John Spratt

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 90 seconds to the gentleman from California [Mr. Miller].

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson Lee]. (Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan [Ms. Stabenow).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes to respond to the gentleman. I think we all need to bear in mind that basically what we are doing in this budget resolution for the next 5 years is borrowing more money so that we can fund the cost of tax cuts. Bear that in mind. Second, what we are trying to do in this motion to instruct, which we will offer shortly, is say to the conferees stick to the strict outlines of the budget agreement that we have laid out. We have decided that we can make room for $85 billion in net revenue reduction over 5 years in this budget and $250 billion over the second 5 years. Those are the limits. Please do not stretch the limits because we are concerned not just that we strike balance in the year 2002, but that we put this Government on a basis of equilibrium and we will have a truly balanced budget that will last. As to the revenues of the Government, here is the administration's design, which is basically incorporated in this package and which is what they sent up with the budget presented by President Clinton in February of this year. The Government of the United States is now spending around 20.3, 20.4 percent of GDP, gross domestic product. We are taking in taxes about 19.1 or 19.2 percent. And there is the deficit, the difference between the intake and the outgo of the Government based upon the percentage measured as a percentage of our GDP. The goal here, the design of this package, as proposed by the administration, as essentially embraced in this budget resolution, is to have revenues and spending converge at about 19.3 percent of GDP. So spending as a percentage of GDP under this plan will drop, revenues will remain relatively constant, and that is the scheme here. We want to make sure that scheme is achieved, and that is what we are about. Second, in doing these tax cuts, we want to make sure that the people who really deserve tax relief, middle-income Americans worried about how to pay for college tuition and other such essential things, are not forgotten. I know there is a lot of zeal to do capital gains tax cuts and estate tax cuts and to rewrite the alternative minimum tax, and in the zeal to do that we want to make sure that middle-income Americans get remembered too. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Minge].

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy].

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bentsen].

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington [Mr. McDermott].

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. Speaker, we passed on the House floor before we left here for Memorial Day a historic resolution and we passed it with bipartisan support. Budget resolution House Concurrent Resolution 84 was passed on this side of the aisle on the Democratic side with a vote of 132 to 70, if my recollection is correct, almost a two-to-one margin over here and by an overwhelming margin on the other side. What we do in this budget resolution really pushes the envelope of what we can accomplish in a budget resolution. We have basically incorporated by reference a hard wrought, hard negotiated, bipartisan budget agreement of 1997, achieved over 3 to 4 months of negotiations, among the White House and the congressional leadership and particularly the principals on the Committee on the Budget. Even though this agreement goes to further lengths than we normally find in a budget resolution, it really does not contain all of the detail we need to see that it is carried out as the parties who negotiated it intended. That is why I say we are pushing the envelope of what we can accomplish with a budget resolution. It is important that we bring this conference report to conclusion, to closure with as much clarity and distinctness as we can possibly give it, given the vehicle we have got, a budget resolution, because many of us are still concerned that what comes out of the production line, off the production line, out of the authorizing committees and appropriation committees will resemble, identifiably, what we are putting on the production line at the outset in this budget resolution. So the start of this process, the seeing to it that we get it done right is this conference report, and so I wholly support the idea of going to conference. We tried an alternative, an expedited alternative that would have involved bringing to the floor of the House and the other body conforming amendments that would have in effect converged the text of both budget resolutions to the same text. But we have failed at that effort. It does not appear we can resolve that soon enough, so this is the conventional device for bringing the House and the Senate together on things we disagree about. We will offer at the appropriate time, assuming the House approves the motion to going to conference, our motion to instruct conferees that will deal with one particular aspect of this agreement that still concerns Members on my side of the aisle. Some of these Members, our minority leader included, were here in 1981 when the Economic Recovery Tax Act, Kemp-Roth, was passed. And they feel that we are only now beginning to restore the revenue base of the Federal Government to the point where we are about to get rid of deficits. They do not want to have us come so far to be so closely within reach of a balanced budget because we have taken steps, among other things, to restrain spending and also to restore the revenue base of the Government, having come so far to enact a tax bill that will so diminish the revenue base of the Government that we will have this problem all over again, a structural problem that will not lead us to a balanced budget or at least will strike a balance, a budget that will strike a balance in 2002 but will not be in true equilibrium. We will not have a problem finally and permanently resolved. That is why they are concerned that we keep within the bounds that we have outlined in this agreement, this budget agreement and the budget resolution, the tax cuts that are authorized and the reconciliation instructions that are put forth to it. Our motion to instruct conferees will go to the very essence of that particular tax reduction measure that will be part of the reconciliation instruction and the budget conference agreement. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior], minority whip.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Rothman].

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran].

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes and 30 seconds to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy].

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro].

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Roemer].

