September 12, 1974
Page 30996
REDUCTION OF FEDERAL EXPENDITURES
Mr. HUGH. SCOTT. Mr. President, yesterday the joint majority leadership indicated in a statement that Congress has cut the 1975 budget by $6 billion. While the Congress has been successful in reducing some of the spending authority requested by the administration, the report of the Congress' own scorekeeping unit presents a far different picture of our actions to date.
Specifically the August 22 report of the Joint Committee on Reduction of Federal Expenditures shows that the Congress has enacted–
A $393 million net cut in the requests made for the nine appropriation bills passed by the Congress. We will have an opportunity to better this record, since the agriculture bill, vetoed because of the increases it contained, is still before us for action. I am hopeful that we can make substantial reductions to the appropriations contained in our first version of the bill.
A $2,991 million increase for completed actions on mandatory spending authorizations outside the appropriations bills.
So we have increased mandatory spending by $3 billion in this regard. Let me emphasize the word mandatory. These are bills which will require added appropriations or added spending. Included are increases for veterans benefits, for small business direct loans, and for the Housing and Community Development Act.
Thus, these completed actions have to date had the effect of adding $2.6 billion to the requests for 1975 budget authority rather than a $6 billion cut.
If we translate these actions on adding this $2.6 billion into spending which will increase the administration's 1975 budget figure of $305 billion, this $2.6 billion would add – according to the scorekeeping report – $1.5 billion in outlays.
Since the joint majority leadership could not have been discussing enacted bills, apparently they were including pending bills as well. The picture for pending bills shows a situation similar to that for enacted. bills:
Appropriation bills show decreases ranging between $4.3 billion in the House and $5.7 billion in the Senate for the remaining appropriations bills.
I may add that these decreases are referred to elsewhere by the joint majority leadership as being in addition to the $6 billion cut and representing an anticipated cut in subsequent legislation, I believe, of $7 to $8 billion.
But, actually, the figure is $4.3 billion in the House and $5.7 billion in the Senate for the remaining appropriation bill.
The cuts to the Defense bill are the major component in both of these decreases. I personally believe that cuts in this bill beyond those made by the House are unwarranted.
Mandatory spending bills show increases between $.9 billion in the House and $2.9 billion in the Senate. Of the pending Senate increases, $2 billion is for a temporary increase in standby borrowing authority for the Federal Home Loan Bank System.
These pending actions on budget authority would add 1975 outlays of $377 million as a result of House actions and $176 million for Senate action.
In summary, the congressional scorekeeping report hardly shows a $6-billion decrease. Here is a short table which puts all of the scorekeeping changes together:
[Table Omitted]
Now, that is the report of Congress on authority in which it is shown that enacted bills represent substantial increases, that pending bills represent current decreases, but nowhere near the $7.08 billion amount predicted by the joint majority leadership and, of course, do not include whatever may be added in the form of Christmas tree amendments or otherwise, as those bills take their courses through the legislative process.
On a further subject–
Mr. MANSFIELD. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. HUGH SCOTT. Yes, I am happy to yield to the Senator.
Mr. MANSFIELD. Mr. President, I would have to challenge the figures just made by the distinguished Republican leader in his polite offensive because I would point out, and the RECORD will prove this, that on the basis of budget requests made by the President up to this time the Senate has cut $5,931,000,000.
Furthermore, in the bill we will take up Monday, the appropriation bill of the Departments of Labor, Health, Education, and Welfare, and related agencies, a further cut of $629,953,000 is envisaged. That will bring the total cut by the Senate this year so far to $6,560,000,000.
Furthermore, we have the foreign aid bill to still come before us. It will be cut, I am quite sure.
We have the military construction bill, of which I happen to be chairman of the Subcommittee on Appropriations. It will be cut, the Senator may be sure.
I think we have not done too badly, and I am somewhat surprised at the statement made by the distinguished Republican leader, and I quote him, I think almost exactly, he says:
I personally believe that the cuts made by the Senate beyond the House were unwarranted.
I do not think we have cut the House figures enough and I would anticipate without doubt that before we get through the Senate will have cut the President's budget request by somewhere between $7 and $8 billion, conservatively speaking.
