Kent Conrad

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. How much time do I have?

Mr. CONRAD. I am happy to yield to the Senator from West Virginia, 15 minutes.

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I have been amazed at the argument from the other side, absolutely amazed. My amendment is not as good as the status quo? Their proposal is better? What math are they using? I grew up in North Dakota, went to North Dakota schools where one and one is two; two and two is four; four and four is eight. That is the math I learned. I don't know what math they are talking about. Let's talk about the difference between my proposal before the Senate and their proposal. Let's talk about current law. They say mine is not as good as current law. Under current law, next year the exemption will be $1 million. That is 2003. Under my proposal, the exemption is $3 million. So the rate for an individual who has an estate that is taxed next year below $3 million, the rate is zero; their rate above $1 million is 41 percent. Which is better? A zero rate up to $3 million, as in my proposal? Or their proposal, which is a 41-percent rate over $1 million? Can we do the math? Which proposal means less tax to the individual in the family? Zero percent up to $3 million? Or their proposal that says a 41-percent rate over $1 million. Compare it to current law. My rate is zero percent up to $3 million. They have zero up to $1 million. That is current law. But over that the rate is 41 percent. Let's see, are you going to pay less tax under my proposal or their proposal? Are you going to pay less tax under my proposal or under current law? Come on. I am ready to have an honest debate but let's not twist things around and claim that my proposal taxes more than your proposal. That stands truth and logic on its head.

Mr. CONRAD. I yield.

Mr. CONRAD. I would be happy to do that. The next year, 2004, their exemption is $1.5 million for current law with a 41-percent rate. Their proposal is a $1.5 million exemption with a 43-percent rate. My proposal is $3 million, nothing, no tax. So you are higher in 2003; you are higher in 2004; you are higher in 2005; you are higher in 2006; you are higher in 2007. That is a long time in which my proposal is better than your proposal. Not only is my proposal better in terms of the taxpayer for those years, my proposal is better for the Federal Government's Treasury and for fiscal responsibility and for Social Security because our proposal costs less over the next decade than does theirs. Why is that? Because at the end of the decade they eliminate the estate tax completely. It does not matter how big. It does not matter if you have a $50 billion estate, they say you pay no tax. The Senator from Texas talked about what is fair and right. Let me give an example of why I think what he is proposing is less fair, is less right, than what I am proposing. Under their proposal, someone with an estate of $50 million--for example, Mr. Skilling, the executive who ran Enron. He would have his estate tax eliminated. The $55 million he would save would be equivalent to all of the Social Security taxes paid in one year by 30,000 people earning $30,000. In other words, in their idea of what is fair, it is more important to take Mr. Skilling off the tax rolls completely, even though his gains, many might say, are ill gotten, it is more important to take him off than to worry about the 30,000 Americans earning $30,000 a year paying that amount of money into Social Security. Make no mistake, these things are directly related. The proposal I have offered reforms the estate tax. It says nothing is paid starting next year if you are an individual with an estate of less than $3 million, and for a couple that is up to $6 million. You pay zero. That is much better for next year, and 2004, and 2005, and 2006, and 2007, than their proposal. But, at the same time, my proposal costs less because we do not eliminate the estate tax. So my proposal costs $12.6 billion in the first decade; their proposal costs $99.4 billion. That is a dramatic difference. It is at a time when we will be running deficits for the entire next decade. Let me repeat that. We will be running deficits for the entire next decade unless something changes. And just hours ago we had to increase the debt of the United States $450 billion. They are proposing a cost in the second 10 years of $740 billion. Reform, not repeal, is the best thing for this country's economy, for our fiscal stability, and for fiscal responsibility. And interestingly enough, it is the best thing for taxpayers. It is the best thing for taxpayers because they get a better break now. We go from a $1 million exemption to a $3 million. Next year, that would be $6 million for a couple. This idea of repeal which they have proposed is a hoax. I don't think it will ever happen. They can pass it now, but I don't think it will happen. By some other name this tax will come back and we will have denied people the ability to plan and we will also have denied people the chance to get a greater exemption now, which is what I am proposing. When I was raised, I was taught a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. This proposal I am making is a bird in the hand, a $3 million exemption, or a $6 million exemption for a couple, starting next year, instead of the $1 million exemption that exists in current law and the $1 million they have in their plan. The choice is pretty clear, pretty simple, but pretty important. I yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD. Will the Senator yield on that last point?

