Frank Lautenberg

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Once again, Mr. President, I find myself on the opposite side of an amendment that, frankly, I would not mind supporting. I do not think we do enough to combat the diseases that plague our society, things that we could ultimately save, I think, a fortune with if we could develop some of the programs that are now kind of just showing up with a light at the end of the tunnel. I met with a group of drug executives last week in New Jersey, and when they laid out the programs that are near completion--some of those are in testing now in FDA--and the prospect of saving costs for long- term diseases, whether it is Alzheimer's or osteoporosis and so many other things, it is a great advantage for us, both financially and functionally, as a society. Because we are in this bind where the funds would come from functions like education, environment, crimefighting, frankly, I am going to have to oppose it. It is one of the tasks we inherit when we take on an assignment like budget, which was declared earlier in this Chamber to be one of the least popular assignments in the place. As a matter of fact, one Senator suggested that every Senator ought to have a sentence of 6 months on the Budget Committee to understand what it is like. Budget committees are fun when there is lots of money. When there is not much money, to put it mildly, it is a drag. Mr. President, I yield back any time remaining.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Perhaps I didn't understand the Senator from Missouri. Was the Senator yielding time to the Senator from Oklahoma to speak on the Ashcroft amendment?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Objection.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I thank the Chair. As we examine the amendment sent up by the Senator from Missouri, it kind of recalls some other debates that we have had here, and he so aptly reminded us, that included the balanced budget debates and the subsequent vote that took place. And it therefore seems to me to be out of range to attempt to do that on this budget resolution. Frankly, in discussions that we have been having informally, it is my understanding that this amendment not only is opposed by me on behalf of the Democrats but also is opposed by the Republican management, and I certainly hope so because this is outside certainly the structure of this budget resolution. We are, Mr. President, working with a set of estimates. That is the best that can be done. One cannot put this into concrete and say that absolutely at the end of your fiscal year 1998 or even at the end of the fiscal year 1997, which is relatively imminent, we are going to be able to precisely gauge exactly what the outcome is going to be. It cannot happen. So we are working with estimates. But there is something else we are working with, and that is the good faith of the institution. I have heard it said on this floor in recent moments that the implication is that we in this body can't be trusted. And the words that were uttered came from a Member or Members of the institution. I don't know who it is that can't be trusted. Is it everybody else except the speaker? Is it everybody on this side of the aisle? Is it everybody on that side of the aisle? The one thing I must tell you I find difficult to comprehend--now, my background is business and I spent 30 years doing that. We didn't find everybody always meeting their word. But typically, if someone had a position of responsibility, you gave them the benefit of trust. And if there was, sometimes, a misunderstanding on an agreement, why, we chalked it up to a misunderstanding, we chalked it up to a misinterpretation. But to suggest that there is no trust in the U.S. Senate, sent here, 100 of us, by 260 million people--what fools those people are to send us here. We can't be trusted. You hear it coming from those who work here, those who have been sent here: Oh, no, we can't be trusted. I will tell you this. I don't know anybody here--anybody here, on either side of the aisle, who can't be trusted. I may disagree with their point of view. I may disagree with their judgment. I wouldn't say--I am trying to think of the instances where, perhaps, in my 15 years here, that I have run into someone who you just can't trust. There are rumors about a person here or there. But to suggest that the body is not trustworthy and therefore we need special shackles, special handcuffs, special rules, special procedures? It is not enough to say, look, I was sent here by, I don't know, 2 million people in the voting booths, or that I represent a State with 8 million people, or this one represents a State with almost 50 million people, or that one represents a State with 18 million, or that one represents a State with 350,000 people--to say those people are either naive, stupid, don't know what is going on? They made a choice that suits their intellect and suits their view of what life is about, what they need to carry on their responsibilities. I don't think we need these constraints. I want to look at the record. I look at a record and if we get partisan about this, I look at a record of two parties, one Republican, one Democrat. The Republicans came into power in full force in 1980. President Reagan was a popular President, among the most popular in the history of the country. He came in, made decisions about tax cuts, $2.8 trillion worth of tax cuts--$2.8 trillion. By the way, in this budget, we have $250 billion, and there is a fair amount of debate. I didn't hear a lot of people say, don't trust him. It was voted, it was part of the law, and we succeeded in creating skyrocketing deficits, year after year, growing more each year than the year before, until we were almost at our wit's end. In 1992, a Democrat was elected President, a Democrat from the tax- and-spend party. That Democrat brought the budget deficit down from $290 billion to what is anticipated this year to be below $70 billion, 1992-97, 5 years' worth. We have been