John Ashcroft

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask that the amendment be temporarily set aside.

Mr. ASHCROFT. I appreciate the Senator's remarks. When the Senator holds the stack of amendments, is he suggesting there should be no amendments or is he just focused on sense-of-the-Senate amendments?

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be able to withdraw this amendment. This amendment was in large measure subsumed in the prior amendment which I offered to the Senate. I ask unanimous consent that this amendment be withdrawn.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I urge Members of the Senate who voted for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution to do this imposition of a balanced budget amendment to the budget agreement. It provides discipline and will ensure that we keep the agreement; that we don't break it. The American people deserve no less.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, much has been said about different amendments, alleging that they were deal breakers. This is a deal keeper. This is a set of enforcement provisions which would limit the amount of debt that we could have each year to the amount that is specified in the budget agreement. This is basically the balanced budget amendment in statutory form, conformed to the balanced budget agreement. Those individuals who voted in favor of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution were willing to put this kind of discipline into our culture for life. I think we ought to be willing to put it into this agreement for the next 5 years. This is not a deal breaker. This is a deal keeper, and the American people deserve to have the discipline of knowing that the debt will not exceed the limits specified. The debt will not exceed the numbers of debt which are provided for in the agreement. This is just a way to provide discipline and enforcement of the agreement, as written.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I move to waive the point of ordered and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ASHCROFT. I yield back the remainder of my time on amendment 322.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I rise today with an open mind, for I have not yet decided how to vote on the budget resolution before the Senate. I understand and I appreciate that we should not let the perfect become the enemy of the good. If I forget that, the leadership and the Senator from New Mexico will be quick to remind me, I am sure. Having been a Governor, I understand that budgeting requires choices, choices that will not satisfy everyone but should benefit everyone. Like Senator Bond, who served as Missouri Governor before me, I balanced eight budgets in our State of Missouri, working with our State legislature. The economic results were a strong, growing economy, more jobs, low taxes, and the Nation's highest bond ratings. We developed a record of which we could be proud in balancing the budgets. We developed a rainy day fund, several hundred million dollars in the cashflow operating reserve. But the State law that we had equipped us with the necessary tools to balance our budget. We had a constitutional provision and requirement that we balance the budget. We had the line-item veto. We had the requirement and the power to balance our budgets and then the tools to enforce our agreements. We worked with good people who had good intentions, and we reached good agreements. But we also had a good process to ensure that our agreements were kept. I have only been in the Senate for a relatively short period of time, but it seems to me there is no shortage of good people with good intentions here in Washington. What disturbs me is that here in Washington we do not have good processes in place to ensure that the budget agreements we make 1 year will be kept the next year. Particularly, we lack the right kind of mechanical structural devices in Government to make sure that the budget agreements we make in one year, like 1997, would be kept in the year 2002. You can believe in and trust the people who reach disagreement in good faith, and I do believe in them and I trust in them. But the history of failed budget agreements and the continuous deficit spending without enforcement measures makes a mockery of good people and it makes a mockery of good intentions. We need more than good intentions and good people. We need good guarantees. We need strong enforcement provisions. We need the limits contained in the agreement to make sure that the agreement is not broken. We have heard a lot on the floor of Senate that if you do this to the budget, it will be a deal-breaker. Well, I want to make sure that we add some enforcement so that we have a deal-keeper. I hope that there will not be folks anywhere in this Chamber who say that because you have an enforcer of this agreement that it is a deal-breaker. It would be awfully difficult to hear people argue that anything that forces us to keep the agreement breaks the agreement. I think what we have here is the need for a deal-keeper and a deal-keeper cannot be a deal- breaker. Most of the people who are involved in the debate might not be in office 5 years from now. The President certainly will not. So if we expect to balance the budget, we need a principled process, we need the structure of protection to be added to this agreement. We should not trust the next generation's future to a handshake agreement between people who will not even be around when the real crunch time comes. That would be the triumph of hope over experience. For me, a balanced budget in the year 2002 is worth voting for, but good intentions are not enough to be worth voting for and good intentions alone will simply not protect us until we get there. The budget resolution which we have before the Senate today claims to reach balance by the year 2002. The American people will furnish every single dollar that is taxed and spent under this budget deal. I believe they are entitled to the very strongest possible guarantees, guarantees that promises made under this deal today will be promises kept tomorrow. People outside the Washington Beltway have a healthy skepticism of promises to stay on course for a balanced budget. The amendment which I have introduced and which I am introducing with those other Senators whose names have already been recited enforces the assurances that the leadership is promising under this plan. It does not change the bipartisan agreement between the President and the constitutional leadership. It simply adds additional enforcement mechanisms to ensure that the Nation actually reaches balancing its budget by the year 2002. Now, if we are truly committed to balancing the budget, we must have adequate enforcement mechanisms. This amendment ensures that any legislation, any legislation would be out of order if it caused total outlays to exceed total receipts for the year 2002, or any fiscal year thereafter, unless three-fifths of the whole number of each House provide for a specific excess of outlays over receipts by a rollcall vote. Under this amendment, any legislation would be out of order if it caused an increase in the public debt above the levels in the fiscal year 1998 budget resolution for fiscal year 1998 through 2002, remaining at the 2002 level thereafter unless three-fifths of the Members of each House provided for such by rollcall vote. Under this amendment, any legislation would be out of order if it caused an increase in revenues unless approved by a majority of the whole number of each House by a rollcall vote. That is the requirement for an absolute majority in the event of any increase in taxes. Now, over the past 30 years Congress has not been very good at exercising self-control in budgetary matters. We need these enforcement tools to lock in our commitments to the American people to balance the budget by the year 2002. Senators should recognize these concepts which I have just mentioned. The fact that it would be out of order to increase the debt above the levels in the agreement, it would be out of order to have outlays that exceeded our income, it would be out of order to have tax increases without the whole of a majority of each whole House in a rollcall vote, because these are the very provisions, these are the very provisions which we all voted for, which 66 Members of this Senate voted for in the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution debate. I say to the 66 Members who voted in favor of this, this should be the structure we work in perpetuity, as long as this Nation exists. If it was good enough to put in the Constitution as long as America would exist, it ought to be good enough to put into this budget agreement for the next 5 years. It is that simple. Deficit spending has wrested power from the people it has deposited here in Washington. We have inverted the Framers' will. They expected us not to spend the money of the next generation. This approach is to do one thing, and one thing alone, and it is to curtail the deficit. It is to put enforcement and teeth into this agreement. It is to hold this agreement in place during the next 5 years. It is not to add spending to this agreement or take spending out of this agreement. It is simply to make this agreement an honest agreement for the people of the United States of America. Our ability to spend the money of the next generation is one of the skills we have refined to a very high level, and it is a skill we ought to curtail and guard against. This amendment would guard against it. We have tried time and time again to deal with the dilemma of recurring debt. We have not been able to deal with it. We simply have not been able to summon the discipline. Well, I say put the discipline in this agreement. We should make part of this agreement the kind of guarantee that will make sure we keep our word. Put ``deal-keeper'' into this agreement. Stop talking about deal-breakers. Make this a deal-keeper. Chronic overspending does not simply result when one group decides that it will try and stop it. We have to have the right structure in place, and the amendment which I have offered today is the right structure for doing that. This budget agreement suggests that Congress will balance the budget by the year 2002. We must have the enforcement provisions necessary to ensure that this goal is actually reached to place the very provisions in this agreement, the very provisions which were voted for overwhelmingly by this Senate when it sought to pass the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Sixty-six Members voted for those items. That makes good sense. Incidentally, for those who didn't vote in favor of the balanced budget amendment, the rest voted against it and almost universally said give us a chance to vote for this as a statute. We don't need to tamper with the Constitution. Here is that chance. This is a chance to say, ``Yes. We agree that statutorily the very conditions which were so favorably received in the balanced budget amendment proposal are available as statutory law here.'' I believe this is an addition to the budget agreement, which won't be a deal breaker but which would be a budget agreement keeper. If the Senators believe that this budget deal will lead us to a balanced budget by the year 2002, then they shouldn't fear adequate enforcement provisions that will make this a certainty. The American people are rightly skeptical that this deal will lead to a balanced budget. Firm enforcement would go a long way to assure the American people of Congress' resolve to do the right thing and to keep its promise to balance the budget. As I mentioned, 66 Senators voted to abide by the enforcement provisions in this amendment when they voted for the balanced budget constitutional amount. I hope that they will join in support of these very items which would provide an assurance that the conditions of this agreement would indeed be met. Senator Inhofe and I have combined forces on another amendment. I wanted to thank him for his cooperation in getting that done. I yield the remaining time to Senator Inhofe.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. It seems to me that what you have proposed is giving the President everything he asked for when he asked for it last year, before he saw this potential of a bigger pie. Certainly he knows how to ask largely and how to ask to meet the need. He certainly has no reticence about asking. With the additional potential for resources, when people earn more and develop more for this country, we ought to let the people have some of what they earn instead of saying, we will take that and spend it on Government, even if it means we have to adjust our--it occurs to me they are having to adjust their ambition bigger and bigger. The harder and harder the American people work, the idea is, the more the Government can spend as a result of it.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Is it fair to say then, Government has taken the raise that people would have anticipated in the last 10 years, and they took it and spent it?

