John Breaux

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. President, yesterday a great deal of discussion was held about the CPI adjustment. I just want to make a couple comments because many Members said, ``We like your budget, but the CPI is something that we can't handle. We don't think it's the right thing to do.'' We have had three hearings in the Senate Finance Committee--March 13 of last year, April 6 of last year, and June 5 of last year--we had a parade of economists before the Finance Committee. Every one of them to a person said that we are making a mistake as a country. The distinguished Senator from North Dakota said that yesterday. Every year we make a mistake. Every year we give every person who is on an entitlement program more than they should get, by every economists' professional judgment. They say we overestimate what their increase should be from anywhere between 0.7 and 2 percent. So we have had the courage to make a decision that we will fix the problem. We will correct the mistake. We will say that every person in America who is entitled to an entitlement increase--Social Security, railroad retirees, Federal retirees--we will give you a more accurate increase in your benefits. For instance, in Social Security it says instead of getting a $20-a-month increase, you will get a $16-a-month increase. They still get an increase, a substantial increase. It is $4 less than they would have gotten under the incorrect formula, but everybody knows the formula is wrong. The formula has made a mistake. Are there not enough people in this Congress to say that when we make a mistake, we should correct it and recognize it? That is what we do in CPI. I think everybody should enthusiastically stand up and say we want to guarantee everybody in this country gets an accurate increase based on inflation. When the formula is wrong, Congress should have the courage to at least correct the mistake. That is the only thing we do. It is supported by a Republican economist, by a Democratic economist, and by everybody who has testified before the Senate Finance Committee. I think it should be adopted. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I inquire of the Chair how much time our side has.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I yield 4 minutes to the Senator from Wisconsin.

Mr. BREAUX. I give 1 additional minute.

Mr. BREAUX. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Florida.

Mr. BREAUX. And we have agreed to divide 15 and 15 to each side?

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, it is my understanding we have 30 minutes for the proponents and 30 minutes for the opponents.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I yield the remaining time we have, 4 minutes, to the Senator from Connecticut, Senator Lieberman.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, today I would like to salute 10 outstanding young women who have been honored with the Girl Scout Gold Award by the Girl Scout Council of Southeast Louisiana. They are: Melanie Adams of New Orleans, Lesley Cady of Chalmette, Patricia Claverie of Avondale, Carol Cancienne of River Ridge, Janet Cummins of Metairie, Pamela James of New Orleans, Michelle O'Flynn of Metairie, Angie Raborn of Roseland, Jennifer Reites of Metairie, Jennifer Schiffman of New Orleans. The Girl Scout Gold Award is the highest honor in U.S. Girl Scouting. It symbolizes outstanding accomplishments in the areas of leadership, community service, career planning and personal development. To receive the award, a Girl Scout must earn four interest project patches, the Career Exploration pin, the Senior Girl Scout Leadership Award, and the Senior Girl Scout Challenge, as well as design and implement a Girl Scout Gold Award service project. A plan for fulfilling these requirements is created by the Senior Girl Scout and is carried out through close cooperation between the girl and an adult Girl Scout volunteer. The named Girl Scouts provided the following community services for their Gold Award projects: Miss Cady completed a beautification project involving landscaping and painting at Carolyn Park Elementary School. Miss Claverie produced an extensive resource guide for recycled crafts and environmental awareness. Miss Cancienne developed a resource booklet on disability awareness including an activities box. Miss James founded a chapter of Students Against Drunk Driving (SADD) at Benjamin Franklin High School. Miss O'Flynn designed an equestrian competition for disabled children. Miss Raborn educated her community about exchange student programs and her family hosted two exchange students. Misses Adams, Cummins, Reites and Schiffman were a team for a restoration project of Storyland at City Park. I believe these Girl Scouts should receive the public recognition due them for their significant services to their communities and to their country.

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Four hours.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I yield to the distinguished Senator from California 10 minutes.

Mr. BREAUX. What we are saying is, people who get Social Security retirement, railroad retirement, all the other benefit programs, when you look at the recommendations from the special commission which has given us an interim report, that report says very clearly that the Consumer Price Index overstates the cost of inflation and adjustments in these entitlement programs. They say, ``Changes in the CPI will overstate changes in the true cost of living for the next few years.'' The commission's interim best estimate of the size of upward bias looking forward is 1 percent per year. The range of plausible values is 0.7 of 1 percent to 2 percent. We picked a number in between, 0.5, actually lower than their estimated range, a 0.5 percent adjustment. I was saying what it would mean with an adjustment, using a CPI adjustment between 1996 and 1997. You are talking a difference of only $3 per month, we say to Social Security retirees, what they would get less under a CPI-adjusted Social Security increase. I think to say to people on retirement programs that if you are going to help everybody solve this problem, I think you should be very pleased to receive an increase that more accurately reflects what the real cost of living is, I do not think there is a senior in this country that says, ``I want to get more than it costs to keep up with inflation.'' I do not hear a senior citizen saying, ``I want to get more than I am entitled to.'' They say, ``I want to make sure I get what I am entitled to, our contract with our Government, but I do not want to get more than I am entitled to.'' This small adjustment guarantees the solvency of the program for an additional 6 years. It saves us $126 billion over 7 years and allows us to get to a balanced budget in 7 years, I think with the least amount of difficulty and trouble. In conclusion, the only way we will get it done is if we work together. We will never get it done if we continue to try the same path we have tried in the past. We suggest there is a better way. We suggest an amendment offered by Senator Chafee and myself on behalf of some 20- odd other Members of the Senate should be the way to go. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent an actuarial statement regarding the CPI be printed in the Record.