Mr. HUGH SCOTT. Well, now, I am glad we have had this contradiction from my friend, the distinguished majority leader.
It has in no degree changed my mind nor moved me from reality toward fantasy because I have an answer, and the answer comes from the Senator's own committee.
Mr. MANSFIELD. Figures?
Mr. HUGH SCOTT. We have the figures, and there is a well-known statement about facts as the distinguished majority leader knows.
I point out to him that my quotation is from the August 22 report of the Joint Committee on Reduction of Federal Expenditures which says it has not been reduced that much.
Mr. MANSFIELD. I am talking about what the Senate has done, what the Senator from Pennsylvania has done, what all of us have done, certainly–
Mr. HUGH SCOTT. I am talking of not only the Senate, but the House, and much as I appreciate the Senator's skill, I will not be diverted.
Mr. MANSFIELD. Nothing skilled, facts.
Mr. HUGH SCOTT. The Senator's facts are in a sense accumulated to serve his arguments; we all do that.
The Senator's facts ignore, by sticking to the so-called budget request, the mandatory spending – which is outside of that – and it is $3 billion. The Senator's reference to budget requests ignores the built-in expenditures for the future. Only about $80 billion of the $305 billion is in the controllable items.
If the distinguished majority leader were right, then we would be led to believe that the present budget figure of $305 billion is going to come down to $299 billion. I am not one who is at all convinced that the majority here have reduced the budget from $305 billion to $299 billion.
Mr. MANSFIELD. The budget request of the President–
Mr. HUGH SCOTT. Well, request. But the budget is $305 billion. It is not coming down to $295 billion.
Mr. MUSKIE. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. HUGH SCOTT. In a moment.
It is not coming down to $299 billion, in spite of this pre-election gimmick, because it will not hold water.
What the Senator is saying is he is going to offer us some remedies after election day. Meanwhile he is going to deplore.
Mr. MANSFIELD. If the Senator will yield, the Senator is the one who is deploring because he says he is sorry, in effect, that we cut beyond what the House did. I think he ought to be proud that the Senate showed so much responsibility.
Mr. HUGH SCOTT. On the contrary, the distinguished majority leader is confining himself to foreign assistance and defense. The easiest thing we can do in Congress is to cut defense and cut foreign assistance, because it does not have any votes. It does not have any constituency. All it has is the security of the American people to live without fear and to survive.
Mr. MANSFIELD. Does the Senator mean defense has no votes? That is one bill that does have votes.
Mr. HUGH SCOTT. It has very few votes compared to veterans, let us say, or education, or all of the more sacred cows.
I will yield to the distinguished Senator in a moment.
I want to point out, and the distinguished majority leader knows as well as I do that this is a fact, that in mandated expenditures we have not cut at all. We have increased. In bills yet to be enacted we propose cuts. Those cuts, however, even if adhered to all the way through, are only about half of what his majority leadership have proposed.
I now yield to the distinguished chairman of the new Budget Committee who is going to end inflation by his own personal skill and legerdemain. Let the magician proceed to operate.
Mr. MUSKIE. I thank the distinguished minority leader. I will not promise to end the inflationary rhetoric on this floor.
Mr. HUGH SCOTT. You have had 38 years to do it. I do not see how you will do it in 3 months, but I am willing to have you try.
Mr. MUSKIE. I do not believe so.
Let me say this: the distinguished minority leader has charged the majority leader with switching rather freely from budget authority to appropriations, from appropriations to spending.
The distinguished minority leader is guilty of that in his statement. He speaks for example, of a $2.8 billion increase in mandatory spending as though that will increase the budget from $305 billion to $308 billion. That is not the case on the evidence of the Senator's own statement
If I may finish–
Mr. HUGH SCOTT. May I correct the Senator?
Mr. MUSKIE. Later on, the Senator decides for himself that that $2.5 billion will add only $1.5 billion in spending this fiscal year.
Mr. HUGH SCOTT. That is right.
Mr. MUSKIE. Yet he refers to this as mandatory spending on page 1 of his statement.
Mr. HUGH SCOTT. It is, but not all in 1 year.
