John Spratt

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 6 minutes. Mr. Chairman, my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich), the chairman of our committee, is an effective speaker, so effective that, in listening to him, you would hardly perceive how far we have come in the 1990s and particularly since 1993 in coming to grips with what was the most compelling problem facing the Federal Government, a huge, swelling deficit that we seemed not to be able to get our hands around. Really, the first step we took was in 1990, when Mr. Bush was the President of the United States. He submitted to a budget summit. It was convened at Andrews Air Force Base, and it went on and on and on and finally came to a resolution that fall. We voted on it twice on the House floor. The first, it was voted down for lack of support on this side of the aisle. We finally mustered the votes to pass a modified version of it. It kept discretionary spending. It raised revenues. It cut entitlements. It was the first serious effort that we had made since we passed Gramm-Rudman, which was barely followed through on, to come to grips with this compelling problem. Its effects were eclipsed by a recession. But let me not get ahead of myself. When the votes were counted in support of that provision, that budget that Mr. Bush wholeheartedly endorsed, only 47 Republicans voted for it. In 1993, when Mr. Clinton came to Washington, the deficit the preceding September was $290 billion and headed upward. Indeed, if the President had read the economic report of Mr. Bush dated January 13, 1993, he would have foreseen, and probably did if he looked at it, that the deficit projected by Mr. Bush for fiscal year 1993 was $332 billion. That is where we were 5 years ago. Today, today, there is a deficit no more. We are looking at a surplus of $43 billion to $63 billion in September of this year. That is considerable, phenomenal progress. It has been made on the watch of Mr. Clinton. It has been made because of the votes we cast in 1990 and the votes we cast in 1993 when only Democrats in the House and only Democrats in the Senate voted for the Deficit Reduction Act of 1993. They have had a phenomenal impact on the government of the United States. They have radically changed, fundamentally changed our fiscal situation. It is better than it has been in a generation. Those are not my words. They are Alan Greenspan's words. Better than it has been in a generation. We have got to go back to the 1960s to find numbers such as we have today with respect to unemployment, with respect to inflation, and certainly with respect to deficit reduction. Indeed, we will have the biggest surplus we have experienced in history this September. That is good news. That is good news. What we are concerned about here is that that discipline that has brought us this far from $300 billion deficits headed upwards to surpluses as far as the eye can now see, the discipline may be dissipated by the budget resolution that the Republicans have proposed, that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) is pushing. Why is that? Back in 1990, one of the things we passed was something called a Budget Enforcement Act. This is really esoteric, but there were a couple of common-sense rules in that Budget Enforcement Act. We said, among other things, we are going to cap, numerically cap, put a dollar cap on discretionary spending for 5 fiscal years. We did it in 1990. We renewed it in 1993. We did it again in 1997. It has worked. We have adhered to those limits, and we have reduced discretionary spending, and we are seeing the results on the bottom line in the form of surpluses that will show up. In addition, we adopted a common-sense rule called a pay-as-you-go rule, which said simply that, before anybody undertakes to do another tax bill such as the one we did in 1981, they have to pay for it. They can cut taxes, but they have got to offset the revenue losses to the Treasury so it will be deficit neutral either by commensurate cut and entitlements, permanent spending, or by some other adjustments in the Tax Code that would increase revenues to offset the decrease in revenues occasioned by the tax cut. Common-sense rule, but it has worked. That discipline has worked. What the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) would propose is a budget that would unrealistically lower discretionary spending. He proposes it as though it were 1 percent cut, but we all know it is not a 1 percent cut. He is not cutting Social Security. He is not cutting national defense. He is not cutting interest on the national debt. It is obligatory. It has to be paid. About one-quarter of the budget in discretionary spending is left subject to cuts. Bob Reischauer has written a very compelling article in which he analyzes the different components of this account, called Discretionary Spending, and shows that really only about half of it is effectively cut. In last year's budget agreement, we effectively cut over 5 years' discretionary spending by 11 percent. This year, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) would take another 7 percent. If you consider that it only will actually affect half of discretionary spending, that means the cuts would have to be 35 percent. Does anybody realistically think that will happen? No. The Republicans have proposed a bill which backloads the cuts. They will not happen this year. We will adopt them now, and on the strength, the promise that they are going to be realized, we will do a big tax cut. That is the third piece of unraveling the discipline that has brought us to where we are. That is why this is a serious debate, and it is a travesty that we are having it at this time of night, at this point in the day, when this should be given the most serious attention we possibly could.