April 13, 1976
Page 10731
PUBLIC WORKS EMPLOYMENT ACT OF 1976
The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill (S. 3201) to amend the Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965, to increase the anti-recessionary effectiveness of the program, and for other purposes.
Mr. LONG. Mr. President, earlier this year legislation to provide countercyclical assistance to State and local governments was approved by the Congress as part of H.R. 5247. This measure was subsequently vetoed by the President, and I worked to sustain that veto in the Senate. My opposition to the countercyclical assistance section of that measure was based on the formula for the distribution of funds.
The cosponsors of this legislation have now seen fit to incorporate into this measure the revenue sharing formula which was developed after careful analysis by the Committee on Finance and approved by the full Senate after extensive debate. As a result, this program will now take into account not just the total revenues raised by recipient jurisdictions, but will give weight to the important factors of tax effort and the relative income levels of people within such jurisdictions. Because these adjustments have been agreed to by the proponents of this program, I am pleased to be able to join with them as a cosponsor of this legislation.
Another positive modification which has been incorporated in this revised measure involves the concept of excess unemployment. We are now placing all States on an equal footing in competing for the allocation of funds by utilizing a uniform base period level of unemployment. Therefore, States with chronic unemployment problems will no longer be at a disadvantage vis-a-vis other States with historically low unemployment rates which benefitted disproportionately under the original formula employed in the vetoed bill.
If the conferees and the managers of this bill continue to insist on the same evenhandedness and fairness with regard to the countercyclical assistance, I will continue to support the bill and I will be glad to support the override of a veto, if that proves to be necessary.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. BUCKLEY). The question is on passage.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. Mr. President, I wish to address a question to the manager of the bill. May I have the attention of the Senator from New Mexico?
Mr. MONTOYA. Yes.
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. What is the total amount of tax funds involved in the bill after taking into consideration the amendment which was added to the bill?
Mr. MONTOYA. The total authorization in the bill as passed by the committee was $1.101 billion and the amendment which has been adopted this afternoon carries an additional authorization for $2.9 billion.
Does that answer the Senator's question?
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. That makes a total figure of—
Mr. MONTOYA. The bill as has been amended is $5.2 billion now.
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. So the bill that the Senate will be asked to vote on is a bill totaling $5.2 billion?
Mr. MONTOYA. That is correct.
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. I thank theSenator from New Mexico.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on passage.
Mr. RANDOLPH. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I would like to say something I wanted to say earlier following the remarks by the distinguished Senator from West Virginia (Mr. RANDOLPH) .
No one questions, and certainly not this Senator, the motives and the purposes of the distinguished Senator from West Virginia. I have served with him on the Public Works Committee for 18 years. Our relationship as far as I am concerned has been a constructive and, in a personal sense, a pleasant one.
I happen to disagree with his tactical judgment on this bill. His effort has been to try to write a veto-proof bill. I have assumed that the President would veto this kind of legislation. The President has indicated his opposition to it. So I have tried to put together a package that would enable us to override a veto.
Now, those are two different strategic courses to follow.
But the second point I make, Mr. President, is this: I spent more than 2 days recently defending the congressional budget process. In doing it, I at times opposed amendments with which I was sympathetic and subjected myself to the criticism that on the floor I was inconsistent with votes I cast in the Budget Committee.
I did it for one reason: I happen to believe that the Congress has the right to establish its own priorities, and when it does it is my job, as the Budget Committee chairman, to enforce those priorities to the extent of my ability.
Countercyclical revenue sharing is a congressional budget priority, and I think we ought not to be diverted from our own priorities by the threat of a veto. If the President can do that, then we are back where we were before we adopted a budget process, constantly fearing what the President's reaction will be, constantly backing off from what we ourselves think is right, in order to offset the possibility of a veto.