Mr. MUSKIE. That is the point I want to get to. I know what the distinguished majority leader said because he consulted with me in advance. He asked me what evidence could he use to indicate a congressional will to exercise budgetary restraint. I said, "MIKE, if you try to use the $305 billion, you are on loose ground because the $305 billion is simply an estimate of the rate at which the Federal Government will spend."
I said, "You can use budget authority, but the figure represented there is $325 billion, which is not very visible in the rhetoric because that is the total of budget authority."
The third point I said to him was, "MIKE, only about 42 percent of this budget is subject to appropriations. So if you try to talk about the whole, you are going to get confused."
I said, "If all you are looking for is evidence of congressional will to exercise restraint, then use the action of the appropriations committees in cutting budget authority."
On that point the RECORD supports the majority leader. When the Senator raises the question that he is raising, what will be the effect on spending, that is, on outlays, what will be the effect on the $305 billion; that is a difficult answer to get from Mr. Ash, I may say to the distinguished minority leader. We have asked Mr. Ash to testify on this point.
First of all, for every dollar that you cut in appropriations, in other words, budget authority, you may save half in actual spending in the current fiscal year. If you want to cut $7 billion in actual spending, you would have to cut about $14 billion or $15 billion in appropriations. That is a very rough rule of thumb.
I would like to suggest to the minority leader there is, understandably, political competition over this issue, and there should be; it is healthy. But I pledge to the distinguished minority leader and to the Senate as a whole that although our authority as a budget committee will not really begin to bite until after the first of the year, we are undertaking to make a contribution to at least public understanding of what we actually do, and the spending consequences that will flow from it.
It is a complicated and technical subject. I do not know to what extent we can cut the $305 billion. I think $300 billion is a legitimate objective. It will mean cutting upwards of $10 billion in appropriations. I think if we lay down those two objectives or those two targets clearly, without mixing the two, we may have a fair chance of accomplishment.
Mr. HUGH SCOTT. I thank the distinguished Senator, because he has clarified some things along the way. I think he did not grasp what I said at one point about the nearly $3 billion. I did not make the argument to point out that the budget would thereby go from $305 billion to $308 billion. I made the argument to point out that he was not reducing the budget from $305 billion to $299 billion. I think the Senator would agree with me.
Mr. MUSKIE. But the majority leader was not making that argument either.
Mr. HUGH SCOTT. But the joint leadership was, and let me read it to you. I enjoy reading things which support my position.
Mr. MUSKIE. I will listen carefully.
Mr. HUGH SCOTT. I am doing my best to ignore those things which do not.
Mr. MUSKIE. I seek to apply the same test.
Mr. HUGH SCOTT. Yesterday the joint leadership indicated in their statement that the Congress has cut the 1975 budget by $6 billion. But the 1975 budget is the $305 billion. to which I addressed myself. Can the Senator sustain this statement?
Mr. MUSKIE. All I know is, I heard Senator MANSFIELD make the statement yesterday that the Senate had cut the President's budget request, or would cut the President's budget request, by $7 billion to $8 billion, and that the Senate had voted $6 billion in cuts on the President's budget request. That is an accurate statement. I think it is a reasonable projection. I do not know the source of the language the Senator uses.
Mr. HUGH SCOTT. The source of my statement is the statement yesterday of the distinguished. majority leader to which the distinguished Senator from Maine just referred, and that is not what he said. Here it is:
It was noted that the Congress has already made a cut of $6 billion in the budget, and will cut more. In return the Administration should act to reduce high interest rates.
What has the Congress done in the last 38 years of overspending itself to cut the present burden on the economy? The Senator has had 38 years to accomplish this. He is not telling the American people he is going to recess for a month, rest up and do it in 2 months. He cannot do it.
We will help him, if he has any kind of an economic nostrum. We will look at it.
Mr. MUSKIE. If the Senator will yield, I am not undertaking any such ambitious project this afternoon. What I am undertaking to do this afternoon is a very simple point. I can get engaged in the rhetoric of budget cutting as well as anybody else on either side of this aisle. But I have heard the majority leader three times in 2 days. I do not know what the Federal budget is. I know what the President's budget requests are as a word of art.
