[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 9 (Friday, January 17, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1132-S1134]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MAKING FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2003--
Continued
Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, to my colleagues who have known me and
who have heard me speak on spending issues before, what I am about to
say may be very shocking, and it shocks me as well. I am going to vote
for this appropriations bill. It contains only a 3-percent increase in
total spending--can you believe that; that is mandatory and
nondiscretionary domestic spending, a 3-percent increase--and a 2.4-
percent increase in discretionary spending.
All of us should congratulate the President for sticking to his guns
and keeping his promise that he was going to restrain spending while he
was President.
We also should thank Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens and his
colleagues on the committee who have done a good job in putting this
package together. It is time for us to move on.
I would first like to comment on why we are here. Why are we here
today? We would not be here today if we had passed a budget last year
and had not wasted so much time debating bills on the floor of the
Senate that should have been taken care of properly in committee.
Last year was the first time the Senate did not pass a budget
resolution since the Budget Act of 1974. Think of that. For 29 years we
passed a budget, but last year we were not able to muster up the votes
to get a budget passed. In addition, we have spent so much time
debating bills on the floor of the Senate that should have been handled
properly in the committees where those bills originated. In so many
instances where the leader was unhappy with the results of the
committee work, he yanked the bills out of committee, took it into his
office, rewrote the bill, put it on the floor, and we debated it.
For example, the energy bill, where we spent 8 weeks debating it, when
it could have been taken care of in the Energy Committee. The energy
bill, the farm bill, the economic stimulus bill, we spent so much time
last year dealing with things that should have been done in committee.
I am hoping the new leader gives more emphasis to the importance of
committees in the Senate. I cannot understand why the previous majority
party's committee chairmen were not up in arms about so many bills that
should have been handled in their committees, but were pulled. We
wasted a lot of time last year, and the chickens have now come home to
roost. We have operated on a continuing resolution for 4 months--
October, November, December, and January.
The executive branch is already one-third through the fiscal year,
and the President wants us to finish our work. The American people want
us to finish our work. There are so many Federal agencies today that
are providing services not knowing what their budget is going to be for
this year. Starting this week, executive branch agencies must absorb a
3.1-percent pay raise within fiscal year 2002 funding levels. I know
what that is like. I know, as a former governor and mayor, the pressure
that puts on agencies. Many agencies will be unable to effectively
allocate funds, particularly competitive grant funds, prior to the end
of the fiscal year without a final appropriation in the next 20 to 30
days.
In other words, consider the many agencies that have competitive
grant programs. These agencies will not be able to get their requests
for grant applications out this year, nor the grant applications back
in unless we get things done in the next few days. Also thousands of
people, like my nephew, are out of work because companies they work for
that have government contracts don't know if the projects that are
being funded by the Federal Government will continue. Government
programs have been on hold for the past 4 months and won't move forward
until we pass an appropriations bill.
One of the things hurting our economy today is uncertainty. We have
contributed to it because we haven't been doing our work.
My constituents ask me: Do you guys in Washington get it? Do you get
it? Do
[[Page S1133]]
you understand what is going on? We are at war. The President of the
United States has more on his plate than perhaps any President in my
memory. Some say FDR; some say Abraham Lincoln. The economy is
sputtering. Our constituents believe we are behaving like Nero,
fiddling around while Rome is burning. They continue to ask, don't you
get it?
We have to understand that we cannot tolerate business as usual. In
fact, business as usual looks pretty good compared to what we have been
doing the last year or so, and the way we have been behaving.
If corporate executives in the private sector took this much time to
implement their budgets, they would never bring any projects to market
or create any new jobs and our economy would collapse.
Let's get appropriations done now. None of us are happy with
everything in it, and everyone would like to add something, a pet
project, a pet constituent request. All of us have them. Hopefully,
some will be taken care of and smoothed out in conference. But if not,
they will have to be handled in the 2004 budget.
Remember we are in this pickle because we did not do our work last
year. Let's get it over so we can begin to do our work this year. Let's
get on with the budget, so that we can have an aggressive effort to do
the 2004 appropriations bills and the other urgent business of the
American people.
God only knows what the budget environment will be if we go to war
with Iraq. As all of us in this body understand, even if we do not go
to war, there are likely to be supplemental expenditures for whatever
the final settlement with Iraq will be.
Let's look at this proposal before us. This bill represents a
compromise between true fiscal discipline and Congress' desire to
spend. It is made up of 11 bills. Passage of this bill will bring non-
defense discretionary spending up to $385 billion, an increase of 2.4-
percent over the fiscal year 2002 level. It provides everything the
President asked for except the $10 billion defense contingency
fund. Although this low number is something to rejoice about, we had
better understand that one of the reasons it is low is that we have had
a continuing resolution for the past 4 months and we have been spending
money at FY 2002 levels.
Included in the package is a 1.6-percent across-the-board cut in all
domestic spending, in order to accommodate some high-priority items.
