[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 18859-18863]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              THE ECONOMY

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, earlier this morning I heard a 
distinguished colleague on this side of the aisle refer to ending the 
fiscal year with a $150 to $160 billion deficit.
  Thereafter, I was astounded to hear a colleague from the other side 
of the aisle say tax cuts increase revenues. If that latter statement 
were true, we would just come here and cut taxes every day because that 
is what we need, revenues. Ever since this President took office, we 
have run the most astounding debt of a free country. Instead of paying 
down the debt, there isn't any question, when he came here he started 
cutting taxes. He put in an economic team headed by Larry Lindsey--the 
only fellow in America who thinks the economy is good.
  Until you get rid of that economic team and stop this singsong about 
cutting taxes, and instead start paying down the debt, the economy is 
not going to recover.
  Let me go right to what the debt is because today is October 2, two 
days since the end of fiscal year 2002. Under law, the Treasurer of the 
United States is required to publish the public debt every day. We 
ended the fiscal year 2002 on September 30, with a deficit of $421 
billion, and a debt of $6.2 trillion, up from $5.8 trillion last year.
  I have been up here 36 years. This is the biggest deficit we have 
ever had. George the first gave us a $402 billion deficit. He exceeded 
the $400 billion mark. Now George the second, topped it with $421 
billion. The Senator from Oklahoma said that if you cut the taxes, you 
increase the revenues. George the first called that voodoo. This is 
voodoo two.
  Here is how we got into this particular dilemma, because we all are 
guilty on both sides of the aisle and on both sides of the Capitol. It 
was Mark Twain who said that the truth is such a precious thing, it 
should be used very sparingly.
  Well, not really kidding about the truth, going to the seriousness of 
the truth, it was never better stated than by my friend James Fallows, 
in his book ``Breaking the News'' back in 1996, when he related the 
debate over how you constitute and maintain a strong democratic 
government.
  The debate was between Walter Lippmann and John Dewey, the famous 
educator. It was Lippmann's contention that what you really need to do 
is get the best of minds in the particular disciplines--the best fellow 
on education, the best on forestry and fires, the best fellow on health 
care, the best fellow on defense, and whatever it is, the experts in 
the fields--to sit around the table and agree on the needs of the 
country and their expert solution to the problem of those needs.
  John Dewey, the famous educator, said: No, all we need to do is have 
the free press tell the truth to the American people. And out of those 
truths, emanating through their representatives, their Senators in 
Government in Washington, would come the proper programs to strengthen 
and maintain that democracy.
  That for the first time ever gave me the understanding of Jefferson's 
observation that as between a free government and a free press, he 
would choose the latter. Obviously, of course, with that free press 
telling the truth, we would always maintain a strong democracy. But we 
haven't been telling the truth.
  I have been trying for a good 20-some years now, since I was chairman 
of the Budget Committee, to get us to tell the truth: Simply, how much 
in revenues the Government took in, and how many expenditures there 
were. We need to find out what the net is, so we know whether we ended 
up with a surplus or with a deficit. Using this technique, the fiscal 
year 2002 deficit, that ended just two days ago, was $421 billion.
  How many Senators, time and time again, say: We have to hold the 
deficit to $165 billion, but we are not going to touch Social Security? 
How many Senators have said we have a $5.6 trillion surplus, but we are 
not going to touch Social Security?
  Let me go to the Social Security story. In 1935, under Franklin 
Delano Roosevelt, we passed the most formative of governmental 
programs. Between 1930 and 1969, we never used Social Security moneys 
to pay the Government's debt. However, in 1971, I was here when we had 
the famous expert on government finance, Congressman Wilbur Mills, and 
he started up into New Hampshire running for the Presidency, promising 
a 10-percent increase in the cost of living adjustment to the Social 
Security recipient.

[[Page 18860]]

  He said that we have such a surplus in the Social Security trust 
fund, he would give them a full 10 percent. Of course, President Nixon 
came back and said in the campaign: If he gives you 10 percent, I will 
give you 15 percent. With that one-upmanship during the 1970s, we were 
drained, and the Social Security trust fund almost went into the red by 
1980.
  We appointed the famous Greenspan Commission, which came out with a 
report in January 1983 called the ``National Commission on Social 
Security Reform.'' You will see under section 21--and I read from it:

       A majority of the members of the National Commission 
     recommends that the operations of the Social Security trust 
     funds should be removed from the unified budget.