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bentsen). (Mr. BENTSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds to explain that the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans) will explain from his vantage point, as the ranking member of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, a major discrepancy in this bill. Namely, it calls upon the Committee on Veterans' Affairs to reconcile another $10 billion out of veterans' benefits. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey). (Ms. WOOLSEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, I would like to straighten out the record. The highway bill visits a $10 billion hit on the Committee on Veterans Affairs. It extinguishes benefits for smoking-related illnesses that the general counsel's office had announced were the rights of veterans, if they were service-connected. The highway bill takes away that right. This bill still requires the Committee on Veterans Affairs to yield another $10 billion in reconciliation, give up another $10 billion. What the President recommended, that is, the extinguishment of those benefits, has already been done in the highway bill. Yet, this bill comes back and hits again for another $10 billion in veterans' benefits. It is a fact. It requires reconciliation of $10 billion in savings in veterans' benefits. After they have already paid once, they have to pay again. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, let my give some quick numbers. In the height of the Reagan years, the government was spending 23.3 percent of our GDP, our total economy. The bite of the government was 23 cents out of every dollar. Today it is 19.8 cents under Clinton, down 3.5 percentage points. That much decreased by. As for discretionary spending, in 1993, when Clinton came to office, in outlays it was $540 billion in 1993. In 1997, it was $548 billion. In 4 to 5 years, it grew $8 billion. I think that answers abundantly the effort, the argument that was just made. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Rivers).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Rivers).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield six minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), the ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman who just spoke said that our resolution, the substitute which I am offering on behalf of the Democratic Caucus, makes no effort to mitigate the marital tax penalty, and that is not correct. Section 11 says, it is the sense of the Congress that the Committee on Ways and Means should undertake high-priority tax relief of at least $30 billion over 5 years and lists four things we would like to accomplish; and the fourth is mitigate the Tax Code marriage penalties in a manner at least equal in scope to the 1995 tax relief provision of H.R. 2491, which was a Republican bill. We are endorsing that. Twice the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means, has moved a marital tax mitigation bill. Twice the majority on the committee have rejected it. Last year, he moved it in the Committee on the Budget, and they rejected it. We are calling for action this year in our resolution also.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Gilman amendment although I agree with many of the concerns about nuclear proliferation which he expresses. I oppose the Gilman amendment because it is unnecessary, and it runs counter to our efforts to discourage nuclear proliferation. Non-OECD countries like Taiwan, Thailand, and others, are planning the construction of several nuclear power facilities over the next decade. U.S. companies are on the cutting edge of these technologies having recently developed and licensed advanced light water reactors which are strong competitors for this business. Business which could run into the billions of dollars. But our interests here are not just commercial. Unlike their counterparts designed in Russia and elsewhere, U.S. light water reactors are at very little risk for nuclear proliferation. Our reactor designs are not conducive to the production of highly enriched uranium, plutonium, or other weapons materials. U.S. citizens can rest easier knowing that reactors built in these non-OECD countries are not producing weapons materials. Sometimes the United States must sacrifice its commercial interests for the sake of national security, and I have supported that. But in the area of nuclear power technology, encouraging the use of U.S. designs significantly enhances our nonproliferation efforts, and enhances nuclear safety. And these sales will produce significant revenues for the U.S. treasury. The treasury will receive royalties as a result of our contribution to the Advanced Light Water Reactor program. Current law already requires licenses and an opportunity for public comment in the export of these technologies. Adding a layer of complexity to this process is unnecessary. I urge a no vote on the Gilman amendment.