Let's not forget about that. Some are talking about amending this bill.
The bill already contains an across-the-board reduction so we could
provide $3.1 billion for drought aid for farmers in counties that have
been declared disasters. In my particular case, we have 88 counties in
Ohio that have been declared disasters. Mr. President, the bill
includes $1.5 billion for election reform; which is not as much as we
promised the states when we passed the election reform legislation, but
it is a substantial amount of money that will help the states. And the
bill includes $1.6 billion for a Medicare physician's fee fix. All of
us have heard from our physicians in terms of the Medicare situation
they are confronted with, when every year the amount of reimbursement
is going down and down.
Inflation this year is only about 2.4 percent, nevertheless, all but
two appropriations bills in this package are getting increases above
that rate.
The Labor-HHS appropriation has grown an average of 12.4 percent
every year since I have been here and will grow another 5.4 percent in
this bill. So this bill does not represent draconian restrictions on
Federal spending.
In fact, the proposed $750 billion budget the President wants can
fund critical priorities within the limits of fiscal discipline. That
$750 billion represents an increase of over 11 percent in discretionary
spending in just the last 2 fiscal years. I don't know anybody who has
had those kinds of increases. If you look at our spending during the
last 5 years, you see we have increased spending in most of the 13
annual appropriations bills by about 7.1 percent each year. That is
about a 43-percent increase in spending since I came to the Senate.
During the same period of time we have had inflationary growth of only
about 11.4 percent.
The projected deficit for fiscal year 2002 was $314 billion, which
included using Social Security, and the projected deficit for 2003 is
already $315 billion. Someone said at a meeting I attended yesterday
that it could go up to about $370 billion because we are going to have
to borrow more money than what we originally expected.
We just increased the debt ceiling last June and will probably need
to increase it again before the end of this year. Therefore, we need to
endorse this fiscally responsible approach presented to us by the
Appropriations Committee today. All these amendments proposed in the
last couple days would keep adding money and adding money to the
deficit. That is what it is about. I cannot understand it.
I hear arguments on the other side expressing concern about the
deficit, and these same people are on the floor trying to amend this
appropriations bill. That would be fiscally irresponsible and would add
to the deficit. The Appropriations Committee proposal is the lowest
increase in spending I have seen since I have been in the Senate.
As I said, I have to take my hat off to the President for holding the
line on spending, and I take my hat off to my friend, Appropriations
Committee Chairman Ted Stevens. He and I have had some strong words
over the last several years. But as Humphrey Bogart said in
``Casablanca'': ``This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.''
I want the Appropriations chairman to know I look forward to working
with him and his colleagues on the committee on the 2004 budget and
hope by the end of this year we can point to another set of
appropriation bills with the same type of responsible and restrained
growth.
Over the last 2 days, some people have come to the floor and said we
need more money for various good programs. As I mentioned before, these
programs are on hold until we pass an appropriations bill. In other
words, nothing is happening in some of these programs until we pass an
appropriations bill.
I agree that there are many things we all want money for, but I want
to point out to my colleagues what we have done during the past few
years in terms of the money we have put in the pipeline--I will repeat
it so everybody gets it.
Since I have been in the Senate, we have increased discretionary
spending by 10 percent in 1999, 15 percent in 2001, and 9 percent in
2002. We have allocated so much additional money to Federal agencies
that many of them have had difficulty spending all of it. For example,
the Department of Housing and Urban Development has consistently
recaptured $1.5 billion to $2 billion in unallocated section 8 housing
vouchers.
Mr. President, what we are doing here is fiscally responsible. Let's
get it done. Let's get on with it. Let's finish the work of the 107th
Congress so we can get on with the work of the 108th, starting with the
2004 budget. And we need to move aggressively with the appropriations
bills, so that we can get on with an energy bill, and do something
about some of the other pressing issues facing the American people.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise to express my strong support for the
Medicare provisions contained in H.J. Res. 2. These provisions would
prevent unwise reductions in physician payments from taking effect by
freezing Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors at the 2002 level.
They would also provide much-needed, increased funding for rural
hospitals.
Enacting these important provisions has been at the top of my agenda,
and I am pleased that the committee was able to include them in the
omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal year 2003. After extensive
conversations with constituents throughout Utah, it became obvious to
me that Congress must act to support Medicare providers and patients by
ensuring that payments are made more fair.
In 2002, physicians' Medicare reimbursements were reduced by
approximately 5 percent. And, on March 1, 2003, Medicare reimbursement
rates for physicians are scheduled to be reduced by another 4.4
percent. The provisions in H.J. Res. 2 that I strongly support will
protect physicians across the country by preventing the 4.4 percent cut
in physician Medicare payment from going into effect in March.
