S6852 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE May 18, 1995

Senators from Oklahoma and Nevada

be allowed to continue.

Mr. INHOFE. Reserving the right to

object, I would like to not have that

extend beyond the next 2 minutes because I want the use the last 8 minutes.

Mr. REID. If I could have 1 minute to

respond.

Mr. INHOFE. No objection.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. REID. I would say, first of all,

that was wrongly characterized as the

largest tax increase in history. And I

would further state that the Senate

budget we have received also has a tax

cut. It is disguised. But what it does,

any savings that come as a result of

the balanced budget would be referred

to the Finance Committee and the Finance Committee only use that money

for tax decreases.

So both the Senate version of the

budget and the House version of the

budget have tax cuts. The House was

more apparent in theirs. They have

about $385 billion in tax cuts. The Senate proposal is a little more camouflaged but there is still a call for $170

billion in tax cuts because that is all

the Finance Committee could use the

money for as savings.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I

would be happy to yield the time I have

to the Senator from Oklahoma.

BALANCING THE FEDERAL

fBUDGET

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of

all, I thank the Senator from Nevada

for responding to questions. I would

like to make an observation.

I had the occasion to be sitting in the

chair for the past hour before the current occupant of the chair, and I listened to the discussion that took place

in the Chamber. It occurred to me that

maybe some people for the first time

realize how truly difficult it is to balance the budget.

I had an occasion last night to see on

C-SPAN the Democratic whip in the

House of Representatives standing up

and talking and stating over and over

and over again that they are requesting reductions in taxes for the very

wealthy people and that those reductions in taxes will be paid by what has

always been referred to as the working

people. And I have always found that

to be a little offensive. It is kind of implying that other people are not working. I think it is a very clever way to

state it because everyone identifies

with that.

But we are at a defining moment

right now. There was truly a revolution that took place on November 8,

1994, and everyone agrees with this. I

know there are others who do not like

the way it turned out, but the conservatives did, in fact, win.

And while there is a lot of confusion

over this as to how it must be done, the

message that came in November 1994

was: ‘‘We demand change. We don’t

want the status quo.’’

Now we are seeing the defenders of

the status quo on this floor talking

about, ‘‘Well, we can’t do this. We can’t

have a balanced budget amendment to

the Constitution. We can’t adopt the

budget as proposed by the Republicans

because it might incur a hardship on

some of the people in this country.’’

I would suggest, first of all, that we

make it abundantly clear that the

budget that is going to be proposed in

both the other body and in this body

does not have a cut in Medicare. As a

matter of fact, it adds a bit in growth

in Medicare. That growth is somewhere

around 7.1 percent.

The President had a report from his

trustees on Medicare. There are six of

them. He appointed them. We are talking about people like Donna Shalala

and people like the other Cabinet members. They reported to the President of

the United States that if we do not do

something about Medicare, Medicare

will start into a deficit in the fiscal

year of 1997 and will be broke, bankrupt, in the year 2002.

Now, there are a lot of people watching right now who, like me, will reach

the age of 65 by the year 2002, and they

have to understand that this is not a

Republican suggestion or study that

has developed the conclusion that it

will go broke by the year 2002. These

are the trustees of the Medicare system

that were appointed by the President.

Now what has the President done

since then? Where is the President? He

has not even responded to that. And

yet, he is adhering to his budget. Only

yesterday, he announced he was going

to veto the rescissions bill, which was

a reduction in spending of $16.4 billion,

the largest single reduction, I believe,

in the history of this country. He says

he is going to veto this reduction, the

spending reductions.

I think it is just inconceivable that

someone who ran for office on reducing

spending, someone who ran on a balanced budget for this country, would

now come up and say, in this fiscal

year of 1995, the rescissions bill that

has been proposed and that was passed

by a majority of votes in the House and

the Senate will be vetoed by the President of the United States.

I also think it is necessary for us to

reaffirm our commitment to children. I

hear over and over again about this

program is going to be cut, or that program is going to be cut.

Yes, some programs are going to be

cut and there are going to be some

hardships if we do successfully balance

the budget by the year 2002. But we

cannot stand up here on the floor, as

the Senator from Nevada did a few moments ago, and talk about the fact that

every Senator, every one of the 100

Senators here in the U.S. Senate,

wants to have a balanced budget by the

year 2002 and not do anything today to

bring it about.

