September 8, 1976
Page 29363
Mr. FONG. I am not talking about the 1-percent kicker. I am talking about the 3 percent.
Mr. CHILES. I am talking about the perfecting amendment.
Mr. FONG. Under the present law, it has to increase by 3 percent. If it increases by 1 percent and remains for 3 months, there is no increase. If it increases by 2 percent, there is no increase. It has to increase by 3 percent, and then that 3 percent has to be sustained for 3 months, and then you will have an increase.
Under present law, social security recipients also come under this kicker. Does this amendment apply to social security recipients?
Mr. CHILES. Social security recipients do not have the kicker.
Mr. FONG. They do have a kicker.
Mr. STEVENS. Not this one.
Mr. FONG. They do have a kicker.
Mr. MUSKIE. If the Senator will yield, social security recipients do not get the 1-percent kicker. Neither does SSI or the food stamp program, for example. This is only the Federal retirement system.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. CHILES. I yield.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I am not opposing this amendment; I do not think it is necessary. But if it should be adopted, I want to know whether the military is going to be on the same basis.
Mr. CHILES. Exactly the same.
Mr. THURMOND. I think it should be the same. If it is going to apply in 6 months, it should apply to the military in the same way.
Mr. CHILES. They are all to be treated the same way.
Mr. THURMOND. And the Senator's amendment provides that?
Mr. CHILES. Yes.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. CHILES. I yield.
Mr. STEVENS. I do not think that is true. The Senator is dealing with more than a kicker in his amendment, now that I have read it.
The Senator is dealing with how the cost-of-living increases are computed. We started with an amendment to eliminate the kicker, and now he is going to reform the whole retirement system, so far as cost-of-living increases are concerned, with a perfecting amendment. With due respect, I do not think it automatically goes to the military system.
I am constrained to say, here we go again. We have the Budget Committee writing legislation for the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield on that point?
Mr. STEVENS. Yes, I am happy to yield.
Mr. MUSKIE. I have not had a word to say in this.
Mr. STEVENS. I hope the Senator will. I hope the Senator will denounce this.
Mr. MUSKIE. I do not denounce it.
Mr. STEVENS. I do not think the Senator's committee should be writing legislation.
Mr. MUSKIE. If the Senator will lower his voice, I will be glad to describe the Budget Committee's connection with this legislation.
Mr. STEVENS. It is not my voice. I do not need this microphone.
Mr. MUSKIE. I know the Senator does not.
This amendment is not a Budget Committee initiative.
Mr. STEVENS. The Senator from Florida just said it was.
Mr. MUSKIE. What the Budget Committee has done has been amply explained on the floor.
What the Budget Committee has done is within its prerogative.
In the first concurrent budget resolution — and this decision was concurrent with the second concurrent budget resolution, which will be before the Senate tomorrow — we adopted the objective of eliminating the 1-percent kicker. This is the first time I have heard anybody on the Senator's committee object to that action by the Budget Committee. Indeed,a few moments ago the Senator from Alaska accepted that, and now he challenges us. The Senator should choose—
Mr. STEVENS. This is not dealing with just a kicker.
Mr. MUSKIE. All we have done is contained in the first concurrent resolution. That was confirmed by both Houses of Congress. Because it is there, there are Members of Congress in both Houses who are very restive because the appropriate committees have implemented it for the military but nothing has been done about it for the civilian personnel of the Government. So the members of the committee who worked to implement the military side of it are saying to me and to others, "Look, we stuck our necks out to implement the first concurrent resolution. When are we going to get the other half of it done?"
It is because of that frustration, not because of any attempt by the Budget Committee to legislate, that this amendment appears on the floor of the Senate today.
Mr. STEVENS. What is this I have in my hand?
Mr. MUSKIE. I do not know. I cannot see that far.
Mr. STEVENS. It is the perfecting amendment. I will apologize if I am wrong, but I understood the Senator from Florida to say that this was prepared by the Budget Committee.
Mr. CHILES. No. I think the Senator did misunderstand. The Senator said that nobody computed any figures on this, and I said that the Congressional Budget Office had computed figures.
Mr. STEVENS. Where did it come from? That is the question.
This is not the kicker. This refers to the total cost-of-living portion of the retirement system of the Civil Service.
What the Committee on Armed Services did was to eliminate the kicker, depending upon our determining how it should be eliminated. Now we are going to go into the total computation of the cost-of-living increase due to people on retirement, if I understand this correctly. I have only read it once. It is a very complicated subject.
Mr. NUNN. This is compatible with what the Committee on Armed Services did with the military. It was left open, so that whatever was done with the civil service with respect to the repeal of the 1-percent kicker would apply to the military. This makes specific reference to the Secretary of Defense and what he will do. Whether one is for the Chiles amendment or the Buckley amendment, as I understand it, the civil service and the military will be treated alike.
The Senator from Maine is eminently correct in the fact that the Committee on Armed Services, under the budget resolution, felt some responsibility and some mandate to address this issue. We did have hearings. We addressed the issue. The full Senate voted on it. It went to conference. The House agreed to it in conference. It already has been accomplished as to the military, contingent upon what this body does with respect to civil service.