doing pretty good. That, to me, looks like we kept our word, all of us, because we have legislated. We have been lucky, too. We have had a very good economy to bolster the revenue side of things. But Government is smaller than it was by a significant measure, over a couple of hundred thousand people. We have tightened up in lots of ways that needed tightening up, and the results are pretty good. We have close to 12 million new jobs, unemployment is at its lowest point in 24 years, inflation at a steady rate, very low. There is not too much concern--a little worry, but it's not like it used to be. It's not like it was when it finally worked its way up to 21-or-so percent some years ago. It has been modest. Things have been happening. Our tax-to-GDP ratio is the lowest among the industrialized nations. Our ratio of deficit to GDP, very low. Signs are pretty good. Is this going to last forever? I don't know. Neither does anybody else here. Is it going to get worse immediately? No one knows that here, either. We look at the statistics. They look pretty good: PPI down, CPI down, everything in the right direction. That, again, does not mean it is going to last, but it does mean this is a heck of a time to, after struggling, struggling to get a balanced budget amendment on the books--and we are this close, Mr. President, this close to a balanced budget. It can be done in this body within hours from now, within hours, 4 or 5 hours; pass a balanced budget amendment--a balanced budget. I am sorry. A balanced budget. That was a slip of the tongue. Not one I meant to make, I can tell you. Within 4 hours, we can have a balanced budget, bipartisan--their side, my side. I don't know that we are walking arm in arm, but as I said for the newspaper the other day, at least we are not looking nose to nose, we are looking shoulder to shoulder, which I think is a better way to do it, and feeling pretty good about a lot of hard work. I don't get paid overtime. I don't want to get paid overtime. I did it because I took the job I wanted to have. I am so privileged to serve in this body. So many times I go over to my desk and I lift the top drawer--this is for the Senator from Missouri. I lift the top of my desk. It is right back there. Underneath that top, it says, ``Truman, Missouri.'' There is only one Truman I know, who was the President of the United States. I think his name was Harry--``Truman, Missouri.'' The man who stood for don't pass the buck: ``The buck stops here.'' The distinguished Senator from Missouri had served as Governor of that State. He is someone highly thought of. But I could not disagree with him more on this resolution. When I see things going as they are, and we have an opportunity for us to work in a bipartisan fashion, 6 weeks, roughly, of long days, long nights of sitting across the table from one another--no growling, no grousing, no anger, no fits or bursts of temperament, walk out of the room--none of that stuff. We disagreed. We discussed it. But nobody tried to put anything over on the other person. And we had the President's people in the room with us, three parties to the agreement. And I tell you, talking for myself and for my colleagues over here, there are things in here that we just don't like. I can be sure that there are things over there that they just don't like. But in a consensus arrangement--I have heard that even occurs sometimes in marriage. Two people get along, have nice kids and all that. Sometimes they disagree. Hard to believe? In any event, here we are. We have worked together and we walked out of that room, that day, feeling pretty good, even though we had the disagreements that followed on. We have worked, now, for these couple of days to try to get this agreement in place so it could go over to the House, have a conference on it, get the President to sign it and say to the American people--I hold my head high when I do it, in conscience. And my conscience--my name means a lot to me. It means a lot to me because whenever I am in here, I always remember that my parents were brought here as children by their parents from Europe-- poor, hard-working people. They always said to me, ``Frank, get an education. That's the way up. That's the way you get out of this. That's the way you get out of the store,'' with my mother waiting on the tables, cleaning them off all day and all night. So, my name means a lot to me. When I lent my support to this agreement, I did it feeling full well that I had done it with all the knowledge that I had available to me, that I did it in good conscience and that we were going to be able to get this agreement passed, out of the way and passed, and that we would be working hard to make sure that we met the objectives that are in here. The budget amendment says--and I perhaps paraphrase here because I am not reading from the amendment but I am reading from a summary. It requires a three-fifths vote of the Members of each House to provide for specific excess of outlays over receipts or to provide for such an increase in the level of the public debt. That is pretty significant. Normally, we operate with a majority, except in some special cases--veto override or supermajority that are required, sometimes, in budget affairs. But typically it is 51 votes takes it all. Here we say that, no, even though it is now in order, even though it is on paper, even though these are estimates, I once again say, and even though it was done with the best judgment that people could exercise, no, we are now going to go back to the debate on the balanced budget amendment. That is essentially what this is. Because we saw it defeated when it was presented here. It needed 67 votes. It got 66, as I remember. And one of the Senators on the floor before said that we would have had a balanced budget amendment if a couple of people hadn't changed their minds. We would have had it in place. It would have been attached to the Constitution. Far be it. It took a lot of States. They had to make a lot of votes; 50 of them had to vote to approve it