  It took this Senator from 1983 until 1990--7 years--to get a vote on 
this. I finally got it out of the Budget Committee, but not 
unanimously. There was one vote by someone who said they would ``chase 
me down like a dog in the streets'' when I was recommending an increase 
in taxes in 1993. There was one Senator on that Budget Committee, who 
would surprise everybody, who said, no, he didn't want to put Social 
Security off budget. But when we came to a vote on the floor, 98 
Senators voted for it. President George Herbert Walker Bush, on 
November 5, 1990, signed section 13.301 of the Budget Act into law, 
which states:

       Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the receipts 
     and disbursements of the Social Security trust fund shall not 
     be counted in any budget of the United States Government.

  There it is. That is the law of the land. Unfortunately, there is no 
penalty if you don't follow it. I tried to get a penalty saying you 
would forfeit your own Social Security if ever you quoted a budget 
including the Social Security trust funds.
  I ask unanimous consent that this section be printed in the 
Congressional Record at this time, along with section 31 of the report.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       (21) A majority of the members of the National Commission 
     recommends that the operations of the OASI, DI, HI, and SMI 
     Trust Funds should be removed from the unified budget. Some 
     of those who do not support this recommendation believe that 
     the situation would be adequately handled if the operations 
     of the Social Security program were displayed within the 
     present unified Federal budget as a separate budget function, 
     apart from other income security programs.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has consumed 10 minutes.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I ask unanimous consent for another 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, in 1993, that same Alan Greenspan went 
down to Arkansas. To meet with President-Elect Bill Clinton at an 
economic conference. He said what we really needed to do is pay down 
the debt; then President Clinton came to town, and without a single 
Republican vote, we cut spending and we increased taxes. That is when 
the Senator from Texas, Mr. Gramm, said: If you increase taxes on 
Social Security, they will be hunting you Democrats down like dogs in 
the street and shooting you.
  Well, I voted to increase taxes on Social Security. I voted to 
increase taxes on gasoline. I voted to increase taxes on whom? The 
stock crowd in New York. And the stock crowd in New York rejoiced. They 
turned around and said: The Government in Washington finally has gotten 
serious and is going to pay down the bill--that huge debt--and we are 
going to start investing. Then we had an 8-year economic boom.
  Along comes candidate George W. Bush. When candidate Bush came on 
that campaign trail, I will never forget it. It was about this time, 
the year before last. He said he was going to cut taxes. I was watching 
it, being an old Budget Committee chairman and thinking, How in the 
world are they going to do this? They didn't have any taxes to cut. We 
got right into the black under President Clinton's economic plan. We 
were hearing about going in the absolute opposite direction and arguing 
now why. Everybody knows why.
  Immediately after his election in November, on the Friday of that 
particular week, Vice President Cheney said we were going to cut taxes. 
Everybody started taking him seriously. This was not just a campaign 
statement. Then I can tell you who pulled the plug on the economy--
irrationally exuberant Alan Greenspan himself. He appeared on January 
25--I ask unanimous consent this be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                  Testimony of Chairman Alan Greenspan

  (Before the Committee on the Budget, U.S. Senate, January 25, 2001)


