Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Florida (Mr. Mack) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Florida (Mr. Mack) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Florida (Mr. Mack) and the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Chafee) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Mack), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Smith), and the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Thomas) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 1851.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, my colleague has made several references about Republicans cutting education. I have called him on it in the past, and I am calling him on it again. The budget we have before us increases education by $2.3 billion. If you took what I said, cut 1 percent, that increases education from $35 billion to $37 billion. And that is a $2.3 billion increase. So I keep hearing him say Republicans are cutting education, and it has grown every single year. I think he needs to stay with the facts. If you adopted this draconian proposal, you would reduce the growth of education from maybe $2.3 billion to $2 billion, which is still a big growth. So I want to make clear there is too much rhetoric that is too inaccurate which says Republicans are cutting education, when education is growing by over $2 billion in this bill.

Mr. NICKLES. Very briefly, we don't have to debate all the budget assumptions. My colleague pointed out a lot of things he has read in the paper that different people have tried. The earned income tax credit, frankly, needs to be reformed. About 24 percent of that program is waste and fraud. It needs to be reformed, but we are not going to do it. I am probably the biggest proponent of reforming the program, but I have already said it shouldn't be done in this bill and it will not be done in this bill. It is not in the Senate bill. You haven't seen it; you are not going to see it in the conference report. At least that is my intention. The Senator mentioned a few other things. My point is, we don't have to play games. He mentioned tax cuts. We don't have a tax cut in this bill. When it is all said and done, let's not raid Social Security. The Senator said we are going to have to cut education. We have more money in the bill that is pending than the President requested for education. Even if we had an across-the-board cut to make sure we didn't touch Social Security, we would still have more than the President requested. There is $500 million more than the President requested in this bill for education, and if we had an across-the-board cut, it still comes out. There would still be more money than the President requested, and almost $2 billion more than last year. My colleague said: Hey, the horse is out of the barn. Well, it is not out of the barn. We have a lot of horses in the barn. Big horses are still there, such as the Defense bill, Labor-HHS. Those are two bills that are expensive. Most of the other bills are coming in at last year's level, maybe a little less. There are big increases in Labor-HHS and in the Department of Defense. Those are not out yet. Defense is close to being finished. If Defense and Labor-HHS, Commerce-State-Justice, and HUD, come in too high--we do not know yet because they haven't been reported out, but if they raid Social Security, let's cut everything across the board. That is what this says. I hope they don't. I absolutely believe if I had my say-so, they would not. But I am just one person. I think if the conferees show some restraint, and if we show some restraint on Labor-HHS, on the Department of Defense, and on the remaining bills, we don't have to touch Social Security, not one dime. But if, for some reason, we are not able do it, with the Agriculture bill for instance, the Agriculture bill emergency funding, as designated has blown from $6 billion to $8.7 billion; it grows by $1 billion every few days. I question that. I may vote against it. I think it has grown too much. I have a lot of farmers in my State who are going to be quite upset when I vote against it, but I may well because I think it is getting ridiculous how much we are spending. Even if we do, that will be classified as an emergency; but I don't care if it is called emergency or regular outlays. If it starts dipping into Social Security, this resolution says let's cut all spending enough to make sure we don't. Are we going to draw the line and stop at a certain level or not? Let me make one other comment because we have heard a lot of discussion on Medicare. President Clinton's budget proposal proposed to freeze hospital payments. How many of us have had hospitals coming up here and saying: You have cut too much? The President's proposal was to cut it more. Nobody has talked about that. My colleague says President Clinton's budget was balanced. It was not. The President's budget, according to CBO, still raids Social Security by $7 billion in 2000. I am saying, no, let's not let Congress do it, or the President; let's not do it. But if we have to, let's have an across-the-board cut and cut everybody a little bit. Right now, the projections are that maybe it would take 1 percent if we don't show a little restraint. We can show a little restraint. We can save a measly $5 billion out of $500 billion of appropriations that have not been passed. We can do that, and we should. Absolutely. I am going to be disgusted if we don't do it. We used to have Gramm-Rudman- Hollings that provided for an automatic sequester if we didn't meet certain targets. I prefer that we not touch Social Security, but if we do, let's cut across the board so it is a small percentage. I urge my colleagues to seriously consider that and, hopefully, pass this resolution when we vote next week. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. I tell my colleague from Illinois, I will be very brief, a couple comments. I ask unanimous consent to add Senators Gregg and Gramm as original sponsors of the amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. If the Senator doesn't mind.

