October 9, 1978
Page 34772
Mr. HEINZ. Mr. President, I shall not take my 7½ minutes at this point.
This is the amendment I offered on Saturday night as we were about to close our business. It is an amendment that I offer on behalf of Senator DOMENICI, together with Senator BROOKE, Senator CASE, and Senator HASKELL. All of us sponsor this amendment. It is an amendment that originally was drafted by Senator DOMENICI and which I offered during consideration of the energy tax bill last year.
The reason why we are offering it at this time is that, in spite of the fact that this amendment was adopted by the Senate by a vote of 88 to 2 last year, we understand that the conferees on the energy tax bill have dropped this amendment, notwithstanding the vote of 88 to 2 in favor of it, from the energy tax bill. Therefore, we want to be consistent with the will of the Senate in including the amendment in this tax bill, the Revenue Act of 1978.
Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, may I ask the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania a question?
What is the effective date? The amendment I have seen has no effective date.
Mr. HEINZ. The Senator is correct. My understanding would be that this would be effective upon enactment.
Mr. MUSKIE. In that case, Mr. President, I do have some comments to make. In a moment, I will make a point of order against the amendment. I will do so, because the tax losses from that amendment will violate the revenue floor set in the budget resolution which we adopted last month.
Mr. President, the enactment of this amendment when added to the other tax reductions already agreed to and included in H.R. 13511, would cause revenues to be less than the revenue floor set forth in the second concurrent resolution for fiscal year 1979.
The Heinz amendment would provide a $75 refundable tax credit for the elderly for energy- related expenses and would result in a revenue loss of $1.2 billion in the first full year. In fiscal year 1979 revenue loss associated with this amendment is approximately $212 million.
The estimates upon which this point of order is based have been confirmed by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation. I have discussed them with the distinguished floor manager of the bill, Senator LONG, and there is no disagreement about these estimates.
I am not suggesting the Senate cannot consider it in some form which would not violate the budget resolution. For example, if other tax losses in the bill or in amendments already agreed to are reduced, there will be room for this amendment.
But the tax losses from this amendment, when added to the tax reduction already in H.R. 13511 and in amendments which have been added to it so far, will break the congressional budget.
The second budget resolution that passed this body by a 47-to-7 vote provided a revenue floor of $448.7 billion. That floor allowed room for $21.9 billion in tax reductions during the fiscal year.
The amendments to the Finance Committee bill accepted thus far have used up every inch of room provided in the resolution — down to the last $1 million.
Moreover, amendments passed up to this point have bloated the fiscal year 1980 impact of this bill to approximately $50 billion.
When the Budget Committee sits down several months from now to begin work on the first budget resolution it will face an extremely difficult task. We would all like to see further, substantial progress toward a balanced budget in fiscal year 1980, but amendments such as the Heinz amendment, on top of an already over-loaded bill, may deny us the opportunity to make much progress in that direction.
Mr. President, the Budget Act provides that we must make a point of order against the consideration of such budget breaking amendments.
Let us be clear about the meaning of this point of order. The other night, when I made a point of order under section 303 of the Budget Act, we were talking about the proper procedures to be followed under the Budget Act.
But in the case of the point of order against this amendment, we are talking about the budget itself.
We will either live within the budget we adopted last month, or the budget process is repealed for all practical purposes.
Fortunately, we have never faced this question before. We have always managed to live within our budgets.
So, I do not relish the need to press this point of order now.
I wish every Senator could have every amendment considered and adopted, if it has merit.
But we have a budget for 1979. And the Budget Act forbids considering or adopting legislation which would cause the revenue floor in that budget to be breached.
This is such an amendment.
This amendment will violate the budget.
We are not talking about the target budget of the first budget resolution. We are talking about the second and binding congressional budget resolution for fiscal year 1979.
That budget resolution contemplates a deficit of $38.8 billion. This amendment will increase that deficit dollar for dollar, because it cuts beneath the revenue floor specified in the budget resolution.
This amendment and further amendments are simply not in order until other amendments are made in the legislation to make room for this amendment and any others that may be offered.
While the Heinz amendment on its face appears to reduce revenues and increase outlays for a worthy cause, I would like to submit for the RECORD several reasons why I believe that the amendment is unnecessary, aside from its budget-busting impact.