Mr. CONRAD. I would love to see the calculation the Senator has.

Mr. CONRAD. I would love to take a look at that.

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, let me conclude this debate as I began. I believe our votes must be informed by the current fiscal condition of the country. As the President said to us last year, his budget was going to pay off $2 trillion of debt over the next decade. He said, at that time, that would be the largest debt reduction of any country ever. Now the President comes to us 1 year later and says: Whoops, forget about that. Forget about maximum paydown of the debt. Forget about paying down more debt than any country ever. Instead of paying down debt, I am asking you, Members of Congress, for the second biggest increase in the debt in our Nation's history. The only bigger request for an increase in the debt was made by the current President's father when he was President. He asked for and received a $915 billion increase in the national debt in one fell swoop, in November of 1990. Now comes this President and he asks for a $750 billion increase in the debt, the second biggest in our Nation's history. We all have to think a moment about the changed circumstances. Just hours ago, this Chamber voted to increase this Nation's debt by $450 billion. Now our colleagues on the other side are here saying they want to increase the debt another $100 billion in this 10 years, by another $740 billion in the second decade. Let's look at where we are and where we are headed. This chart shows that from 1992 to 2000 we pulled out of deficit. We got ourselves into circumstances in which we were running surpluses. Last year with the President's budget plan we plunged back into deficit, and we now are told that we can expect deficits the entire rest of the decade. That is before their proposal to dig the hole even deeper. And the outlook for the years beyond is even more serious. That brings us to the question of what do we do on the estate tax. I acknowledge we need to reform the estate tax--$1 million is too low for a tax to be imposed. So I proposed that next year we go to $3 million of exemption for an individual estate; $6 million for a couple. They would pay zero under my proposal. A couple would pay no estate tax up to $6 million. Our friends on the other side, they don't get to $3 million until 2009. My proposal also freezes the maximum estate tax rate at 50 percent. It retains stepped-up basis. I know that is a confusing term, but it is an important one. What it means is that in the future, you will pay taxes on what you inherit based on the value at the time you inherit it, not what grandpa paid for the property, not what grandma paid for the property, but what it was worth when it passed to you. That is a very important difference between their proposal and mine. While my proposal is more generous to taxpayers in the short term, it is also more fiscally responsible because we don't eliminate the estate tax completely as their proposal does. They are proposing to eliminate the estate tax completely after the year 2010. My proposal saves hundreds of billions of dollars that otherwise are going to come straight out of Social Security. There is no other place for it to come from. They deny it. They say this has no effect on Social Security. Really? Where is the money coming from? There is only one place it can come from; that is, straight out of Social Security. My proposal will reduce the number of estates that are taxable from the current level, which is 2 percent. Only 2 percent of all estates in America have any tax. I would reduce that to three-tenths of 1 percent, but at the same time save the fiscal position of the country. There is no question that what they are talking about--estate tax repeal--raids Social Security trust funds. Look at what it does. Their idea of fairness is to eliminate the estate taxes for somebody like Mr. Skilling, former CEO of Enron, who would save under their plan an estimated at $55 million. That is equivalent to all of the Social Security taxes paid in a year by 30,000 American people earning $30,000. They say their proposal is fair. They say their proposal is equitable. I don't see it. Taking all of the taxes from 30,000 people earning $30,000 a year to eliminate the estate taxes of Mr. Skilling is not fair. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CONRAD. That is correct.

Mr. CONRAD. That is correct. Of the $31 billion, $14 billion was for defense.

Mr. CONRAD. That is correct.

Mr. CONRAD. That is correct.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. CONRAD. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, when the Senator from Texas objected to the unanimous consent request that was made by the Senator from Nevada, what he was objecting to was a bipartisan agreement on a budget framework and the extension of the budget disciplines that expired at the end of September. All we were asking was for the body to have an opportunity to vote after the cloture vote this morning. That is because under the rules of the Senate, postcloture, that amendment to have a budget, to have the budget disciplines extended, will not be permitted. There has been criticism that we have not had a budget for this year. I think all of us understand the jeopardy of not having a budget framework and the lack of the budget disciplines, which expire in September extended. This was an opportunity to address those critical concerns. I regret that the Senator from Texas objected. He doesn't want to give the body an opportunity to vote, to discuss, to debate, and to decide. We had a chance to put in place a budget framework and to extend the budget disciplines to keep the appropriations process from spiraling out of control. We will have to revisit that issue, but I hope people will think carefully about whether we really do not want to have any budget disciplines as we go through the appropriations process. I thank the Chair.