Mr. ASHCROFT. Of course they are.

Mr. ASHCROFT. And people are working hard?

Mr. ASHCROFT. To the people who have to earn it and pay the taxes.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Instead of rewarding people who work harder by letting then keep more of what they are earning, the approach is to take more of it and spend more on Government?

Mr. ASHCROFT. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, thank you. Amendment No. 322 (Purpose: To add enforcement mechanisms to reflect the stated commitment to reach a balanced budget in 2002, to maintain a balanced budget thereafter, and to achieve these goals without raising taxes)

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its consideration.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with and that the amendment be set aside.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I send another amendment to the desk.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Amendment No. 318

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with and that the amendment be set aside.

Mr. ASHCROFT. I say to the Senator, in this budget negotiation there seemed to be an impasse, and then all of a sudden it appeared there was a substantial additional block of money. Now, is that money the result of people working more and paying more taxes?

Mr. ASHCROFT. If you believe that you may want to make a downpayment on a bridge someone wants to sell you in Brooklyn. It is pretty clear to me, Government has not been the most efficient or effective way to deploy resources. I want to thank the Senator. I thank him for yielding for this point of clarification. I find very appealing the idea that we would let the American people, when they earn more, keep more. Families would rather spend it on themselves rather than send it here in hopes that something would happen with it here that might benefit their families. I commend the Senator.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. I thank the Chair.