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Weldon- Spratt amendment. On May 12 the U.S. Army performed its eighth test of the THAAD anti- ballistic missile system. The test was a failure, and this failure comes despite almost a year of preparation following a string of 3 earlier unsuccessful intercept tests. The Weldon-Spratt amendment addresses this problem in an aggressive manner. The amendment directs the Department to identify and contract with a company capable of producing the THAAD system in a leader- follower contract arrangement. In other words, we are telling Lockheed Martin that if they cannot fix the THAAD interceptor, the contract may be taken away from them. The amendment also directs DOD to modify its contract to ensure that THAAD's primary contractor shares in the cost of future test failures. Both steps are needed to bring necessary accountability to this program. Both steps are taken in the sincerest desire that they help the program succeed. We take steps for the simple reason that THAAD is too important to fail. The THAAD system is the archetype upon which we are patterning our family of systems for missile defense. It is the mother of all missile defense systems, if you will. THAAD is not the first system to experience difficulties in testing, and the Weldon-Spratt amendment builds on past experience in utilizing the prospect of competition to encourage improved program performance. Many members will remember the numerous problems experienced with the C-17, where the prospect of competition was used effectively by the Congress to bring focus back to the program. And the C-17 is now a success. It is important to recognized that large portions of the THAAD system are and have been working well. The THAAD radar and its battle management command, control, and communications systems are working well. The Weldon-Spratt amendment allows these components of THAAD to proceed to the Engineering Manufacturing and Development (EMD) phase when they are ready. Finally, the Weldon-Spratt amendment clarifies the criteria for allowing the program to proceed with the procurement of 40 UOES test missiles. We mandate two successful kinetic kill intercepts before any funding is committed for UOES procurement. Mr. Chairman, these steps are necessary and prudent and I urge all members to support the Weldon-Spratt amendment.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I support student loans, and I support the kind of compromise that has been reached in this bill, but as the ranking democrat on the Committee on the Budget I have to raise concerns about this bill because I do not think it complies with the Budget Act, and I think those concerns should be expressed. For the first time in 30 years, we have got a balanced budget this year, and we have got a balanced budget in part because of disciplines and budget process changes we made in the Budget Summit Agreement of 1990, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 and the Balanced Budget Act last year, 1997. One of those rules which we established in 1990 and have carried forward in each of those years was the so-called pay-go rule, which simply provides that any time anyone wants to liberalize or add to an entitlement the cost of it must be paid for either by identifying a revenue stream to pay for it or by reducing an entitlement somewhere else in the budget. When the rule was read, the gentleman noted that all points of order are raised. The reason all points of order have to be raised as to the Budget Act is that this particular bill increases direct spending for student loans by $2.8 billion, according to the Office of Management and Budget, over and above what was provided in the balanced budget agreement last year. In effect, what we have done here is lower the rates the students will pay, and that is good, I am for that, and raise to some extent what the banks will realize for these loans. We have increased the spread over and above what was anticipated for the next 5 years, and the cost is $2.8 billion, according to OMB. Now what does this mean? We have waived points of order. The bill cannot be withheld. I know the calamity it would cause if it were withheld because students are making decisions about how they will pay for college right now. But what this means is that we will have an entry on something called the pay-go score card. There is about $700 million in scored offsets to this bill so the entry will be $2.8 billion minus $700 million equals $2.1 billion. And if as of September 30 of this year we have not cleared that from the score card, it will trigger sequestration. It will mean across-the-board cuts in a host of programs, including educational programs, voc rehab. Ironically, it will increase student loan origination fees. Now I am not criticizing the group here that put this together. I am criticizing the way the House is run. We should have had well before now a budget resolution. We have a process by which these decisions are not made one by one, piecemeal. They are made in a comprehensive context where we have to identify the offsets, identify the tradeoffs. When we want to increase one thing, we have got to