Mr. CONRAD. I say to my colleague from Texas, when he says there were no number limits in what I was offering, he is wrong. He objected to putting in the very limits that he requests. This was our opportunity. We had a chance to have a budget framework and to extend the budget disciplines and the Senator from Texas said no. We will not even allow the body to consider it.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. I thank the distinguished ranking member of the Budget Committee. I agree with every word he said. We have a budget process that is hanging by a thread. That is exactly right. We desperately need to put in place the budget disciplines that can allow us to keep the spending from spinning out of control as we go into the budget process. The amendment by the Senators from Wisconsin and New Hampshire, which is completely well intended, will not accomplish the result they seek. I believe that is the case because it is dependent upon OMB projections of surpluses. We tried that. It didn't work. Why didn't it work? Because what occurred was a rosy scenario. I put up the chart for 1990. They said the deficit was right on target. It was going to be reduced to $100 billion. It wasn't reduced to $100 billion. It was $221 billion. Let's not have a massive loophole like that put back into the budget law of the Congress. I yield the floor and retain the remainder of my time.

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I ask the Chair to advise me when I have consumed 10 minutes. Madam President, the amendment offered by our colleagues is well intentioned. In fact, I share many of the goals they have enunciated today. We have an enormously serious problem with the fiscal condition of the country. This chart shows that we are now headed for a return to an era of deficits that is going to continue long into the future. This chart goes back to 1992, back to the time when we were deep in deficit. Many of us know the extraordinary efforts that were required to lift us out of deficit, back into surplus, which we enjoyed for just a few short years. Last year, a series of decisions were made on a massive tax cut. Then, of course, the attack on the country occurred that led to increased spending for defense and homeland security. At the same time, there was an economic slowdown. We experienced those three events--the massive tax cut, the attack on this country that led to increased spending, and, of course, the economic slowdown. Those three, led by the tax cut--the tax cut was the biggest contributor to returning to deficit--has plunged us back into deficit by very large amounts that are going to continue the rest of the decade. That is the circumstance we face. The proposal by our colleagues has a very serious set of problems attached to it. They have gone to what is an enforcement mechanism that we have seen in the past. If you liked Gramm-Rudman, you will love Gregg-Feingold because they have returned to the notion of enforcement based on projections; not what actually happens but based on projections of what will happen. This is a fatal flaw. In fact, it could undermine the very budget discipline they are seeking to support. Have we forgotten what happened under Gramm-Rudman? Have we forgotten the endless game playing and gimmicks that resulted from Gramm-Rudman? Have we forgotten the rosy scenario? Let us go back to 1990 and look at what could happen under the proposal of our colleagues to now again rely on forecasts and projections rather than real results. Back in 1990, OMB told us at the beginning of the year that we were going to have a $100 billion deficit. They were right on track with the deficit reduction plan that was in place. That is what they said. What actually occurred? It wasn't a $100 billion deficit. It was a $221 billion deficit. All projections, all false; all that lead to a circumstance under the proposal from the Senator from New Hampshire and the Senator from Wisconsin that could lead a Congress to have more tax cuts, more spending, based on a projection that everything was OK. Later in the year, when reality sets in, their answer is to only deal with half of the equation that leads to budget deficits. Budget deficits are a result of an imbalance between spending and revenue. Their only answer is on the spending side of the equation. That is, I think, a mistake. Let us look at what it took to get us back into balance. Back in the 1980s--here is the blue line, the revenue line, and the red line is the spending line. We can see for a very long period that spending exceeded revenues, and by large amounts. The result was a quadrupling of the debt of the United States. What happened in 1993? We passed a plan to cut spending and to raise revenue. It was that combination that led us back to fiscal responsibility, that led us back to balance, that eliminated deficits, and that reduced debt. Have we forgotten that worked? I hope very much that we don't go down this slippery slope of a whole new enforcement mechanism based on projections rather than real results. That way leads to real trouble. In addition to those problems, our friends who are coming before us with this amendment--well intentioned as it is--I think do underestimate the uncertainty of our time. When this headline appeared on September 12, everything changed. This headline says, ``U.S. Attacked.'' We all remember that somber day when there were two strikes at the World Trade Center and passenger airliners turned into flying bombs, and what happened shortly thereafter with the attack on the Pentagon. That changed everything. We are now in a period of extraordinary uncertainty. Here are recent headlines that talk about uncertainty. This is the Vice President of the United States warning of future attacks: Possibility of another al-Qaida strike ``almost certain,'' the Vice President says. In this circumstance, we should not be tying the hands of the Congress and the administration for the next 5 years. None of us are wise enough to know what demands may be made on this country. None of us can know what is in the next 24 hours, much less the next 5 years. We ought to be ready to respond to any attack and any strike against this country. We ought not to be in a fiscal straitjacket that makes a response more difficult. It is not just the Vice President of the United States. This is the head of the FBI: ``Warns of Suicide Bombs.'' Calls U.S. attacks akin to those on Israel inevitable. Our friends who are sponsoring this amendment will say we have a way around that for defense spending. We only have a simple majority vote for additional defense spending. Those are not typical defense expenditures that are being used to respond to terrorist attacks. Defense is part of it, but another part is called ``homeland security.'' Homeland security funding is not off in the defense budget. It is in the budget of the FBI, it is in the budget of the INS, it is in the budget of the FAA, it is in the budget of the Transportation Department, and it is in the budget of the Department of Health and Human Services to respond to attacks and to bioterrorism. The money needed to defend this Nation is not just in the defense budget. Have we forgotten the response of this Congress to the attacks of September 11? Was it just defense spending that we increased? Absolutely not. We also responded with money for homeland security because we understood a terrorist threat to this country could not be just defended in the traditional way. The uncertainty goes to other areas as well. This is a headline of Tuesday of this week in USA Today: Nuclear Clash Would Batter World Financial Markets. They are talking about what would happen if a nuclear exchange occurred between India and Pakistan. They alert us to the fact that it would batter world financial markets. Nuclear war would spark a sell-off and send world stock markets tumbling. This is a period of uncertainty, and we ought not to be tying the hands of the Congress being able to respond. The uncertainty is not just on the spending side of the equation. It is also on the revenue side of the equation. This is a headline of April 26 in the Los Angeles Times: Lower Tax Receipts Could Double the United States Budget Deficit . . . In this year alone. I agree with that analysis. I think we are headed for a budget deficit this year of perhaps $160 billion and next year an even larger budget deficit. That is why enforcement provisions are critically important. But they have to be enforcement provisions that will actually work and not make the situation worse. I wish to announce my intention now to offer the budget enforcement provisions that have worked, and to do so after the disposition of this amendment. Let me add one other observation about the amendment that is being offered. The Gregg-Feingold proposal extends the statutory pay-as-you-go enforcement procedures for 5 years, but it substantially amends the current pay-go law to allow direct spending increases or tax cuts to be enacted without being paid for if the Office of Management and Budget projects that there will be a surplus without Social Security. That is the Achilles' heel of this amendment. It is based on projections and not real results. We have been down that road before. It was a disaster for fiscal responsibility. Let us not repeat it. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor and retain the remainder of my time.

Mr. CONRAD. How much time remains on the other side?

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, how much time remains?