If the Senator is talking about the Federal budget, he could be talking about the request for budget authority; he could be talking about the estimates of budget outlays. But when he is talking about the budget and trying to stick the majority leader with an interpretation of it that differs from what I heard the majority leader say three times in 2 days, I think it is my responsibility to try to make the record clear.
With respect to budget authority – that is, appropriations – the Senate has cut, as the majority leader has pointed out, $6 billion from the President's requests. What that will mean in terms of reduction in outlays, I think, is the subject of estimates and not final fixes.
Mr. HUGH SCOTT. Mr. President, I should like to yield to the Senator from Arizona.
Mr. MUSKIE. That $6 billion is a description of what the Senate has done to date. It is not an accurate description of what Congress has done to date. It is not a final definition of what Congress will do in this session.
Mr. HUGH SCOTT. May I ask the Senator from Arizona's permission to leave the Chamber? I have a program downstairs.
I yield back all time to the distinguished Senator from Arizona, and I ask him to continue to support me, as I know he will.
Mr. FANNIN. I say to the distinguished Senator from Maine, my chairman on the Budget Committee – and I appreciate the privilege of serving with the distinguished Senator on that committee – that in support of what Senator Scott has said, he has related that $305 billion is the correct figure. In our hearings, I think the Senator will agree that $305 billion has been the budget figure to which we have adhered.
Mr. MUSKIE. No, it is not.
Mr. FANNIN. I have been there and listened time and time again to the reference to $300 billion.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr: President will the Senator yield?
Mr. FANNIN. First I should like to–
Mr MUSKIE. If the Senator is going to put words in my mouth, I should like to make sure that they are accurate.
The original figure was $304.5.billion. Since that time, that figure has risen to $305.6 billion, and that is from the administration. This is from the record of our hearings. That is a difference of $1.1 billion on the President's' own estimates.
I repeat that it is simply an estimate of what will be spent under the budget authority that was created previous to this year and that will be created this year. It is an estimate of spending.
May I say to the Senator that the $305.6 billion is conservative – nothing more than the ground of increased interest payments by the Federal Government as a result of the tight money policy.
The Senator knows as well as I that. the $305.6 billion is a floating figure that rises and falls with the case load in social security, that rises and falls with the caseload in the food stamp program, that rises and falls with interest rates, that rises and falls with the state of the economy. It is not fixed in concrete.
The implication of the distinguished Senator and the distinguished minority leader that that $305 billion represents a final figure of what the administration will spend is misleading. That is a floating figure. If the Senator wants a fixed figure, start with the $325 billion.
Mr. FANNIN. The figure we have consistently utilized and the witnesses have utilized – I realize that there is a variance – has been $305 billion. The Senator brought it down to $600 million on one side and added $600 million.
Mr. MUSKIE. I have not changed the figures at all.
Mr. FANNIN. In the Senator's discussions he has stated that. But we do not have the budget committee in operation the way it was expected. We do not have the operational procedures as yet or the reports or any basis for obtaining those reports. So we are depending on the Joint Committee on Reduction of Federal Expenditures for our figures. Is that not true?
Mr. MUSKIE. I understand. But the Senator is far, from the mark I am trying to make.
Senator MANSFIELD was not undertaking to report on the results that it is the responsibility of that committee to report. What Senator MANSFIELD was undertaking to indicate yesterday was the determination of the Senate to exercise budgetary restraint, by reason of the fact that the Senate has voted $6 billion in reductions in the President's budget requests in the appropriation bills that have come before the Senate.
The other information to which the Senator refers is also significant and important but to use that as a rebuttal to the distinguished majority leader is simply playing with words.
Mr. FANNIN. I think the Senator can understand simple language. Cutting the budget by $6 billion is the language that was utilized.
Mr. MANSFIELD. Mr. President, will the Senator. yield?
Mr: FANNIN. I yield.
Mr. MANSFIELD. No, that is not the language being utilized–
Mr. FANNIN. I do not have a copy of the statement.
Mr. MANSFIELD. I do not have it, either.
I point out that when the distinguished Senator from Arkansas (Mr. McCLELLAN) brought in the defense appropriation bill, he had cut the request of the President by $6 billion or $5.1 billion there and there alone. Here is a bill coming on the calendar now.
Mr. FANNIN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield? .