This is a congressional priority, and I am fighting for it as strongly as I did for the last 2 days for other congressional priorities that have been recommended by the Budget Committee. I will continue to do that sort of thing until a majority of the Senate finally persuades me that it is an unnecessary and fruitless effort. When the Senate as a whole finally persuades me that congressional priorities are meaningless, then I will abandon the fight. But this is a congressional priority and I urge the support of the Senate for this one as much as I urged the Senate's support when I opposed seven amendments to the congressional budget during the last 2 days.
Mr. BAKER. Mr. President, I intend to vote against this greatly enlarged measure. I indicated earlier — when we were discussing the bill in general and when the amendment was offered by the distinguished Senator from Maine — that I felt there was a need for a bill, that my primary purpose was to see that we got legislative relief. I think we have stepped away from that. I think we have diminished the likelihood that a bill will be enacted into law.
As I said then and say now, I feel the President will veto this measure as amended on the floor, and I hope he does. I will recommend to him, if I am asked, that he should veto it.
Mr. President, there is nothing, however, in the legislative reform act or the budget act that derogates the constitutional authority of the chief magistrate to act in a legislative capacity. There is nothing in the legislative reorganization act or the budget act that diminishes by one whit the President's authority to exercise his independent and separate judgment to veto a bill which he thinks is excessive or for whatever reason he chooses not to add his agreement to its enactment into law.
The question of whether or not this amendment should have been adopted in view of the Senator's from Maine very excellent performance yesterday and the day before in defending the budget resolution is not appropriate, in my judgment. It is like saying, "If we can get it into the budget resolution, that is the end of the legislative process." But the budget resolution is the upper limit, not the lower limit. The fact that it included provisions for the amendment that the Senator from Maine knew he was going to offer in the Chamber — the fact that it was included in the first budget resolution — in no way affects my judgment about whether it should become law or the President ought to sign it.
As a practical matter, had we defeated the Muskie amendment there would have been money available in the first budget resolution to commit to some other purpose.
Mr. MUSKIE. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. BAKER. I will be happy to yield.
Mr. MUSKIE. That is exactly the kind of philosophy that got us into the mess that led to the Budget Reform Act. I would have liked to have supported the proposal to cut the defense budget yesterday. I did in the Budget Committee. I used as an excuse one sentence that would have given me the excuse then to vote for the jobs bill.
It is so across the board. We had the Senator from Indiana offer the juvenile justice proposal with which I am totally sympathetic. We had the Senator from California offering a veterans amendment. Am I the only Senator in this body upon whom the budget process imposes some restraints with respect to choices? Was I wrong in submerging my personal preferences yesterday to the interests of institutional restraint with respect to the budget? Those are the questions that I have had to answer for a year and a half, through long sessions of the Budget Committee and fighting for the resolutions on the floor. Am I wrong? Should I instead follow my own preferences and priorities every inch of the way within the committee and abandoning the committee's resolutions when we get to the floor? Or is there some interest in establishing a consensus for budget priorities?
We are never going to have unanimous votes in Budget Committees or in the Chamber, but if we are really going to accommodate each other's differences in order to develop a common policy, do we have any responsibility, even the smallest iota of responsibility, to give consideration to what we establish as a policy?
Mr. BAKER. Mr. President, in my humble judgment the Senator is wrong. His question is more than rhetorical and my answer is yes.
If we pursue this course of action what we are doing is vesting in the Budget Committee the ultimate authority to decide the legislative policy of the Senate. It is one thing to say that we should not exceed the limit established by the Budget Committee, but it is quite another thing to say — as I understand the Senator to be saying — that we should today accept his amendment because it was included in the resolution, or if we do not accept his amendment we will not be spending all we authorized in the first budget resolution. If we do that, we might as well do away with the rest of the committees.
Mr. MUSKIE. If the Senator will yield, I think the Senator knows that I was not saying that, that I was asking the Senator whether or not the establishment of congressional priorities should have any influence at all, not total influence but any influence at all, upon the judgment that any Senator makes in casting his vote. I am not suggesting that we do anything to lock up the Senator's conscience or his intellectual processes. But I am just curious. From what the Senator has said up to now, he has said, "Let us adopt the budget resolution and then, be damned with it, I am not going to pay any attention to it from now on." I do not believe the Senator is saying that.