decrease something else. We have not done that. The most egregious violation of it was the BESTEA bill, the transportation bill that we had on the floor just a few weeks ago. That particular bill will increase spending by $35 billion over and above what we provided in the BBA. This is just another illustration of what happens when we do not have a budget agreement, when we do not have a budget resolution. The proper procedure would be to send this bill back to the committee and require maybe not this group but some group to identify the offsets better than the offsets that have been identified here. I know that is not going to happen. When the bill comes up, I am going to vote for it myself. But I could not let the bill come to the floor, could not let it be considered in this manner, could not let this routine incantation that all points of order are waived be made without raising the concern of the Committee on the Budget, my own personal concern that we are deviating from the disciplines that have brought us to a balanced budget for the first time in 30 years, and we are going to have a real pileup in September unless we get under way with the budget resolution in the process that we duly adopted.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I support more funding for highway and mass transit. My district needs it, and my constituents want it. And the committee has kindly provided some funds for my district. But we have provided a substantial plus-up in transportation spending already. In the Balanced Budget Agreement of 1997, transportation was the only function of the budget funded at a higher level than the President requested. In the appropriation process, we went even further. In highway programs alone, we appropriated $23.3 billion in fiscal 1998. That is $2.3 billion above the level appropriated in fiscal year 1997. In terms of outlays, it is $3.5 billion more than fiscal year 1997, an increase of 19 percent. This bill goes far beyond even those increased levels. BESTEA is $40 billion above the Balanced Budget Agreement of 1997, and outlays is $26 billion. If we pass this bill, transportation will trump the rest of the budget. We will have to pare back priorities that we have already committed to and preclude ourselves from doing initiatives in other areas. What does that mean? Education will take a hit. Housing is in jeopardy, NIH and biomedical research, other infrastructure, the Corps of Engineers. Exactly what offsets we will make we do not know, because this bill does not identify them. It says elliptically that no funds can be obligated under this law until offsets have been identified. I take it this decision will be made in conference by the conferees on this bill, not by the Committee on Budget in a budget resolution, not the Committee on Appropriations in the 302(b) allocation process. This is a radical departure from our established procedures. This bill violates the Balanced Budget Agreement by being $40 billion above the agreed-upon amount. It violates the Congressional Budget Act by presenting this bill before a budget resolution has been passed and by exceeding the allocations made last year. It violates the Budget Enforcement Act by presenting or creating $9.3 billion in mandatory spending, which is not without identifying the offsets. What I call for, Mr. Speaker, is a vote against the rule and return to established procedures, to the disciplines that have brought us at long last to a balanced budget.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Fazio).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), and I ask unanimous consent that he may control and allocate the time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I am for spending more on highways and mass transit, but we have a process for deciding how much more and which priorities we will pare back or preclude to make room for more spending on highways so that we can keep the budget in balance. The purpose of this amendment is basic and simple. It is just to let this process work. What it calls for is regular order, nothing more. Let us pass a budget resolution. Let us go through the 302(B) allocation process. Let us identify $26 billion in offsets, or whatever the amount may be, and then let us come back to this floor and pass this bill. Mr. Chairman, I feel compelled to offer this amendment because I am the ranking member of the Committee on the Budget, and this bill does not just skirt or evade the budget process, it is a frontal assault upon it. It violates the Balanced Budget Agreement of 1997, which we only voted for a few months ago, and trumpeted by all of us who voted for it, by authorizing $40 billion more for contracting authority than the BBA provides and $26 billion in outlays over the next 5 years above and beyond the BBA. Mr. Chairman, it radically departs from the appropriations process by letting the transportation conferees decide some $26 billion in offsets to pay for their increases. All of these offsets are outside their jurisdiction. It violates the Congressional Budget Act by being brought to the floor ahead of the budget resolution. It violates the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 by providing $9.3 billion in mandatory spending for demonstration projects without identifying $9.3 billion in offsets. And it dismantles