Mr. MANSFIELD. I yield.
Mr. FANNIN. Does the Senator say that we have cut the budget by $6 billion?
Mr. MANSFIELD. The budget request of the President by $6.560 billion – if we pass the HEW appropriation bill.
Mr. FANNIN. "If." There were no "ifs" put in this statement.
Mr. MANSFIELD. The exact figure is $5.931 billion. It is not quite $6 billion, but it is pretty close.
Mr. FANNIN. I appreciate that we have all this interest in cutting the budget. The distinguished Senator from Virginia has worked on this for years and years.
Mr. MANSFIELD. We cut it every year in this body.
Mr. FANNIN. We think we do.
Mr. MANSFIELD. And the Senator from Arizona participates in the cutting–
Mr. FANNIN. I wish I could say that I am proud of what we have done, but I am not, because we have not cut it the way we should. The distinguished Senator from Virginia has brought it out time and time again. How can we cut it when we bring out this tremendous accumulated deficit. We have not been able to do anything about it over a great number of years.
Mr. MANSFIELD. It is the administration.
Mr. FANNIN. No. They do not spend the money unless Congress permits them to do so. We have these uncontrollables over which I hope we can get control.
Mr. MANSFIELD. I will bet the Senator that the President will send down at least one supplemental budget request for $3, $4, $5, or $6 billion more.
Mr. FANNIN. I appreciate very much the increased interest that has been generated, and I commend the chairman of the Budget Committee, but I get back to the point: The August 22 report of the Joint Committee on Reduction of Federal Expenditures shows – the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania brought that figure to us, and it is illustrated very forcefully – that Congress has not cut the budget by $6 billion.
Mr. MANSFIELD. We have passed on appropriation bills in this body, and in one bill alone we chopped off $5.1 billion, in the defense appropriation bill – $5.1 billion less than the President requested. I do not know what more the Senator wants.
Mr. FANNIN. I did not want it in the defense bill.
Mr. MANSFIELD. Naturally. Someplace else.
Mr. FANNIN. Absolutely. That is true.
Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. FANNIN. I yield.
Mr. JOHNSTON. As someone who is not an expert in the esoterica about budget requests and floating appropriations and all that, I should like to ask one question, and perhaps we can find a ground upon which we can all agree. Is it a fact that, already this year, the President wanted. to spend or wanted authority to spend some $5.9 billion more than the Senate was willing to give him authority to spend?
Mr. FANNIN. I say to the distinguished Senator from Louisiana that the Members of Congress have desired to increase that by much more than he is talking about, and he has witnessed that on the floor of the Senate. So, with respect to answering as to that specific figure, I cannot answer. I know what happens here, because I stood by and watched bills being increased by a few billion dollars in a few minutes. It is very difficult. Until we get the Budget Committee operating and functioning, we are not going to be able to answer many of these questions. That is why we were willing to go forward with this.
I commend the distinguished majority leader and the distinguished minority leader for being willing to push that bill through and to work on it.
So I say to the distinguished Senator from Louisiana that it is very difficult. In fact, we do not have figures. We have had no control in applying our expenditures against our revenues, and that is what has been wrong.
Mr. JOHNSTON. The question is so simple, though, and it does not call for all these great definitions. Did not the President request almost $6 million more than the Senate was willing. to authorize
Mr. FANNIN. But that has not been determined. The year is not over yet.
Mr. JOHNSTON. So far this year.
Mr. FANNIN.. The year is not over with, so that cannot be answered. According to the Joint Committee on Reduction of Federal Expenditures, my answer is no. This is the committee that we depend upon for that type of information.
Mr. MANSFIELD. We depend on our own information in the Senate
Mr. FANNIN. Then why do we have the Joint Committee on Reductions of Federal Expenditures?
Mr. MANSFIELD. I do not know.
Mr. FANNIN. That is my question.
Mr. JOHNSTON. I respectfully suggest to the Senator from Arizona that if the American people are trying to find out who is the big spender as between the Executive and the Congress, it is very simple. We do not have to go into all the great definitions. We can look at the requests. We have already cut $5.9 billion from the requests, and I hope that we shall do some more cutting before we are finished.
