June 25, 1979
Page 16300
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I wish to explain the budget context in which this amendment falls, so that Senators will understand what it is, and so that other Senators who have amendments will be aware of it.
The amendment of the Senator from Minnesota is framed as it is because of this budgetary situation. As framed, and if adopted in its present form, it would fall within the limits of the budget with which we must work.
The revised second budget resolution contains aggregate ceilings of $559,200,000,000 in budget authority and $494,450,000,000 in outlays.
The current spending level excluding H.R. 4289 is $546,642,000,000 in budget authority and $486,125,000,000 in outlays. If H.R. 4289 as it came to the floor were enacted into law, it would raise total budget authority for fiscal year 1979 to $559,011,000,000, a scant $189 million below the revised second budget resolution ceiling. Total outlays for fiscal year 1979 would be $494,450,000,000, which leaves no outlays remaining under the ceiling. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the RECORD at this point a table detailing this situation:
There being no objection, the table was ordered to be printed in the RECORD,as follows:
[Table omitted]
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, any amendment, combination of amendments or subsequent legislation which results in increasing fiscal 1979 budget authority by more than $189 million or outlays by any amount at all, would not have been in order because it would cause the revised second budget resolution ceilings to be exceeded.
This parliamentary situation does not mean, however, that Senators cannot offer amendments. It simply means that the Senate must first reduce other outlays included in the bill in order for amendments that would increase outlays to be voted upon. Senators, in fact, have two choices.
They may introduce amendments which would cause the outlay levels in this bill to be reduced. Or they may introduce an amendment which involves outlay increases if proposals involving outlay decreases of at least an equal amount are also included. Such amendments would not be subject to a point of order.
I understand that an amendment by Senator STENNIS was accepted by the managers of the bill earlier today. This amendment dealt with Army operations and maintenance costs in the Panama Canal Zone. It reduced the amounts reported by the Appropriations Committee by $7 million in budget authority and $1 million in outlays. This small amount in outlays is the total amount remaining within the outlay ceiling established by the revised second budget resolution.
Mr. President, I would also like to point out that this bill leaves no room in fiscal 1979 for funding of possible legislation to establish an international emergency food reserve, for which $312 million in outlays were allocated to the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee under the revised second budget resolution. It now appears, however, that funds for this program will not be necessary this year.
It should also be noted that this bill leaves no room for any further requests later this year that involve outlays.
For this reason, I hope that the Senate version of H.R. 4289, which now stands above the House version by $1.6 billion in budget authority and $1.0 billion in outlays, will return from conference with some cushion for emergency requests that might occur in the remaining months of the fiscal year.
Mr. President, the Congress must be successful in keeping Federal spending within the budgetary ceiling established for fiscal 1979, and even more successful in its efforts to restrain Federal spending in fiscal 1980 if we are to achieve our goal of a balanced budget in fiscal 1981.
Finally, I wish to commend once again Senator MAGNUSON, chairman of the Appropriations Committee and a valued member of the Budget Committee, for his outstanding leadership and support of the budget process.
Mr. President, in connection with the debate on the supplemental bill, let me point out that the first Senate budget scorekeeeping report for fiscal year 1980 has been issued today, and a copy is on each Senator's desk. The report will generally be issued weekly when the Senate is in session.
The scorekeeping report is designed to aid Senators by showing how individual spending bills relate to the overall congressional budget.
The new series of reports for fiscal year 1980 retains the format used in last year's reports, with summary tables for the budget as a whole and individual tables for each Senate Committee and Appropriations Subcommittee.
The committee and subcommittee tables form the bulk of the report and are designed to show the present status of the budget in relation to the committee "crosswalk" allocations under the first budget resolution. The format provides at the top of each table the first budget resolution crosswalk allocation to the committee or subcommittee, the current estimate of the budget taking account of action completed, underway, or in prospect, and a comparison of the current estimate to the crosswalk allocation. This is followed by a detailed explanation of the current estimate.
This same general format is used in the summary tables of the report, where the current estimate is compared to the aggregate targets of the first budget resolution.
As last year, the report also contains a summary section on the 1979 budget. While I have already detailed the effect of the supplemental appropriations bill on the fiscal year 1979 budget totals, Senators may find this section of the report — and particularly the table on page 65 — useful in judging the effect of the supplemental on the 1979 budget.
The staff of the Budget Committee will be happy to assist anyone who has questions regarding the report and to receive suggestions for further improvement in its contents.