April 26, 1978
Page 11527
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, this amendment springs—
Mr. DECONCINI. Mr. President, will the Senator yield? If I could interrupt the Senator from Maine, I have to go to a committee meeting at 10 o'clock, and I do have one short question I would like to ask the Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. MUSKIE. Good.
Mr. DECONCINI. Will the Senator explain the cut he mentioned a few moments ago in the veterans area?
Mr. DOMENICI. Yes. This will be on my time, I will say, Mr. President.
The current policy for veterans would be $20.5 billion in budget authority and $20.2 billion in outlays. The current policy would mean we would keep every program as we have it in existence, and provide the requisite expected inflation for that program.
The Budget Committee recommended $21 billion and $20.8 billion, which is substantially higher than current policy. The President of the United States recommended a figure that is lower than our figure, $19.1 billion and $19.3 billion, which is lower than current policy and lower than the figure which would result with my cuts, which would bring them to $20.8 billion and $20.7 billion.
Mr. DECONCINI. So the recommendation in the Senator's amendment would still be higher than what was submitted by the administration?
Mr. DOMENICI. Substantially higher than that. Actually, I believe it is fair to say that it will cover everything that we had in mind, with the possibility that some of the reform planned for pension benefits might not be able to be implemented in toto this year, and on some of the. expected add-ons for veterans hospitals in terms of personnel, instead of adding as much as recommended, there will be an add-on but it will be slightly less.
Mr. DECONCINI. I thank the Senator from New Mexico, and I thank the Senator from Maine for yielding.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I would like to address some comments to this point.
Mr. DECONCINI. I would be delighted to hear them.
Mr. MUSKIE. The veterans function, function 700, was one of the most thoroughly discussed in the budget markup. That stems from the fact that the chairman of the Veterans Committee, Senator CRANSTON, always comes to our markups well prepared with information about veterans programs, and he always works hard in the Veterans Committee to justify every penny that that committee requests.
He made that presentation in our committee, and we finally cut his request. To arrive at the numbers in the veterans function took five votes in the committee. It was a very difficult compromise, and took some time to work out.
Mr. DECONCINI. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes.
Mr. DECONCINI. What was the request from the Senator from California?
Mr. MUSKIE. The request was for $21.6 billion in budget authority and $21.2 billion in outlays. What we recommended was $21.0 billion in budget authority, or $600 million less, and $20.8 billion in outlays, or $400 million less.
I am afraid if we reduce the result of the committee vote by way of this amendment, that that will trigger floor debate over the amount to be provided for this function, which would take considerable time and probably involve a very difficult compromise. This is one of our most difficult functions to resolve in the Budget Committee, I would say to the Senator.
May I then address myself, Mr. President—
Mr. DOMENICI. May I give the Senator from Arizona one further fact? I say to the Senator from Arizona we are $1.7 billion in budget authority, under my amendment, higher than the President, and in outlays we are $1.4 billion higher than the President.
I do not disagree at all that this is a function, because of the senior Senator from California's extreme interest, that we went into in great detail. But when we go into them in great detail, we also plan for some things that might not happen, because some laws have to be changed and other things for all of those kinds of proposals to come into effect.
If I thought we were going to cut the program anywhere in any significant degree, I would not be proposing it.
Mr. DECONCINI. Except that the Budget Committee has already taken a substantial cut from what the request of the senior Senator from California was. I wish that the Senator's amendment might not cut that part of it. It seems to me that the Budget Committee has struggled with it at great length, and I do not see the justification for the Senator's amendment in this one single area.
Mr. DOMENICI. I would say to the Senator from Arizona that in this one particular function there is less of a cut from the authorizing committee's request than in any other function. If we accepted the authorizing committee's requests, my recollection is that we would be $90 billion higher than we are, because each of these functions has that same argument that the Senator is making on this point.
Mr. DECONCINI. I thank the distinguished Senator from New Mexico and the distinguished Senator from Maine.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I think it is fair to say that this amendment springs out of a development that took place in the Budget Committee markup. On page 6 of the committee report, that result is described, and I would like to read from the report:
As in previous years, the Committee engaged in two separate rounds of consideration of the amounts recommended in the resolution reported. Following the initial round of decisions, the Chairman presented a recommendation for spending reductions in seventeen different budget functions, amounting to an aggregate reduction of $4.7 billion in budget authority and $4.0 billion in outlays.