You know, this is an exciting time.

Right now, this week, we are going to

be debating, and next week we probably will have a vote in both bodies on

a budget that will eliminate the deficit

by the year 2002.

I heard Congressman DELAY talk

about the fact that he has been waiting

his entire life for this moment to come.

And all of those who voted for a major

change on November 8, 1994, this is the

change. Of all the things that that

mandate said to Congress from the

American people, it said we want less

Government intrusion in our lives. It

said that we want to do something

about keeping America strong in its

defense. But, first and foremost, it

said, we want to balance the budget.

I had an experience the other day

when we had our National Prayer

Breakfast. When I left the House, I was

president of the House Prayer Breakfast, so I was kind of in charge, I say to

the Senator, of the international visitors.

There was a gentleman who came

into our National Prayer Breakfast

from Moldavia. He was beaming from

ear to ear. He came up to me and he

said, ‘‘Senator, we are so proud. We

now have a free economy. We have been

under communism for all these years,

now we have democracy. But I have a

question to ask you. In America, how

much can you keep?′′

And I said, ‘‘I’m sorry, I don’t think

I understand your question.’’ He said,

‘‘In America, how much does the Government take from you?′′

Then I understood what he was saying, and so I gave him a figure that I

would hate to have to stand here and

try to justify.

But he said, very proudly, ‘‘In

Moldavia, when we go out and we earn

a dollar, we get to keep 20 cents.’’

They have some kind of a periodic

collection. At the end of every month,

they have to give 80 cents out of every

dollar they earn to the Government. He

was so proud they had reached that

point.

I thought how fortunate we are in

this country, until I realized and

looked at the picture of my two grandchildren. And the CBO, and others in

every study, no one has disagreed, said

that if we do not do something to

change the trend in this country of deficit spending, that anyone who is born

today will have to spend 82 percent of

his or her lifetime income to support

the Government. And that is worse off

than they are in Moldavia.

So I would just caution you, Mr.

President, and others who may hear

the stories of the bleeding hearts talking about all these Government programs that are going to be cut, to stop

and realize, in most cases, that is not

true at all. It is not the case of Social

Security, it is not the case of Medicare,

it is not the case of Medicaid.

And if, in fact, we could actually put

a growth cap on Government, as I

think one amendment by Senator

GRAMM is going to attempt to do, of 3.2
May 18, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6853

percent, we end up balancing the budget without cutting one Federal program and without reducing one Federal

program by merely putting caps on.

So I think we have to ask ourselves a

question, Mr. President, not should we

do this this week or next week, but

what happens if we do not. Are we

going to have another opportunity in

the U.S. Senate or the other body to

actually come up with a balanced budget? And we have to ask the question:

Where will our children be if we do not

vote properly?

I know there are well-meaning people

on the other side of this. They say we

want a balanced budget, they want to

do something by the year 2002. I would

like to do it sooner. Most of us would.

But talking is one thing and doing is

another thing.

It is not going to be easy, but I suggest to you, Mr. President—I know

that my time is up and morning business up—I suggest to you, if we do not

do it this time, we will probably not be

able to do it in our lifetimes.

I yield back the remainder of my

time.

CONCLUSION OF MORNING

fBUSINESS

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Morning

business is closed.

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON

THE BUDGET

fThe PRESIDING OFFICER. Under

the previous order, the Senate will now

proceed to the consideration of Senate

Concurrent Resolution 13, which the

clerk will report.

The legislative clerk read as follows:

A concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 13)

setting forth the congressional budget for

the United States Government for the fiscal

years 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002.

The Senate proceeded to consider the

concurrent resolution.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I

have been authorized by the chairman

to speak, and the time to come off the

resolution.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr.

CAMPBELL). The Senator from Pennsylvania.

Mr. SANTORUM. Thank you, Mr.

President.

I feel somewhat privileged to be the

first person to speak on this historic

resolution that has just been laid down

by the U.S. Senate. It is, in fact, a historic moment for this Chamber that we

are going to finally come to grips and

face and look straight in the eye the

future of our country and the children

of our country and say we are now prepared to act on your behalf. We are

now prepared to take the tough stands

and to weather the beatings that we

will be getting from the press and from

the other side to stand up for the future generations of Americans so we

can, like my grandfather who came

here as an immigrant and my father

who came here as a immigrant, try to

leave the country better off and with

more opportunities than their generation had.