   outlook for the federal budget and implications for fiscal policy

       I am pleased to appear here today to discuss some of the 
     important issues surrounding the outlook for the federal 
     budget and the attendant implications for the formulation of 
     fiscal policy. In doing so, I want to emphasize that I speak 
     for myself and not necessarily for the Federal Reserve.
       The challenges you face both in shaping a budget for the 
     coming year and in designing a longer-run strategy for fiscal 
     policy were brought into sharp focus by the release last week 
     of the Clinton Administration's final budget projections, 
     which showed further upward revisions of on-budget surpluses 
     for the next decade. The Congressional Budget Office also is 
     expected to again raise its projections when it issues its 
     report next week.
       The key factor driving the cumulative upward revisions in 
     the budget picture in recent years has been the extraordinary 
     pickup in the growth of labor productivity experienced in 
     this country since the mid-1990s. Between the early 1970s and 
     1995, output per hour in the nonfarm business sector rose 
     about 1\1/2\ percent per year, on average. Since 1995, 
     however, productivity growth has accelerated markedly, about 
     doubling the earlier pace, even after taking account of the 
     impetus from cyclical forces. Though hardly definitive, the 
     apparent sustained growth in measured productivity in the 
     face of a pronounced slowing in the growth of aggregate 
     demand during the second half of last year was an important 
     test of the extent of the improvement in structural 
     productivity. These most recent indications have added to the 
     accumulating evidence that the apparent increases in the 
     growth of output per hour are more than transitory.
       It is these observations that appear to be causing 
     economists, including those who contributed to the OMB and 
     the CBO budget projections, to raise their forecasts of the 
     economy's long-term growth rates and budget surpluses. This 
     increased optimism receives support from the forward-looking 
     indicators of technical innovation and structural 
     productivity growth, which have shown few signs of weakening 
     despite the marked curtailment in recent months of capital 
     investment plans for equipment and software.
       To be sure, these impressive upward revisions to the growth 
     of structural productivity and economic potential are based 
     on inferences drawn from economic relationships that are 
     different from anything we have considered in recent decades. 
     The resulting budget projections, therefore, are necessarily 
     subject to a relatively wide range of error. Reflecting the 
     uncertainties of forecasting well into the future, neither 
     the OMB nor the CBO projects productivity to continue to 
     improve at the stepped-up pace of the past few years. Both 
     expect productivity growth rates through the next decade to 
     average roughly 2\1/4\ to 2\1/2\ percent per year--far above 
     the average pace from the early 1970s to the mid-1990s, but 
     still below that of the past five years.
       Had the innovations of recent decades, especially in 
     information technologies, not come to fruition, productivity 
     growth during the past five to seven years, arguably, would 
     have continued to languish at the rate of the preceding 
     twenty years. The sharp increase in prospective long-term 
     rates of return on high-tech investments would not have 
     emerged as it did in the early 1990s, and the associated 
     surge in stock prices would surely have been largely absent. 
     The accompanying wealth effect, so evidently critical to the 
     growth of economic activity since the mid-1990s, would never 
     have materialized.
       In contrast, the experience of the past five to seven years 
     has been truly without recent precedent. The doubling of the 
     growth rate of output per hour has caused individuals' real 
     taxable income to grow nearly 2\1/2\ times as fast as it did 
     over the preceding ten years and resulted in the substantial 
     surplus of receipts over outlays that we are now 
     experiencing. Not only did taxable income rise with the 
     faster growth of GDP, but the associated large increase in 
     asset prices and capital gains created additional tax 
     liabilities not directly related to income from current 
     production.
       The most recent projections from the OMB indicate that, if 
     current policies remain in place, the total unified surplus 
     will reach $800 billion in fiscal year 2011, including an on-
     budget surplus of $500 billion. The CBO reportedly will be 
     showing even larger surpluses. Moreover, the admittedly quite 
     uncertain long-term budget exercises released

[[Page 18861]]