Mr. NICKLES. Let me make a couple of comments.

Mr. NICKLES. I want the Senator to be factual.

Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, the modification of the amendment is very minor and technical. I will tell you what it is: It is the sense of the Senate that the Congress should ensure that the fiscal year 2000 appropriations measures do not result in an on-budget deficit (excluding the surpluses generated by Social Security trust funds) by adopting an across-the-board reduction in all discretionary appropriations sufficient to eliminate such deficit. . . . The original amendment I filed said it is the sense of the Senate that conferees would make sure they did not dip into Social Security funds. Now I am saying the Congress should make sure we do not dip into the Social Security funds and, if necessary, that we have across-the- board reductions in spending to make sure we do not touch Social Security funds. I have stated--and I think all of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle have done so as well--that we do not want to touch Social Security, we absolutely do not want to touch the Social Security trust funds. We are going to have a surplus next year and it is in large part, if not totally, because of the Social Security surplus. Many have drawn the line and said: We are not going to touch that. Maybe because of emergencies we will spend the non-social security surplus. Those funds may well be spent--as a result of the hurricane, agricultural disasters, the events in Kosovo or East Timor, or whatever. There may be some emergencies that that $14 billion is going to be spent on, but absolutely not a dime more. As we total all of these appropriations bills--the numbers are growing, or at least some people are trying to make them grow. I am saying that no matter what we do, at the end of this process, we will have across-the-board cuts if they are necessary. Hopefully, we won't have to. If we do our jobs, we will not need to have across-the-board cuts. Senator Stevens, the Appropriations chairman, said we are not going to need the cut because he is going to make sure we come in below the amounts necessary. He said that he will make sure outlays do not exceed the level that would intrude upon or have us spend Social Security trust funds. I respect that and I agree with it. But just in case I am saying--let's go on record; let's make sure that, if necessary we will have across-the-board cuts. What are we talking about? I have added up all the bills. Just for the information of colleagues, I have added up all the bills including the Labor-HHS bill we have before us. If you add them all up, we are about $5 billion into the Social Security surplus right now. According to the calculations I am using, the same ones I believe CBO and OMB are using, we are about $5 billion over. That is about $5 billion out of $500 billion on discretionary spending. It equals about 1 percent. I hope we can avoid an across-the-board cut. I do not think it is the best way to govern because we should be making reductions throughout the process. But, it may be necessary if we can not accomplish the FY 2000 appropriations without dipping into Social Security. Incidentally, in the bill we have before us, I see we have about a $2 billion increase in NIH, about $1.7 billion more than the President's request; we have $2.3 billion more in education spending; we have $500 million in administrative expenses in the Department of Labor, and much, much more. There is a lot of squeezing we could do. Even if we went to the President's numbers on a few items, we could save $3.5 billion or $4 billion. So I hope an across-the-board cut will not be necessary. But I think it is important we do whatever is necessary to make sure we do not raid the Social Security trust fund. A lot of us agree with that rhetorically, but we should make sure that each and every one of us mean it. I have heard some of my colleagues saying: Well, we need to make some fixes in various areas such as Medicare, to correct some of the mistakes made in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. I will just say that there are many on this side of the aisle who are willing to make some adjustments in Medicare. We understand that some of the assumptions and some of the guesstimates were inaccurate and fell disproportionately on some different areas. So we are willing to make some adjustments. Medicare is an important issue and I am very disappointed that the administration would not work with and support the Bipartisan Commission on Medicare, to make significant, real reforms that would help save Medicare long term. The idea that the administration is going to save Medicare by putting an IOU into the Medicare fund, is baloney. It is false, it is misleading, it is deceptive, and it does not do anything to save Medicare. My colleagues have just talked about introducing a proposal that will greatly increase Medicare spending. We are willing to make some adjustments. I do not use the word ``fix'' because you are not going to fix it with a few Band-Aids. A lot of us are somewhat knowledgeable on the issue, and we are willing to take the bipartisan efforts of the Breaux Commission and put together some positive solutions