Bob Smith

Mr. SMITH

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Thursday, February 16, 1995, beginning at 9:30 a.m., in room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building on the fiscal year 1996 budget oversight hearing.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Small Business be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, February 16, at 2 p.m., in room SR-428A, to conduct a hearing focusing on small business owner's perspective on the Small Business Administration.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, February 16, 1995, at 2:30 p.m. to hold a hearing on Trade and Investment in Africa.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, February 16, 1995, at 2 p.m. to hold a nomination hearing for Mr. Johnnie Carson to be Ambassador to Zimbabwe and Mr. Bismarck Myrick to be Ambassador to the Kingdom of Lesotho.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Finance Committee be permitted to meet Thursday, February 16, 1995, beginning at 9:30 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing on indexation of assets, and on the nominations of Mr. Maurice Foley, to be a judge on the U.S. Tax Court for a term of 15 years; Mr. Juan Vasquez, to be a judge on the U.S. Tax Court for a term of 15 years; Dr. Shirley Chater, nominated to be Commissioner of Social Security for a term expiring January 19, 2001.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full Committee on Environment and Public Works be granted permission to meet Thursday, February 16, 1995, at 10:30 a.m. to receive testimony from Dan M. Berkovitz, nominated by the President to be member, Nuclear Regulatory Commission; and Shirley Ann Jackson, nominated by the President to be member, Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be granted permission to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, February 16, 1995, for purposes of conducting a full committee hearing which is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on the President's fiscal year 1996 Budget for the Department of the Interior.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, February 16, 1995, in open session (and possibly closed session), to receive testimony from the unified commanders on their military strategies, operational requirements, and the defense authorization request for fiscal year 1996, including the future years defense program.

Mr. SMITH

Mr. SMITH. And the Treasury is borrowing all the money to fund the debt, and the Senator knows it.

Mr. SMITH. You certainly are.

Mr. SMITH. You are going to destroy it without the----

Mr. SMITH. But when you exempt it----

Mr. SMITH. Answer yes or no.

Mr. SMITH. One final question. Under your definition of ``exemption,'' if Social Security and other entitlements get to 100 percent of the budget, do you still support the exemption?

Mr. SMITH. May I ask the Senator one question?

Mr. SMITH. My final point. My only point is we did not do what we needed to do to correct it. Even with the tax increase you did not correct it. If you want to take the position, which I happen to disagree with, that we can continue to raise taxes forever until we balance the budget, you have a right to that position. But there is only so much you can get.

Mr. SMITH. If the Senator will allow me to respond, you know the situation as well as I do with regard to the debate and the politics, what was going on. The truth of the matter is, there were many discussions on our side, many attempts to redirect that in committee. The distinguished Senator from New Hampshire, who is in the chair, was involved in a number of efforts in the Budget Committee to reprioritize that whole budget, and the Senator from California knows that. The truth of the matter is, the position of the President and the majority in the Senate at the time, and in the House, was that the best way to deal with the deficit was to raise taxes on the American people. My point is, the best way to deal with the deficit would be to reduce spending and to continue that spending on a downward trend.

Mr. SMITH. That is what is going to threaten the national security of the United States of America, not a constitutional amendment to balance the budget.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, if I could have a last response, I promise the Senator from West Virginia. The Founding Fathers also provided for an amendment process to the Constitution because they knew that it would need that flexibility, because it could not predict the future nor foresee the future. The Senator knows that. That is why we are here. I also would respond to the Senator on the point of the budget agreement of 1993. This debate is, essentially, a nonpartisan debate on the issue of whether or not we need an amendment, constitutional amendment, to balance the Federal budget. But the Senator introduced a partisan matter on the issue of the budget agreement. Just because this Senator and the remaining Republican Senators in the Senate at the time did not agree with the Senator from Maryland that the way to bring the deficit down was to increase taxes $250 billion, but rather bring spending down $250 billion to move the budget deficit down, that does not make me opposed to bringing the deficit or the debt down. The truth of the matter is, those on this side who voted against that wanted to cut spending, not raise taxes. The second point is, which we have already gone into on the floor many times before, not only during this debate, but the truth of the matter is the correction that needed to be taken to reduce the debt was not taken with that budget agreement, for the same reason it was not taken with any of these other agreements that are on this chart from 1921 all the way up to Gramm-Rudman-Hollings and the budget agreement of 1993. The truth of the matter is, Congress walks away from them. The President of the United States, President Clinton, just submitted a budget, the follow-on to this budget, which increases the national debt by $1.6 trillion over the next 5 years. Since this agreement has been passed, we have increased the national debt another one-half trillion dollars. So where is the progress? This Senator fails to understand where the progress is being made. I hear about all these great agreements, we have had all these budget agreements, we are bringing the debt down, bringing the deficit down. We are not bringing it down. It is going up, up, up, up, and the reason why is because we need this amendment because Congress will not do it without it. That is absolutely evident. The Senator talks about a national emergency. I do not know whether he has a commission out there somewhere that defines a national emergency or whether he has to read it in the newspaper that it is a national emergency. If the Congress of the United States President does not think it is, I do not know how you define a national emergency. So I assume, by definition, if the Congress does not vote to say it is a national emergency and provide the funding to go to war, maybe they do not think we should go to war. That is the prerogative of the U.S. Congress. That is the prerogative. That is exactly what the Founding Fathers meant that ``Congress shall have the power to declare war.'' This argument that somehow we are going to defend the right of the United States to protect itself by voting against the balanced budget amendment is the most nonsensical thing I heard since I have been here. By the time this debate is over, we are going to add tens of billions, hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt; $9,600 per second as we debate the debt goes up. Interest on the debt is now going to pass defense. What we spend on defense and interest is going this way, just like that, and defense is going this way. And by the year 2013, by most admissions of a bipartisan commission, we will be spending 100 percent on interest and 100 percent on entitlements.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, will the Senator from West Virginia yield?

Mr. SMITH. Will the Senator from West Virginia yield?

Mr. SMITH. That is exactly why. It is the same numbers.

Mr. SMITH. Because it takes 51 percent to do it. That is why.

Mr. SMITH. The Senator did not listen to me very carefully. That is not exactly what I said. What I said is there are two options. One, those people, if they had the three-fifths provision, I think, would have looked at it a lot differently, and they may have gotten more votes. Let us assume the Senator's position and say that did not happen. If it did not happen and this amendment were, in 1941, part of the Constitution, we then would have gone and spent money by taking money from someplace else in the budget because we would have believed that the national security interests of the United States should come first ahead of subsidies to apples or whatever else.

Mr. SMITH. It is the time of the Senator from West Virginia.