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, when we debated the last amendment, the point was made, and the point was made correctly, that the various budget disciplines are going to expire on September 30 of this year. That could allow budget discipline to go right out the window. What I am offering today is a continuation of the budget disciplines that have worked--the budget disciplines that allowed us to move from deficit to surplus. It is critically important that those budget disciplines be extended. I think there is strong support in this body for that proposition. As I have indicated, these points of order, including points of order that protect Social Security, limit total spending and total tax cuts, enforce discretionary spending limits, and committee and subcommittee spending allocations are scheduled to expire on September 30. The Senate has had Budget Act points of order that require 60 votes to waive since 1985. But unless action is taken starting October 1, it will only take 51 votes to waive most Budget Act points of order. Only 51 votes would be required to raid Social Security, or to exceed discretionary spending limits, or to increase total spending above agreed upon levels, or to cut taxes below agreed upon levels, or to exceed committee spending allocations. Without the extension of these 60-vote points of order, it will become much more difficult to enforce budget discipline in the Senate. Senators who favor spending, or tax cuts, or exceed agreed upon budget limits would not be deterred by the need to convince 60 of their colleagues that the limits should not apply to their proposals. In addition, the amendment I am offering extends Budget Enforcement Act provisions. The amendment extends for 5 years the Budget Enforcement Act procedures that limit discretionary spending and requires increases in mandatory spending or tax cuts to be offset. The discretionary spending limits are scheduled to expire on September 30 of this year. The pay-as-you-go procedures that control mandatory spending and tax cuts will cease to apply to newly enacted legislation after September 30, although pay-as-you-go sequestrations will continue to apply to legislation enacted before that date. Under the amendment, the pay-as-you-go enforcement will expire earlier than scheduled if an actual non-Social Security surplus is reported before fiscal year 2007. Although it has not been evident for the past several years, the discretionary cap and pay-as-you-go enforcement actions of the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 have proved to be very effective tools for budget enforcement. Let us put up the chart that shows the long-term budget surplus standards we face. Here is the long-term relationship between spending and revenues. This goes back to 1980. The red line is the spending of the Federal Government. The blue line is the revenue. We had this very significant gap between the two--spending exceeding revenue--back in the 1980s, and that led to a quadrupling of the national debt. In 1993, we passed historic legislation that cut spending and raised revenue to eliminate this gap between spending and revenue--to eliminate deficits and to begin to allow us to pay down debt. We did that. The lines cross. Spending went below the revenue line. And in 1997 we passed additional legislation that led to budget surpluses. The revenue line was above the spending level. That has all changed. Now we are back to deficits. After making all that progress, after moving out of deficits into surplus, after the fiscal mistakes of last year, the President proposed a massive tax cut with a major defense buildup and said we could have it all, said we could have all of the spending and all of the tax cuts, and that we would still have surpluses. He was wrong by a country mile. Instead of surpluses as far as the eye can see, we have deficits as far as the eye can see. The question is, Are we going to reinstitute the budget discipline to provide the framework for the appropriations process? From the time the budget disciplines were enacted through 1998, they helped to control spending, limit tax cuts, and played an important role in the dramatic turnaround in our budget circumstance. That is what this chart shows. We lifted this country out of deficits and put it in surplus. Then, unwisely, last year, a whole new fiscal policy was put in place. That policy has plunged us back into deficits as far as the eye can see. We are going to be facing red ink throughout the entire next decade. Without these tools which expire on September 30, it is unlikely the budget would have gone from a record total deficit of $290 billion in 1992 to a surplus in 1998. After 1998, these enforcement tools fell victim to the unrealistic, low discretionary caps that were set in the 1997 Balanced Budget Act. It is the reason I opposed the last amendment. It was going to repeat the mistakes of the past, put in unrealistic numbers in light of the attack on this country, and base budget enforcement on projections rather than real results. These budget enforcement provisions are based on actual results, not projections, and don't leave us vulnerable to the office