The Chairman's proposed reductions included a proposed cut of $1.5 billion in budget authority and $1.0 billion in outlays in the defense function, and $3.2 billion in budget authority and $3.0 billion in outlays in the non-defense functions of the budget. After debate the Committee voted to table the Chairman's motion 9 to 7. The Committee then voted 13 to 3 to report a First Concurrent Resolution on the Budget containing its original recommendations.
Mr. President, I offered those proposedcuts in 17 functions for a very specific reason.
I am concerned about inflation. I happen to believe that by holding the deficit down as much as possible we could send a signal to the country that we are concerned about inflation to the point of trying to discipline congressional spending. I conceded, when I offered my amendment, that in many, if not in all, cases the proposed cuts would put a squeeze on many of the functions, a difficult squeeze in many cases. My argument was that if we truly are concerned about inflation we ought to be willing to make sacrifices in terms of restraining spending in any or all of these functions in order to send a credible signal to the country.
The committee rejected those cuts. Senator DOMENICI, the sponsor of the pending amendment, joined in voting against my proposed cuts. I think it fair to say that the reason why many of those who opposed my cuts did so was because of the proposed cuts in defense, which, I repeat, were $1.5 billion in budget authority and $1 billion in outlays.
I invited members of the committee, if they thought my proposed cuts were too severe, to offer counterproposals reducing my cuts. In effect, I invited an amendment of the kind now offered by the Senator from New Mexico. Rather than respond to that invitation, the motion was then made to approve the first round of budget numbers. That vote was 13 to 3. So the committee position, Mr. President, on the record and over my objection, is against the cuts I offered in committee and against any modification of those cuts.
I understand, of course, that Members who voted against the cuts I offered and who refused to offer counterproposals in committee may have changed their minds. There is nothing against any Senator changing his mind. But there are two observations I want to make about that, Mr. President.
It is now established practice on the part of the chairman and the ranking minority member of the committee to defend the resolution that the Budget Committee reports, even when the defense of that resolution appears to put them in an inconsistent position with respect to positions they took in the committee markup.
We do that for a very, very clear reason: When we report out a budget resolution, we are putting every authorizing committee and every Senator on notice as to what the Budget Committee has done to their recommendations.
I asked that floor action on this resolution be delayed a week so that committees would have ample opportunity to study the record and to understand what the Budget Committee had done to their recommendations. As I said yesterday, we had cut over $36 billion from the recommendations of committees. Senator BELLMON and I have always taken the position that having given committees that notice, having given Members that notice, we ought not to casually abandon the resolution that the majority of the committee had approved.
With respect to this amendment, if this amendment had been offered in the committee I would have supported it as an alternative to mine, and I would have been here on the floor of the Senate fighting for it.
If my amendment had been adopted in committee, I would be here on the floor fighting for those cuts.
The fact is, Mr. President, that in some cases that are easily identifiable these cuts — and the similar cuts I offered — are going to squeeze the functions. Committees have a right to be on notice, ample notice, of that possibility, so that they can bring their case to the floor of the Senate.
Yesterday I engaged in several colloquies with Senators, including the Senator from New Mexico, regarding several functions of the budget. Those Senators were interested in knowing whether or not there was room in the budget and in those functions for the consideration of specific proposals in which they were interested. The Senator from New Mexico specifically inquired about programs in which he was interested in the energy and community and regional development functions.
My answers to all of them, including the Senator from New Mexico, might well have to be modified if we were to adopt his amendment which includes reductions in those very functions.
I find myself in a very difficult position, Mr. President. On the one hand, as I said in committee, I think the inflation threat requires that we take some step such as this, and yet having offered that step and having had it rejected, and having relied on the decision of the majority of the committee, I am now in the position of having put other committees and other Senators on notice that we are defending that resolution, a resolution which does not altogether reflect my notion of what it ought to be.
This process will work, Mr. President, only to the extent that it has not only the commitment of the Committee on the Budget, but the commitment of other Senate committees as well.
I have asked the staff to notify the committees that this amendment involving these proposed cuts is pending. But there are only 30 or 35 minutes at most remaining on the amendment. I doubt very much that many committees have focused on the implications of the amendment. So I find myself in a very difficult position.
I would like to see cuts of this kind in this budget resolution, but at this late date, after the committee already has acted, and after other committees have been put on notice, I find it very difficult, if not impossible, to vote for the amendment.
If the Senate votes for it, that is the prerogative of the Senate. As a matter of fact, I might even be pleased by that result in one sense. But if the effect, Mr. President, is to put other committees in a squeeze which they have not anticipated, and if as a result of that squeeze later on in this session when appropriations bills come to the floor I am forced, if the Senate adopts this amendment, to flash the red light on a Member's project, program, or amendment because of this amendment, I would find that very difficult to do, if I supported this amendment.