There being no objection, the analysis was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows :
ARGUMENTS AGAINST HEINZ AMENDMENT
First, sponsors of the amendment argue that the refundable tax credit is designed to ease the burden of rapidly rising utility bills, but in fact the amendment does not relate the tax credit in any way to energy use, energy payments, or energy conservation. Low-income elderly persons in warm, Southern climates would receive as large a tax credit as a poor elderly person in my own State of Maine.
This leads me to my second point, which is that the tax bill before us already provides substantial tax reductions for low income persons and the elderly. The bill provides an increase in the existing tax credit for the elderly, an increase worth $100 million in FY 1979 and nearly $300 million in FY 1980.
The bill as reported by the Finance Committee provides substantial tax reduction to low income groups. Moreover, the Kennedy amendment adopted by the Senate last week reduced taxes for low and middle income households even further. That amendment lowered taxes by an additional $600 million in FY 1979 and nearly $7 billion in FY 1980. Third, sponsors may point out that this credit passed the Senate a year ago by a lop-sided vote, but I must remind my colleagues that at that time the Senate was also expecting further rapid increases in the price of energy in response to other portions of the energy program. At that time the House had passed the crude oil equalization tax. The crude oil equalization tax is now almost certainly a dead issue.
Finally, alternative federal programs are available to provide direct aid to elderly with low incomes who are hit particularly hard by rising energy prices. The Interior Appropriations Conference Report approved by the Senate on Saturday included approximately $200 million for FY 1979 for weatherization of low income housing. This funding will continue the weatherization program, a program which has already helped thousands of low income households adjust to higher energy prices.
In addition, the conference agreement on H.R. 5037, the National Energy Conservation Policy Act, which the Senate will vote on today, provides several hundred million dollars in FY 1979 alone to assist energy consumers in coping with rising energy prices.
The need for tax relief to offset higher energy prices is clearly less than it appeared to be a year ago.
So we must make the point of order, and I do so now.
Mr. BELLMON. Mr. President, the amendment number 2027, which would provide energy tax credits for the elderly, is a popular initiative. In fact, when proposed last year during the tax debate, it passed this body by a vote of 88 to 2. The dissenting votes were cast by the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. PROXMIRE) and this Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. President, neither Senator PROXMIRE nor myself are ignorant of the problem, nor do we lack sympathy for the implications which rising utility costs have on the elderly, especially those whose income is fixed. The amendment, however, was a budget buster last year, and it is a budget buster this year. If such relief is to be provided, Mr. President, then the tax reductions available to others must be reduced. I would not argue with that approach, I do, however, resist this attempt to provide additional benefits without compensatory benefit reductions elsewhere since, if successful, the sponsors will increase the deficit by as much as $1 billion.
Such a result, Mr. President, will not provide tax relief to the needy elderly, but will increase the tax of inflation which they must bear:
In addition, it should be noted that affirmative action on this amendment will break the revenue floor established in the second concurrent resolution. Thus, the amendment is subject to a point of order under section 311(a) of the Budget Act.
Mr. HEINZ and the other sponsors of this amendment may seek to avoid the discipline of the Budget Act by manipulating the effective date of the amendment, making it first applicable in fiscal year 1980. I hope that they will not, but if they do, it should be noted that this loophole has been created by the Senate 2 days ago when the Senate chose to overturn the ruling of the Chair with respect to the interpretation of section 303 of the Budget Act. Prior to that event, fiscal year 1980 would have been protected from such maneuvers which permit us to "fly now and pay later."
Mr. President, I call upon my colleagues to reaffirm their commitment to the Budget Act and the second concurrent resolution by upholding -the point of order which lies against this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 5 minutes have expired. Who yields time?
Mr. HEINZ. Mr. President, will the Senator from Maine yield for a question?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine has no more time.
Mr. HEINZ. On my time.
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes.
Mr. HEINZ. For calendar 1979, what does the Senator from Maine estimate that the cost of this would be?
Mr. MUSKIE. It would be $1.2 billion.
Mr. HEINZ. I have to disagree strongly with that number, because we called the Joint Committee on Taxation this morning; and for the period of January 1, 1979 through December 31, 1979, they gave us a figure — unless I am misinformed — of $440 million.
Second, they used as the basis for their calculation all elderly people over age 65. In fact, the amendment does not go to all elderly people over age 65. It goes only to elderly heads of households over 65, and not to all of them, because those who would be eligible under this are only those who would be fully eligible at $7,500 a year income or less, and those would be partially eligible between $7,500and $12,500.