It is apparent to me that Medicare constraints have made it more and
more difficult for hard-working physicians to provide the level of
patient
[[Page S1134]]
care that they and their patients expect. Physicians in Utah with whom
I have consulted over the past year have showed me the lasting,
negative impact that the 2003 reductions would have on patient care. In
addition, I have been dismayed to learn from several physicians that
these unwarranted reductions would cause them to think twice about
remaining in the Medicare Program.
In fact, as representatives of the Utah Medical Association have
pointed out to me, Medicare's flawed reimbursement system has made it
increasingly difficult for Utah physicians to accept new Medicare
patients, putting many seniors who seek care in a quandary. This is not
fair to the physicians, and it is not fair to the patients.
While the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, CMS, reports that
Medicare physician participation rate was 89.3 percent in January 2002,
figures from Utah portray a dramatically different picture. In a recent
survey conducted by the Utah Medical Association, the Medicare
participation rate among physicians was significantly lower. The UMA
found that only 77 percent of Utah's primary care physicians
participated in the Medicare Program. I am hopeful that once Utah
physicians see that we in Congress are listening and serious about
supporting them, other doctors will consider participating in the
Medicare Program once again.
I am also pleased that this legislation contains a provision which
will provide additional funding for rural hospitals, something that is
desperately needed in my home state of Utah. More specifically, the
hospital provision contained in H.J. Res. 2 would raise the inpatient
base rate upon which payments are calculated for hospitals in rural and
small urban areas to the same rate as that in large urban areas for 6
months. This provision will provide both patients and hospitals in my
state with necessary and welcomed relief.
Many of us who worked last year to enact needed changes such as this
have been dismayed that, despite our best efforts, Congress could not
find a collective way to rectify these problems that are doing so much
to hurt patient care throughout Utah. It is high time we take this
action.
I urge my colleagues to support these two important provisions
because both will provide Medicare patients with access to quality and
affordable health care across the country. Let's do the right thing and
pass this legislation as quickly as possible, this issue is much too
important to both Medicare beneficiaries and providers. Medicare
providers, and most importantly, the beneficiaries they serve, are
depending on us to get the job done.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I am pleased to have submitted an
amendment dealing with the Total Information Awareness Program at the
DOD. Many of my colleagues may know about this program designed to test
technologies that collect information from public and private databases
and try to find trends that could signal threats against the United
States. Like many people, I have been concerned that this program could
be used to invade the privacy of Americans by snooping around in our
bank accounts, personal internet computers, phone records, and the
like. In November of last year, I asked the DOD Inspector General to
look into the purposes of TIA and to make sure that there are
appropriate controls in place to ensure that it is used only for
foreign intelligence purposes to protect us against terrorism and
foreign threats, but not on Americans or for domestic crime fighting. I
am told that the IG investigation is proceeding, and that the IG has
ordered a formal audit of TIA.
This amendment limits the use of the TIA funds appropriated by
Congress to foreign intelligence purposes. DOD will be required to tell
Congress what it is doing regarding TIA, and keep us in the loop on
developments. It also provides that TIA can't be used on U.S. citizens
once it is up and running.
But the amendment allows development of TIA to continue for foreign
terrorism purposes. So it is a great compromise in that it allows the
development of TIA to help track international terrorism, but protects
against abuses that could violate the privacy of our own people. I
encourage my colleagues to support this amendment.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, as an appropriator, I come to the
floor this afternoon to express my opposition to this omnibus
appropriations bill.
The $385 billion omnibus appropriations bill cuts almost $10 billion
from what the Senate Appropriation Committee approved last year.
On top of these Draconian cuts, the bill before us includes a 2.9
percent across the board cut, to nonmilitary programs, and will affect
critical programs such as homeland security, education, and job
training.
This bill is a major mistake and represents a short-sided approach to
solving our Nation's problems.
What is happening is the administration's effort to starve domestic
programs in order to save dollars for a $674 billion tax cut. If this
effort is successful, we will see interest rates rise, the deficit
balloon, and a 10-year cumulative deficit of $2 to $3 trillion.
Americans don't know it yet, but soon will learn that this bill makes
a house of cards out of homeland security, which loses $1 billion which
were already requested, authorized, and appropriated.
How many Americans know that this bill will likely cut 1,175 FBI
agents, 490 food safety engineers, and 1,600 customs inspectors who are
vital if we are to protect our homeland from contraband and those that
would do us harm.
How many Americans know that the Head Start cut of $107 million could
prevent 2700 youngsters from a Head Start experience, or leave 224,000
needy individuals without the meals provided by WIC, or 230,000
veterans without medical services.
To make matters worse, this bill is being offered at a time when our
Nation continues to face significant challenges in protecting homeland
security, increasing school achievement, and strengthening our
workforce.
Essentially what this bill does is cut the money from a number of
critical projects so this body can pass a tax cut of $674 billion,
which will lead to a $2 trillion deficit over the next 10 years.
Every day this body is faced with tough choices. But in my decade in
the Senate, I believe that this bill represents one of the worst pieces
of legislation to pass this Senate.
____________________