[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 21356-21357]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                           THE ``13TH MONTH''

  Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, earlier today, there was 
quite a bit of colorful rhetoric and blustering on the floor by the 
Democratic Party about reports in the Washington Post today that 
Republicans were going to create a ``13th month'' to allow more 
spending on education and other programs.
  Lest I be accused of partisanship, I think many of you know I am an 
Independent. So those who say I am going to speak on behalf of 
Republicans, I guess, would technically be wrong. I don't pretend to 
speak for the Republicans, and I am not privy to what was said in any 
meetings with the Republicans regarding the so-called 13th month. But 
let me speak for myself as an Independent and say I don't support a 
13th month for any fiscal year.

[[Page 21357]]

  But in their effort to be partisan and embarrass Republicans over 
what was probably a mischaracterization, in my view, in a liberal 
newspaper, my Democrat colleagues failed to address the key issue, 
which is, where do you come up with the money to fund all of these 
programs?
  In their zeal to make partisan points and poke fun--and they did have 
a good time--they failed to offer any constructive solution. If you are 
going to poke fun and make jokes about the 13th month headline, what 
are your alternatives? My guess is they would prefer to use the same 
budget tactics they have been using for about 50 years. The result of 
those budget tactics over the past 50 years has been to run up the 
national debt to where it is almost $6 trillion, raid the Social 
Security trust fund, and in order to do it all raise taxes.
  Every year, we do this. Every year, the train comes down the track 
and usually has a wreck. We spend, spend, spend, spend, and then we get 
to the end of the year and we act as though there is some magic 
budgetary goblin running around eating up money and we invent these 
tricks to try to figure out how to break the budget, while we still 
tell constituents we balance it. It is pretty outrageous. We use every 
budgetary gimmick we can find: forward funding, emergency designation, 
baseline budgeting. You name it, you have heard it. Now we have ``13th 
month.''
  For those of you who may be listening or watching right now, when you 
hear those terms, my advice would be to hang on tightly to your wallet 
because the story is, if a Democrat has a vision, it is probably 
focused right on your wallet, and that is what is happening now. They 
are having fun with this 13th month, but they have that luxury because 
they are in the minority. I suppose you can say, technically, so am I, 
but on this point I am siding with the Republicans. They didn't invent 
budgetary gimmickry.
  Insofar as this Congress intends to use smoke and mirrors to secretly 
fund more rather than less unconstitutional programs, I don't intend to 
be a part of it. Our Founding Fathers would be ashamed of this whole 
debate for several reasons:
  No. 1, they didn't intend for us to balance our budget using 
accounting tricks and elongated fiscal years.
  No. 2, they didn't intend for us to burden our children with 
trillions of dollars in debt--trillions.
  No. 3, they didn't intend for us to spend billions of dollars on 
education programs that should be handled at the State and local level.
  My colleague, Senator Gorton, has been very instrumental on 
initiatives to try to bring that spending back to the State and local 
level where it belongs. So as perhaps the only nonpartisan person in 
the Senate right now, let me offer a solution. It is pretty simple. I 
have a way that we can support the Constitution, balance the budget, 
and not use any budgetary tricks at all. It is very simple: Don't spend 
the money.
  The Department of Education is billions of dollars worth of 
unconstitutional infringements on State and local authority. Don't 
spend the money, if the Democrats don't want the Republicans using 
budgetary tricks, the Republicans don't want to break the budget caps, 
and the founders don't want us funding unconstitutional programs. So 
let's abolish the Department of Education. Then we can go back home to 
our school districts and say: You now have the constitutional authority 
you had in the first place to educate your children the way you 
choose--home school, private school, public school, whatever. By the 
way, you have more money to spend and the budget is balanced.
  Very simple. Nothing complicated. So let me say the best way to end 
all the budgetary gimmickry is don't spend the money.
  Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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