before it got into place--not all 50 of them, but three-quarters of them. So it would not be in place. To now be doing a balanced budget amendment when we have a balanced budget 5 years in duration, 10-year projections, we don't expect--we could be wrong, but that's judgment. That is why we were sent here. Use your judgment, make sure your conscience is clear in things that you do. We could be wrong, but it looks in the 10 years, in the next 5-year cycle, that there will not be an explosion of growth in tax cuts, there won't be an explosion in the annual deficit, that we will be able to muster a surplus so we can start paying down some of that debt and get rid of some of the interest we have to pay every year. We have to pay more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in interest every year that every citizen in this country pays for in one way or the other, that children, future generations, will be called upon to pay your debt. They didn't sign any papers to acquire that debt. But we are on the way to solving some of those problems. Now, when I look at this amendment, it says, further, that it waives these provisions for any fiscal year in which a declaration of war is in effect, certainly, or the United States is engaged in a military conflict which causes an imminent and serious threat to national security. Are there threats to our society other than war? Is instability within our society a threat to this society? Is violence in the street a threat to our society? Is constant tension and hostility between parts of our society, one with the other, classes in our society? I think that is a real threat to national security. But there are no provisions if we are all wrong and a recession starts; if, worse, a depression occurs. If we had the same rules in place today in the early 1930's, then the Depression--everyone who knows anything about business or economics, who studied the problem, will tell you the Depression would have been considerably ameliorated if we had unemployment insurance, if we had other protections for people during that period of time. I think, frankly, as we look at this amendment, demanding now a 60 person vote in order to change things, to try and anticipate all the problems you have, is a terrible mistake. I think it violates the structure of the budget resolution. It will blow this agreement out of the water absolutely, because I know that there are not enough people who would vote to sustain a point of order if that is called upon. I expect to do just that. So, Mr. President, I hope that we will leave well enough alone in this case, get on with the business at hand, pass the balanced budget resolution, and let us start solving our problems and not create new ones. I yield the floor. Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, the pending amendment is not germane and therefore I raise a point of order that violates section 305(b)(2) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I would ask the Senator from Missouri if he would permit the exchange that we expected to have--the chairman of the Budget Committee is here--and that was that we would switch side to side. Now, we have had an amendment from Senator Gramm, from the Senator from Pennsylvania, one amendment from the Senator from Missouri. Meanwhile, a commitment was made to the Senator from Minnesota, who has been waiting virtually all day. We have not had a chance to deal with it and I think----

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Very briefly, I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for remembering that I might disagree that we have a 60-person vote required after the year 2002. I understand that the Senator wants to make sure that if we do achieve the objectives that we set out for ourselves, that we can continue to do so. I believe the same thing. However, I do disagree that we require a supermajority. The fact of the matter is, to project that far in advance--again, I said it earlier in a discussion, that we are working with estimates. We are looking at a particular point in time, the condition of our economy, the condition of the revenue stream that we get from, really, an ebullient marketplace and high tax collection. That has given us revenues that make the balanced budget a reality, to permit the tax cuts that have been established. Again, we each take a little bit of time for editorial comment to say--with which I disagree. I do agree with the portion that is devoted to the middle class and devoted to education. But it cannot be only my way. I regret that, but that is life and the reality. Mr. President, I hope we will be able to defeat this amendment. I think it does violate the agreement as we understand it. If we get to 2002--we have deliberately had the projections extend for 10 years, so we had some idea that we were not going to face a cataclysmic explosion with deficits or with tax cuts, frankly, in that period of time. I hope we will be able to defeat it. I do not see my colleague, the chairman of the Budget Committee here, but I assume he will agree with me and that he will discuss it at an appropriate moment, if we have time. Has the Senator yielded back all the time?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I yield the floor.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Not.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. The record is closed.