April 25, 1979
Page 8602
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, my amendment — and I do not intend to take very much time on it, I would like to save the time of my colleagues — but my amendment would add a section to the budget resolution, as anticipated under section 301(b) (1) , that would provide the flexibility to have a reconciliation process after the second concurrent resolution on the fiscal year 1980 budget. The exact language of my amendment was added as a provision of the budget resolution reported by the House Budget Committee. It allows for a procedure under which all or certain bills and resolutions providing new budget authority or providing new spending authority for fiscal year 1980 will not be enrolled until the second concurrent resolution has been agreed to, and if so determined at that time, until a reconciliation bill or reconciliation resolution has been completed.
All appropriation bills and bills or resolutions providing new spending authority not subject to the appropriations process would be held at the desk and not enrolled until completion of the second budget resolution, and if it were determined to be necessary at that time, until completion of the reconciliation bill or resolution. This will allow this Budget Committee and the Senate more flexibility to change spending levels in the second concurrent resolution. Without the reconciliation provision, the Congress loses the flexibility to reduce spending in the second budget resolution if economic circumstances make it desirable. If all appropriation bills and other spending authority bills have already been enacted into law, the Budget Committee and the Congress have very little flexibility to reduce the overall spending ceilings at the time of the second budget resolution.
Flexibility at a time of economic uncertainty, such as we now face, is imperative. The economic circumstances of the past few years have all but baffled economic forecasters. Although the employment rate targets of the second concurrent resolution for fiscal year 1979 have been met, the Budget Committee and the Congress terribly underestimated the inflationary impact of its fiscal policy determinations in the second budget resolution.
There is much indecision about the appropriate economic assumptions to use for fiscal year 1980. Many people believe that while CBO's inflation projections may be on target, their unemployment estimates may be exaggerated. However, some forecasters believe that inflation will run even higher than that projected by the CBO.
We should certainly allow ourselves as much flexibility as possible to deal with this responsibility in the second concurrent resolution. If inflation indeed exceeds the estimates of the Congressional Budget Office, then Congress should have flexibility to reduce inflationary pressures in the second budget resolution by reducing the spending levels.
The only way that Congress can assure itself of this flexibility is by attaching a reconciliation provision to the first concurrent budget resolution. I therefore hope that the Senate will join me in attaching this language to the budget resolution, which is already a part of the House budget resolution, and it seems to me basically a technical change that would give us as Senators and the Budget Committee itself more flexibility in a process that is absolutely crucial to the United States of America.
I would hope that my colleague will give favorable consideration to this matter. I think it is worth their consideration, and I ask them to vote for this amendment. I reserve the remainder of my time.
Mr. MAGNUSON. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. HATCH. I am happy to yield to the distinguished Senator from Washington.
Mr. MAGNUSON. As I read the amendment, the Senator would practically abolish the Appropriations Committee, would he not?
Mr. HATCH. I do not believe so. I do not believe it would do that.
Mr. MAGNUSON. If we waited until September 15 to enroll the appropriation bills, and the fiscal year begins October 1, we would not be able to pass any appropriation bill involving the 1980 budget.
Mr. HATCH. Well, the Senate could pass them. They just would not be law.
Mr. MAGNUSON. What is the use of passing them if they would not be law?
Mr. HATCH. They could become law, but we would have the flexibility of cutting the budget if we wanted to.
Mr. MAGNUSON. We would have 2 weeks.
Mr. HATCH. That is better than the system we have now.
Mr. MAGNUSON. Oh, well—
Mr. HATCH. The system we have now does not allow any flexibility. And what if we have the inflationary problems I have been describing here? What if the CBO appears to be wrong, and we need to cut in order to decrease the inflationary pressure?
Mr. MAGNUSON. Does the Senator realize that the Appropriations Committee, over the years, has been under the budget every year for the last 18 years?
Mr. HATCH. Yes, and I commend them.
Mr. MAGNUSON. That is a pretty good record. Do not abolish it tonight.
Mr. HATCH. I do not believe this amendment does that, with all due respect to my friend from Washington. I think it does give flexibility where it may very definitely be needed, and I think is needed. We have run into this bind in the past, and I am trying to alleviate it. I think it is purely a technical alleviation, and it is already in the House resolution. Our colleagues over there believe it is a valid amendment, and I certainly do, and would like to press it.
I reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. FORD). Who yields time?