So I say to my good friend from Maine that I am afraid the number he has received does not relate, in fact, to the facts of the amendment. We checked this out ourselves, and I am concerned that the Senator has been given a funny number.
Mr. MUSKIE. The estimates we have as to the cost of the Senator's amendment; as we understand it, were confirmed by the Congressional Budget Offlee, the Joint Committee on Taxation, and Senator LONG.
Mr. HEINZ. That does not make them right.
Mr. MUSKIE. Whether the figures of the Senator from Pennsylvania are correct or ours are correct, there is not a single dollar in the 1979 fiscal year bank for this amendment. I said that this morning, and I have said it several times in the course of the day — that the amendments already approved have eaten up all the room in the budget resolution.
So whether it is $440 million or $1.2 billion, that the Senator's amendment would cost on a calendar basis, the fact is that there is not room for either figure.
Mr. HEINZ. I appreciate the Senator's response.
Let me just say, Mr. President, that we all know how much money is involved in this bill. In fact the Senate passed a $3.7 billion corporate tax cut just a few days ago and regardless of whether the figure is $1.1 billion or $400 million or $200 million, the fact is it is that ludicrous to say that we are going to give $3.7 billion to the big corporations and not put one cent into this hill explicitly for our elderly who are hard-pressed by utility bills. And that makes the purpose of this Senator's amendment, regardless of any of the legal points that the Senator from Maine may make.
Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
Mr. MUSKIE. I have no time remaining, I take it, Mr. President, to respond.
Mr. HODGES. The Senator is correct.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, how is the remainder of the time divided?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The remainder of time is allocated to the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. LONG) . It is the only time that remains on the amendment.
Mr. METZENBAUM. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On whose time?
Mr. METZENBAUM. There is no other time remaining, is there?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. A quorum call is not in order until all time is yielded back unless the Senator has time himself. I do apologize. The Senator fromPennsylvania does have 1½ minutes.
If no one is yielding time, it will be charged equally against both sides who have time remaining.
Mr. CURTIS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that the time be charged equally to both sides.
Mr. HEINZ. Mr. President, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is not sufficient time to have a quorum call.There are only about 7 minutes remaining.
Mr. CURTIS. Very well.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time is being charged equally now.
Mr. HEINZ. I only have 1½ minutes. Senator LONG has 7 minutes remaining.
Mr. CURTIS. How much time does the Senator want?
Mr. HEINZ. I am controlling the time. I want a minute and a half to respond to whatever Senator LONG says.
Mr. CURTIS. All right. We will give the Senator 2 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator does not have a minute and a half. It is being charged against both sides equally at the present time.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, if I may have the attention of the Senator from Nebraska, unexpectedly I found myself in possession of 5 minutes to oppose the amendment of which I was unaware until I came to the Chamber. I understood that 3½ minutes had been assigned to Senator LONG to oppose the amendment. He is not here. Before I could finish my argument I was cut off, because I had run out of time. The Senator from Pennsylvania is waiting for some debate on the other side to which he might respond.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from New York, sitting now for Senator LONG, wish to yield time to the Senator from Maine?
Mr. MOYNIHAN. I am happy to yield as much time as we have to the Senator from Maine.
Mr. MUSKIE. I thank my good friend from New York.
I never encountered this situation before, I must say.
But in any case, the Senator from Pennsylvania made the point that I was merely raising legal issues. Believe me, I say to the Senator, with respect to the argument that he has just made, there is more equity in providing this relief than some of the relief provided to others under amendments or provisions already adopted. I could not agree with him more.
But if I were to take that attitude with respect to amendments, favor the new ones that come along that I like, we would now be far above the $38.8 billion deficit that we have already adopted for fiscal year 1979. I have to be neutral or as neutral as human nature makes it possible for me to be to try to apply the rules. And the fact is that we do not havea nickel remaining in the budget resolution bank for any amendment, however worthy, including this one. I wish that some of the provisions already approved could be washed out, so we could make room. But I do not have that power. Only the Senate has that power. If the Senator can figure out some way to substitute this one for some less worthy ones in his estimate or mine that are already approved by the Senate, I would be willing to consider it.
The point of order is the only discipline that we have to try to hold some kind of a ceiling on what we do here, and it is my duty to raise it, and I will at 3:20 p.m. for those reasons, even though the equities of his amendment have a great deal of appeal.
