Kent Conrad

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Could the Senator tell us what constitutes 920?

Mr. CONRAD. That was going to be my next question, if I could, to the Senator. What is the way the Senator pays for this $46 billion?

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I say to my colleague--

Mr. CONRAD. It is $46 billion?

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, might I ask the author of this amendment what the cost is?

Mr. CONRAD. I wonder if, on the next three amendments, we might arrive at a time agreement for the convenience of our colleagues. The Senator from Arizona has been very generous. He has said we can have 30 minutes equally divided, something like that. Would that be appropriate?

Mr. CONRAD. I respond to my colleague by saying I hope that would be the case if we find ourselves at war, that there would be an ample opportunity for Senators to address that. My own belief is that would be appropriate for the Senate to do, to turn its attention to a state of war. My own belief is it would be inappropriate for us to continue on with business as usual when we have our sons and daughters in harm's way. I am very hopeful if it comes to that, during this period while we are debating the budget, that it would be set aside for a time so there would be a discussion in the Chamber and the Senators have a chance to express themselves. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. CONRAD. Be happy to yield.

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, let me rivet a point that the chairman of the budget committee is making. We have three additional amendments lined up, but we should do more amendments tonight. If we are serious about avoiding a vote-arama at the end, where we do not have a chance to describe amendments, we just have to vote on amendment after amendment, the way to do that is not to do our work now. I say to some colleagues who have said they have to make a change in amendments, it is not convenient for them to come tonight, if we are going to get this done, they have to put aside convenience and get over here and offer their amendments. There is a limited amount of time remaining to debate and discuss amendments, and people are going to lose their opportunity--let me make that very clear on our side--to have time to debate their amendment. They will get a vote because the rules allow that, but they are going to lose their chance to debate and discuss it. So this is the time, if they want to debate an amendment, to get over here and offer the amendment.

Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD. Time is equally divided during that time?

Mr. CONRAD. Parliamentary inquiry: Are we now in the circumstance that we are back on the debate on ANWR for 1 hour preceding the vote at 3 o'clock?

Mr. CONRAD. Yes, we are prepared to yield back.

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that we accept the amendment of the Senator from South Carolina, as modified.

Mr. CONRAD. Would the Senator from South Carolina, including his modification, accept that?

Mr. CONRAD. Yes, without losing my right to the floor. We are up against the 2 o'clock time limit.

Mr. CONRAD. I appreciate that and I think that would be a good outcome. I will soon seek unanimous consent to accept the amendment as modified, and then we will be able to proceed. As you know, at 2 o'clock, we have to turn our attention back to the ANWR discussion.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, has the Senator from South Carolina now seen the modification suggested by the senior Senator from South Carolina? Is the Senator from South Carolina, at this point, willing to accept the modifications we previously discussed, as well as the modification of the senior Senator from South Carolina?

Mr. CONRAD. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from South Carolina.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I must say, when I hear the suggestion that cutting taxes now won't affect Social Security in the future, that is no economics that I understand. Just so we all understand how it works, all the revenue of the Federal Government goes in a pot. All the expenditures come out of that pot. That is the way it works. When you take revenue away from that revenue stream and you already can't pay your bills, guess what. You can't pay your bills in an even more serious way. Any family's economics would tell them that if you are not able to pay your bills now and you go out and cut your income more, you have more bills you can't pay. That is what our friends on the other side are trying to convince people of. I don't think that is going to work. This is the hard reality of the budget before us. There is over $2.7 trillion of Social Security surplus available in the next 10 years. I believe we ought to take that money and either pay down debt or prepay the liability. That would strengthen Social Security. The other side has offered a budget that takes virtually every penny of those Social Security surpluses and uses them to pay for tax cuts or other expenditures. That does not help Social Security. That hurts Social Security. That makes the shortfall more serious going forward because we have not taken the resources, those trust fund surpluses, and used it to either pay down debt or prepay the liability. The other side tries to posture that one side wants to do nothing; the other side wants to do something about economic growth. No. No, I don't believe their program improves economic growth. Why not? Because the tax cuts are not paid for by reducing spending. The tax cuts are paid for by borrowing. You can't borrow your way to prosperity. Here is the work of the macroeconomic advisers. These are people under contract to the White House and under contract to the Congressional Budget Office to tell us what the effect of various fiscal policies are on economic growth. Do you know what they tell us? If we enact the President's plan, it will actually hurt long-term economic growth. It will hurt economic growth. Why? Because of increased deficits and debt that put a weight on the economy. What is that weight? When you run deficits and debt, that reduces the pool of societal savings, that reduces the money available for investment. That hurts economic growth. That is exactly what the folks who have analyzed this have concluded. Is the Senator from South Carolina seeking time?