Mr. FANNIN. Unfortunately, we vote the so-called uncontrollables. That is why I think the Committee on the Budget is going to be of great assistance so that we can go into those figures: We can bring back information. We have not been able to do that previously. I feel, that by having the Committee on the Budget functioning, we shall be able to discuss this in a much more rational manner and, I think, much much more beneficial manner.
Mr. MUSKIE. If the Senator from Arizona will yield, may I say to him that a big beginning is that we understand and define the word that he uses. The distinguished minority leader used the word "budget" to try to nail the majority leader on some statement that he made. I do not know of any definition for just the single word "budget" that applies to what we do about spending decisions on the floor of the Senate.
Budget what? It can be budget authority. That is a word of art that has some meaning.
Mr. FANNIN. That is right.
Mr. MUSKIE. If we increase or reduce budget authority, we can find a record of that in the deliberations of the Senate, and in the results. If we are talking about budget outlays, we can find it. But to use a single word "budget?"
The only budget we get is the President's budget at the beginning of the year, which is his order of priorities, but it has nothing to do with the actions taken.
With respect to the Defense appropriations bill, we voted that $5.1 billion cut in budget authority. That is $5.1 billion in appropriations, that is what that is. We cut it by that much this–
The best estimate is – the best estimate; there is no fixed or final estimate – the best estimate is that that will represent a $2.7 billion reduction in actual spending, actual outlays, in fiscal 1975. That is roughly in the order of 2 to 1, I suggested earlier this afternoon.
When the Senator comes in here and says that the majority leader is wrong because he is quoted as saying – I do not know whether he is quoted accurately – that the Congress had cut the budget by whatever the dollars are, it means nothing to me and it should mean nothing to the distinguished Senator from Arizona, as a member of the Committee on the Budget. He should ask the next question: Budget what? What was he talking about?
Mr. FANNIN. That is what I should like to know. That is what we have been asking, time and again. We can argue–
Mr. MUSKIE. May I finish?
Mr. FANNIN. Yes, fine.
Mr. MUSKIE. If the Senator from Arizona had been watching what the Senate did this year, he would know what the distinguished majority leader was talking about. He would know without having to guess. He would know that he was talking about roughly a.$6-billion cut in appropriations, and on that, the record is eminently clear.
Mr.. FANNIN. If the Senator will yield, I happen to be a member of the Committee on Finance. I follow very closely our revenues and our expenditures.
Mr. MUSKIE. Why is the record confused?
Mr. FANNIN. The record is not confused. If we have a committee that is not doing a job, we should do away with the committee. The Joint Committee on Reduction of Federal Expenditures verifies the figures.
Mr. MUSKIE. That committee's report does not touch the point made by the distinguished majority leader, and that record cannot be made, no matter how much–
Mr. FANNIN. No, it is completed. It cannot be made by the Joint Committee on Reduction of Federal Expenditures. They are not constructed to give credence to the majority leader. I am not challenging him. I hope that he is right.
Mr. MUSKIE. What Senator MANSFIELD said yesterday was 100 percent correct, and the committee to which the Senator from Arizona refers has made no comment on that point.
Mr. FANNIN. They cannot make any comment on that point.
Mr. MUSKIE. Then why is the Senator from Arizona using the committee's report to refute the majority leader?
Mr. FANNIN. The figures are not available; that is why they cannot make any comment. The distinguished Senator from Maine knows that the figures are not available.
Mr. MUSKIE. I know that the Senator from Arizona is so far off the mark with respect to the point made by the distinguished majority leader, who never tries to deceive–
Mr. FANNIN. I have never stated that.
Mr. MUSKIE. He is so far off the mark, and he refuses to listen–
Mr. FANNIN. If the Senator from Maine would start listening to what was said, I think he could respond better to what was said about him.
Mr. MUSKIE. I am listening.
Mr. FANNIN. The Senator from Maine is certainly not responding on the basis of listening.
Mr. MUSKIE. The Senator from Arizona keeps throwing at me a totally irrelevant figure from the Joint Committee on Reduction of Federal Expenditures.
Mr. FANNIN. That is not the point.
Mr. MUSKIE The Senator will not even let me finish a sentence. I guess that I am guilty of the same fault.
