[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 27 (Monday, February 10, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S967-S969]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            BUDGET PROPOSAL

  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I suspect I couldn't have come to the floor 
at a better time. The President's budget did come out today. It 
consists of a set of documents a foot high. In my opinion, the whole 
pile should be replaced with a list from the President of what he 
thinks are pretty good ideas to do this year.
  I want to encourage people, including the Senator from Ohio, not to 
waste any time searching out the President's budget cuts. Nobody has 
listened to the President in the 23 years that I have been here. 
Congress doesn't pay attention to the President's budget exercise. I 
don't know why we put him through that. That is all it is.
  Congress holds the pursestrings, according to the Constitution. 
Congress is very protective of that constitutional authority. If you 
don't believe me, watch all the rhetoric that comes out on the 
President's budget. I am hoping that I hear something positive on it, 
but it is pretty hard to find anything positive with the funding 
situation that we are in. I do have to take issue with something that 
was just said here, that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act hasn't worked. It 
has worked.
  Now, a very important thing for everybody to know: The problem that 
we are in right now with our deficits doesn't have to do with the 
dollars that are coming in. The first year after the Tax Cuts and Jobs 
Act, we took in more revenue than ever before. More people had jobs. 
More people were paying taxes. Companies were paying more taxes. They 
were doing more business. That results in more taxes. So, that first 
year, we got more money than we had ever had to spend before.
  The second year, we had more money than the first year. We keep 
getting more money to spend. The problem is we have no control over our 
urge to spend. Since CBO's June 2019 Long-Term Budget Outlook, Congress 
has passed and the President has signed legislation that would add more 
than $2 trillion to our national debt over the next 10 years. That is 
how we are spending.
  The increased spending caps from the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019 
are responsible for $1.7 trillion of that $2.1 trillion. It does 
include interest costs, but that is what we have to pay any time we 
have a debt. That $1.7 trillion passed with no debate. There was a 
budget point of order. I had established a budget point of order, which 
takes 60 votes. I missed by four being able to stop that. We can't 
spend that way. But that isn't the President's budget. That is our 
budget.
  Over the next few days, you will hear lots of complaints about the 
President's budget. Seldom will anybody mention anything good, and it 
has been that way for every President. You will

[[Page S968]]

