S6850 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE May 18, 1995

approved just barely a week ago in a

letter from the Secretary of Agriculture, whom as we know, is the supervisor of the Forest Service, expressly wrote to Senator HATFIELD and

said that the Senate version was much

preferable than the House version.

Yesterday, the result of the conference committee was described by

the President of the United States in

these words:

There is another thing which is in this bill

which I really object to which would basically direct us to make timber sales to large

companies subsidized by the taxpayers,

mostly in the Pacific Northwest, and that

will essentially throw out all of our environmental laws and the protections that we

have that surround such timber sales. It

would also put us back into the courts.

Now, Mr. President, the language to

which the White House now objects,

says is subject to a veto, was first, the

language they approved when it passed

the Senate in the first place, which was

the subject of an explicit letter from

the Secretary of Agriculture—a letter

of approval, and which was changed

only in ways proposed by Members of

the President’s own party as a result of

suggestions from people in the administration themselves.

It does not direct timber sales to

large companies in any respect whatever. Most of the large companies in

the Pacific Northwest are ineligible to

bid on Forest Service timber. It is not

subsidized by the taxpayers. The Congressional Budget Office told the Senate it will net the Treasury some $80

million.

It is not mostly in the Pacific Northwest but includes every national forest

around the country. It does not throw

out the environmental laws at all. It

allows the administration to continue

to follow every one of them as presumably it has, in connection with its own

plans. And it not only does not put

them back into the courts, it takes

them out.

So every single description of this

proposal by the President of the United

States is in error. Every single element. This proposal merely allows the

President to do what he has told the

people of the Pacific Northwest and the

country he intends to do anyway, and

freeze up the lawsuits over that subject.

I think the summary, Mr. President,

is just this: The administration, and

regrettably many of the Members on

the other side of the aisle, whether it is

in this rescissions bill or the budget

resolution, favor the status quo. And

$200 to $300 million deficits as far as

the eye can see are fine. They have no

other proposal, no other alternative.

Cutting 1 percent of this year’s budget is really too much, too drastic. Has

to be vetoed. Allowing the President to

keep his own promises to timber communities, too radical a proposal.

Everything is just fine with all the

laws and all the spending policies right

now. That is the message we get. Just

fine. We should not make any chains.

We will object to everything that is

proposed by the new majority party.

We will prevent them from keeping

their commitments, but we will not

offer any alternatives at all.

Mr. President, that is not a satisfactory way with which to conduct the

Nation’s business. It is not what the

people of this country want. We have

promised them change and a respect

for our commitments. And we will continue to struggle, I trust, ultimately

successfully, to just that end.

I yield the floor. 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. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the

quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered.

Under the previous order, the Senator from Nevada [Mr. REID] is recognized to speak for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that that be extended to

15 minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, the issue

THE BUDGET

fbefore this body that will begin in approximately half an hour is not whether the Republicans are for a balanced

budget or the Democrats are for a balanced budget. The question is how

should we arrive at that balanced budget? All of us want to pass a resolution

getting our financial house in order.

The issue is one of priority. How are we

going to resolve difficult issues before

the American people in an effort to arrive at this balanced budget?

We have heard a great deal of talk

these past few months about the need

for deficit reduction. Many on the

other side of the aisle have talked

about a balanced budget, and rightfully

so. I say to my friends on the other side

of the aisle, and I say to the American

public, where were those same people

in the fall of 1993 when the Democrats

alone without a single Republican vote

in the House or the Senate passed the

largest deficit reduction package in the

history of this country? Where were

they? There was not a single Republican vote for the largest deficit reduction package in the history of this

country. I say that would have been

the time to start the debate regarding

a balanced budget.

Mr. President, the deficit reduction

package that was passed in 1993 is projected today by the CBO to reduce the

deficit by $600 billion. The deficit will

be exactly $16 billion less over 5 years

because of the deficit reduction plan

that was passed in 1993. Because of the

Democrat plan, the 1994 deficit as a

percentage of gross domestic product is

projected to be the lowest among the

G–7 countries. This year we are going

to again have a declining deficit. For

the first time in 50 years we will have

had 3 years in a row where we have had

declining deficits. Of course, it should

be declining more, but the first time in

50 years. That says a lot.