Mr. BAKER. The Senator is not saying that. The Senator from Tennessee is saying adoption of a budget resolution does not necessarily mean we have to spend every cent we authorize. That is what I understood the logic and burden of the Senator's remarks to be.
Mr. MUSKIE. Yesterday I was very flattered. I got a lot of appreciation from the Senator's side of the aisle when we exercised such restraint on the health budget, on the jobs budget. I get the impression from listening to the Senator that I was a damn fool in doing so.
Mr. BAKER. I am sorry the Senator has that impression, but I do not know anything I can do to add to the clarity of the remarks I made. The remarks once again are these: I believe in the budgetary process and the function we have established in the Budget Act. I believe in the limitation, in the discipline, that is established with the first budget resolution and will subsequently be established in the second budget resolution.
I do not believe, however, in the logic that inclusion of a provision for the Senator's amendment in the budget resolution of yesterday should be used as an argument for adopting the amendment today. If we do that, then, Mr. President, we have used the Budget Committee machinery to preempt the legislative authority of other committees and I do not believe that was what was intended.
Mr. President, I have a hunch that I may be one of a very few who will vote against final passage.
Yet I intend to do that, because I think not only have we adopted an unwise amendment, no only have we assured a confrontation on a Presidential veto, but I believe we are galloping off in the wrong direction in these early and tender days as we establish the precedents and useful history for the utilization of the budgetary process.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, may I say finally that the Senator has clarified his position very well. He said it is wrong to use the argument that this was included in the budget resolution to persuade people to vote for this bill. What I was doing all day yesterday was use arguments like that to persuade people to support the budget resolution. The Senator has not made a distinction between the two which is clear to me. I disagree with his interpretation of what the budget process imposes upon us until the Senate finally persuades me that it is a fruitless effort.
Mr. MONTOYA. Mr. President, I would just like to put in proper perspective the figure of authorization in the pending legislation. The Senator from Virginia asked the question a few minutes ago. I did state that the authorization in this bill was $1.1 billion as it left the committee, and an additional $1.5 billion plus $1.4 billion, which is covered in the amendment offered by the Senator from Maine.
That is the correct figure as of now. But the committee bill as it left the committee had a potential authorization, if the unemployment rate went up to 9 percent, of $2.521 billion. With that understanding, I think the figures which I have given clearly reflect the full scope of the authorizing legislation before the Senate.
Mr. BROCK. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. MONTOYA. I yield.
Mr. BROCK. I hate to admit it, but I think the Senator from New Mexico has successfully confused the Senator from Tennessee. Let us try to go through it again.
Will the Senator tell me the various component parts of the authorization, and what they amount to at their high figure amount?
Mr. MONTOYA. At the high figure?
Mr. BROCK. Yes.
Mr. MONTOYA. Based on 9 percent unemployment?
Mr. BROCK. That is correct.
Mr. MONTOYA. The accelerated public works portion would be $2 billion.
Mr. BROCK. $2 billion?
Mr. MONTOYA. $2 billion. The job opportunities program, title X, would be $375 million.
Mr. BROCK. All right.
Mr. MONTOYA. EDA business loans at 4 percent interest subsidies would be $125 million. Waste water treatment funds, which is an addition in the committee bill, would be $21 million. Then the countercyclical funds, or the Muskie amendment, involves an authorization of $1.5 billion, and the Nunn-Talmadge part of the amendment involves $1.4 billion.
Mr. BROCK. That is all for the five quarters that begin July 1 and end October 1, 1977; is that correct?
Mr. MONTOYA. That is correct.
Mr. BROCK. There is no authorization beyond October 1 of 1977?
Mr. MONTOYA. There is none.
Mr. BROCK. All right. The total, then, of those figures would be about $5.4 billion?
