Rick Santorum

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I would be happy to yield for a question.

Mr. SANTORUM. I rise to continue my vigil in pointing out the lack of leadership of the President in coming forward and offering a balanced budget resolution. I have been in the Chamber noting the days that have passed since the Republicans in the Senate brought to the floor a balanced budget resolution which lay out a chart, a plan in specific detail, of how we would achieve a balanced budget over the next 7 years. Since that time, the President has played coyly with this issue and unfortunately has not come to the table. In fact, he has done a whole lot of things that lead many of us to believe we are not so sure he is ever going to come to the table.

Mr. SANTORUM. Excuse me. How many times did we hear that refrain throughout the course of the election? So I would just----

Mr. SANTORUM. If I can reclaim my time, I would suggest to the Senator from Nebraska that the reason this chart was put forward really is as a response to some of the comments made by the Senator from Massachusetts about the previous President. You remember the famous statement repeated over and over and over again in the 1992 election, ``Where is George?'' How many times?

Mr. SANTORUM. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Chair.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may proceed as in morning business.

Mr. SANTORUM. I am still waiting to hear if there is an agreement on my offering the amendment. We are waiting to hear from Members on your side of the aisle.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in morning business.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, today I am introducing the choice in welfare tax credit bill. The goal of our welfare reforms should be to continue to focus antipoverty efforts not just to the States but to local, private charities as well. With the choice in welfare tax credit, taxpayers would be allowed a 100 percent tax credit up to $100 per wage earner each year for contributions to charities engaged in antipoverty efforts. This would go a long way toward transferring antipoverty efforts from the inefficient and ineffective Federal Government to nonprofit charities who are more efficient and have a much better sense for what their local population needs. I have faith in the ability of people living in the communities to know what works best and to provide prompt, temporary assistance to those who need it most. The emphasis here is on temporary. Private charities view antipoverty assistance not as a right or a way of life but as a tool by which to change behavior and encourage personal responsibility for one's own life. I want to give the people that pay the bills and provide the services in the local community a much larger role in how poverty relief efforts are structured. This bill would also empower taxpayers to have some direct influence on how their tax dollars are spent. In fact, it will expand the number of people donating to charities. Currently, about 28 percent of taxpayers take the tax deduction for charitable contributions. This bill will allow all taxpayers, whether they itemize or not, to receive a credit for contributing. Inspiring more taxpayers to contribute to local charities will make people more aware of antipoverty efforts in their community, and may inspire them to volunteer their time as well. So I want to encourage my colleagues to take a close look at this bill, and lend their support to an idea that truly returns power to the individual taxpayer and the community in which they live. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I am running out of time.

Mr. SANTORUM. Has the CBO scored $170 billion in savings in your budget as a result of it going to balance as it did the Domenici budget?

Mr. SANTORUM. Let me finish my time. Then I be would happy to yield, if I have any time left. [[Page S7322]] I did a little homework. I found the Chief of Staff at the White House, Leon Panetta, who was Budget Committee chairman when I was on the Budget Committee and offered a budget resolution. ``The Story of America's Future, Preparing the Nation For the 21st Century,'' which was a 10-year balanced budget, just being produced over at the White House, basically presented here today, and they are remarkably similar--big cuts in defense, cuts in entitlements, which the Conrad budget does, and up to a $400 billion in tax increases. It is the same old song.

Mr. SANTORUM. If I can reclaim my time, I am not getting an answer to the question. I guess the answer is the CBO has not scored $170 billion in bonus savings as a result of getting to balance in 9 years. So they are using money that they do not even have. So it is already potentially $170 billion out of balance. They have $230 billion in tax increases. They do not solve the Medicare problem because they add money back which does not take care of the problem with the insolvency of the trust fund. They have $443 billion in new spending, but only $398 billion in offset. So that falls short. This plan looks remarkably like a 10-year plan that the President supposedly is eyeing over at the White House of how to get to a balanced budget in 10 years, which this budget does in 9 years.

Mr. SANTORUM. Yes.

Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Senator. Mr. President, I wanted to talk about the Conrad amendment and just suggest that this is more of the same, again smoke and mirrors, no defined plan of how you are going to get there, more taxes, $230 billion is what they tell you about, but go ahead and spend $170 billion in the reserve fund. We do not know how that necessarily will work and whether that is really there. I ask the Senator from North Dakota. Has that been scored by the Congressional Budget Office that your budget gets a bonus of $170 billion? Do you get that bonus?

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I yield the floor. Mr. FEINGOLD addressed the Chair.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I thank very much the Senator from Arizona for yielding. I appreciate his comments. It is gratifying to know the Senator, not only on this bill but many other bills that come through here, is dogged in his determination to ferret out inappropriate things that are put in bills. I appreciate the Senator's comments on that and congratulate him on his vigor. I wanted to first congratulate the Senator from Oregon, Senator Hatfield, and the Senator from West Virginia, Senator Byrd, on plain, true leadership in this bill through the process. They went into the conference and they stood by the Senate positions as best they could. They negotiated, I think, a very good bill, a bill that strikes a good balance in a variety of different programs. They provided leadership. They provided leadership. They stood up, fought for what they believed in, and they were able to succeed in coming out with a compromise bill that I think will pass overwhelmingly on the Senate floor. I am not surprised by the comments of Senator Hatfield. Senator Hatfield said that in his entire tenure as a Member of the Appropriations Committee--which I am sure spans well over 20 years-- that this was the first conference committee that he has been to where the administration had no input, had no one there, was providing no guidance, no leadership, no direction as to where to take this conference report and how to reduce the budget deficit. Absent, without leadership, AWOL again this time on a $16 billion rescissions bill. It was not there. Now, after Senator Hatfield, Senator Byrd, and Chairman Livingston over in the House worked so hard, put together and crafted a compromise that they could all live with, the President comes in and waves a white flag and, says, ``Oh, no. I do not like this. I know this is bad. Of the $16 billion there, is almost $1 billion I do not like. I cannot sign it. I wish you would have told me.'' That is not leadership. That is not taking a very serious problem, and the problem is the budget deficit, and doing something proactive coming into those conferences and providing direction. So now we see the veto threat coming out, that they are going to veto this bill that passed the House with bipartisan support, and passed the Senate with partisan support, and will now go to the President to be buried. It is something that did not have to happen. If there is a sad thing about what is going to occur in the next few days, it is it did not have to be this way. The reason it is this way is because the President refused to lead. But this should come as no shock to anyone in this Chamber. One of the reasons I am here tonight--and I have been for the past several nights--is to talk about the President's lack of leadership with respect to the budget resolution. Now, 6 days ago, as I add the number 7 to the chart--7 days ago Senator Domenici's Budget Committee presented a balanced budget resolution on the floor of the Senate. It has been 7 days with no proposal to balance the budget from President Clinton now, a week the President has sat on the sidelines. Yesterday was day 6, a potentially exciting day because there were reports that the President was actually going to come forward with a budget, that he said in some radio interview with National Public Radio in New Hampshire that he was really going to work on his 10-year budget plan, that he thought we could get to a balanced budget in 10 years, and he was going to offer something. But, again, not with a great amount of surprise, the President came out today, and according to the Washington Post: Clinton sidestepped questions about whether he was still committed to the time frame he outlined in a weekend radio interview with four New Hampshire reporters * * * He said, you know, I think all Americans should be committed to a balanced budget. That was his new comment that, you know, we should all be for this but, of course, he is not going to put anything forward. In fact, Michael McCurry, his spokesperson, his press secretary, said: Right now, to come forward [with an alternative budget] would be an idle exercise. Now I understand. Leadership, according to the White House, is an ``idle exercise,'' going to conference committee meetings to discuss reducing the budget deficit by $16 billion is an ``idle exercise'' that is not worth the President's time. Why should he get involved in anything such as cutting money or the balanced budget? This is an ``idle exercise.'' This, for a President who weeks ago had a debate with himself as to whether he was relevant to the process here in Washington. Mr. President, you are answering your own questions by your actions. So while he says, ``Well, I am not now putting together a budget because it would be an idle exercise to do so,'' we find out from senior spokespeople at the White House that the Office of Management and Budget is working on a budget. I do not know whether they are not telling the President they are working on a budget or the President does not want anybody to know he is working on a budget, or whether, you know, someone is just leaking it out that they are working on a budget so we think they are working on a budget. These are all very interesting things that could be going on. But the bottom line is that it is 7 days and no budget, no plan; 7 days, no leadership, no direction, no ideas, walking away from one of the greatest and most important moments in the last several decades, which is balancing this budget. I am not surprised, but I am disappointed. As I said before, I am going to come here every day, every day between now and October 1, and challenge the President to stop it; please, please stop it. Please stop me from coming here and having to put this chart up, having to print up more numbers. These get expensive. I do not want to print up more numbers. So I have to keep adding numbers to the chart here about how many days it [[Page S7377]] has been since you have decided not to participate in the process. Today was an interesting day. It was an interesting day today. We had several Democratic Senators come forward with their balanced budget proposals. After, I am sure, imploring the Chief Executive Officer of the country to propose his budget that balances the budget, they decided to venture out on their own and introduce the budget an hour before the end of debate on the balanced budget resolution. We had 50 hours of debate on the budget, and 1 hour before the termination of debate, several Democratic Senators rushed to the floor with their idea sketched out--I do not know whether it was on the back of the envelope or the front of the envelope--but it was sketched out in very vague terms about how they are going to get there. We are going to have some tax increases. We knew that. I mean, that was a given. The question was, how much? They said $230 billion. The Senator from New Hampshire was suggesting maybe it is more like $400 billion, about a third of what they want to cut the deficit by. They want to do it over 9 years instead of 7. They want to use some of our cuts. They want to use some of our savings given by the Congressional Budget Office by balancing the budget, none of which has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office. They just want to throw this together with no specifics, no plan on how to get the $150 billion in cuts they want to get out of Medicare, no plan on how they are going to restructure any of the programs that they want to cut in domestic discretionary or defense spending --no specifics, just some numbers, just some tax increases, and just a lot of rhetoric about, you know, we are for this too, we want to be relevant, too. After sounding somewhat critical, I congratulate them. I congratulate them for at least stepping from behind the shadows and moving forward, and saying, ``We believe in a balanced budget, too. Here is how we are going to get there. We don't believe we should fundamentally restructure Government as much as you think we need to do. We need to increase taxes some more because the American public does not pay enough to run this place. So we need to tax them some more.'' That is fine, if they believe that. If that is what you believe, then come here and defend it. I congratulate them for having the courage to come up and defend it. I am hoping that when this debate is all--

