April 9, 1976
Page 10325
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may include in the RECORD a statement by the distinguished Senator from South Dakota (Mr. ABOUREZK) on the pending resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
STATEMENT BY SENATOR ABOUREZK— THE SECOND BUDGET RESOLUTION
A year ago, when our Committee brought its very first budget resolution to the floor, I indicated that I was supporting It despite some real reservations about its size and shape. This year, I find that my reservations are so great that I cannot, in good conscience, support the resolution reported out by our Committee. I cannot because it seems to me to come very close to mocking the hopes of those of us who saw the new Congressional budget process as a means for restoring to Congress its independent role in spending decisions. The resolution before us is more a white flag of surrender to the President than a declaration of Congressional independence.
The reservations I expressed last year stemmed from my feeling that the Committee had "missed the opportunity to move more decisively on a reordering of national priorities." In my opinion, the failure this year is greater. Even more than last year, we have accepted the President's budget and the President's priorities. While I ended my remarks last year by expressing the hope that this year things would be better, the fact is that they have turned out worse.
If we compare the President's budget recommendations for fiscal year 1976 with the Congressional Budget Resolution enacted last fall, we find that — in the fourteen major functions, leaving aside interest, allowances, and undistributed offsetting receipts — Congress endorsed increases totaling $21.2 billion in eleven functions and decreases totaling $3.2 billion in two functions.
This year we are recommending $4 billion less in upward shifts in only nine functions. More significantly, we are recommending a cut in only one function and by a marginal $200 million in outlays. In my view, that comes uncomfortably close to being a rubber stamp.
In the case of military spending, I do not think there can be any other term for what we are recommending. This resolution accepts with almost no change the President's numbers. It accepts without challenge the Pentagon's rhetoric that "the Russians are coming" and their contention that we have to "turn around" the trends in U.S.defense spending. In the process of rubberstamping the Pentagon's request, we are endorsing real growth of more than $2 billion in outlays and more than $7 billion in obligational authority — unnecessary increases in military spending at a time when the rest of the budget is being forced to absorb massive cuts to offset those increases.
What is the justification for these increases in military spending? If one looks at the major program elements in the Defense Department's budget, we are endorsing a 20 per cent increase — in addition to inflation — in spending for strategic forces. This is at a time when, as Senator Cranston pointed out to the Committee, our advantage over the Russians in numbers of nuclear warheads is up to 5,400 from the 3,200 lead we held ten years ago. This is at a time when, as Senator Kennedy told the Committee, "we can already lift several inches of topsoil off the entire Soviet Union." How much overkill do we need?
The resolution we have reported endorses real growth in spending for general purpose forces of nearly 13 per cent over this year. What is the justification for that rise at a time when we are recognizing that we neither can nor should be the world's policeman and busybody — interfering in every international affair whether it touches our national interest or not? What is the justification when we should be reducing our troop deployments in Southeast Asia and elsewhere as well?
In adopting this resolution, we will be endorsing a 14 per cent increase — again, beyond adjustment for inflation — in spending for sealift and airlift. Is this so that we can be more ready to get involved in new Vietnams? I don't believe that is what the American people want.
What is the justification? The Pentagon says it is because the Russians have been spending more on defense than we have in recent years. In the first place, the Administration itself has conceded that "dollar comparisons of U.S. and U.S.S.R. military forces have no relevance to comparative effectiveness." In the third place, intelligence analysts estimate that almost half of the Russian increase in military spending is either a reaction to their confrontation with China or their fear of dissent and loss of internal control at home and in their European satellites. Our spending decisions on defense should be based on our needs — not their needs. But this resolution accepts the Administration's word for what our needs are, ignoring completely the documentary evidence before our Committee that the President's recommendations include $2.7 billion in defense spending that he himself had certified was not necessary this year and may very well include an additional $3.0 billion in "cut insurance ... as a cushion for Congressional action."
How much faith can we place in the Pentagon's assessment of its needs in a political year when the President is being challenged from the right? How much confidence should we have when the continuing argument for this defense budget is that it "is time to turn the trend around"? The fact is that we "turned the trend around" last year. Again, looking at spending for the major program elements in the DOD budget, fiscal 1976 levelsof obligational authority represented 4.6 per cent of real growth — an increase beyond that required to keep pace with inflation — over the prior year. We are now being asked to add an additional layer of 7 per cent more of real growth next year. That is the frosting we are proposing to give to the military brass while the rest of the country has to eat inflation.
While, as must be clear by now, my greatest dissatisfaction is with the defense rubberstamped by this resolution, I am also far from agreement with other aspects of it. The economic impact may prove risky in the extreme. If the substantial restraint reflected in this resolution results in choking off economic recovery, we will be reaping more and larger deficits rather than the surplus we all want to move toward as rapidly as is really feasible.
But, again, my real unhappiness stems from the failure of Congress to exercise its own priorities judgment in the face of the misguided priorities endorsed by the Ford Administration. In health spending, for example, I fear that we — like the President — are endorsing cuts which will prove to be illusory; that our attempt to make the federal budget look good will result in heavier burdens on those needing medical care as the system merely shifts to them the costs which the federal programs refuse to cover. I am very doubtful that a fixed limit on the charges which medicare and medicaid will cover is an effective way to control inflation in health care. Past experience suggests that more fundamental reforms are required.
Similarly, I suspect that the supposed savings in income security will frequently prove illusory and that the upshot of our spending target here will not mean reform but retrenchment in the food stamp program; not savings but sufferings in the public assistance programs. The same is all too likely to be true in veterans' programs where, although our recommended spending level is substantially above the President's, it is still insufficient to keep up with inflation.
Finally, with unemployment continuing at substantial levels and with the economy as a whole still losing income and product through idle resources, I believe we should have challenged the President's priorities more in terms of public works and other job creation programs. There is much to do in this country in terms of resource conservation, environmental protection, improved transportation facilities, and more adequate housing. Far better to put people to work doing those jobs and to invest in both their future and our own than to accept chronic unemployment and the high costs of welfare that go with it.
Perhaps when and as recovery in the economy is achieved, and the spectre of substantial immediate deficits no longer mesmerizes the Congress, the new budget process will find room for a real priorities debate. In the meanwhile, this year's resolution strikes me as a step in the wrong direction and I cannot give it my support.