[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 24282-24284]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                           FISCAL DISCIPLINE

  Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, one of the main reasons I ran for the 
Senate was to bring fiscal discipline to Washington. As the 106th 
Congress winds down this week, I look back with mixed feelings at the 
actions that have been taken over the last 2 years toward bringing our 
financial house in order. While for the first time we are not spending 
the Social Security surplus or the Medicare Part A surplus, I believe 
we could have done a much better job in reining in Federal spending.
  Indeed, one fact that does not seem to draw too much attention is the 
fact that Washington increased overall nondefense domestic 
discretionary spending in fiscal year 2000 to $328 billion. That is a 
9.3-percent boost over the previous fiscal year, and the largest 
single-year increase in nondefense discretionary spending since 1980. 
And I fear we will have another big increase in fiscal year 2001.
  However, there is actually some good news to celebrate since the 
beginning of this Congress. As my colleagues may recall, President 
Clinton said in his State of the Union Address in 1999 that he wanted 
to save 62 percent of the surplus and spend the other 38 percent. Well, 
at the time, the entire surplus was the Social Security surplus.
  It was Members on this side of the aisle in both the House and the 
Senate who exposed the President's plan as just another spending 
gimmick. We were also the ones who got busy advocating and fighting for 
a lockbox for

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Social Security and Medicare. For all intents and purposes, we were 
successful in fiscal year 2000 in doing so, and we will do the same in 
fiscal year 2001.
  Now the Vice President is out there on the campaign trail bending the 
truth and taking credit for lockboxing Social Security and Medicare. 
Everyone should be aware that it was the Clinton-Gore administration 
that sent a veto threat to the Senate regarding the Social Security 
lockbox amendment that the Senate considered in April of 1999.
  Let me recite the direct quote from the veto threat:

       If the Abraham-Domenici amendment or similar legislation is 
     passed by the Congress, the President's senior advisors will 
     recommend to the President that he will veto this bill.