Mr. BREAUX. I yield myself 10 minutes. I ask the Chair to notify me when 10 minutes is used. Mr. President, I first start by commending both the distinguished ranking member, the Senator from Nebraska, Senator Exon, and the chairman of the Budget Committee, the Senator from New Mexico, Senator Domenici, for the good work that they have done. This is not an easy task. These two gentlemen have worked tirelessly, been here every day. They have worked very, very hard in trying to get this accomplished. Having said that, I start my remarks by saying, well, here we are again. Yogi Berra also said it in a different way. He said, ``It's deja vu all over again.'' The younger generation sort of uses a different term. They say, ``Been there. Done that.'' But it all really adds up to the same thing, that we have been through this practice once before. Does anybody remember last year? Does anybody remember, despite the good efforts of the chairman, the ranking member, and the administration, that the end result of last year's effort is we had two partial Government shutdowns, 13 Government continuing resolutions, which were sort of like sort of funding the Government but not really doing it? All of that was because we on this side could not agree with our colleagues on that side, and neither could agree with the administration down Pennsylvania Avenue on how to run the Government. Is it any wonder that the numbers I saw in the Wall Street Journal, I think Friday, said that 68 percent of the American people do not today trust Congress to get the job done that they feel they elected us to do? Yet, despite those numbers and despite the failures, I am very concerned that here we go again. Deja vu all over again. Been there. Done that. Because what I see so far in this session of this Congress, is going along the same paths that brought us to almost a disastrous shutdown of the Government that we could not keep going. Yet we are starting out this time the same way. The Democrats have all voted for the Democratic proposal. The Republicans all voted against it. Ultimately, when the distinguished Senator from New Mexico presents his budget, I imagine just the opposite is going to occur, all the Democrats will vote no, all the Republicans will vote yes. Because our Republican colleagues are in the majority, their budget will pass. But then you have a person down on Pennsylvania Avenue, the President of the United States, who is going to disagree with many of the things in that budget, and therefore when those programs come before him to reach those numbers, he is going to veto that. Have we not done that before? Have we not been there before? Is there not a better way to do it? The economist and sometimes humorist Herb Stein had a great quote I was reading the other day. It said, ``If your horse dies, we suggest you dismount.'' What he was trying to say is, ``If it doesn't work, try something else. Get off the dead horse.'' Yet I am very afraid we are going right down that same path we just tried. Everybody in this Chamber, and probably in the other Chamber as well, and everybody in the public knows that it is not going to work. We have suggested a better way, a different way, maybe a revolutionary way in the sense that we are asking both sides to cooperate and make tough decisions together. There is no more gain to be gained from the blame game. We can no longer say it is the Republicans' fault, and they can no longer say it is the Democrats' fault and make any headway in getting the people to believe that we are really serious about getting the job of Government done. Senator Chafee has outlined the fact that there were 22 Senators who have worked since October of 1995, sometimes three and four times a week, in the Chamber here in the Senate and Senator Chafee's office, and generally, and worked up an agreement that says, ``Yes, there is a better way.'' The only way we are going to get it done is by making these tough decisions together. Senator Chafee is exactly right. Some will say the tax cut is too high. Some will say not high enough. Some will say the Medicare cuts are too big. Some will say they are not big enough. But we have come together in what I think is the last best effort to say, yes, we still can govern this country, and, yes, the only way we are going to do it is working from the center out. Is there anybody here who still believes we are going to be working the Government, working from the far left or far right, to come together to make a majority? We have proven that will not work. We have a 7-year balanced budget. Seven years is what most people have talked about for over a year. We decided to stick to those numbers. Here are our numbers. We compared our numbers of 6 years to the President's 6-year proposal and to the Republican 6-year proposal. Then we looked at it from a 7-year plan. It makes it a little easier to get to the balance. The bottom number is $679 billion over 7 years that we save, that we get to balance in those 7 years. It has not been easy, but it is not impossible. It is not impossible if you do it in a bipartisan way. It is impossible if you do it in a partisan way. I believe what we are presenting is the last best opportunity to get the job done. Senator Chafee has gone over what we do on Medicare. We save $154 billion out of Medicare. Look how our 6-year number compares to the President's. It is lower than the President's. Ours is only $106 billion in savings. We do it by giving people a lot of different options. Fee for service is one, HMO's, points-of-service plans, provider-sponsored networks. We make some substantive changes. The same thing on Medicaid. We save $62 billion out of Medicaid. We do it by taking a lot of the Governors' proposals and recommendations and modifying them. We did not give them everything they wanted, but we made substantive changes in Medicaid, giving a great deal more flexibility to the States, which I think most of the States want. I think, quite frankly, it is the right thing to do. In welfare, the earned-income tax credit, $58 billion. The numbers are very close to the administration's. The $70 billion from the Republicans, I think, is higher than is justified. We come in somewhere down the middle, which most of our numbers do. We are tough on work, good for kids, provide more child care money for children. But we have a time limit. We end the old program. We make some major changes in welfare, which I think is important. We have a tax cut, a $105 billion net tax cut. Some will say it is not big enough. Some will say it is too large. We come down the middle. We have about a $25 billion so-called corporate welfare adjustment, but a real net tax cut for families with children, a $250 tax credit, and are working to try to get it up to $500 if they invest in an IRA account. We also have estate tax relief for small businesses. We increase the tax deduction for health care for self-employed people. Yes, we have a capital gains tax cut in this package both for businesses and individuals. I want to talk about the CPI because some say you cannot do the CPI; that is something that is absolutely impossible. We did it because economists have all said the Consumer Price Index that is used to base all the entitlement increases overstates the cost of inflation in this country by anywhere from between 0.7 and up to 2 percent. We take 0.5 percent and say we will have an adjustment in the Consumer Price Index over what the Bureau of Labor Statistics is talking about of 0.5 percent. That saves us, over a 7-year period, $126 billion. We are saying to the American public who are beneficiaries of entitlement programs, we will try and save those programs. We say to Social Security recipients, just like they told us, we will extend the year of solvency in the Social Security Program from the year 2030 to the year 2036. We are giving it at least 6 extra years, just based on our Consumer Price Index. In addition to that, we cut the long-term imbalance of Social Security funds, the imbalance of the trust fund by one-third over the next 75 years and extend the life of Social Security by an additional 6 years by making this adjustment. I want to show the chart. Some say you cannot do that. The only thing we are saying to the people in this country who get automatic adjustments in their cost of living is that we will ask that adjustment more accurately reflect the real cost of inflation to you. That is not asking from people too much. We are still saying, you will get an increase. We are simply saying, your increase will be more accurately reflective of the cost of living. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. BREAUX. I ask, if it is possible, if the Chair could notify the Senate when the Republican side has used 45 minutes in support of the amendment and when the Democrats have used 45 minutes also so we can divide the time.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I make an inquiry. It is my understanding, under the agreement, that there are 3 hours equally divided among the proponents and the opponents.