     by the CBO last October maintain an implicit on-budget 
     surplus under baseline assumptions well past 2030 despite the 
     budgetary pressures from the aging of the baby-boom 
     generation, especially on the major health programs.
       The most recent projections, granted their tentativeness, 
     nonetheless make clear that the highly desirable goal of 
     paying off the federal debt is in reach before the end of the 
     decade. This is in marked contrast to the perspective of a 
     year ago when the elimination of the debt did not appear 
     likely until the next decade.
       But continuing to run surpluses beyond the point at which 
     we reach zero or near-zero federal debt brings to center 
     stage the critical longer-term fiscal policy issue of whether 
     the federal government should accumulate large quantities of 
     private (more technically nonfederal) assets. At zero debt, 
     the continuing unified budget surpluses currently projected 
     imply a major accumulation of private assets by the federal 
     government. This development should factor materially into 
     the policies you and the Administration choose to pursue.
       I believe, as I have noted in the past, that the federal 
     government should eschew private asset accumulation because 
     it would be exceptionally difficult to insulate the 
     government's investment decisions from political pressures. 
     Thus, over time, having the federal government hold 
     significant amounts of private assets would risk sub-optimal 
     performance by our capital markets, diminished economic 
     efficiency, and lower overall standards of living than would 
     be achieved otherwise.
       Short of an extraordinarily rapid and highly undesirable 
     short-term dissipation of unified surpluses or a transferring 
     of assets to individual privatized accounts, it appears 
     difficult to avoid at least some accumulation of private 
     assets by the government.
       Private asset accumulation may be forced upon us well short 
     of reaching zero debt. Obviously, savings bonds and state and 
     local government series bonds are not readily redeemable 
     before maturity. But the more important issue is the 
     potentially rising cost of retiring marketable Treasury debt. 
     While shorter-term marketable securities could be allowed to 
     run off as they mature, longer-term issues would have to be 
     retired before maturity through debt buybacks. The magnitudes 
     are large: As of January 1, for example, there was in excess 
     of three quarters of a trillion dollars in outstanding 
     nonmarketable securities, such as savings bonds and state and 
     local series issues, and marketable securities (excluding 
     those held by the Federal Reserve) that do not mature and 
     could not be called before 2011. Some holders of long-term 
     Treasury securities may be reluctant to give them up, 
     especially those who highly value the risk-free status of 
     those issues. Inducing such holders, including foreign 
     holders, to willingly offer to sell their securities prior to 
     maturity could require paying premiums that far exceed any 
     realistic value of retiring the debt before maturity.
       Decisions about what type of private assets to acquire and 
     to which federal accounts they should be directed must be 
     made well before the policy is actually implemented, which 
     could occur in as little as five to seven years from now. 
     These choices have important implications for the balance of 
     saving and, hence, investment in our economy. For example, 
     transferring government savings to individual private 
     accounts as a means of avoiding the accumulation of private 
     assets in the government accounts could significantly affect 
     how social security will be funded in the future.
       Short of some privatization, it would be preferable in my 
     judgment to allocate the required private assets to the 
     social security trust funds, rather than to on-budget 
     accounts. To be sure, such trust fund investments are subject 
     to the same concerns about political pressures as on-budget 
     investments would be. The expectation that the retirement of 
     the baby-boom generation will eventually require a drawdown 
     of these fund balances does, however, provide some mitigation 
     of these concerns.
       Returning to the broader picture, I continue to believe, as 
     I have testified previously, that all else being equal, a 
     declining level of federal debt is desirable because it holds 
     down long-term real interest rates, thereby lowering the cost 
     of capital and elevating private investment. The rapid 
     capital deepening that has occurred in the U.S. economy in 
     recent years is a testament to these benefits. But the 
     sequence of upward revisions to the budget surplus 
     projections for several years now has reshaped the choices 
     and opportunities before us. Indeed, in almost any credible 
     baseline scenario, short of a major and prolonged economic 
     contraction, the full benefits of debt reduction are now 
     achieved before the end of this decade--a prospect that did 
     not seem likely only a year or even six months ago.
       The most recent data significantly raise the probability 
     that sufficient resources will be available to undertake both 
     debt reduction and surplus lowering policy initiatives. 
     Accordingly, the tradeoff faced earlier appears no longer an 
     issue. The emerging key fiscal policy need is to address the 
     implications of maintaining surpluses beyond the point at 
