorted to them--when 
     they hijacked the budget from the Budget Committee over the 
     objections of the Democrats, and then added insult to injury 
     by shutting Democrats out of the conference process. But when 
     a budget resolution allows for a massive tax-cut proposal yet 
     fails to allow for the increased funding for national defense 
     and for education that we all know the president will 
     request, the ``evasions and gimmickry'' have begun.
       Appropriators welcome cooperation. We encourage 
     flexibility. We seek good-faith dealings with the White House 
     and with both sides of the aisle. We ask only that the 
     administration reciprocate in kind. A good place to start 
     would be to avoid preemptive finger pointing in the media.
       To attempt to back the Senate Appropriations Committee into 
     a corner by suggesting that Democrats are suddenly in a 
     position to derail ``the first orderly, responsible budget 
     and appropriations process in many years'' is to belie the 
     facts. The budget process was anything but ``orderly and 
     responsible'' this year. In fact, the budget process has been 
     convenient political cover for ``games and gimmickry'' for 
     several years. And we all know it.
       This is the scenario that the Democratic Senate has 
     inherited, and this is the reality that Congress and the 
     administration face in the coming months as we work our way 
     through the appropriations process.
       The Senate Appropriations Committee will review the details 
     of the president's budget and we will, on a bipartisan basis, 
     do our best to produce 13 responsible and disciplined

[[Page S6314]]

     appropriations bills. It is my hope that we can address this 
     daunting challenge in a spirit of cooperation, and work 
     together to replace partisan rhetoric with responsible 
     solutions.
       And if OMB Director Daniels really wants to help his 
     president change the climate in Washington, he can work to 
     stop the blame game in its very tired tracks.

                          ____________________