I do not know where the Civil Service Committee was all the time this was going on. That is something I do not understand. Nevertheless, there was due notice given to the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service by the first concurrent budget resolution, by the action of the full Senate on the Armed Services Committee bill, by the action of the conference committee on the bill, by the President's budget message, by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's speeches, and by other things. I do not know where the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service has been this year while all this was going on, but it seems to me that at least this committee had a duty to have hearings before 1 year expired.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I can understand the situation, but I do not understand why we cannot have the normal procedure apply to this. We have just heard that the committee did take it up. I have been to those meetings, and I have never heard anyone demand a hearing. No one has written to me, to my knowledge, and said, "We would like to have a hearing on the bill introduced by Senator BUCKLEY."
The Senator from Florida points out that I have a little extracurricular activity for the people on this side of the aisle. If he had asked me for a hearing on it, I would have gone to the chairman and said, "Can't we have a hearing on it?"
The point was made that the Armed Services Committee held their hearings and determined how to handle it.
Correct me if I am wrong: It is still based on how we deal with the civilian side. Is that right?
Mr. NUNN. The Senator is correct on that point.
Mr. STEVENS. Then, why cannot we have hearings?
Mr. NUNN. That is a very good question. That is the essential question of the hour. Why cannot the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service have hearings when a matter has been discussed as widely as this one for almost a year?
Mr. STEVENS. When the Senator fromWyoming discussed it with me, he mentioned the problem of trying to hold hearings now, the question of being in session and having hearings in this last part of this year and said, "Would you agree?" I will have, next year, the same role that the Senator from Hawaii has with regard to the committee. I said, "Yes, let us hold them the first of the year."
I do not see any problem with that. What is the problem with waiting, will anybody tell me?
What is the great problem with waiting until the proper procedure is followed with regard to this bill?
Mr. BELLMON. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. STEVENS. Yes, I yield.
Mr. BELLMON. I will tell what the problem is with waiting. The Committee on Armed Services has already acted. If the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service does not follow, it is going to be very difficult to get them to go through this again. This is not a very pleasant activity for any of us to undertake. Once the Committee on Armed Services has bitten the bullet, so to speak, it is up to the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service to take the next action. If they refuse to act, the Senate has to act to assure the repeal of the kicker.
ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment offered by the distinguished chairman of the LegislativeAppropriations Subcommittee to H.R. 14238, the Legislative Appropriations bill. This amendment would repeal the so-called 1-percent kicker as it applies to cost-of-living increases in civil service retirement annuities. Let me point out that the question addressed by this amendment is not whether Federal annuitants should receive cost-of-living increases to keep up with inflation; rather, the question is whether Federal annuities should rise faster than inflation.
Since 1969, when the 1-percent kicker was added to the cost-of-living adjustment mechanisms, Federal annuities have increased by 72 percent, while the cost of living has risen over the same period by only 56 percent. As a result, Federal annuitants received $1.6 billion more by the end of fiscal 1975 than they would have, had their benefits merely kept even with inflation.
Moreover, outlays for annuities over the next 5 years will be $3.8 billion higher than they would be if annuities rose at the same rate as inflation. All of these excessive increases in Federal annuities are not financed by employee contributions but are ultimately a burden on the general taxpayer.
Mr. President, these inflated annuity increases are clearly unjustified. Even without the 1-percent kicker, the cost-of-living adjustment mechanism in the Federal retirement system is more liberal than that in almost any other pension system in the private or public sector. Moreover, no other Government program indexed to keep pace with inflation, such as social security, SSI, food stamps, or Federal pay, is adjusted as liberally as Federal retirement annuities. Social security, SSI, and Federal pay are adjusted annually; the food stamps bonus value is adjusted semi-annually. If the 1-percent kicker is justified, with regard to Federal employees' retirement benefits, the argument could be made that it should be extended to these other Federal programs.
The cost of such an extension clearly would be prohibitive.
This year, Mr. President, the Congress has acted definitively on three occasions in favor of repealing the 1-percent kicker. In adopting the first budget resolution, the Congress approved the policy of such a repeal. In enacting the military procurement and State Department authorization bills, the Congress approved the repeal of the kicker for the military and Foreign Service retirement programs, respectively, but only if a similar repeal is adopted with regard to the civil service retirement system. Thus, the amendment before us is the last piece needed to complete the policy for which Congress has clearly voiced approval three times. It is time for us to show the taxpayers that we meant it when we took these prior actions, and it is time to show that the Congress can act responsibly to eliminate unjustified spending of Federal tax dollars.
With repeal of the kicker, I think it is appropriate that we have removed the conditions that made enactment of this compensatory provision necessary in the first place. This amendment as perfected insures that civil service retirees experience no unwarranted delay in having cost-of-living increases appear in their annuity checks. This represents fairness for the annuitant and responsible fulfillment of the congressional obligation to former Federal workers.