We have stopped doing that in America, and this is a chance to start over,

to start anew, to give us the opportunity right here on this Senate floor

to move forward, to move this country

forward into a new millennium with

sound fiscal policy and with opportunity available to every American.

That is what this is all about.

This is not about the minutiae that

you are going to hear on the floor of

the Senate about, ‘‘Oh, well, we’re

going to cut this program and as a result of the program’’—listen, a Government program, a Government program

which most people know, most Government programs, big administrative

costs, do not necessarily target the

way they are supposed to, but we are

going to cut a Government program

and there will be hundreds of them discussed in the next 50 hours.

We are going to take a Government

program and that program itself will

jeopardize our future so greatly that it

is more important to preserve this little bit more funding for this program

than it is to balance the Federal budget and to preserve the long-term future

of this country. That argument in itself just fails; it is ridiculous. There is

nothing we do in Washington, DC—

nothing—no individual program that

stands above providing future generations the opportunity to succeed in

America. Nothing.

So when you look and you hear all

the debate about all the minutiae that

you are going to discuss, all the little

programs that somebody likes to scare

people with that we are going to abolish or cut or whatever, remember the

big picture. The big picture is: We balance the budget in 7 years, we provide

fiscal sanity for future generations

and, frankly, for this generation with

several programs, and that is what we

have to focus on. That is what the issue

is.

You are going to hear a lot about, as

I was hearing a few minutes ago, tax

cuts for the rich paid for by cutting

working middle-class programs, so we

are going to take money away from

working Americans, working American

families for tax cuts for the rich. I do

not know about you, but as far as I understand the Tax Code, you get taxed if

you work, you get taxed if you make

money. So if you are cutting taxes for

people who work, I do not know how

that is hurting working American families, particularly since the biggest

item in the tax cut proposal that is

being proposed is a tax cut of $500 for

families, a credit of $500 per family.

Now, how is that hurting families?

The only families that could conceivably hurt are those that do not have

children and those who do not make

enough money to pay taxes. But to say

that you are cutting programs for taxpaying families, yeah, OK, but then we

are giving it back to them where they

can spend the money where they want

to spend it. They get all of it, not siphoned off from Washington with the

administrative costs and the overhead

and the direction of what we think is

best to spend money, but they get the

whole pot.

I see the majority leader is here, so I

will cease my comments because I

know he is really the proper one to

lead this off. But I am telling you, this

is going to be a great day in the U.S.

Senate. It is a day that we should be

very, very proud, as all Members of the

Senate, that we are having this discussion. It is unfortunate that the President of the United States has chosen

not to participate in this discussion,

that he has chosen to sit on the sidelines and throw either confetti or darts

from the stands and not participate

and get involved in solving the No. 1

problem of this Nation by presenting a

budget that is balanced.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader, Senator DOLE, is recognized.

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I thank my

colleague from Pennsylvania. I commend him for his forthright statement.

This is going to be a very important

debate, in effect, for everybody in

America, I believe for the better if we

can keep it on that plane. I certainly

look forward to Senator DOMENICI’s

opening statement, and I will follow

with my budget statement after Senator DOMENICI.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I assume we will follow the typical process

and procedure that we have in the past.

As the majority leader of the bill, I will

have some opening remarks and I, obviously, will quickly yield to the Senator

from Nebraska who will have his opening remarks. I would like the Senate to

know that as we read the budget law,

there is up to 4 hours for discussion of

economics and the macro effect of the

budget and the like. Some Senators on

our side would like to speak during

that period to what they consider to be

a historic event, a redefining event for

America. So we are going to let as

many of them as possible do that without in any way violating our comity

with the other side. As soon as we can,

we will get into a rotation on amendments.

The Senator from New Mexico will

try sometime this evening to offer the

first amendment. It should come as a

shock to no one. It will be the President’s budget. The President’s press

secretary suggested yesterday that it

would be a much better starting point

to start with the President. So we will

accommodate and put that budget before the Senate and see what they

think about it. Then we will go to the

Democrat side for their amendment

and we will move back and forth.

I am permitted by the majority leader pursuant to his instructions to talk

about the fact that we are going to be

in next week late. If the full 50 hours is

going to be used, obviously we are