Because of the deficit plan, the unemployment rate is at 5.8 percent,

down from 7 percent in 1992. We have

had the lowest unemployment and the

lowest inflation combined in the last 2

years than it has been in the last 50

years. There are now about 1.5 million

fewer people unemployed than at the

start of this administration, a 15-percent drop.

So I think it is important to talk

about some of the good things that are

happening in our economy. Because of

that deficit reduction plan, over 6.3

million new jobs have been created.

Keep in mind these are not Government jobs because we reduced the Federal work force by hundreds of thousands of people. We have the lowest

Federal employment since the Kennedy

administration, right now; not in the

future but right now. Significantly, the

jobs that have been created as a result

of the deficit reduction are in the highwage industries. For example, managerial, professional jobs make up 58 percent of the new jobs created since 1994.

These jobs are good jobs.

What about taxes? According to CBO

the deficit reduction package resulted

in 98-plus percent approaching 99 percent of Americans paying the same or

less taxes as a result of that deficit reduction plan. CPI inflation over the

past 2 years averaged just 2.8 percent.

That is the lowest of any administration since President Kennedy was

President.

The existing home sales for 1994 total

almost 4 million. This is the largest

total since 1978 and the second-largest

total ever.

Since our deficit reduction plan was

passed, consumer confidence is up by

almost 80 percent. Business investment, investment in producers of durable equipment, which is shown to be

closely associated with productivity,

again has soared to a 18.6 annual

growth rate since 1992. This is a postwar high.

Mr. President, let us not talk about

the doom and gloom. Let us take a little bit of time to enjoy the goodness

that is in the economy. Since passage

of that deficit reduction plan the World

Economic Forum has declared that the

United States has the world’s most

competitive economy. Some may say,

‘‘So what?’’ Well, this is the first time

in 9 years that we have been selected

for that honor.

Again, I repeat, let us look at what is

good. Why do we have to dwell on the

doom and gloom? The economy is vibrant. It is strong.

There may be someone in this 100-

Member body that would argue against

a balanced budget. I do not know who

it would be. But there could be someone. I say that we should have a balanced budget. And we are going to have

that. A debate ensued here a while
May 18, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6851

back where some suggested that the

only way we can have a balanced budget is we amend the Constitution. It

does not appear that is the case.

We are going to have a balanced

budget by the year 2002. That is what

was stated in the balanced budget

amendment that was defeated here; we

can do it without a balanced budget.

The reason that some pushed for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution is they wanted to use Social

Security. It would have been a lot easier way to balance the budget had we

used the huge surpluses that are going

to be accumulated; as, for example,

this year $80 billion, the year 2002, $111

billion. That would have been the easy

way to balance the budget. But I and a

number of others said, ‘‘Why don’t we

do it the right way, the honest but

hard way, and balance the budget without depleting the surplus in Social Security, so that by the year 2002, we

would not only have had a balanced

budget, but we would still have a

strong, vibrant Social Security system?’’ That is the important thing. I

think that is what we are going to wind

up doing here.

The proposal that we have by the

Budget Committee will certainly define the difference between the two

parties. We need to talk about priorities.

Very succinctly stated, is it right to

decimate Medicare by cutting it by $256

billion, or is it more important to not

give a tax cut as in the budget that we

have in the Senate Budget Committee

of $170 billion, almost $400 billion in

the House proposal? Let us do away

with those tax cuts and apply that

money to Medicare, to education. And

why do we have in the Senate version

this enormous tax increase on wageearning families?

And I say to my friends in the Senate

and those within the sound of my

voice, $28,000 a year, why would we

want to increase the taxes for people

who are making about double minimum wage?

In the 1993 reduction package, the

reason we gave a tax break to people

who are earning less than $28,000 a year

was so that there would be an incentive

to get off welfare and and go to work.

And now we are being told that is the

wrong way to go.

If we want to reform welfare, the

only way we can do it is through incentives to work. And what this thing we

call the earned income tax credit does

is reward work. That is what welfare

reform is. That is why we have it.

The priorities that we are talking

about, Mr. President, are significant.

We have, in the proposal we have gotten from the Senate Budget Committee, cut college Federal aid to students

over 7 years by $30 billion. Half of all

college students, Mr. President, receive

some type of financial aid from the

Federal Government; 75 percent of all

student aid comes from the Federal

Government.

Let me say it again. Half of all college students receive financial aid; 75

percent of all student aid comes from

the Federal Government.