Mr. MONTOYA. Well, $2.521 billion plus $2.9 billion.
Mr. BROCK. All right. I have $5.421 billion.
Mr. MONTOYA. That would be correct, on that basis. But the Congressional Budget Office has projected the unemployment and the amount that might be needed on the basis of that projection, and we come to a figure of $1.1 billion instead of the $2.521 billion which I readjusted a moment ago.
Mr. BROCK. So, in effect, the gross on the low side would be $4 billion; is that correct?
Mr. MONTOYA. That is correct; a total of $4 billion.
Mr. BROCK. That is really what I was reaching for. I do not want Senators to be confused by the differences. We are discussing estimates of unemployment, and that is the reason for the variation between the high and the low figure.
Mr. MONTOYA. It must be remembered that the bill has a triggering mechanism that, for each one-half percent reduction in unemployment or increase in unemployment, up to $500 million is added or subtracted accordingly in the authorization.
Mr. BROCK. All right. I have a slightly different figure. I have a $1.375 billion limit in the bill for countercyclical, which I have cosponsored with the Senator from Maine, and I have approximately, I think it is a $3.9 billion potential budget effect. Does the Senator find those figures reasonably within the ball park?
Mr. MONTOYA. The only figures that we have been talking about here with respect to the Muskie amendment and the Talmadge-Nunn amendment are the figures of $1.5 billion and $1.4 billion, respectively.
Mr. BROCK. I think I have confused the Senator. In the countercyclical amendment which we have sponsored, and which has now been amended on the floor, there is a flat figure, in section 202(c) , which places an absolute ceiling on the five-quarter expenditures of $1.375 billion. That is the figure I was referring to. So the gross figures, then, still come back to slightly less than $4 billion.
What I am reaching for is that while I am in support of the legislation, as the Senator knows, I think it is important that people understand this is a considerable reduction from the previous bill which was vetoed and the veto sustained.
Mr. MONTOYA. Let me say to the Senator from Tennessee that the figures we are using are the figures that were used in the bill last summer. We received this amendment, which was not printed, at a late hour while we were considering this bill today, and I was not able to analyze the full import of the authorization.
Mr. BROCK. With the figures that I have — and I just wanted to be sure everybody understood — the vetoed bill was for $6.1 billion. We now have a gross bill for authority to spend $3.9 billion, which is $2.2 billion less than the amount of the vetoed legislation. I just wanted to be sure people understood this is a sizable and important reduction.
Mr. MONTOYA. I hope the Senator can sell this conservative figure to the President.
Mr. BROCK. Well, we will try.
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia is recognized.
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. Mr. President, if the Senator from Virginia understands the situation accurately, after trying to follow the debate between the Senator from New Mexico and the Senator from Tennessee, the situation is this: the committee of jurisdiction brought to the Senate a bill with a potential cost of $2.5 billion. After the Senate finished adding amendments to it, the bill which the Senate will be called to vote on will be for $5.2 billion, so that it is more than double what the committee of jurisdiction recommended to the Senate.
Now, turning to the figures of the junior Senator from Tennessee, if you take the lower parameter of the committee bill of $1.1 billion, under the assumption of lower unemployment, then the cost of the bill as reported by the committee would be $1.1 billion. Then when you add the floor amendments to it, it will be approximately $4 billion; so we have multiplied the bill by 4, if we take the lower figure. In any case, we have doubled the amount of money it will cost the taxpayers.
Mr. President, I shall vote against the bill.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, will the distinguished Senator from Maine answer one question?
We have had a dialog before on the local tax effort provision of this bill. As the Senator will recall, under general revenue sharing, where we defined local effort, we did not define in the legislative history that if the State collects local taxes for them, that is intended to be a local effort in this bill, as it is in the history of general revenue sharing, to the extent and within the parameters applicable here. Is that not correct?
Mr. MUSKIE. We were using revenue sharing entitlements, so to the extent it is applicable, it would apply in the same way.