Mr. HEINZ. I am delighted the Senator from Maine supports the amendment but just cannot vote for it.
Mr. MUSKIE. No, I do not support it for the reasons that I stated.
Mr. HEINZ. Let me say to the Senator from Maine, first of all the order in which the amendments are voted on appears decided by the Chair, by the President of the Senate. Now on Friday, I was No. 4 on the list to be recognized to offer this amendment when there was plenty of money remaining in the budget resolution. Saturday morning there appeared up there a list with 12 names on it, the first 10 of whom were Democrats. So if there is anyone who is somehow managing to make sure there is no money remaining for the elderly in this bill it is onthe Senator's side of the aisle.
This appears to be something called first come, first served, and if the Democratic side of the aisle gets recognized by the Democratic presiding Member, then the Democratic side gets the goodies and the people get shafted.
That is not at all my idea of what is good for this country.
The Senator asks how can we wash this amendment out, and I will tell the Senator how it will be washed out with something else if the Senator and the Finance Committee truly believe it has merit when they take it to conference, and I hope they do.
Mr. MUSKIE. I do not go to the tax conference.
Mr. HEINZ. And I hope when they go back to the House of Representatives they will find a way to accommodate this amendment.
I do thank the Senator for yielding.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, is there any time remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 2 minutes remaining.
Mr. MUSKIE. I make this additional point. I am not for all these amendments that have been adopted. But let me give the Senator the consequence of what has occurred. When the bill came out of the Finance Committee there was $1.4 billion remaining in the budget resolution to accommodate the energy tax bill and some other relatively minor tax legislation that was under consideration.
All of that $1.4 billion has been used up and It has been used up in a very interesting way. It has been used up by putting a small wedge in fiscal year 1979,and that small wedge totals $1.4 billion. But the first full-year cost of those amendments is $10 billion.
This is somewhat like the issue discussed the first day. We have put in wedges which in 1979 cost $1.4 billion but in the first full year will cost $10 billion. That is the sort of tax-writing habit we have gotten into here. I do not approve of that at all. I do not know what list the Presiding Officer had on Saturday. I had nothing whatsoever to do with it. But, I was against any increases that would eat up what remained in the budget resolution to take care of these other requirements.
Up to the ceiling, the Finance Committee chairman presumably will clean up the tax bill when he goes back to conference. But for those things that now go above the ceiling in 1979, I have a responsibility to try to take care of them in the Chamber. That is what I am trying to do.
Mr. President, if there is no further—
Mr. HEINZ. How much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has no time remaining.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I make the point of order.
Mr. HEINZ. Mr. President, is there any time remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is not.
The Chair is advised that the point of order is well taken. Under section 311 of the Budget Act, legislation is subject to a point of order if it would reduce revenue for fiscal year 1979 below the revenue floor of the second budget resolution.
The Congress has established a revenue floor of $448.7 billion in the second budget resolution for fiscal year 1979. According to the Congressional Budget Office, legislation which has been enacted in prior years or enacted this session and sent to the President for signature, together with the Finance Committee substitute for the 1978 tax bill and floor amendments to that bill adopted to date, leave no room for additional revenue reductions in fiscal year 1979.
Since adoption and enactment of the pending amendment would cause revenues to be less than the appropriate level of revenues set forth in the second budget resolution, the amendment is out of order and cannot be considered.
Mr. HEINZ. Mr. President, is there any time remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is none.
Mr. HEINZ addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order has been made and sustained.
Mr. HEINZ. Mr. President, I appeal the ruling of the Chair and I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is not at this time a sufficient second.
Mr. HEINZ. Mr. President, I object on the ground a quorum is not present.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll to ascertain the presence of a quorum.
Mr. HEINZ. Mr. President, I ask that the Chair once again ascertain whether or not there is a sufficient second.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair determines there is not a sufficient second.
Mr. HEINZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the call for a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. It had never started.
Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is, Shall the decision of the Chair stand as the judgment of the Senate? The yeas and nays have been ordered, and the clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
The result was announced — yeas 65, nays 22, as follows:
[Roll call vote tally omitted]
So the ruling of the Chair was sustained as the judgment of the Senate.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the decision of the Chair was sustained.
Mr. LONG. Mr. President, I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.