Mr. BREAUX. Yes, equally divided.

Mr. BREAUX. It was our understanding we would try the so-called Chafee-Breaux substitute, use 3 hours this evening and have an hour to conclude tomorrow, sometime. I do not know if that fits in with your plan.

Mr. BREAUX. Yes.

Mr. BREAUX. I will respond to the Senator, if he will yield further, that really is not correct. The only thing our budget resolution does is have a figure for the amount of money that can be spent on education. Your committee, when you get that resolution, will make a decision as to whether there is a cap on direct lending or whether there is no cap at all, as long as you can meet the budget reconciliation numbers.

Mr. BREAUX. I thank the Senator from Illinois for his comment. I particularly appreciate the comment on probably the most difficult point of our recommendation in our budget resolution, and that is the adjustment of the Consumer Price Index, which I think is critically important. In order to specifically answer the Senator's question, we do not in this resolution make a decision at all on direct lending. We have a number for the committees. Your committee, the Labor and Human Resources Committee, will actually have to enact the legislative changes to reach the number we have suggested. They could do that by mandating 100 percent of the money be directly loaned or they can do a combination. We have suggested there be a cap to 40 percent, but that decision is going to be left uniquely to the committee of jurisdiction. I think the Senator from Illinois serves on that committee. So this budget resolution is totally silent on whether there is a cap or whether there is not a cap on direct lending. That would be a legislative decision under the budget reconciliation of the Senator's committee as to whether that is a good thing to do or not.

Mr. BREAUX. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. BREAUX. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. BREAUX. I think I understand, and I appreciate the point the Senator is making, but does the Senator not make the point we were trying to make, that the only way we will get it done is in a bipartisan fashion, where we both can hold hands and say, ``Yes, this has to be done in a bipartisan way.''

Mr. BREAUX. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. BREAUX. I thank very much the distinguished Senator from Nebraska and yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Virginia, Senator Robb.