August 6, 1976
Page 26180
UP AMENDMENT NO. 341
Mr. LONG. Mr. President, I want to read this amendment, which I am sending to the desk, and I hope it will please Senators. I believe it will.
It is the sense of the Senate that the conferees on the part of the Senate shall, to the extent practicable, reduce the revenue loss from the Act for the fiscal year 1977 to $15.3 billion.
In other words, Mr. President, it would be my purpose that we should seek in conference with the House to look at the pluses in the House bill, the pluses in the Senate bill, the minuses in the House bill, the minuses in the Senate bill, and seek to come back with a conference report that meets the budget target that was set by the Senate and by the House in the budget resolution.
We have not been able to have the kind of harmony and cooperation I would like between the Budget Committee and the Finance Committee on this bill. That sometimes will happen, I suppose, when there is a difference of philosophy about what the contents of the bill should be. It is much easier to get together on matters of that sort when we can agree philosophically on what we are trying to do than we can when we have a philosophical difference. I send this amendment to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will be in order. The Senate is not yet in order. The amendment will be stated.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I want to say this is the briefest possible way. I would do nothing more than what I am about to do with respect to the resolution which the Senator has described.
The language the Senator has described, if accepted by the Senate and implemented by the conference committee, will not necessarily result in conformity with the budget resolution, in this Senator's point of view. What the Senator again is focusing on is simply the revenue totals and not the tax expenditure question.
It is not particularly material to me because I am going to vote against the bill on final passage in any case for reasons that will be included in my statement, which I assure my colleagues I will file. I know many Members are under a problem with their transportation schedules.
If the language the Senator has described is adopted it will not satisfy this Senator — I realize that is immaterial to anybody except this Senator — unless the result not only meets the $15.3 billion but also the $2 billion of tax expenditures, or at least closer to it than this bill does.
This bill is now $300 million below zero. We have lost the $2 billion; we have lost $300 million more. The losses escalate until 1981, when we will lose, under the provisions of this bill, $3 billion on an annual basis from the revenues we would otherwise realize in 1981.
It is principally for those reasons that I will vote against the bill on final passage. I have no objection to the consideration of this amendment, but I want the Senate to understand its shortcomings from my point of view.
Mr. LONG. I just want the Senate to understand two things: One, I am sure if we can do what we are speaking of doing here at least the Senator will be less unhappy with the bill than he is at the moment.
Mr. MUSKIE. It will not take much to make me less unhappy. [Laughter.]
Mr. LONG. That is point No. 1.
No. 2, the Senator from Louisiana feels, and I believe the majority of us in the Senate who have voted this way consistently, feel, when the budget resolution says $15.3 billion, or sticks to a specific figure, whatever it is, for revenue we estimate to take in, that is the figure by which we bind ourselves, and not by some language in the committee report that says $15.3 means $17.3 up and $2 down. It means what the budget resolution said, not what the fine print inside the Budget Committee report said. But that is something we have debated long enough. Everybody knows everybody's views. I thought the Senate would like to know that we have tried to balance this bill, and we will try.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment will be stated.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Louisiana (Mr. LONG) proposes an unprinted amendment No. 341.
The amendment is as follows:
At the end of the bill add the following new section:
"Sec. . It is the sense of the Senate that the conferees on the part of the Senate shall, to the extent practicable, reduce the revenue loss from the Act for the fiscal year 1977 to $15.3 billion."
Mr. WEICKER. Mr. President, I rise in opposition. It was entirely consistent with what was said last night. The argument was, "Don't worry. You fellows do everything you want to outright. We will take it to conference and it will come out all right."
That may have been the old way of doing things but it is not the new way of doing things.
This will not salve my conscience and I do not think it will salve the conscience of anybody in the Chamber. The fact that it is going to conference with a resolution that makes it look all right is not all right with this Senator.
We formed a Budget Committee and we have the responsibility to go ahead and produce a fiscally sound bill. We have done neither.
After the disgraceful exhibition of some 100 amendments; or whatever it is, this sense of the Senate resolution does not make things all right. We have blasted our budget concept. We have absolutely destroyed the fiscal integrity of this country, and our political credibility is down the hole. No resolution is going to fix it.
I have said it all. As far as I am concerned I am against the resolution and I will certainly vote against the bill.
Mr. LONG. I hope the Senator will cease to blame me for what the Senate did. I voted for a lot more taxes than we have in this bill. I voted to keep a lot of tax increases in here which the committee recommended. I tried to do the best I could to make Senators happy, but I know how difficult it is.
SEVERAL SENATORS. Vote!
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment of the Senator from Louisiana.
The amendment was agreed to.
SEVERAL SENATORS. Third reading!