to help save Medicare for several years. Maybe we can only do a Band-Aid this Congress. Frankly, I think we could and should do more. Certainly this Senator, and others on this side of the aisle are willing to work toward that. It is the administration that has been unwilling to dedicate itself to saving Medicare and as a result they have withdrawn their support of the Medicare proposal that was chaired by Chairman Breaux and Congressman Thomas. Regardless, I hope we can lay aside the partisan guns and ask ourselves what we need to do to fix the system? I know Senator Kerrey of Nebraska worked on that commission and did some outstanding work. Frankly, I think there are many of us who want to help fix and save Social Security, not just apply a few Band-Aids to alleviate a few of the problems. We are willing to try to work to help fix the entire system. In working on these various appropriations it has become apparent that there is no limit to the appetite of some members of this body to spend money. Democrats yesterday offered about $3 billion of additional spending on the Labor-HHS bill that is already growing by tremendous amounts. Chairman Specter has already come out with an amount that was $2.3 billion over last year. Obviously, no matter what is reported out of committee, it is not enough, so we have to have billions more. I think the appropriations process is getting a little faulty when we start appropriating so many years in advance. I do not quite subscribe to some of the games that are being played. And how much money can we move forward? We are seeing this happen time and time again. Incidentally, the administration's budget had $19 billion in forward funding. And now, evidently, the process will come out closer to $19 billion or $20 billion, but that is still not enough. I know the Medicare fixes are going to cost money. My point is, I already said, before we have the add-ons, we are $5 billion into the Social Security trust funds. We are going to have to make those adjustments in the conferences in the next couple weeks. It is going to have to happen. It is going to have to happen by people working together. If, for some reason, these conferences come out and exceed the amount and raid Social Security, we should have across-the-board reductions to stop it, to make sure we do not raid Social Security. Maybe with the momentum for popular programs and we can't say no--if we do not have the collective will to say we are going to vote down and vote no on some of these appropriations bills, then let's set up a mechanism to say the bottom line is, if these amounts are so large that they actually raid Social Security, we are going to have to say no by having across-the-board reductions. I hope that is not necessary. I do not expect it to be necessary. I think when it is all said and done, and the budgeteers finally start scrubbing these numbers--the CBO and Budget Committee--Democrats as well as Republicans will say: Wait a minute, let's limit the appetite of growth in spending and make sure we do not raid Social Security. That is the purpose of this amendment. It is a sense of the Senate. Frankly, I was considering budget language that would implement it. Senator Stevens has pointed out he will make a budget point of order that it is legislation on appropriations. But at some point we are going to have to get serious and say we are not going to touch Social Security. At this point, I offer this sense of the Senate. I hope 100 Members of the Senate will support it. I am hopeful we will not need it, but we will have it if necessary to make sure--absolutely sure--that we do not touch the Social Security trust funds in our spending programs. Let's make absolutely positive that does not happen for the fiscal years 2000 and 2001 or for the foreseeable future. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues and yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I send a second-degree amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, what is the pending business?

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Lugar), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Mack), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), and the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Thomas), are necessarily absent

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Regular order.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote on the Enzi amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Chafee), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Mack), and the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Thomas) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Mack), the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Thomas), the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Chafee), and the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Mack), the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Chafee), and the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Thomas) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Mack), the Senator from Rhodes Island (Mr. Chafee), the Senator from Ohio (Mr. DeWine), and the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Thomas) are necessarily absent.