Mr. CONRAD. The Senators from South Carolina, in describing the problem, are correct. The problem with Social Security is severe. The Social Security trust fund is currently running surpluses. But we all know it is then going to turn to cash deficits. Those are going to become very large cash deficits. This is like falling off the cliff. This is the Social Security Administration's outlook for the Social Security trust fund. Why is that? Very simply, the baby boom generation will start to retire. They are alive today. They are eligible for Social Security. When they start drawing Social Security, there will be 77 million, about double the number eligible now. When that occurs, we will have a very serious problem on our hands. The Senator from South Carolina who offers the amendment has correctly described the problem, but he is not dealing with the budget resolution before the Senate. It exacerbates the problem severely. This chart shows the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. The green bar is the Social Security trust fund; the red bars are the President's tax cuts, both enacted and proposed. One can see very clearly as the Social Security trust fund is running surpluses, the size of the President's tax cut proposals are growing. At the very time the Social Security trust fund turns cash negative, the cost of the President's tax cuts explode. The result of this is a totally unsustainable plunge into deficits and debt. That is the fundamental problem with the budget resolution before the Senate; it is the fundamental problem with the President's budget before the Senate. The budget before the Senate takes out of the Social Security trust fund nearly all of the surpluses over the next 10 years. Social Security will run surpluses over the next 10 years of $2.718 trillion. The mark before us by the chairman takes $2.718 billion of those surpluses and uses it for other purposes, uses it to fund tax cuts, uses it to fund other expenditures. The Senator from South Carolina said that is not an appropriate way to proceed. I agree. I hope he will consider opposing the budget resolution on that basis. However, the Senator from South Carolina is also correct to say even if we do not do this, even if we do not raid the Social Security trust fund surplus, we still have a problem. This is a necessary step to stop this raid, but it is not sufficient. It is necessary because if instead of taking these funds and using it for other purposes we were to use that money to pay down debt or to prepay the liability, we would be in a less severe circumstance going forward. The Senator from South Carolina, who offered the amendment, has referenced a $25 trillion shortfall in Social Security; that is, if you take each year and accumulate it over time. The net present value of those gaps between income and outgo for Social Security is not $25 trillion. The net present value is $3.5 trillion. Yet the President is proposing a tax cut with interest costs of $1.96 trillion, even though we are already in deficit. Both Senators from South Carolina have revealed the flaw in this budget. We have record deficits now. The President proposes cutting taxes almost $2 trillion with the interest costs included. The result is we are taking virtually every penny--under the President's budget, every penny of the Social Security surplus over the decade, right on the eve of the retirement of the baby boom generation. I remind my colleagues, what earthly sense does this make? At the very time the cost of the Government explodes with the retirement of the baby boom generation, the costs of the President's tax cuts explode, driving us deep, deep into deficits and debt. I hope this budget resolution falls on the basis that it puts us in a circumstance of ever mounting deficits and debt right at the time the baby boom generation retires. If there has ever been an illogical, irrational, dangerous budget, this is it. To me, this is it. We are about to make fateful decisions we are going to be living with for a long time. Nobody should be under any illusion about where this is headed. This is headed right off the cliff. We can either together find some way to restrain both our spending impulses and our tax-cutting impulses or we can wage what we have waged so far, which is a rush to deficits and debt. It will be a sad day when we wake up from this hangover and from this binge of tax cutting and spending that can only lead one place, and that is to shredding of Social Security and Medicare and most of the rest of Government as we know it. We have worked with the Senator from South Carolina to try to reach an agreement. I don't know if those modifications have been agreed to. If they have, we are prepared to accept them. I think Senator Craig is perhaps waiting to speak on this matter so I withhold going further. Perhaps the Senator from South Carolina would like to speak further. I yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD. I hope we have an understanding from the Chair that the managers have the first right of recognition here or we will have a real problem.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, the manager has the right of recognition.

Mr. CONRAD. I yield an additional 10 minutes to the Senator.

Mr. CONRAD. Would the Senator like additional time?