of Management and Budget going back to the rosy scenario days in which they told us there were surpluses even when that was highly unlikely. We are back in deficit now and for the foreseeable future. We should extend and enforce the Budget Enforcement Act procedures, not let them expire and either give up on fiscal discipline or pretend there are some other procedures that might work better than these proven procedures. In addition, my amendment extends the Senate pay-as-you-go rule. The amendment extends through 2007 the Senate pay-as-you-go point of order that prohibits surpluses from being used to pay for new mandatory spending or tax cuts. Let me repeat that because I think it is critically important. The pay-go provision will protect us from using Social Security money for other tax cuts or other spending. We must have this discipline put in place or else we risk losing control of the entire spending process. I hope my colleagues will think very carefully about the circumstance we face. We have put in here the framework for budget caps. We have not put in the number for this year. We have negotiations going on right now to determine whether or not we can agree now on a number for this year. As you know, we are very close. After weeks of discussion, we were very close yesterday to agreeing on a number. Perhaps this can give us an opportunity to achieve an agreement. Even if we don't today reach agreement on what the budget numbers should be for this year, it is critically important that we put in place the budget enforcement framework. We cannot let that lapse. Even if we don't agree on a cap number for spending today, we can agree on the budget enforcement framework. We can then settle on a number if not today, sometime in the near future so that these disciplines have something to apply to. It is critically important that this budget enforcement mechanism not be allowed to lapse. That would be a serious mistake given the fiscal condition of the country. Literally, for weeks we have engaged in good- faith negotiations with people on the other side of the aisle. I thank Senator Domenici, the ranking member of the Budget Committee, and his staff. They have played a very constructive role in these discussions. That can be said of the chairman and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee as well. Senator Byrd, the chairman, and Senator Stevens, the ranking member, have worked for many days to try to agree to a set of provisions that would allow us to provide a budget framework and to also provide for a continuation of these budget disciplines. Unfortunately, those talks hit a bump in the road yesterday. We have a chance now to get back on track. We have an opportunity now to extend these budget discipline provisions. We have an opportunity now to agree on a budget limit, an appropriations limit for this year. I do not know if we can agree on that in the next few hours, but perhaps we can. It would allow us, then, to go into the appropriations process with not only the budget disciplines intact but with an agreement on what total appropriations will be for this year. That would be a very positive development. We would then have a budget for the year, and we would have the budget disciplines so that we could, with greater confidence, ensure we stay within the limits agreed to. At the very least, we ought to put in place those budget disciplines. We ought to put in place that framework. We ought to be ready for when the negotiations achieve a result and we are able to agree on a number. We can do that today, at a minimum. It would be even better if we could agree to an amount as well. But at the very least, let's send a signal that we are not going to have chaos in the budget process. Senator Domenici, the distinguished ranking member, has served on the Budget Committee for a long time. He has been chairman and ranking member. He warned us: Look, we are in uncharted waters; this is dangerous ground; we should have a budget in place. This is an opportunity to have a budget framework so that disciplines that are set to expire on September 30 continue. This is also an opportunity to agree on a budget amount. I very much hope that people who are discussing this issue at this moment think very carefully about what is at stake. I hope they will think very carefully about what we need to consider. If we allow these budget disciplines to lapse, and we go into the appropriations process without an agreed-upon budget amount, it does not take much imagination to think of what could occur. We could have spending spin out of control. I do not think anybody wants that to happen. Think of the implications. Think of the signal that would send to the financial markets of this country. Think of what that could mean to the economy of this country. We have already seen that the equity markets are extremely vulnerable. We have already seen the stock market go down 200 points in a day. If the markets got the sense that we were not going to take serious action on the budget deficits that now confront the country, that could further destabilize equity markets and put us in an even more vulnerable position. (Mr. CARPER assumed the chair.)