hear lots of terrible things about the President's budget. You won't 
hear anything positive. In the present political atmosphere, you 
probably will not learn anything from the comments. Little of a 
positive nature is getting any coverage in Washington these days.
  Recently, I went to a hearing on the dangers of youth vaping. It 
turned into a diatribe about President Trump. Presidents' budgets, 
regardless of what President, are a chance for Members not in his party 
to beat up verbally on whoever is President. For that reason, I didn't 
hold a hearing on President Obama's last budget, and I will not be 
holding one on this President's budget for that reason. Let me repeat 
that. Because it turns into a diatribe against the President, I did not 
hold a hearing on President Obama's last budget, and, for that same 
reason, I am not going to hold a hearing on this President's budget.
  If you want the animosity of a budget hearing, the House of 
Representatives will have the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, for 
a hearing this Wednesday. You can take that in and get your dose of 
animosity if you want. It will be a chance for the House to ask loaded, 
venomous questions of the Director.
  The budget process is not working. The only thing of real value in 
any President's budget is our history of spending. That is what has 
already been done. We ought to look at that. We ought to see the 
mistakes that we have made, the way that we have piled up this debt. If 
Congress, for once, could spend a portion of the scrutiny they give to 
the President's projected cuts and, instead, look at the history of our 
spending, we might be able to gain ground. Yes, only cuts will be 
blasted, even though we never make cuts; we just keep spending.
  The official budget is done in the Senate and separately in the House 
and is only official if the House and Senate can reach agreement. When 
the two Chambers of Congress are opposite majorities, there is little 
chance for agreement. From history, I can assure you cuts will not be 
made. I can also assure you that seldom does any program get as big of 
an increase as the participants request, but that is changing. There is 
no spending constraint. There is seldom an attempt to find money to 
cover the costs, especially on new services that are dreamed up.
  I will do a budget. I will ask the Democrats to help put together a 
responsible budget, working with Republicans. That is really the only 
way it can work responsibly. What do I mean by ``responsibly''? The 
Budget Committee only sets limits on spending. A lot of people think 
that we dig into every detail and decide how much everybody is going to 
get. No. We set limits in a broad number of categories. It is the 
Appropriations Committee that allocates the specific dollars, but we 
always wind up spending beyond the limit set by the budget, even if a 
budget can be agreed on.
  How can that happen? When a spending bill or a spending idea comes to 
the Senate floor, the bill technically needs 60 votes to pass. To bust 
the budget limits also only takes 60 votes, so any idea or spending 
bill that is able to pass already, it already has the votes to bust the 
budget and put us deeper into debt.
  Congress also doesn't meet spending deadlines. If Congress passes a 
continuing resolution, which means we couldn't agree by the end of the 
fiscal year, the government stays open with permission to spend each 
month 1/12 of what it was allocated the previous year. That is what a 
continuing resolution does; it allows them to keep operating at what 
they had before.
  Continuing resolutions continue until both sides are able to 
negotiate what they want, but the new method of compromise is you can 
have everything you want as long as you will let me have everything I 
want. What kind of negotiation is that?
  Well, as I mentioned before, it is $1.7 trillion and one vote with no 
debate. Yeah. How would your Christmas shopping for your family work 
under those circumstances where everybody could have whatever they 
wanted? Wouldn't it even be worse if you were spending someone else's 
money for those Christmas presents? What if it appeared to be an 
unlimited supply of money? How long would that last?
  Of course, if a continuing resolution doesn't pass, the government is 
shut down. The employees are sent home. Federal public places are shut 
down and closed to the public. When agreement is finally reached, the 
employees come back. They are paid for the time they were off. They are 
way behind in their work, which hurts the economy when permits aren't 
released--and other things. We also have to pay lots of overtime to 
catch up for the time they were off.
  There are several proposals out there that could stop shutdowns and 
put pressure on Congress to get the spending job done on time. How long 
can we overspend? Well, interest, I think, is currently in the area of 
2\1/2\ percent. If people lose confidence in the Federal Government, we 
will have to pay a higher interest rate in order to get the money to 
cover the debt. Yes, we have to pay the interest. If we default on the 
interest, the country defaults. If that interest rate were to go from 
the current 2\1/2\ percent to the normal 5 percent, we would only be 
able to pay for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
  You didn't hear me say anything about defense. You didn't hear me say 
anything about education. You didn't hear me say anything about 
infrastructure. You didn't hear me say anything except Social Security, 
Medicaid, and Medicare. That is what happens if people lose confidence 
in this, if they think we are overspending continually and that we 
don't intend to get control over it.
  I will tell you a few other things that you might not be aware of. 
Did you know that most Federal dollars are spent without Congress ever 
voting on it a second time? Those are called mandatory programs. Once a 
program is approved in the mandatory category, that spending is never 
voted on again. Worse yet, no one hardly ever looks at the program to 
see if it does what it was supposed to do. Nothing should be mandatory 
that doesn't have a source of revenue--that is, money--sufficient to 
fund it into the future. Do you know what that would amount to if we 
had that kind of rule on mandatory?

  Social Security no longer brings in as much money as we pay out. 
Medicare doesn't bring in the money that we pay out. Medicaid doesn't 
bring in the money that we pay out. In the mandatory programs, there 
are probably only about four that have a source of revenue to fund 
them. The rest all take money from the general fund, which means that 
the general fund doesn't really have any money for the discretionary 
things that we vote on--you know, that big fight we have once a year 
come October 1 to fund the rest of government--and mostly defense is in 
that category.
  I don't get invited to speak at many places. It is kind of 
depressing.
  But once the program is approved, mandatory spending is never voted 
on again, and no one looks at the program to see what it is supposed to 
do. They still get their annual money, even though some of these 
programs have expired. They had an expiration date, and we went past 
the expiration date, which means the program shouldn't exist anymore, 
but it does, and we continue to fund it, not only at its previous, 
expired level. We keep adding cost-of-living increases for it. Yes, it 
is probably needed, but what is the money really doing?
  No business would be in business if they didn't check even more than 
annually to see what is working effectively and eliminating those that 
aren't. We should be doing that task. When was the last time you saw a 
program eliminated around here? I have been here 23 years. Nope.
  Then there is the problem with program duplication. When I got to 
Washington, there were 119 preschool children's programs. Those are 
really important. If kids get the learning they need before they go to 
kindergarten, it makes a difference in the rest of their life--but 119 
programs? Senator Kennedy and I worked together and merged quite a few 
of those. We eliminated some--so there are some programs that got 
eliminated--and we got that down to 45 programs. Five would probably do 
the job. We did pass an amendment to a bill that said that those had to 
be pared down to five programs, and that all of them had to be under 
the Department of Education. The reason we weren't able to get