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, far be it for me to seek an argument with our distinguished colleague from Arkansas. I cannot argue the other side very effectively. Tax cuts at this point in time, I do not think, are the best idea. What I think are some good ideas are the facts that we will, by virtue of this tax cut, we will be saving the middle-class families, those in more modest income circumstance. This will help pay for the insurance of your children. If they choose not to go to a 4-year college there is a program in here that will give them $1,500 worth of tax relief if their child wants to go to a 2-year college or a vocational school. I find it hard to disagree totally with my friend from Arkansas. I do want to say this, and this may not be the appropriate defense, but I have to look at it as a member of the Budget Committee and also as a member of the Appropriations Committee as an advance toward something that we want to do. We would like to be able to pay down our deficit, and I think that one day in the not-too-distant future, half a dozen years, which is not much in the lifetime of a country, that we will be able to start paying down our debt, starting to relieve ourselves of the biggest costs we will soon have in the budget which is the interest on the debt. That will happen and it happens because there is a compromise that has been fashioned, and as usual, the compromise is a consensus of minds but not a consensus of hearts. I do not really like everything that I am supporting here but there are things that I really love that I am supporting. I love the fact we will take care of 5 million children's health needs, and I love the fact we are not saying to those that are here legally if some accident or sickness befalls you that renders you disabled you will not be kicked off the rolls, which was an intent here for some time. There is going to be some relief for the impoverished, up to 150 percent, approximately, of the poverty level for any increases in the part B premium necessary as a result of the switch from part A to part B of home health care. That will help make that part A more solvent. I think that is a worthwhile objective. Meanwhile, we see that the economy is boiling, as you suggested, and that there is some hope that it will continue, and the economic assumptions, I think, are relatively conservative. So there is room to achieve the objectives that we want to without simply saying that the tax cuts are the thing that are driving this. That is not the case. The tax cuts are part of it. I do not approve of the tax cuts, either, but I voted for this bill because I think it is an essential part of getting our books in balance and working our way out of debt and not leaving our children with ever larger debts to pay off. So while I agree with the Senator in principle, the fact of the matter is that I think we have a job to do here that robs us of some of the things we would like to see. I voted against investments in transportation. That was really painful for me. I voted against expanding programs for children. That was painful to me. I do not like doing those things, but I like doing the job here as conscientiously as I can, which is to say at some point we want to reduce our debt, we want to reduce our deficits, we want to invest in our society, but we do not want to continue to pay the incredible interest rates that we are forced to pay, something around $250 billion a year. It is an outrageous thing for us to have to be subjected to. But we are trying to fix it. That is what this is about. I hope that the Senator will try at another opportunity to make the adjustments that he is talking about.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I yield our time.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. About roughly 5 hours.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Right.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I have a unanimous-consent request that Senators Daschle, Harkin, and Bumpers be added as original cosponsors to the Boxer-Durbin amendment No. 355.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I look forward to her question.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Let me first also express my support for this critical program to protect California's Bay-Delta system. I do believe that the amount that the Budget Committee has provided under the natural resources function is sufficient to accommodate the funding of the California Bay-Delta Environmental Water Security Act.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. No objection on this side.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, this amendment would require a supermajority, three-fifths of the Members in each House, to provide for specific excess of outlays of receipts or to provide for such increase in the level of public debt. What we are doing here is we will be reviewing the balanced budget amendment and voting for it here again. It does not fit in the scope of things. I have raised a point of order on this relative to germaneness. We should defeat this. I think this is a very dangerous precedent, for us to get involved with this kind of legislation in this budget resolution. I hope we will defeat it.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, do I have any time?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, 20 seconds? We will use the 20 seconds, Mr. President.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. We will use the seconds preciously and quickly and just say that this doesn't even allow for any adjustments during a recession, depression or that kind of thing. It says, ``other than national security.'' That is a military reference. I think national security includes a stable society, one that adjusts to the times. I hope we will again vote it down. I yield back my time.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, this amendment talks to the years 2000-plus. We heard it from the Senator from Oklahoma. We are not balancing the budget for 10 years. We are balancing it for the first 5 years to 2002. We project off into the years subsequent to that. We believe that we will have the mechanism in place to control it. If not, we ought to take it up at that time. And this budget amendment creates a supermajority. So we are back to 60 votes in case you want to make a change at that time. I do not think we ought to be strapping ourselves now for something that is going to happen after 2002. I hope that we will defeat this amendment. I think that it is important that we do. Mr. INHOFE addressed the Chair.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I move to table the amendment.