     which publicly held debt is effectively eliminated.
       The time has come, in my judgement, to consider a budgetary 
     strategy that is consistent with a preemptive smoothing of 
     the glide path to zero federal debt or, more realistically, 
     to the level of federal debt that is an effective irreducible 
     minimum. Certainly, we should make sure that social security 
     surpluses are large enough to meet our long-term needs and 
     seriously consider explicit mechanisms that will help ensure 
     that outcome. Special care must be taken not to conclude that 
     wraps on fiscal discipline are no longer necessary. At the 
     same time, we must avoid a situation in which we come upon 
     the level of irreducible debt so abruptly that the only 
     alternative to the accumulation of private assets would be a 
     sharp reduction in taxes and/or increase in expenditures, 
     because these actions might occur at a time when sizable 
     economic stimulus would be inappropriate. In other words, 
     budget policy should strive to limit potential disruptions by 
     making the on-budget surplus economically inconsequential 
     when the debt is effectively paid off.
       In general, as I have testified previously, if long-term 
     fiscal stability is the criterion, it is far better, in my 
     judgment, that the surpluses be lowered by tax reductions 
     than by spending increases. The flurry of increases in 
     outlays that occurred near the conclusion of last fall's 
     budget deliberations is troubling because it makes the 
     previous year's lack of discipline less likely to have been 
     an aberration.
       To be sure, with the burgeoning federal surpluses, fiscal 
     policy has not yet been unduly compromised by such actions. 
     But history illustrates the difficulty of keeping spending in 
     check, especially in programs that are open-ended 
     commitments, which too often have led to much larger outlays 
     than initially envisioned. It is important to recognize that 
     government expenditures are claims against real resources and 
     that, while those claims may be unlimited, our capacity to 
     meet them is ultimately constrained by the growth in 
     productivity. Moreover, the greater the drain of resources 
     from the private sector, arguably, the lower the growth 
     potential of the economy. In contrast to most spending 
     programs, tax reductions have downside limits. They cannot be 
     open-ended.
       Lately there has been much discussion of cutting taxes to 
     confront the evident pronounced weakening in recent economic 
     performance. Such tax initiatives, however, historically have 
     proved difficult to implement in the time frame in which 
     recessions have developed and ended. For example, although 
     President Ford proposed in January of 1975 that withholding 
     rates be reduced, this easiest of tax changes was not 
     implemented until May, when the recession was officially over 
     and the recovery was gathering force. Of course, had that 
     recession lingered through the rest of 1975 and beyond, the 
     tax cuts would certainly have been helpful. In today's 
     context, where tax reduction appears required in any event 
     over the next several years to assist in forestalling the 
     accumulation of private assets, starting that process sooner 
     rather than later likely would help smooth the transition to 
     longer-term fiscal balance. And should current economic 
     weakness spread beyond what now appears likely, having a tax 
     cut in place may, in fact, do noticeably good.
       As for tax policy over the longer run, most economists 
     believe that it should be directed at setting rates at the 
     levels required to meet spending commitments, while doing so 
     in a manner that minimizes distortions, increases efficiency, 
     and enhances incentives for saving, investment, and work.
       In recognition of the uncertainties in the economic and 
     budget outlook, it is important that any long-term tax plan, 
     or spending initiative for that matter, be phased in. 
     Conceivably, it could include provisions that, in some way, 
     would limit surplus-reducing actions if specified targets for 
     the budget surplus and federal debt were not satisfied. Only 
     if the probability was very low that prospective tax cuts or 
     new outlay initiatives would send the on-budget accounts into 
     deficit, would unconditional initiatives appear prudent.
       The reason for caution, of course, rests on the 
     tentativeness of our projections. What if, for example, the 
     forces driving the surge in tax revenues in recent years 
     begin to dissipate or reverse in ways that we do not foresee? 
     Indeed, we still do not have a full understanding of the 
     exceptional strength in individual income tax receipts during 
     the latter 1990s. To the extent that some of the surprise has 
     been indirectly associated with the surge in asset values in 
     the 1990s, the softness in equity prices over the past year 
     has highlighted some of the risks going forward.
       Indeed, the current economic weakness may reveal a less 
     favorable relationship between tax receipts, income, and 
     asset prices than has been assumed in recent projections. 
     Until we receive full detail on the distribution by income of 
     individual tax liabilities for 1999, 2000, and perhaps 2001, 
     we are making little more than informed guesses of certain 
     key relationships between income and tax receipts.
       To be sure, unless later sources do reveal major changes in 
     tax liability determination, receipts should be reasonably 
     well-