the budget structure that we built up so painstakingly over the last 15 years, which has brought us to a balanced budget, by taking transportation off budget, removing it from any strictures whatsoever. To those who say there is not the time to do this process, this amendment provides an answer. It extends the Surface Transportation Extension Act for another 2 months. This act was temporary in the first place. It runs out on May 1. It will have to be extended because it is highly unlikely that we will have a conference report by then and, in any event, States will not get any more budget authority under BESTEA than they will get under this because the levels for 1998 are the same. What we are proposing here once again, Mr. Chairman, is budget discipline, the budget process that we built up over time. In the end, I am sure transportation will get more. They have demonstrated that Members from all parts of the country and all places on the spectrum support more spending. But we will do it in a regular order procedure, and we will do it in a process so we can determine exactly which priorities will have to be displaced to give transportation more. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) also.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Speaker, the bill before us is carefully crafted. It was worked out in a completely bipartisan spirit by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Pickett), and myself and, truth be told, by our staff, in close consultation with the ballistic missile defense office, BMDO. Over a period of weeks, we went through an exacting process to winnow down the increases to BMDO programs that can be used to deal with this emerging intermediate-range missile threat. Our process identified those programs with the most potential in the short term to enhance missile defense capability which can be executed this year, fiscal year 1998. Wherever possible, we tried to speed up program improvements that had already been planned or programmed by BMDO and link up or improve interoperability among existing systems. As a result, we have a bill which is focused on the emerging threat, consistent with the progress that the ballistic missile defense organization is making, and affordable. Each item in this bill has been scrubbed by the Defense Secretary, Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre, and stamped with his approval as a sensible use of the funds. The authorizations are fully offset within the Department of Defense, and we have sought to work with the Committee on Appropriations to find outlay offsets, in order to appropriate these dollars this year. In addition to increasing our BMDO capabilities in the short term, this bill will enhance the long-term performance of our systems as well. The Joint Composite Tracking Network, funded by this bill at $35 million, will network the sensing, tracking, command and control capabilities of PAC-3, THAAD, Navy Area Defense system and, eventually, the Israel Arrow and the Navy's Upper Tier systems, so missiles can be detected as soon as possible after launch and defenses can be cued up as soon as possible. The total flight time for these missiles is measured in seconds, and every second we gain in locating them is a gain towards taking them out. This network is probably the single greatest step we can take in the short term to enhance our existing capabilities. It is also the logical next step to a layered defense or a family of systems architecture, which BMDO is working on. This bill will lower the operational risks of the PAC-3 and Navy Area Defense Systems also by funding more testing. The bill allocates $20 million each for testing of these systems against longer or intermediate range threat. Although this testing is primarily designed to probe and stretch the limits of these systems, we will gain more knowledge and we hope more confidence in their general performance by more testing. And this goes to a recommendation pointedly made by General Larry Welsh in a recently completed review of our theater ballistic missile systems. This bill also contains $41 million for production enhancements to the PAC-3 system, and that will allow for increased production of PAC-3 missiles and a faster deployment of this system, which has some potential for dealing with this threat into the field. That is why I say this bill is a measured response to emerging threats. It is a sensible piece of legislation. I urge every Member of the House to support it.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor one of my constituents, Geraldine Clawson, of Chester, South Carolina. Geraldine Clawson, a former nurse, has spent countless hours as a volunteer in her community, working to help those struggling with homelessness, spousal abuse, alcoholism, and drug dependency. The organization she founded, ``The Turning Point,'' offers counseling, an emergency food bank, a 60-day treatment program for drugs and alcohol, a women's shelter, and a program for abused or homeless women. Because of her selfless dedication to those in need, Geraldine Clawson received the Jefferson Pilot Award for Public Service in 1993 and the Delta Sigma Phi Sorority Community Service Award in 1994. Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to recognize the outstanding volunteer work of Geraldine Clawson.