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. REID. We are talking about $30

billion.

I do not have time. I will be happy,

when my time is up, to respond to

questions from the Senator from Oklahoma.

This would affect about 4 million students a year. It would reduce Pell

grants, and Pell grants go to the most

needy students, it would reduce Pell

grants for individual students by 40

percent. That is wrong. We would cut

back moneys for the Head Start Program, special education. That is not

the right priority. The right priorities

are to achieve a balanced budget but

let us eliminate tax cuts. That is the

first way to go. It makes it very simple. And I would be very interested in

doing away with some of the tax loopholes that are still in the Federal Tax

Code. We could freeze tax loopholes at

their current levels and save $300 billion. If we want to be more specific and

maintain some of those, which this

Senator would be willing to do, we

would maybe only save $250 billion.

The point is simply that we would save

lots of money by cutting tax loopholes.

That is what we need to do.

The Republican balanced budget plan

is a plan that is harmful to people who

want to work. We are talking about

equal sacrifice. This is not equal sacrifice, as was said on National Public

Radio yesterday by noted Republican

commentator Kevin Phillips. He said

that the Republican plan in effect damages and hurts the working people but

rewards significantly the rich. There is

no equal sacrifice. The rich would benefit from the plan while all the sacrifice would go to the working middle

class.

That is not the way we should go. I

believe, Mr. President, that we must be

careful that we do not ruin Medicare;

that we not have tax cuts only for the

most affluent of our society; that we

have reasonable, noninjurious cuts in

Medicare; that we make sure we do not

damage the education phase of our system; and most of all that we do not

hurt the working people of this country.

I would be happy to respond to a

question of my friend from Oklahoma.

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the distinguished Senator from Nevada and

would like to ask this. One of the Senator’s statements was that the defining

difference, the budget that is adopted

in the debate that will take place over

the proposed budget that we have from

the Republican side will be the defining

difference between the two parties. And

my question is, Is the Senator taking

the budget, the President’s budget as

your budget and then the Domenici Republican budget as the other, as being

the defining two budgets?

Mr. REID. I say to my friend Oklahoma—and the Senator was not in the

Chamber when I started my statement—I said, No. 1, where were the Republicans when we passed the 1993 deficit reduction plan, the largest deficit

reduction in the history of the country? And I laid out in some detail what

has happened since we reduced the deficit by $600 billion during this period of

time.

I will also say to my friend, during

all the Reagan years and all the Bush

years, we started out with a document

from the President, a budget. But as

my friend knows, having had experience in the House, as I have, the budget

we get from the President is always

changed. That is our function. I heard

this statement numerous times when

we were in the majority in the House

and Senate, that Congress sets the

spending. It is not the President. It is

the Congress. During the years I have

been here, every year President Reagan

sent us a budget, President Bush sent

us a budget, and President Clinton sent

us a budget, we came up with our own

working documents. I think that is

what we should do this time. What the

President sent us will not be what

comes out of this Chamber.

I think when it is all said and done,

people on this side of the aisle will

have the opportunity to vote to determine whether we should have tax increases for the poor, tax decreases for

the wealthy, whether we should dramatically cut Medicare and education.

We will have votes on that, to determine the differences between the two

parties.

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield

further?

Mr. REID. Of course.

Mr. INHOFE. I agree with the Senator. I have read the Constitution and

seen what our job is. And, of course, we

had a Republican President with a

Democrat Congress at the time the

Senator is speaking of. Now it is just

the reverse; we have a Democrat President and Republican Congress. Obviously, there will be a difference from

the beginning budget. The observation

that I would make and would like to

ask the Senator about is when we talk

about the cuts, talk about the deficits—and the Senator was talking

about the 1993 bill—in 1994, there was a

tax increase that was recommended by

the Democratic Party and by the President of the United States, Bill Clinton,

that was characterized as the largest

single tax increase in the history of

public finance in America or anywhere

in the world. I would like to ask the

Senator two questions. He has been

talking about the reduction that we

are proposing in our bill in taxes, and

I would suggest to the Senator that we

are not proposing a reduction in taxes

from the Senate even though I would

personally like to have us do that. It is

the House bill that is offering the reductions in their package.

Mr. REID. I will be happy to respond.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The

Chair will advise the Senator from Nevada that the time has expired.

Mr. REID. I would ask that in morning business this colloquy between the
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