[[Page 18862]]

     maintained in the near term, as the effects of earlier gains 
     in asset values continue to feed through with a lag into tax 
     liabilities. But the longer-run effects of movements in asset 
     values are much more difficult to assess, and those 
     uncertainties would intensify should equity prices remain 
     significantly off their peaks. Of course, the uncertainties 
     in the receipts outlook do seem less troubling in view of the 
     cushion provided by the recent sizable upward revisions to 
     the ten-year surplus projections. But the risk of adverse 
     movements in receipt is still real, and the probability of 
     dropping back into deficit as a consequence of imprudent 
     fiscal policies is not negligible.
       In the end, the outlook for federal budget surpluses rests 
     fundamentally on expectations of longer-term trends in 
     productivity, fashioned by judgments about the technologies 
     that underlie these trends. Economists have long noted that 
     the diffusion of technology starts slowly, accelerates, and 
     then slows with maturity. But knowing where we now stand in 
     that sequence is difficult--if not impossible--in real time. 
     As the CBO and the OMB acknowledge, they have been cautious 
     in their interpretation of recent productivity developments 
     and in their assumptions going forward. That seems 
     appropriate given the uncertainties that surround even these 
     relatively moderate estimates for productivity growth. Faced 
     with these uncertainties, it is crucial that we develop 
     budgetary strategies that deal with any disappointments that 
     could occur.
       That said, as I have argued for some time, there is a 
     distinct possibility that much of the development and 
     diffusion of new technologies in the current wave of 
     innovation still lies ahead, and we cannot rule out 
     productivity growth rates greater than is assumed in the 
     official budget projections. Obviously, if that turns out to 
     be the case, the existing level of tax rates would have to be 
     reduced to remain consistent with currently projected budget 
     outlays.
       The changes in the budget outlook over the past several 
     years are truly remarkable. Little more than a decade ago, 
     the Congress established budget controls that were considered 
     successful because they were instrumental in squeezing the 
     burgeoning budget deficit to tolerable dimensions. 
     Nevertheless, despite the sharp curtailment of defense 
     expenditures under way during those years, few believed that 
     a surplus was anywhere on the horizon. And the notion that 
     the rapidly mounting federal debt could be paid off would not 
     have been taken seriously.
       But let me end on a cautionary note. With today's euphoria 
     surrounding the surpluses, it is not difficult to imagine in 
     the hard-earned fiscal restraint developed in recent years 
     rapidly . . .

  He said that ``by continuing to run surpluses beyond the point of 
which we reach zero, Federal debt brings to center stage the critical 
longer term fiscal policy issue of whether the Federal Government 
should accumulate large quantities of private assets. I believe that 
the Federal Government should eschew private assets accumulation. Of 
course, having the Federal Government hold the significant amounts of 
private assets would risk sub-optimal performance of our capital 
markets, diminish economic efficiency, and lower overall standards of 
living.''
  He talked of ``burgeoning Federal surpluses.'' That was just last 
year, in January. He said that surpluses should be lowered by tax 
reductions rather than by spending increases.
  He said:

       The most recent data significantly raised the probability 
     that sufficient resources will be available to undertake both 
     debt reduction and surplus lowering.

  Does anybody here need better permission than that, than to have Alan 
Greenspan give you the stamp of approval for cutting taxes?
  Mr. President, the President talked a month later, in February, in 
his State of the Union, and he said:

       To make sure the retirement savings of America's seniors 
     are not diverted in any other program, my budget projects all 
     $2.6 trillion of the Social Security surplus for Social 
     Security, and for Social Security alone. At the end of these 
     10 years, we will have paid down all of the debt. That is 
     more debt repaid more quickly than has ever been repaid by 
     any nation in history.

  He says, going further:

       My budget sets aside almost a trillion dollars over 10 
     years for additional needs.