[[Page S969]]

below 45 is because we didn't have jurisdiction over those in Health, 
Education, Labor, and Pensions. Those were all in other groups.
  In the area of housing, we have 160 programs--160 programs--and they 
are administered by 20 different agencies. So really, nobody is in 
charge. So nobody is setting goals. So nobody is checking to see if it 
is working. Nobody is checking to see if the program over here in one 
of those 20 is the same as the program over here in another one of the 
20, which would allow them to be merged.
  Merging saves money. If you merge, you only need one director, 
instead of two, and you don't need all the assistants there were. You 
only need the assistants for one program, and the money that would be 
stuck in Washington can actually go to what we thought was going to get 
done. Every merger results in savings. Elimination results in more 
savings. How much better would it be to move the money to where the 
results are?
  The proposed budget reforms that Senator Whitehouse and I have worked 
on would provide for portfolio reviews. Here is how that works. Each 
committee would have to look at all of the programs, of the type that 
would be in their jurisdiction if it weren't handled in a bunch of 
other places. So those other places would have to look at the ones 
under their jurisdiction. If we can get that portfolio review, I think 
we would find that some of those areas where we are doing it time after 
time, mostly by just adding to Washington bureaucracy.
  We want the money out there where the problem is. We think we are 
solving problems, but we are not solving problems. We are just hiring 
more people in DC. We used to have a policy that the last person hired 
would be the first person fired and that resulted in an increase in 
government, too, because as soon as you got hired, you could expand 
your workload so you needed an assistant, and now you weren't the first 
in line to be fired. That has resulted in a lot of people working in 
Washington. How much money actually makes it to the problem? We ought 
to see if the money makes it to the people or if we are just increasing 
Washington bureaucracy.
  Over the next few weeks, I will be going into some detail on each of 
these problems with budgeting. I will also be promoting the budget 
reforms that Senator Whitehouse and I and the Budget Committee have put 
out favorably. I think that is the first budget provision in about the 
last 2 two decades that has come out of the committee in a bipartisan 
way.
  Now, I could tell you that the reforms that we proposed will not 
solve all of the problem. You can't take that big of a leap when you 
have that big of a problem. But while those reforms will not solve the 
problem, they should help to make the solutions more noticeable.
  We are having trouble getting that on the floor, too.
  I really came to the floor to eliminate some of the concerns about 
the President's budget. I want people to know that they don't all have 
to fly to Washington to make their case to the Budget Committee for 
their program. Once the Budget Committee sets the parameters, then, the 
detail comes into play with the Appropriations Committee.
  Talk to your appropriators. They spend the money--the exact dollars. 
Do your work there, but be sure your program is as effective as it can 
be. Also, take a little look at how many similar Federal programs there 
are. See if there can be a savings by merging some, thus getting more 
money out in the field where you are and getting more money on the 
problem.
  Once again, the President's budget came out today. It consists of a 
set of documents a foot high. In my opinion, the whole pile should be 
replaced with a list from the President of what he thinks are pretty 
good ideas to do this year and, hopefully, there will also be a little 
piece in there that says how you can pay for it.
  So don't waste any time searching out the President's budget program 
cuts. Congress doesn't pay any attention to the President's budget 
exercise. That is all it is--an exercise. Congress holds the purse 
strings, according to the Constitution, and Congress is very protective 
of that constitutional authority. Now we need to do the work that goes 
with that authority.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________