Let me say before we interrupt each other again what the distinguished majority leader's point is.
It is so simple that it should not be the subject of debate. It had to do with the total of the actions taken by the Senate on appropriations bills this year. It was not an evaluation of what the Congress as a whole has done. It was not an evaluation of the laws that we passed dealing with the subject. It was very simply, what has the Senate done to date?
On that point, the Joint Committee on Reduction of Federal Expenditures to which the Senator refers has made no comment. That is not its obligation. It is the responsibility of the distinguished majority leader to account to the public from time to time for what the Senate has done. That is what the Senator from Montana did. What he said was wholly accurate.
Now, the information that the distinguished Senator from Arizona offers is additional evidence, it is pertinent evidence on what may ultimately result from the work of the Congress as a whole. But it is not a refutation of the point of the Senator from Montana.
Mr. 'FANNIN. I am not challenging that in any respect. I have the highest respect for the distinguished Senator from Montana, the majority leader. I have never questioned his veracity.
Mr. MUSKIE. I was not raising that issue.
Mr. FANNIN. I resent that the Senator would indicate that.
Mr. MUSKIE. I was not raising that issue.
Mr. FANNIN. I am glad that he was not, because I have the greatest respect for the distinguished majority leader and I have certainly showed that at every time that I have had occasion to speak with the distinguished Senator from Montana.
I say that all I am doing is referring to a committee we depend upon, and I shall end it on that basis. The Joint Committee on Reduction of Federal Expenditures verifies what the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania said. This is not saying that what the distinguished majority leader has said is wrong, if certain things come to pass.
That is the way it has to be put, because if they do not come to pass, his figure will not mean anything at all.
Mr. MUSKIE. May I say to the distinguished Senator from Arizona that in the distinguished minority leader's own statement, he is talking about things that have not passed. He talks about pending bills as though they indicated that we are going to spend more than the President.
Mr. FANNIN. That is correct.
Mr. MUSKIE. Yet when we talk about actions that have not come to pass about cutting expenditures, the Senator from Arizona resists.
When the Senator from Arizona is talking about bills that might or might not increase expenditures, why cannot we talk about actions by the Senate that would, if enacted, cut expenditures? If the Senator from Arizona can talk about what is not yet, we can talk about what is not yet.
But let us, for heaven's sake, if we are going to serve a useful purpose as a budget committee, deal with facts that are relevant to each other.
Mr. FANNIN. That is what we are trying to do. The joint majority leadership indicated a statement that the Congress has cut the 1975 budget by $6 billion. That is my statement in that regard.
Mr. MANSFIELD. Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona has the floor.
Mr. MANSFIELD. I thought he was through.
Mr. FANNIN. No; I said "in this regard."
Mr. MANSFIELD. Let me say again that the statement I made – and I do not have it before me, unfortunately – was that the Senate has reduced the President's budget by approximately $6 billion and that the Senate intends, before the year is out, to reduce the budget request further so that the cuts will reach a total of $7.5 to $8 billion.
I was rather surprised when the distinguished minority leader said in his statement–
The cuts to the Defense bill are the major components in both of these decreases.
That is true.
That is true. Five billion one hundred million dollars was reported out of the committee and sustained by the Senate. I believe the distinguished Senator from Arizona and the distinguished minority leader both voted for the defense appropriation bill, which contained a cut of $5.1 billion below the President's request.
Continuing, the minority leader speaking–
I personally believe that cuts in this bill beyond those made by the Houses are unwarranted.
Does he believe in reducing the budget, or does he not? Does he not believe in what the Senate does in its wisdom to reduce the President's budget request?
He voted for this bill. Furthermore, here on the desk today is the pending business, appropriations for HEW. And what did the Senate Committee on Appropriations do? They reduced the President's budget request by $629,953,000 well over half a billion dollars.
Add that to the $5.931 billion already reduced – saved by the Senate – and you have a figure of $6.560 billion. Add to that the foreign aid appropriation bill and you can bet your last bottom dollar that that is going to be cut considerably, add to that the military construction appropriation bill, of which I happen to be chairman, and that will be cut substantially; and, insofar as the statement I made, getting away from the wherefores and why-nots, we will end up with somewhere between $7 and $8 billion below the budget request made by the President.
