June 30, 1977
Page 21797
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I regret the necessity of saying what I am about to say, but I guess that, from the point of view of its impact on the bill now pending, what I have to say is probably going to be harmless. Given the ruling which is expected on the point of order, there is no way available to me at the moment to enforce the point I am about to make. Nevertheless, I think it is important to make the point.
I am appreciative to the distinguished Senator from Missouri (Mr. EAGLETON) for making the point and also of my colleague on the Budget Committee (Mr. CHILES), who earlier tried to raise the same questions.
I am generally in favor of the child nutrition amendments that are before us. I took the lead in the Committee on the Budget in reporting the waiver resolution on the bill as it was before us. This morning, I was informed that child nutrition amendments were to be on the floor. I was given a memorandum by the Budget Committee staff to the effect that the bill as reported raised no problems, that it was as it had been considered in the Budget Committee, that the waiver resolution had been reported and adopted routinely. So I paid no attention to the floor activity and I was tied up in the Environmental Pollution Subcommittee, trying to complete work on that important piece of legislation.
It was not until I arrived on the floor at 1:05 p.m. that I was apprised of this issue and this problem, at a time when I was powerless to do anything about it.
I want to register my objection, Mr. President, to the amendment which converted a proposed new nutrition education program into an entitlement. I realize the importance of greater efforts to improve our nutritional knowledge. I favor the authorization for a new program as the Agriculture Committee reported it in S. 1420. But I think it is bad budgetary practice to make this new effort an entitlement, for several reasons.
First, entitlements reduce the ability of Congress to control overall Federal spending, and new entitlements should not be created casually on a voice vote. The fact is that uncontrollable spending has risen every year until, for fiscal year 1978, it is 77 percent of the total budget. As uncontrollables rise, our ability in every session of Congress to impact on priorities and to direct Federal resources is diminished. So new entitlements are a form of uncontrollable spending that we ought not to adopt without carefully considering them in the context of our overall obligations and the flexibility that we wish to preserve for the future.
The procedure this morning, in my judgment, violated that policy objective.
Second, Mr. President, the proposed program is a new effort, the effectiveness of which the administration questions. A careful startup, subject to the Appropriations Committee's review, would, in my judgment, be sensible until we know how the program works. But we are making it an entitlement before we have that kind of opportunity for examining it. The amendment makes it an entitlement for 5 years, so it will not be until 5 years have expired that a review will be mandated before it can be continued.
Third, Mr. President, no education grant programs are now entitlements. This would be the first.
Making this $28 million program an entitlement could set a precedent affecting billions of dollars worth of other Federal spending on education.
Why not? If it is that easy to make this one an entitlement, why should we hesitate in making other entitlements, for the same laudable, humane reasons which prompted this one?
Mr. President, there are two additional reasons why I am concerned about the amendment. I find the amendment objectionable to the congressional budget process in two respects.
First of all, the Budget Committee just considered a waiver of the Budget Act, due to the reporting of this bill after May 15. We did it expeditiously, we did it under the urging of the sponsors that we needed to act on it before the recess. The committee met for that purpose.
Members inconvenienced themselves for that purpose. We met on it and considered it and reported it, because we saw no problem in it, and this entitlement issue was not presented to us.
The committee reported the waiver request favorably, based on the version of the bill that included a new authorization, not a new entitlement, for nutrition education. I believe that the Budget Committee might have responded unfavorably if they had known the new program would be converted into an entitlement 2 days later.
Mr. McGOVERN. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. If I may finish, then I shall yield.
Second, my colleagues know that reported bills that include entitlements must agree with each committee's allocations of budget authority and outlays by subcommittee and by program. If the bill's provisions do not agree with the allocations — I am talking about the Appropriations Committee's allocations — the bill is referred to the Appropriations Committee for that committee's consideration so that additional entitlements can be reviewed, before authorization, within the context of overall spending subject to appropriations.
The nutrition education program — if it had been reported as an entitlement — would have gone through that review process by the Appropriations Committee as required by the Budget Act. By adding the entitlement feature on the floor, the amendment sponsors have subverted this check on Federal spending which the Budget Act provides.
Mr. President, I shall vote for the bill, because, on balance, the overall 1978 funding proposed is in agreement with the budget and in agreement with my own sense of priorities. But I do so, I must say, with a great sense of frustration that this point of future budgetary control has been allowed to become overwhelmed by the parliamentary situation.