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. The Senator will admit that by reducing the rate of growth in this program, people will not get the tax breaks that were intended under the Clinton 1993 budget, yes.

Mr. SANTORUM. It is not a tax increase. What it says is that people who are--I find it absolutely amazing to suggest that people who get a refund, and 90 percent of the people in this program do not pay any income tax. Let me repeat that, almost 90 percent of the people who get the earned income tax credit pay no Federal income taxes.

Mr. SANTORUM. I have not yielded.

Mr. SANTORUM. I will just suggest 90 percent of the people in this program do not pay any Federal income taxes, and that when you have a program, as the Senator from Oklahoma I know is going to point out, that is fraudulent to the point of--the Senator from New Jersey said 13 percent. There are reports it is as high as 45 percent. I know myself, I am waiting for my tax return to come back, and the reason the Internal Revenue gave me, in writing, why I am 2 months delayed in getting my tax return back is because they are having so many problems in trying to track down the fraud in the earned income tax credit provision of the Tax Code. This program has a lot of problems. I want to get back to the original point the Senator made, how we have all these terrible provisions in the Tax Code that benefit corporate America. He points out, one, section 29, which has been eliminated, he supports programs like section 936. It is funny, the Senator from New Jersey did not comment on the preferential tax provision for drug companies in New Jersey, and in fact supported that provision as recently as the last budget go-around when the Clinton administration cut that program back and there was an amendment on the floor of the Senate to eliminate that program, and the Senator from New Jersey refused to eliminate it. Now, we can play this double standard. Because they do not have oil in New Jersey, they are against section 29; but if there are drug companies in New Jersey, they are not against section 936. That is the demagoguery that goes on around here. We will point to corporate tax cuts, unless of course, the corporation is in your State.

Mr. SANTORUM. Reclaiming my time, Mr. President.

Mr. SANTORUM. I have been very generous in yielding.