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Wynn].

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington, Mr. Adam Smith.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I ask the House to bear with me, as my voice has just about worn out. Let me first of all say, what is in this agreement? We did not ignore the Nation's transportation infrastructure in these negotiations. I would like to spend more, too. But in this agreement we have provided $8.5 billion in outlays for transportation over and above what the President's request was for fiscal year 1998, $8.15 billion over 5 years. That means that in fiscal year 1998, fiscal year 1998, obligations for highways will go up to $22.2 billion, as opposed to $20.9 billion in this year's budget. That is a 6 percent increase, not a whopping increase, but compare it to the one-half of 1 percent average increase in discretionary spending over the next 5 years and it is a handsome, favorable treatment for transportation. The gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Oberstar] makes a powerful argument. He said, we only want to make a four-tenths of 1 percent cut across the board, but that four-tenths of 1 percent wreaks havoc with some major programs. Let us start with defense. We barely, barely increase defense, $6 billion over the next 5 years. Pass this resolution and you will take $5.6 billion in outlays out of defense. We will have a freeze in defense spending for the next 5 years. How about that investment? Then look down the list of other things that will be cut across the board. Education, one of the things that we want to favor, one of the initiatives that we want in this package, $980 million, section 8 housing, LIHEAP, WIC, $860 million, criminal justice, $510 million, veterans benefit, $390 million, and let me make a prediction. If this passes and we go to conference, I would predict, given the composition of the conference committee, defense will probably be largely restored in the compromise. What will come back to us on our side of the aisle is a package bereft of these things that we fought so hard for for the last three months. Do not make that mistake on this side of the aisle. We have a good deal, let us stick with the deal, let us put it to bed and go to bed ourselves and get on with it.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, as both sides explained at the outset of this debate, what we have before us tonight in the base bill, House Concurrent Resolution 84, is a compromise, hard fought, hard wrought, carefully balanced compromise. I explained in my earlier comments that the design of this compromise intentionally was to allow each side to have a few victories it could claim as clearly its own. The Republicans would get some in the way of tax reduction; Democrats would get some in the way of children's health care and education and social initiatives, like that. One of the victories allocated to us as Democrats as part of this compromise comes in the area of NDD, nondefense discretionary spending. In this particular budget resolution discretionary spending increases in outlay terms from $538 billion this year, FY 1997, to all of $562 billion 5 years from now. It goes up by $14 billion over a 5-year period of time. Half of the increase goes to defense, half to nondefense. So what we have achieved as a victory is to save discretionary spending from deep devastating cuts. Even so, it goes up by only a half a percent. It is still 9 percent below inflation. We consider this a victory because we at least allowed enough to keep most of the programs that we consider priorities relatively fully funded, but everybody would have to agree that is not amply funded by any means. This particular substitute would take that hard wrought compromise, take $109 billion more out over 5 years out of discretionary spending and put it into tax increases. So it would take this carefully balanced agreement and tilt it to one side, it would destroy the compromise. It has no chance of being passed by the Senate, no chance of being signed by the President. Mr. Chairman, it would be a dreadful waste of time. We need to go on with what is possible, pass the resolution that we have carefully prepared and not get off on a side track like this.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, more than I bargained for, and I thank the gentleman from Connecticut for yielding this time to me. Mr. Chairman, when I opened this argument I noted to the House that the budget resolution before us is a product of nearly 3 months of negotiation. This is a hard wrought agreement, and I speak to my colleagues, in particular on this side of the aisle, Democrats, when I say that in this agreement there are a number of initiatives which we could not have accomplished on our own as the minority party in this House and in this Congress, hard wrought concessions that make this an agreement that is a balanced plan to balance the budget over the next 5 years. The Shuster-Oberstar amendment will undercut some of the gains that we have made, some of the priorities that we have protected, some of the things that we were able to put into this budget agreement that gives it a stamp that is peculiar and particular to our party and our constituents and what we believe in. Shown there in the well of the House is a handout that has been prepared by the Committee on the Budget which takes us account by account through the budget and shows us where the money will come from to plus up transportation spending. Basically the Shuster amendment seeks to add $11 to $12 billion in outlays. To achieve that much in outlays we need about $19 billion in budget authority. So we are not talking about small change or minor skimming cuts. We are talking about deep and disruptive cuts here. And here they are individually, and I ask my colleagues, particularly those on my side of the aisle, to bear these reductions in mind and to keep in mind how much we have expended in effort and negotiation in order to achieve these gains in this agreement: National defense. We have held national defense to a level that I think is barely sufficient. I would like to see more there. I do not like the quadrennial review. I am perhaps in a minority in my own party in that respect, but I certainly do not want to go any lower in what we have allocated for defense in this budget. The Shuster amendment will take us lower, $5.65 billion, and most of that comes in the outyears, 1999 and 1998 and 2000, when we will be stepping up to the plate to buy some important systems that will modernize our force structure; $5.65 billion, whack, right out of defense. Education. Now here is one area where we had a clear win as Democrats in this agreement. We have got tuition tax credits, we have got tuition tax deductibility, we have got a literacy project, we have got the biggest increase in Pell grants since the origination of the program; $980 million will be taken out of education by these across-the-board cuts. Section 8 housing, LIHEAP and WIC. All of these important priority programs are protected as such in this agreement. We went to great endeavors in these negotiations to see that section 8 was adequately funded over the next 5 years just at a level to maintain the existing housing stock of subsidized housing. But this will take us below that level. It will take section 8, LIHEAP and WIC down by $860 million over 5 years, and that is not small change. That is a big hit in these programs. Health research at NIH. There are Members on both sides of the aisle who are pushing right now a bill that would plus up significant funding for health research and funding for the National Institutes of Health. This would take those accounts down by $520 million. Criminal justice. Now this is something that normally unites the House. We want to put more money into criminal justice. We are sometimes divided about the means, but I think we are all usually united about the ends. It takes $510 million out of criminal justice. Veterans benefits. The veterans already are displeased with this agreement because we have not fully funded what it will take to maintain the veterans' benefit programs, the veterans' medical care program. We have said instead that the Veterans' Administration will be able to keep the resources they collect from collateral sources from health insurance, and we anticipate that that $600 million will make up the difference. This budget, however, takes another $400 million out of veterans' programs. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues, I encourage my colleagues before they vote, to read this handout, look at this list and see who pays for the transportation increases proposed by the Shuster amendment.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Markey].

