Kent Conrad

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, my understanding of the Baucus amendment is that he has not taken out the savings at all. All he does is take out the reconciliation instruction. The savings are still there. Let me comment for a moment, if I can, on what Chairman Nickles is saying, because he is talking about something where I entirely agree with him. In Medicaid, there are States that are engaged in scams. I don't know how else to say it. What Chairman Nickles has said is entirely accurate. There are States that have figured out ways of tapping into the Federal Treasury and replacing what should be State funds with Federal funds. There is nobody who studies this who doesn't know what the chairman has said is true. There are a number of States that have almost made a science out of playing games with Federal programs, to tap into the Federal Treasury, to advantage their States to the disadvantage of Federal taxpayers and to the disadvantage of other States. But I repeat, in looking at the amendment of Senator Baucus, he has not taken out those savings. Those savings remain in the underlying resolution. It does take out the reconciliation instruction. So I have concluded that the Baucus amendment is worthy of support. What the chairman has said is something I join in, especially with respect to Medicaid Program abuses. I am very hopeful we will have a hearing on these issues once we get past the budget resolution and the negotiations in which the chairman will have to be involved in the coming days. We ought to put a bright light on some of these States that are engaged in a scam operation.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I am wondering at this point if we can reach an agreement on the additional time on this amendment. Senator Baucus tells me he only requires 5 more minutes.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. Chairman, would you like to present a unanimous consent request on time agreements on the next four amendments?

Mr. CONRAD. Will the Senator withhold for one moment? I apologize.

Mr. CONRAD. The firefighters amendment.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. CONRAD. I will be happy to make that the fifth amendment.

Mr. CONRAD. I move to lay that on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 2748

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, on this side we urge our colleagues to support this amendment. We think when our forces are in the field, when they are in combat half a world away, we ought to meet the Commander in Chief's request for funding. We will offer an amendment at a later point in the queue to fully pay for this amendment. We think that is an appropriate way to handle this matter. But for the moment, on this amendment, we think the right vote is to support the request of the Commander in Chief while our forces are in combat.

Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Senator. I will take 2 minutes off the resolution so the Senator will retain his time. My colleagues, this amendment matters. We have a lot of amendments that are important but that, frankly, are not going to do much about our long-term fiscal condition. This amendment could make a real contribution to getting these skyrocketing deficits under control. Why? Because it says simply this: No new spending on the mandatory side, and that is two-thirds of Federal spending; no new tax cuts that are not paid for, unless you can get a supermajority vote. This is one of the key budget disciplines we had through the 1990s that helped us save hundreds of billions of dollars on the deficit. This is what helped us move from record deficits to record surpluses. This budget discipline was allowed to lapse in 2002, despite our best efforts. Senator Feingold and I made a last-ditch attempt to save these budget disciplines and we got 59 votes. We needed 60. Look what has happened since. Deficits have taken off like a scalded cat. My colleagues, I think this vote is going to be evidence of whether somebody is serious about fiscal discipline and restoring fiscal sanity or whether they just want red ink as far as the eye can see. Make no mistake, that is where we are headed. That is where we are headed under the President's plan. The President's plan adds $3 trillion to the national debt in the next 5 years. The budget resolution is a little bit better; it adds $2.86 trillion to the national debt in the next 5 years. All of this is right before the baby boomers retire. My colleagues, you cannot leave this Chamber calling yourself a fiscal conservative unless you vote for this amendment. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment of the Senator from Wisconsin.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, we have just now tallied all the amendments that have been noticed. I know the chairman will be interested to know there are 98 amendments pending. Let me say those are amendments that have been noticed to us. They are not necessarily pending before the Senate, but Senators have given notice they intend to offer 98 amendments. It takes 1 hour to handle three amendments. That would be 33 hours of straight voting. We have to get serious. We cannot have a circumstance in which we spend 33 straight hours voting on amendments to the budget resolution. That is an unreasonable proposition. It is an unreasonable proposition for the Members, and an unreasonable proposition for the administrative staff. I am sending the message to our colleagues, let's eliminate the duplication. Let's ask Senators to refrain from offering amendments that can be offered later to appropriations bills or to other legislative vehicles. We cannot have 98 amendments voted on this budget resolution. There is no way we would finish by Friday. We have agreed on a common goal of finishing the budget resolution by Friday. We have worked in good faith together. Please, colleagues, let's show some restraint. We will turn it over to our Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. Feingold.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, we are prepared to yield back time on this side. I yield all but 5 minutes of our time reserved for Senator Levin. We can proceed with Senator Feingold.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, speaking for our side, I again want to indicate I intend to fully support the amendment of the Senator from Virginia, joined in by the Senator from Alaska. Is this a Stevens- Warner amendment at this point? I just think we need to send a very clear message. When we are at war, when our troops are in jeopardy, when they are in combat zones, when the Commander in Chief makes a request, we need to honor that request. Look, I believe we ought to pay for this increase. I believe we ought to offset it with either additional revenues or spending cuts in other areas because the deficit is at record levels now and this just increases it. We are seeing dramatic increases in the debt. We had a right to offer second-degree amendments to this amendment to provide a pay-for. We basically did not exercise that right, in an agreement to get a number of amendments up and voted on before 7 o'clock tonight. But it is our intention, with a later amendment, to offer a means of paying for this increase. Without that before us at the moment, the choice becomes do we increase the defense expenditure to meet the request of the Commander in Chief or do we not? I believe the imperative is clear. I believe we must raise the defense expenditure level to meet the request of the Commander in Chief when we have troops in combat half a world away fighting day and night for this country. It is my intention to ask our colleagues to support the Warner- Stevens amendment. At a later time, it will then be my intention to ask our colleagues on both sides to find a way to pay for it and to suggest specific ways we might do that. I hope colleagues will keep an open mind on that subsequent amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, look, now we are starting to talk about amendments that are just critically important if we are going to start to do something about the skyrocketing deficits and the accumulation of debt. The pay-go provisions are budget disciplines to make it harder to add to deficits. We have used these provisions in the past successfully to move from record deficits to record surpluses. In just a few moments, this body is going to vote on whether it is going to renew those disciplines or we are just going to abandon the ship and keep right on running up an ocean of red ink. This year, we are poised to run a deficit in record terms of over $470 billion--$100 billion more than last year. And last year's deficit was almost $100 billion more than the previous record. This is an opportunity for Senators to stand and be counted and be held accountable. Are we going to go back to the budget disciplines that have worked in the past or are we going to let them lapse? They lapsed in 2002, they have not been reinstituted, and the deficit has skyrocketed. What this amendment does is to put back in place the fundamental disciplines that say simply this: If you want new mandatory spending, if you want new tax cuts, you can have them, but you have to pay for them. It is that simple. Some will say, Well, this does not discipline discretionary spending, which is a third of Federal spending. That is true. We discipline discretionary spending by spending caps. We have a spending cap in place. The question before us is, Are we going to reenact the budget disciplines on mandatory spending, which is two-thirds of Federal spending? Are we going to replace the budget disciplines on the revenue side of the equation, which have been allowed to lapse? Let me just put up a statement by the chairman of the Federal Reserve on this question. Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan, on restoring pay- go, said: I would, first, Mr. Chairman, restore pay-go and discretionary caps. Without a process for evaluating various trade-offs, I see no way that any group such as a Congress can come to a set of priorities which will be effectively reflecting the will of the American people. Mr. President, this is the test: this vote. This is going to answer who stands for budget discipline, who stands for getting these deficits and debt under control, and who is going to sit on the sidelines and allow these deficits and debt to continue to skyrocket out of control. For those who say they are fiscally responsible, here is the test. Here is the test. All the talk is going to be measured in this vote. Do you stand for restoring the budget disciplines that have worked in the past or do you not? That is the question. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, the stated purpose of the Voinovich amendment, to prohibit consideration of any legislation that would raid the Social Security trust fund, is one with which I strongly agree. It is a noble purpose. But I am afraid this amendment does not come close to achieving that purpose. Here is what this amendment does. We are looking at a comparison between the CBO baseline deficits, that would be the blue line; the dotted red line would be the Senate GOP budget plan, the deficits under that plan; the green line would be under the Voinovich plan. What one sees is the deficits are higher under the Voinovich plan for the next 3 years than under either the CBO baseline or under the Senate GOP budget resolution. He is actually going further into the hole on the promise that 3 years from now, he will have less of a deficit. He promises less of a deficit out in 2008 and 2009. Unfortunately, because of the way it is constructed, you cannot even be sure you would have less of a deficit out in 2008 and 2009. What you can be certain of is the deficits will be higher in 2005, 2006, 2007. Let me show my colleagues what I am talking about. Comparing to the CBO baseline, the deficits of the Senator from Ohio would be $78 billion higher in 2005; $121 billion higher in 2006; $57 billion higher in 2007, with the promise that in 2008, they would be $24 billion lower and $89 billion lower in 2009. If you add this up, this is $256 billion more deficit here and $113 billion less deficit there. That is more deficits, not less. That is more. I don't know what kind of a plan this is to save anything. It certainly doesn't save Social Security. It digs the hole deeper. I don't know what the intention was, but I did read what the effect is. Compared to the budget resolution before us, the amendment of the Senator from Ohio would increase the deficit by $63 billion this year, $66 billion in 2006, and $16 billion in 2007. That is a $145 billion increase in the deficit over the next 3 years, on the promise that it is going to reduce it compared to the chairman's mark by $180 billion in 2008 and 2009. But because of technically the way it is drafted, you have absolutely no assurance it is going to save on the deficit out in 2008 and 2009 either. All I can say is the words are good, the sentiment is good, but the proposal goes in exactly the wrong direction. It increases the deficits, it increases the debt. It makes no sense to this Senator.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, can the Chair advise me what the time situation is on both sides?