I simply want to put everyone on notice. I detect on the part of Members a great reluctance to propose amendments to increase this budget, but, nevertheless, there is great concern among Members as to whether or not this budget resolution is too tight in many respects to meet what they regard as legitimate needs. One of the purposes of this floor debate is to enable other Senators and committees to engage in that kind of analysis and discussion.
That obviously is not going on this morning. Other Senators are not here, other committees are not represented on the floor, during the consideration of this amendment.
I reserve the remainder of my time.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico has 7 minutes remaining.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I want first, to commend the distinguished chairman of the committee for his excellent analysis of where we are this morning, then make just a few remarks to my fellow Senators and authorizing committees who may be concerned, because of the chairman's remarks. I also address these remarks to the institution and its role.
If we followed current policy, which means we leave every program where it is, if it is supposed to increase by its own language and it increases, then we add the discretionary inflation to it, we would have a budget authority figure of $548 billion and an outlay figure of $492.6 billion.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. DOMENICI. I am pleased to yield.
Mr. MUSKIE. That argument was just as valid in the markup. It is the argument I made.
Mr. DOMENICI. Indeed.
Mr. MUSKIE. If I had had the Senator's support in the committee, the vote would have been changed by one and we would have needed only one other. I think these other considerations are valid considerations. The Senator's argument is like that made by the Senator from Wisconsin yesterday.
Mr. DOMENICI. No, it is much different. I provided my specific cuts and I want everyone to have a chance to look at them.
I did not vote in committee, I say to the Senator, I did not support his proposed second-round series of cuts, but neither did I vote to accept the first round, which is what we have before us today.
But the Senator is correct, neither did I have a detailed analysis as I do now. I make no excuses for it. It was late in the day; we were trying to get finished. I just could not put it into perspective with items, function by function. So I brought it to the floor.
But I do say that but for the function of defense, which the Senator had proposed to cut substantially more than I in his second-round proposal, every one of the other cuts is his or substantially less than that which he proposed.
Mr. MUSKIE. Exactly, but that is the point. If we are going to indulge our own priority in the committee and, in a spirit of excessive protection of that one priority, fail to deal with the rest of the proposition, we are not serving the process.
Last year, as the Senator recalls, I offered a similar array of cuts and we went through them function by function. We each understand what the impact would be. We modified some of my numbers, rejected others, accepted others, and we came up with a committee consensus as to each of them.
We came up with numbers that we were able then to bring to the floor and defend. But here, in sharp contrast, there was no effort made.
There was no need to finish that night. We could have worked that whole evening; we already had the evening set aside for it. It turned out that we did finish early because of the precipitate action taken on my amendment. We could have come back the next day and still had time to finish and we did not.
That is not to say that the Senator is not fully entitled to bring his amendment up today. But the Senator has to agree that there is not the notice to other committees of the impact of his amendment that there would have been if we had taken this action in committee, then sent it out to other committees so that they could examine it. I suspect we may have had some amendments to wipe away the effect of the Senator's amendment. Knowing how long it takes for Senators to focus on something like this, I suspect that after we have voted on the Senator's amendment and if the Senator is successful, there is going to be some screaming around here. I shall refer the screamers to the Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator. I shall be delighted to accept the screaming.
Let me put into perspective what I think this amendment does. Yesterday, the Senate had opportunity to cut this budget. I fully agree with the chairman that a 5 percent across-the-board cut, saying everybody should get a 5 percent cut, is not the way to handle this matter. It was then reduced to a lesser percent, but nonetheless across the board. I want to tell my fellow Senators what this amendment does and instead of being so concerned about whether or not their authorizing legislation is going to fit, I think they ought to be a little concerned about what the American people expect.
This is a less than one-half of 1 percent cut in this budget, spread out across the functions in a manner that I think is equitable. I remind everyone that, while I do not want to belittle the impact of the functions in this budget, they are merely targets. They are not binding, they are' targets for which the Budget Committee and others can come to the floor and argue when somebody is going to breach the target. I submit that, in a year such as this one, with the rhetoric about inflation and that we ought to do something about it, this is precisely what we should do to these target functions, squeeze them just a little bit more — not an inordinate amount. I do not think I have done that. If any authorizing committee people want to know what I have in mind for each of these—
Mr. MUSKIE. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. DOMENICI. I have exactly 1½ minutes left and I have to go to another committee.