Mr. CONRAD. No one will object to that.

Mr. CONRAD. That is exactly right. The Senator basically has the President's number, which the President proposed for outlays--not the President's policy, I am quick to acknowledge. Really, the significant difference--there is not a difference on the budget authority number. It is the President's number. We have said all along that we could agree to the President's number for spending this year. We would not agree to this so-called accruals policy that would say that retirement funding of Federal employees is somehow discretionary rather than mandatory spending. It doesn't seem to us that that is realistic. When you have Federal employees, you have costs for their retirement. That has always been mandatory spending because, obviously, it is required. It is not discretionary. But the overall President's number is one to which I would agree. It is in the budget resolution that passed the Senate Budget Committee. The Senator from New Mexico has provided a number for outlays that is very close to a number to which I could agree. He has also provided a defense firewall. Well, I think the realistic outcome in the Senate is that if we had a vote, there would be a commitment to spend that amount of money for defense. I think that would probably be the overwhelming vote. I say to my colleagues, the Senator from New Mexico has come forward with the other part of the package. We have the budget discipline framework and he has now provided the numbers, provided a budget for this year that is very close to the numbers we have discussed for days. I hope my colleagues will think about the need to get a budget and budget discipline in place for this year. We can do it now. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, let me, first, thank the distinguished Senator from New Mexico, the ranking member of the Budget Committee. I think he has done something very constructive because it kind of leads us to the point of all the decisions that need to be made. The Senator from New Mexico is saying, yes, we need the budget enforcement mechanism and framework. We also need a budget. We need a budget. The Senator from New Mexico has come forward with numbers that are very close numbers that I could agree to, I say to the Senator.