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 90 seconds to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Levin]. (Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior].

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. Chairman, we will shortly have before us for a vote the so-called Shuster-Oberstar substitute. I would like to take just a minute to explain to everyone in the House exactly what the consequences of that amendment would be. Starting in 1999, if that were to become the will of the House, if that substitute were to carry, it would cut discretionary spending government wide on a pro rata basis and reduce the tax cuts to increase transportation funding by $19 billion in budget authority, $12 billion in outlays. The reduction to defense would be $5.65 billion according to the best estimation of the Committee on the Budget, and $5.8 billion would come out of nondefense discretionary spending, across the board. Of the $12 billion increase in transportation spending, 94 percent would be offset by decreased discretionary spending, 6 percent would be offset by reduced tax cuts. What would be the consequences? The first consequence would be that this agreement, hard wrought, negotiated over 3 months, would be severely undercut. Second, the offset to pay the $12 billion would require, as I said, across-the-board reductions, so these carefully allocated cuts, these programs that have been protected as priorities, Head Start, for example, would be cut along with everything else. The good, the bad, the indifferent, everything would be cut. These would not be just skims across the top. These would be deep, disruptive programmatic reductions in programs that are important to the people of this country. Transportation is, too, but I think it should be borne in mind by the Members of the House that the current budget agreement does a lot for transportation. Under this agreement, we have provided an additional $8.5 billion in outlays above the CBO scoring of the President's budget, $8.5 billion in additional outlays for the Nation's transportation infrastructure. Under the agreement, this budget agreement, the fiscal year 1998 obligation for highways would be $22.2 billion. That is 6 percent over the fiscal year 1997 level of $20.9 billion provided for already in this agreement without the Shuster substitute. House Concurrent Resolution 84 provides sufficient funding over the 5-year period, in fact, so that the spending from the trust funds will be consistent with the so-called Chafee-Bond proposal. In other words, it will permit obligations out of the highway trust fund roughly equal to the receipts that will be deposited within the trust fund from gasoline taxes over the next 5 years. The budget resolution, the base bill, assumes total transportation outlays of $40.9 billion. That is not small change. That is a significant commitment to transportation infrastructure. In 1998 alone, $40.9 billion for total transportation, and $206.1 billion over 5 years. That means that discretionary outlays provided for in this House Concurrent Resolution 84 are $8.8 billion above a freeze over the next 5 years, $8.2 billion above the President's request, and in terms of budget authority, $20 billion over the President's request for the next 5 years. Mr. Chairman, I urge Members who, like me, would like to see more money spent on transportation, particularly in their own districts, in their own jurisdictions, to look carefully at the costs that will be exacted by this particular substitute. The budget resolution provides the mechanism whereby if we can identify discretely offsets in the future, there is a separate account created herein, in this budget resolution, which will allow for increased spending on transportation. But to do it with across-the-board cuts, to eviscerate defense, $5.65 billion, to cut another $5.5 billion out of nondefense discretionary, is not the way to go.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Menendez]. (Mr. MENENDEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oregon [Ms. Hooley].