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, having been one of the authors of the Budget Act, I can tell the Senator precisely why this language was put into the Budget Act.
There is no justification in our experience since the Budget Act was created to trigger this procedure. Let me read what it says:
The First Concurrent Resolution on the budget may also require — (1) a procedure under which all or certain bills and resolutions providing new budget authority or providing new spending authority described in section 401(c) (2) (C) for such fiscal year shall not be enrolled until the concurrent resolution required to be reported under section 310(a) has been agreed to, and, if a reconciliation bill or reconciliation resolution, or both, are required to be reported under section 310(c), until Congress has completed action on that bill or resolution,
So, it is left to the judgment of the Budget Committee to implement this procedure.
What does that mean? It means exactly what the Senator from Washington, in his typical blunt fashion, has said it means. It means that we would suspend the enactment of appropriation bills into law until the second concurrent resolution on the budget has been adopted.;
In other words, appropriations bills would start flowing through the process after the first budget resolution was approved, and both Houses would act on them, but they would be held at the desk unenrolled, piling up, until after the second budget resolution was adopted.
This provision was put in the Budget Act as a failsafe device, in the event the system envisioned by the Budget Act did not work.
In other words, in the event Congress ran wild with appropriations bills and spending bills between the first and second budget resolutions, the Budget Committee could recommend that this procedure be followed in order to have a handle on the budget process before it was finished.
But we have had the reverse experience with the appropriations bills. Under the leadership of Senator MAGNUSON and his predecessor, the Appropriations Committee could not have been more responsible. As a matter of fact, last year the Appropriations Committee came in under the ceiling set in the first budget resolution. It would be an insult to the Appropriations Committee, a slap in the face of a committee which has met its responsibilities under the Budget Act, to now handcuff it in this fashion.
This is not what was intended by the Budget Act. It is not justified by our experience under the Budget Act. I would remind Senators that between the time the President presented his budget for fiscal year 1979 and the time we acted on the first budget resolution for 1979, the budget was reduced by $22 billion. That could not have been done without the help of the Appropriations Committee. Why should we turn around at this point, just because we see some fancy language in the Budget Act, and do that kind of thing?
There is another point I should mention. If we let these appropriations bills pile up at the desk, and the Senate second budget resolution has not been adopted, the President, whoever he may be, could choose the particular appropriations bills he wanted to veto. It would give the President a power he does not now have, simply because we have piled them up on the table, to pick and choose which ones he will sign, which he will not, and which he will veto.
There is nothing in our experience in the past 5 years to justify such an amendment. The amendment is in the House budget resolution. We will be curious to know why the House adopted it, and shall hope to determine that in conference. We do not need to accept it in conference, and really, there is no justification to do that.
I believe this amendment is without any merit whatsoever. It is a procedure that is available to us in the event we might need it under circumstances that have not yet occurred, or have even come close to occurring.
I want to take this occasion to thank the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee, not only for his responsible leadership of the Appropriations Committee this past year, but for his invaluable contribution to the Budget Committee. This year, in addition to his enormous responsibilities as chairman of the Appropriations Committee, he is the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee, and he sat through the long sessions of the Budget Committee on the budget resolution and became an integral part of the budget process at that end as well. I do not see any reason why we should hand this gratuitous insult to him and to the members of his committee, who have been as responsive to the responsibilities of the budget process as any Senator on this floor.
Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I do not think there is any desire on anyone's part to insult any committee, certainly not the Appropriations Committee, and most certainly not the distinguished chairman of that committee.
But every year when we reach the time when people want to try and reduce some f the appropriations we receive the argument that the appropriations bills were already passed and enrolled and there is nothing that can be done about it. All I am doing is following the leadership of the House Budget Committee. If there are any insults, they may be to the House Budget Committee, which apparently is being criticized here for having put through this amendment in committee because of the need for flexibility. The appropriations bills will have already been passed, they just will not be enrolled, in order to provide for the flexibility.
I doubt that it would be used, but if we need to use it we would be able to, where otherwise it is almost impossible under our past experience over the last 2 years to pull an appropriations bill and reduce it if someone wants to. All I am saying is that this is a worthy amendment because it gives the Senate its flexibility.
I think it gives the Budget Committee flexibility. I do not think it denigrates the Appropriations Committee, which can pass all the appropriations bills it wants. I cannot conceive a President of the United States not signing an appropriations bill since he is responsible for paying the bills of the United States of America, at least of the executive branch of the United States, and would have certain political liabilities for not signing the appropriations bills. That would be a first in the history of the country.