  I suspect that senior advisors would include the Vice President.
  Although Congress has agreed by consensus not to use the Social 
Security and Medicare surplus for more spending, Congress still has not 
been able to pass lockbox legislation. I am fearful, if things get 
tight in the future and we have a blip in the economy, Congress will 
revert to its old ways. So I am hoping next year that on a bipartisan 
basis we can pass lockbox legislation for the Social Security and 
Medicare surplus.
  Probably the best news from fiscal year 2000 is that despite all the 
supplemental spending we did this past summer, we still achieved an $87 
billion on-budget surplus in fiscal year 2000. That is a lot more than 
the $1 billion on-budget surplus we had at the end of fiscal year 1999. 
Without question, though, the American people are responsible for this 
surplus, and their success continues to generate better than expected 
revenues. However, Congress would have spent considerably more money, 
had it not been for a handful of us in the House and Senate who were 
willing to take the heat for condemning massive spending increases and 
budget gimmickry. Because this $87 billion on-budget surplus had not 
been spent, and not used for tax cuts, it is going to go to reduce the 
national debt.
  In my view and in the view of many experts, using our on-budget 
surplus to pay down the national debt is the best way to ensure fiscal 
discipline and continue our economic prosperity. We need to continue 
that economic prosperity if we are going to deal with the problems of 
Social Security and Medicare in the future. We cannot be lulled by the 
booming economy and the fact that we have been able to utilize the $87 
billion fiscal year 2000 on-budget surplus for debt reduction.
  In addition, the way things are going right now in Washington, we may 
not even see a fiscal year 2001 on-budget surplus. That is because the 
projected $102 billion surplus is evaporating very quickly. With all 
the years of experience that I have had in public service, I have to 
say that I have never seen anything more fiscally irresponsible than 
the spending spree I have seen occur in Washington this year--but, in 
particular, these past weeks. The lack of willingness on the part of 
Congress to make the hard choices and restrain the urge to bring home 
the bacon is blowing a hole in the fiscal year 2001 surplus and a 
gigantic hole in the projected 10-year budget surplus.
  I think back to 1997 when Congress passed the Balanced Budget Act, 
helping to put an end to the era of annual deficits. The Balanced 
Budget Act set spending targets for each fiscal year and was meant to 
teach Congress to prioritize its spending choices. Under the Balanced 
Budget Act, if Congress wanted to spend money, it had to find an offset 
to cover the additional spending. Fair enough, and it worked. It helped 
to balance the budget.
  Today, with the surplus we have achieved and the surplus that 
everyone thinks we are going to have in the future, the discipline is 
gone. It is just an out-of-control feeding frenzy. Add the fact that 
the normal legislative process has gone out the window, and we are in a 
free fall. Right now, only a handful of individuals--the President and 
my colleagues who are on the Appropriations Committee--are making the 
decisions that will impact how much the Federal Government spends for 
the coming fiscal year. Once the decisions are made, they are packaged 
together, sent to the floor of the Senate and the House, and voted on: 
No debate, no amendments. In some circumstances, Members have not even 
seen the bills they are voting on.
  Basically, it is a take-it-or-leave-it attitude. Since these bills 
contain the bacon, most Members go along and simply vote for them. For 
those Members who do, they will run home, bragging about how they got 
this or that for their districts or for their State, failing to 
understand that their constituents know there is no such thing as a 
free lunch. Make no mistake, the American people will fast appreciate 
the spending spectacle that is going on here in Congress. If you think 
they were mad in 1998 when Congress went on a similar spree--and I 
remember that because I was campaigning for the Senate in 1998 and I 
caught all kinds of flak from people because of what Congress had 
done--wait until they get wind of what is happening right now. And they 
will. We will definitely feel their wrath. But more important, we will 
experience their disappointment in letting them down.
  This Senator is not going along with the ``pork-a-thon.'' I have 
voted against most of the appropriations bills that have come before 
the Senate, not because I am opposed to the Federal Government spending 
money on what is necessary, but because Congress has been unwilling to 
prioritize spending and unwilling to make the hard choices within the 
framework of the 2001 budget resolution.
  In case my colleagues are not aware, let me explain briefly how big 
the increases are in the various appropriations bills.
  The fiscal year 2001 Interior appropriations bill spends $18.8 
billion, a 26-percent increase over fiscal year 2000; the 
Transportation appropriations bill, spends $16.8 billion in 
discretionary spending, a 23-percent increase over fiscal year 2000; 
the VA-HUD appropriations bill spends $82.5 billion, a 14-percent 
increase; the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill spends $15.6 billion, 
a 13-percent increase; the Energy and Water appropriations bill spends 
$24 billion, a 12-percent increase; the Agriculture appropriations bill 
spends $15 billion in discretionary spending, an 8-percent increase, 
and that is not including agriculture emergency spending.
  For fiscal year 1999 to fiscal year 2001, nearly $23.25 billion in 
agriculture emergency spending has been provided by the Government--
$23.25 billion in emergency spending. That is more than double the 
approximately $10.75 billion in emergency spending for the entire 10 
year period before. In other words, in 3 years, we have doubled the 
emergency spending for agriculture over what we spent in the 10 
previous fiscal years.
  In April, the Senate spent over 50 hours debating and amending a 
budget resolution for fiscal year 2001. An agreement was reached on an 
overall spending amount of $600.3 billion in budget authority. I worked 
with Senators like Phil Gramm to add new points of order to bring more 
discipline to the process. But in light of recent events, I wonder what 
was the 50 hours of effort over? I find myself asking, Why should we 
have a budget resolution if we are just going to ignore it? Why even 
have a budget process if we are just going to operate as if the rules 
did not exist? Congress and the White House are spending money like 
drunken sailors, and we need to get on the wagon before it is too late 
and we spend it all.
  CBO's projections over the next 10 years estimate that Federal 
spending will grow with the rate of inflation, but this does not 
reflect reality. In fiscal year 2000 alone, we increased discretionary 
spending by 8.3 percent, a rate much higher than the actual inflation 
rate. When you compare that with the spending increases of 14 percent, 
23 percent, and 26 percent in just fiscal year 2001 alone, then you can 
see the kind of trouble we are getting ourselves into.
  Add up all the numbers, include the appropriations bills that have 
passed and those that are anticipated to pass; include as much as $265 
billion worth of tax reductions for the next 10 years;

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and, of course, we cannot forget there are going to be additional 
interest costs that will be generated by Congress simultaneously 
increasing spending and lowering taxes. Just add it all up. When you 
do, you will find that Congress and the Clinton-Gore administration 
will have reduced the 10-year projected budget surplus by more than 
$600 billion. In a worst case scenario, the Concord Coalition estimates 
that Congress' accelerated pace of spending could wipe out up to $1.46 
trillion of the non-Social Security surplus projected for the next 10 
years--over a trillion dollars is what they project. What a terrible 
thing we are doing to the next administration and to the citizens of 
this Nation.
  After the 106th Congress' drunken spending spree is over, the 
American people and the future President will be waking up to a 
tremendous hangover.

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