I repeat to the Senate what I have said to my good friend from South Dakota and my good friend from Minnesota earlier: It is not pleasant for me, personally, to raise issues and questions like this with respect to programs like this. I know their dedication to these programs. I know their motivations with respect to this amendment were impeccable from that point of view. But I am concerned that this amendment is going to prove that we are setting a precedent, and at this stage in the budget process, every precedent we set we have to regard as a precedent we shall have to live with, as a precedent that will be built upon by others whose objectives are not as laudable, by others whose motivations we might not be as approving of.
This one is hard to say no to, but others will follow if the precedents we set are unwise.
For those reasons, Mr. President, I support the point of order. I have an idea what the ruling will be. Nevertheless, I support the point for the purpose of making these observations for the record.
I am happy to yield to the Senator from South Dakota.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All of the time of the Senators from Maine and Missouri has expired.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, let me take about 30 seconds. Then I shall yield to my distinguished colleague from South Dakota.
I want to confirm, first of all, what the distinguished chairman of the Committee on the Budget has said with reference to the waiver. It was at his urging and under his leadership that we did meet and did take action on the budget waiver resolution, which permitted us to bring this to the floor. There is no doubt about that. For that we are grateful.
The amendment was offered by the Senator from Kansas and the Senator from Minnesota. I want to put in a disclaimer that we did not, of course, intentionally subvert the Budget Act. As a member of the Committee on the Budget, maybe I should have understood that in offering the amendment, but somehow that failed me at the time.
Second, I only point out that it really was not known until this morning whether to try to increase the appropriations from $27 million to some higher figure or to go the entitlement route.
It was decided, I guess late last night or this morning, that we would go the entitlement route.
That sets the record straight. It was not an effort to hide anything from the Budget Committee or the Appropriations Committee. In fact, when I offered the amendment, I felt if there would be resistance, I would withdraw it and try to increase the appropriation. But there was not any resistance.
Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time to the distinguished Senator from South Dakota.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. President, I will make this very brief. I think the Senator from Minnesota may have something to say on this point.
I say to the Senator from Maine that when his Budget Committee staff told him that this bill now before us did not impact in any way on the Budget Act, they were telling him the truth.
That same verdict is true with reference to the amendment offered by the Senator from Minnesota and the Senator from Kansas.
I will read the conference committee report on the Budget Act on page 1893, which says:
The conference substitute, like the Senate amendment, provides that it shall not be in order to consider entitlement legislation which would have an effective date before the start of the new fiscal year.
The additional language makes it clear that in view of the fact that this legislation will not go into effect until October 1, 1977, it, in fact, does, not disrupt the budget procedure.
Beyond that, there is additional legislation in the Budget Act that provides very clearly that where the Congress authorizes by law a statute of this kind, to any person or government, the United States is obligated to make such payments.
So I think the Senator's staff was right when they advised him what we were doing in this measure does not disrupt the intended procedure under the Budget Act.
I respect the Senator's concern about the Budget Control Act and I think he has done a magnificent job in enforcing these disciplines on us, but in this case, we have a very carefully drafted amendment. It provides for 50 cents for each enrolled school child. That means that the total amount is going to go down over the next 5 years as school populations decline, which means we cannot go above50 cents per child.
Then, as crafted by the Senator from Minnesota, it has a 5 year termination period, to the end of that period, with his pledge here on the Senate floor, and the rest of us that were in the colloquy this morning, the committee will review this annually to see we stay within responsible guidelines.
Mr. MUSKIE. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. HUMPHREY. I yield.
Mr. DOLE. I yield.
Mr. MUSKIE. The Senator is right, the amendment is very carefully crafted to take advantage, I am sure, of the existence of a loophole in the Budget Act.
If this had been made effective the day before October 1, it would have been subject to the limitations of the act.
Mr. McGOVERN. The whole bill goes into effect October 1.
Mr. MUSKIE. I understand.
The point I am trying to make is that the question of controlling entitlements was subject to extensive debate at the time the Budget Act was before the Senate.
We had to carefully structure a procedure that would recognize the interest of authorizing committees from time to time to approve new entitlement programs and the necessity to have those programs subject to some kind of review by the Appropriations Committee.
We set the beginning of the next fiscal year as the trigger point. But now, with this precedent, everyone in the Senate is going to know that all we have to do is make an effective date of October 1 and we can attach any new entitlement program we want to on the floor of the Senate without going through the appropriations review process.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.