I assume, Mr. President, you can think of any excuse to say that this is an amendment that you do not like. I very strongly respect the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee. He is one of my dear friends. He certainly works hard at this job. I want to please him as much as I can, as I serve on that committee. But I just sat through the past 2 years where every time you want to reduce something at that crucial time in the Senate process, you get hit in the face with the idea that the appropriations bill has been passed and enrolled and it would be too difficult to do.
Now if, in fact, we reach a point where,because of unreliable forecasts, mistaken information, or forecasts that do not work out for any reason that the Senate has to have the flexibility to change, or at least a majority of the Senate wants the flexibility to change, an appropriations amount, then this would enable the Senate to do so without denigrating the process.
I would doubt that this would be very often used except in a case where we do have the need for such flexibility.
With all due respect to my brilliant and energetic colleagues, the chairmen of these two important committees, I would recommend that my colleagues vote for this amendment to give themselves more flexibility and to stop the basic arguments that always arise at that particular time in the process.
Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays, and I am prepared to yield back the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator yield back his remaining time?
Mr. HATCH. I will in a moment.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, we have flexibility now. The two budget resolutions give us that flexibility. The first is the target and the second is the ceiling. We created the two resolutions in order to give us the flexibility to deal with unanticipated events, emergencies, and changes in the economic situation.
The Budget Act also provides a reconciliation process for us to do the same thing.
In fact, we have had ample opportunities in the last 5 years to adjust our budgets to the most traumatic economic experiences this country has experienced in this century. We were born as a committee just a matter of a couple of months before we were plunged into the deepest recession since 1940.
When the committee was born, it was told by the President of the United States that the next year we would have a balanced budget. Three months later he told us we would have a deficit of $52 billion. That surely was not an anticipated event.
Since then, we have faced the challenge of a declining economy in that period, and we have helped, I think, to preside over a growing economy since. I see nothing in our performance on the economic front or the appropriations front to suggest that the process has not been flexible enough to meet our needs.
On this particular subject, Mr. President, the Budget Committee filed a report last year as prescribed by section 301(b) of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. On this particular subject, this is what that report said:
The congressional budget process is now entering its 5th cycle. During this time the Senate Budget Committee has not found it necessary to recommend any additional procedures in the budget resolution to enforce budget discipline. Most committees of the Congress have been extremely cooperative in adhering to the budgetary limits of the budget resolution. Procedures established in section 301(b), however, provide an important tool to give Congress flexibility in the enforcement of the budget process. These provisions should remain available in the event that Congress determines such action is necessary to enforce budget discipline and to implement the purposes of the budget act.
The conclusion was that we did not need them then.
Second, Mr. President, may I say that this amendment was not offered in the Budget Committee. The language of the statute clearly gives the Budget Committee the option to recommend this procedure. It was not recommended to us in committee as a possible recommendation to the Senate. I knew nothing about it until a few moments ago when the text was presented to me. It is fortunate that my recollection of the writing of the Budget Act was reasonably clear on this point so that I could respond.
I do not think that these few minutes are a sufficient consideration of this proposal to justify its adoption by the Budget Committee as a recommendation or its adoption by the Senate as a procedure.
We will go to conference and we will find out why the House committee did what it did. If they are persuasive, then we can consider what they have to say and bring it back to the Senate. I doubt that they will be, but if the Senate adopts this provision now it will be nailed in place without any case having been made for it in the 5 years' experience of the budget process.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, that is exactly what I want to do, to nail it in place. I agree with the statements of the chairman of the Budget Committee that we have flexibility to increase spending in the second resolution. It is only because generally, and I think past history has shown, you can easily pass a supplemental appropriations bill. We have found that it is very difficult to reduce appropriations that have already been passed and enrolled. That is the difference. It does not hurt us either way to have that flexibility. It does not interfere with the appropriations process, in my opinion, and I do not think in the opinion of those in the House, nor does it interfere with the budget process. All it does is to give the Senate equal flexibility.
I think we have argued it and I think there are clearly two sides of the issue. I am prepared to submit it to a vote. 1 would be willing to yield back the remainder of my time if Senator MUSKIE will yield back the remainder of his time.
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield back the remainder of my time.