Mr. MUSKIE. Will the Senator yield on my time?
Mr. DOMENICI. Between now and 12:30, I shall be delighted to show them the extent of this enormous squeeze that is going to be imposed upon them of, in most functions, far less than one-half of 1 percent as a target for them to shoot at.
I yield — how much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 1 minute remaining.
Mr. DOMENICI. I shall reserve it and yield to my good chairman.
Mr. MUSKIE. The Senator says 1½ percent is not going to hurt anyone.
Mr. DOMENICI. One-half of 1 percent.
Mr. MUSKIE. One-half of 1 percent of the defense function is $600 million. Would the Senator wish to modify his amendment to increase his cut in the defense function — I am talking about outlays — from $300 to $600 million?
Mr. DOMENICI. If I had wanted to do that, Mr. President, I would have put it in
Mr. MUSKIE. Then let me say to my good friend that, if one-half of 1 percent is unacceptable pressure on the defense function, it is conceivable that it is unacceptable pressure elsewhere, including veterans and other functions. Remember, 1 percent of the Federal budget is $5 billion. When you consider how much of the Federal budget is uncontrollable, you cannot take $5 billion out of the controllable part of the budget without making an impact. That could be a squeeze.
The Senator's answer to my question on the defense function makes my point eminently well. The Senator is not willing to cut defense by the amount that he says is inconsequential for other functions of the budget.
Mr. DOMENICI. I do not believe I said inconsequential.
Mr. MUSKIE. That was the essence of what the Senator said.
Mr. DOMENICI. I said they are reasonable targets to shoot for. That is why I included them.
I have 1 minute remaining. Let me say that while I greatly respect the chairman, and I hope he will think that I have been constructive within the committee, I hope we have not reached the point where, because the Budget Committee reports out a resolution, we have an argument that it should not ever be changed. If someone wants to change it by a flat cut and they are opposed, if someone wants to change it item by item, the fact that the Budget Committee did not support that is used here to indicate in some way that we ought not to have any amendments. I close by saying I think mine is eminently reasonable. They are targets that we can reasonably shoot for and they would do more than mere rhetoric in showing our great concern about inflation.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I do not think I have ever said anything to suggest to the Senator from New Mexico or to anybody else that the Senate does not have the right to change the budget resolution. The Senator knows better than to imply that.
We have said that when the committee works, the ranking member and I and the rest of the members of the committee, the rest of the Committee on the Budget has often voted against the chairman and the ranking member.
We have not tried to impose our discipline on other Members, but we have taken the position, in order for other Members and other committees to know what it is that is at issue, that Senator BELLMON and I bring the resolution to the floor and then the Senate works its will on that resolution.
Surely, the Senator is not arguing that Members and committees ought to have a right to offer an amendment, but that we have no right to defend the budget resolution.
I think we have every right to defend it, to explain why the Budget Committee did what it did, to explain what the committee did not do and why it did not.
Is the Senator objecting to the Senate knowing what went on in the Budget Committee? I do not believe so.
So I think when he rereads what he has just said on the floor, he will agree with me that maybe, like so many of us on the floor, he misspoke a little bit.
Mr. DOMENICI. I really did not intend in any way, as the chairman well knows, to say anything other than words of great respect for the chairman. I think he should be here defending the resolution.
As he well knows, for 3 out of the 4 years I have been on the committee with him, I was here defending it with him. I have been to conference with him and defended it more times than not.
I think it is kind of, if the shoe fits that way, it fits the other way. I, in turn, in this particular year when I think we want to set an example, think it is well within my prerogative. I think everyone understands the issue now.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Time on this amendment has expired.
Mr. MUSKIE. I would like to take 1 minute on the bill just to make this point to the Senator.
I say with all sincerity and without denigrating his contribution to this budget process, would the Senator not agree that if the objective of this amendment is sound, that the prospects for implementing that objective would be much stronger, would be much more effective, if his timing had been such that he could have given support to that objective in committee?
To try to add it ad hoc on the floor is his prerogative, of course, but if his timing had been the same as mine, this could now be in the budget resolution. We would not be fighting each other about something on which we are probably in fundamental agreement about.
But the timing did not work out that way. I think that is regrettable. But now other considerations have come into play and I have recited them. They may not seem serious to the Senator from New Mexico, and if they do not, I understand. I am not criticizing his own judgment and conscience.
But I just regret, and I do it sincerely, that we could not have this coincidence of objectives in the committee.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.