I do not care what the Joint Economic Committee says. What I am talking about is what our own Appropriations Committee has done. Our own committee. The facts are there in the figures.
There is no difference; they coincide. The fact is that up to this time the Senate has reduced the President's budget request by $5.931 billion. And if we pass the HEW appropriation bill, now the pending business, we will add $629 million more, and if that comes to pass, the total reduction made by the Senate Appropriations Committee will amount to $6.56 billion. Not a bad piece of change, if you ask me; and I think that insofar as this is concerned, the Senate, Democrats and Republicans alike, ought to be very, very proud of the fiscal integrity and prudence that we are showing.
Mr. FANNIN. Mr. President, let me just say to the distinguished Senator from Montana, I did not challenge his statement if he placed the complete statement into consideration, but I still say that we do not have information that would justify our saying, to my way of thinking, that we have had a $6 billion cut. I hope we will have a $10 billion cut.
Mr. MANSFIELD. So do I.
Mr. FANNIN. But I want the cuts done on a priority basis, by cutting what can be cut without harming the defense of the country or the welfare of the people.
Mr. MANSFIELD. I understand the Senator is speaking from a separate set of figures compiled by a joint committee with which the Senate has very little connection. Our main committee is the Committee on Appropriations, and that is what we have to depend on.
I did not say the Democratically controlled Senate achieved this. I said the Senate had achieved it, and that includes the Republicans as well as the Democrats. That is the way it should be. It is not to our credit; it is to the Senate's credit.
Mr. FANNIN. Mr. President, what is the pending business?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The pending business is H.R. 15580.
Mr. FANNIN. It was my understanding that we would go back on S. 3221 after–
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the prior agreement, the Senator from Arizona has the floor.
Mr. FANNIN. Mr. President, I yield to the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. BARTLETT) for a statement on S. 3221.
Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. President, as I have been waiting to speak on S. 3221, I naturally have been listening to the discussion on economy. It is rather interesting, since I think most Senators have been interested in reducing the appropriation bills and trying to have them be significantly under the budget request of the President, and hopefully to add up to a balanced budget, or a so-called balanced budget – at least this has been my goal. I think we have a situation where, perhaps, with the interruptions on both sides, both sides certainly had a point to make.
I think the majority leader's point that the Senate has made reductions of five-plus billions of dollars in appropriations requested by the President's budget is correct. As to the statement of the minority leader that the mandatory spending bills have increased nearly $3 billion, I accept his figures and the attribution that these represent the August 22 report of the Joint Committee on Reduction of Federal Expenditures. I think that is also an interesting figure, because it points to one of the challenges that Congress faces, and that is that the uncontrollables, those figures which are out of the control of Congress, which Congress has written into the law in such a way as to increase their effect in the future, in a sense appropriating unknown amounts of growth revenue, are handicapping Congress, the Appropriations Committees, and the President in having control of spending to the extent of balancing the budget.
So I hope the interruptions that took place in the debate are successful in arousing even a stronger desire to reduce expenditures by this body, and to bring the spending into a balance with the revenues coming in.
I think if Congress and the administration will work together, which certainly the whole idea of the summit conference stressed, which was supported by this body about 85 to 5, that then we will be having a real psychological impact on the economy of this country and those entities which make it up and affect it.
So I am very much interested and pleased that there is this much interest in cutting the expenditures, and I hope there will be interest in analyzing the policies expressed in our various authorization bills in order to increase the controllables, so that we will have an opportunity of fine tuning our expenditures that we do not now have.
There are those people who have been saying that Congress cannot balance the fiscal 1975 budget. I do not agree with them. I think we can. I do not think it will be easy. But I do not think those who have been saying that are totally in error. It is quite difficult, and I think that in fiscal 1976 it could very well be impossible, to balance the budget unless there are some very substantive changes made in legislation affecting the authorizations.
So I have sat here with growing appreciation of the interest that has been shown by the leadership in this body, and I certainly hope that we will be balancing the budget, and by that I mean coming close to a $295 billion, or a $298 billion, or a $299 billion appropriation figure, which would presumably be in balance, depending on what definition of the budget we use.