  I could read more. But don't come now and say we have huge deficits 
because of 9/11. The cost of 9/11 is under $32 billion. The terrorism 
war didn't cause this huge deficit. If it did, the President said just 
a year ago, he had a trillion dollars ready to take care of anything 
unexpected.
  So there you are, Mr. President. What we did is to give out some 
rebates. I had an amendment on the floor on this. We passed it in June 
and paid it out around September. It was too late; it wasn't enough. 
More than anything else, it didn't give the payroll taxpayers--the ones 
who would spend the money, the people who were pulling the wagon, 
paying the taxes, keeping the schools going, and everything else of 
that kind, working around the clock--they didn't get any particular tax 
cut.
  So then this August I moved finally on the budget with respect to the 
SEC certification. If the SEC was busy asking the CEOs of America's 
largest companies to swear that their financial reports were in order, 
I thought that Mitch Daniels should do the same for the Office of 
Management and Budget.
  Here on this chart we have listed more than 600 CEOs who complied. On 
August 14, the deadline day, there were only two exceptions--the CEO of 
the IT Group, Mitch Daniels of the United States of America. Let me 
scratch out the IT Group because they have since been heard from.
  I wrote Mitch Daniels, the Director of the Office of Management and 
Budget, and I said: Are you going to also certify on August 14? The 
next day, the New York Times reported that Mr. Daniels said he would 
have a reply to Mr. Hollings ready in a day or two.
  That was on August 15. I still do not have a reply. I guess he wants 
an extension.
  How are we going to get truth in budgeting? It is very interesting 
that we passed, in 1994, the Pension Reform Act whereby companies are 
not allowed to use pension money of corporations to pay off company 
debt. We had Carl Icahn and all of those quick artists who took money 
from these corporations and ran.
  Unfortunately, our friend, the famous pitcher, Denny McLain in 
Detroit, when he headed up a corporation and took money, was convicted 
of a felony. I said: If you can find the jail where he is serving--I am 
confident he is out by now--tell him next time to run for the U.S. 
Senate. Instead of a jail term, you get the Good Government Award. That 
is what we have going on.
  You cannot treat expenditures as revenues. That is exactly Kenny Boy 
Lay's Enron program, but Kenny Boy did not invent it. We invented it up 
here under voodoo Reagan and now with voodoo Bush 2, George W. He broke 
the Government. He has the sorriest economic team you have ever seen. 
He still naively does not understand the economy, asking for tax cuts. 
He is continuing to wreck us, and until he gets rid of that team and 
quits talking tax cuts and starts talking economic sense, the market 
will never turn around, I can tell you that right now.
  Mr. President, let's please tell the truth. I ask unanimous consent 
that the public debt to the penny by the Treasurer of the United 
States, Secretary O'Neill, be printed in the Record showing we ended 
fiscal year 2002 with a $421 billion deficit.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                          THE DEBT TO THE PENNY
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                         Amount
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current: 9-30-2002............................     $6,228,235,965,597.16
Current month:
  9-27-2002...................................      6,193,334,713,434.45
  9-26-2002...................................      6,195,917,334,028.10
  9-25-2002...................................      6,201,863,128,192.67
  9-24-2002...................................      6,202,454,383,502.58
  9-23-2002...................................      6,201,634,677,013.67
  9-20-2002...................................      6,199,849,505,001.03
  9-19-2002...................................      6,199,158,297,617.64
  9-18-2002...................................      6,203,601,028,501.77
  9-17-2002...................................      6,206,073,469,907.30
  9-16-2002...................................      6,198,239,142,009.48
  9-13-2002...................................      6,206,509,037,316.48
  9-12-2002...................................      6,207,448,344,943.44
  9-11-2002...................................      6,212,731,396,360.16
  9-10-2002...................................      6,206,134,982,821.32
  9-9-2002....................................      6,200,848,240,187.31
  9-6-2002....................................      6,203,279,922,857.50
  9-5-2002....................................      6,203,621,876,964.50
  9-4-2002....................................      6,201,449,286,859.25
  9-3-2002....................................      6,194,089,703,019.91
Prior months:
  8-30-2002...................................      6,210,481,675,956.26
  7-31-2002...................................      6,159,740,790,009.39
  6-28-2002...................................      6,126,468,760,400.48
  5-31-2002...................................      6,019,332,312,247.55
  4-30-2002...................................      5,984,677,357,213.86
  3-29-2002...................................      6,006,031,606,265.38
  2-28-2002...................................      6,003,453,016,583.85
  1-31-2002...................................      5,937,228,743,476.27
  12-31-2001..................................      5,943,438,563,436.13
  11-30-2001..................................      5,888,896,887,571.34
  10-31-2001..................................      5,815,983,290,402.24
Prior fiscal years:
  9-28-2001...................................      5,807,463,412,200.06
  9-29-2000...................................      5,674,178,209,886.86
  9-30-1999...................................      5,656,270,901,615.43

[[Page 18863]]

 
  9-30-1998...................................      5,526,193,008,897.62
  9-30-1997...................................      5,413,146,011,397.34
  9-30-1996...................................      5,224,810,939,135.73
  9-29-1995...................................      4,973,982,900,709.39
  9-30-1994...................................      4,692,749,910,013.32
  9-30-1993...................................      4,411,488,883,139.38
  9-30-1992...................................      4,064,620,655,521.66
  9-30-1991...................................      3,665,303,351,697.03
  9-28-1990...................................      3,233,313,451,777.25
  9-29-1989...................................      2,857,430,960,187.32
  9-30-1988...................................      2,602,337,712,041.16
  9-30-1987...................................      2,350,276,890,953.00
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Bureau of the Public Debt.

  Mr. HOLLINGS. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Carper). The Senator from Nevada.

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