Mr. CONRAD. Yes.

Mr. CONRAD. We did, actually. I spoke.

Mr. CONRAD. One of the things we discussed, if I can say, is there was a slight amount of time used here in discussion on the amendment. One of the things that was discussed was the possibility, perhaps, of charging that time to the amendment once we got on the amendment so we could hold to the schedule of being as close to 6 o'clock as we could be. Would that be agreeable?

Mr. CONRAD. Will the Senator yield for just a moment?

Mr. CONRAD. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CONRAD. I do not want to take action without consulting the other side, and the chairman is not in the Chamber at the moment. So I will not make a request at this point. Maybe if we can ask the floor staff to check if we want to be charging time to the amendment on an equal basis. I asked that question because we have tried to carefully calibrate this so we would have a voting window starting at 6 o'clock. Maybe if people can check, and while that is being done, I will add a few thoughts on this question. I agree with Senator Warner we ought to increase the defense allocation to the request of the Commander in Chief when our troops are engaged in combat. I think that should be done. I also believe we ought to pay for it. As I understand it, under Senator Warner's amendment, the increase will be made to increase the budget allocation to the request by the President--I agree with that-- but it will not be paid for. With that I do not agree. When presented with a choice, I will vote to increase the spending to the request by the Commander in Chief because I do not think it is appropriate policy not to fully fund the Commander in Chief's request when our troops are engaged in combat half a world away. Our troops right now are engaged in direct combat in Iraq and Afghanistan and, of course, in addition to that, we are engaged globally in the war on terror. That does not mean we should not pay for these additional expenditures. Already we see record budget deficits. We see in this budget resolution the debt of the country being increased by $2.86 trillion over the next 5 years. That is a stunning amount of money. The assertion by some that the deficit is being reduced really pales in consideration and in comparison to what is happening to the debt. The increases in the debt under this budget are simply staggering-- $2.86 trillion over the next 5 years. That is before the baby boomers retire, that is before the full cost of the President's tax cuts explode because they increase geometrically right beyond the budget window. I would hope we would increase what is in the budget for our national defense to the amount requested by the President, but we do it in a way that is paid for. I think that would be the right approach. Unfortunately, Senator Warner's amendment has half of that formula. He will have the increase in funding but will not have the appropriate offsets. We will have a vote later on the question of paying for this increase. I hope my colleagues are on notice on what this amendment will involve, and hopefully we will be on this amendment soon. I will withhold my request if the Senator from Missouri wants to take some time. Can we go on to the amendment then? The Senator from Missouri will speak with the understanding that the time will, at a later moment, be taken off the time of the amendment so we can try and stay on schedule. I thank the Chair. I thank my colleague.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I add my voice to the chairman's and indicate to our colleagues we have now been able to substantially reduce the list on our side. I report to the chairman a very substantial reduction. I think we have eliminated, now, more than 50 of the amendments that have been noticed. But that still leaves us with over 40. At three amendments an hour, that would be 13 hours of straight voting. It is not just going to be straight voting because we still have time on the resolution. We still have eight or nine amendments that are going to require more extended time during the day, before we get to vote-arama. I think, just eyeballing it, we are probably talking 4 hours before we get to vote-arama. Then we have at least, as I have indicated, 13 hours of votes after that, if people do not back off and show restraint. We have the night. We have the night to think very carefully about what kind of quality of life we want for ourselves over the next 2 days. We have had very significant debates, significant amendments. Let's try to close this out and do it in a way that has the dignity the Senate should have. Yes, we will have significant additional amendments and debate, but let's eliminate the duplication and try to have a reasonable number of amendments so we can be done by a reasonable time on Friday. I thank the chairman for working with me as we have to try to move this process. I also thank very much Senator Corzine, who is a very valuable member of the committee, who has been extraordinarily patient. We almost achieved a unanimous consent that would have allowed his amendment to be voted on this evening. It did not happen. I thank him personally for his patience and his graciousness.

Mr. CONRAD. We are not charging time against the amendment then.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: How is the time being charged?