Muskie Congressional Record: SCR 22 Proxmire 2

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE

April 24, 1979

page 8388

FIRST CONCURRENT BUDGET RESOLUTION FOR 1980, 1981, AND 1982

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the Senate will now resume consideration of the pending business, namely, Senate Concurrent Resolution 22, which the clerk will state by title.

The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

The concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 22) setting forth the recommended congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal years 1980, 1981, and 1982 and revising the Second Concurrent Resolution on the budget for fiscal year 1979.

AMENDMENT NO. 151

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The pending question is on amendment No. 151 by the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. PROXMIRE), on which there shall be 30 minutes debate with a vote in relation thereto to occur at 11:30 a.m. The Senator from Wisconsin.

Mr. PROXMIRE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a quorum call be held and that the time be charged equally to both sides.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection? The Chair hears none. The clerk will call the roll.

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. PROXMIRE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. BOREN). Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. PROXMIRE. Mr. President, the manager of the bill yesterday charged that if the pending amendment is adopted, it would reduce Federal revenue by some $9 or $10 billion. The staff of the committee told me this morning that they have modified that estimate and now estimate a reduction of between $6 and $7 billion.

Mr. President, this kind of estimate is a laugh. There is no way they can make an accurate estimate of what effect the reduction in Federal spending with its effect on inflation and the elimination of the deficit with its sharp reduction of demand in the credit markets would have on interest rates. I think it would be substantial enough to increase housing starts by several hundred thousand; to increase private sector jobs by half a million or more, and to sharply reduce that $6 to $7 billion loss in Federal revenue.

I may be wrong about that. The Budget Committee's computer may be right. But what the computer has made no allowance for is that sure and certain effect of Federal Reserve policies if we should balance the budget in 1980 by passing this amendment. Chairman Miller has assured our Banking Committee repeatedly that a balanced budget would permit an easier monetary policy with cheaper credit and lower interest rates. Now the staff of the Budget Committee assured my staff this morning they had not included that vital factor in their calculations. That is, what the Federal Reserve Board would do. We know what they would do.They have committed themselves.

Mr. President, the fact is that no one knows whether a cut of the kind this amendment would require would actually reduce Federal revenues or how much. That depends on action by the Federal Reserve on monetary policy, and it depends on the psychological reaction of the American consumer and American business to the good news that the Federal Government has at long last taken a clear, big, significant step to begin to bring inflation under control. The result of that psychological reaction has not been cranked into the computer either.

So not only did they not crank in the actions of the Federal Reserve Board which they committed themselves to take, but they have not been able to also estimate what psychological reaction a balanced budget would have on the business community of this country and on the American people.

Certainly the attitude of the American consumer and the American businessman is crucial in determining what is going to happen to our economy in the next 18 months.

What we do know, Mr. President, is that the passage of this amendment would tend to lower interest rates. We know it would tend to increase housing starts. We know it would encourage business investment. And, above all, we know it would help to hold down inflationary pressures.

Mr. President there are helpful initiatives in the budget for the poor, for the farmer, for the working man, for business. But there is nothing in the budget that would be nearly as helpful for any of those groups as action by this Congress to slow inflation.

There is a choice here. The choice is between an unbalanced budget with a big and lumbering Federal Government and high inflation with no end in sight on the one hand, and on the other a balanced budget, with a somewhat streamlined and lighter Federal Government and less inflation — real progress, visible progress, objective progress, measurable progress — toward getting inflation under control — on the other.

Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from Maine.

Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. President, I responded to the amendment of the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin at considerable length yesterday. The only point that the Senator seems to have raised this morning that I did not cover yesterday is this, and I can answer it best by giving him an analysis of his amendment. His amendment proposes reducing outlays by $28.8 billion. If we do that we reduce revenues by $6.8 billion, because of the impact on the economy. So he will not achieve balance.

In order to achieve balance, we would have to reduce outlays by $38.3 billion. That would reduce revenues by $9.5 billion and achieve a balance unless, in the process of doing this, the effect is to put the economy into a tailspin and produce a deep recession. In that situation we would experience higher unemployment and an even greater impact on revenues and on the outlays associated with unemployment, including unemployment compensation and welfare programs.

Mr. President, what I really would like to say this morning in addition to what I said yesterday is throughout his discussion of what the Budget Committee has produced, my good friend from Wisconsin speaks as though we have just gone spending wild; that we pay no attention to the imperatives of inflation; that we pay no attention whatsoever to the need to cut programs; that only he, the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin, has the proper sense of fiscal restraint; that only by adopting his amendment will we impose any restraint, and that the budget we have adopted imposes no restraint.

Mr. President, in this morning's Washington Post, in the lead editorial entitled, "The Big Fight Begins,"takes a different view of what the Budget Committee has presented to the Senate of the United States.

I read the first paragraph:

Congressional ideas about the federal budget have changed drastically over the past year, and you can see the results in this week's debate in the Senate. The first draft of the budget resolution has come to the floor, with its stringent limits to next year's federal spending and deficit. A majority of the senators now seem to accept the principle of a balanced budget as political imperative — for the first time since the Eisenhower years — and the only question is how fast to get there.

Sen. Muskie's Budget Committee is recommending a resolution that would commit Congress to a balance in fiscal 1981 — the fiscal year that begins five weeks before the next election. This drive toward balance is particularly remarkable since the Budget Committee warns that a mild recession is likely later this year. It's the first time in at least a generation that leading senators of both parties have been talking about cutting a president's budget in the face of rising unemployment.

It's not the Senate alone. A similar, if slightly less draconian—

That is the adjective used to describe what we have presented:

A similar, if less draconian resolution comes to the floor of the House next week. The rest of the year is going to be filled with bitter quarreling over who's to bear the brunt of the cuts — whether the poor, or the states or the Pentagon. But the main mechanism moving the budget toward balance is not the cuts in spending. It is the automatic and continuous tax increase that inflation imposes by moving taxpayers into higher brackets.

With cruel—

This is another word used to describe what we have produced—

with cruel and explicit logic, the Senate Budget Committee warns that, if the budget is to reach balance before next election day, Congress will have to forego the expected pre-election tax reduction bill. Conversely, if Congress wants to enact tax relief next year, the balanced budget will have to wait until 1982.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the entire editorial be printed in the RECORD at this point.

There being no objection, the editorial was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

THE BIG FIGHT BEGINS

It's not the Senate alone. A similar, if slightly less draconian, resolution comes to the floor of the House next week. The rest of the year is going to be filled with bitter quarreling over who's to bear the brunt of the cuts — whether the poor, or the states or the Pentagon. But the main mechanism moving the budget toward balance is not the cuts in spending. It is the automatic and continuous tax increase that inflation imposes by moving taxpayers into higher brackets.

With cruel and explicit logic, the Senate Budget Committee warns that, if the budget is to reach balance before next election day, Congress will have to forego the expected pre-election tax reduction bill. Conversely, if Congress wants to enact tax relief next year, the balanced budget will have to wait until 1982. There's a certain mean irony to this point, since the balance the budget movement is drawing a lot of its support from people who think that it necessarily will bring lighter taxes.

For the 30 years after World War II, most people just assumed that the ultimate purpose of economic policy was to generate jobs and keep unemployment low. It was a social and moral judgment that had a wide consensus behind it. But recently, after six years of inflation unprecedented in this country's experience, that view has been changing. If Congress enacts a final budget resolution next September that is anything like the present drafts, it will have moved to a very different position. It will be saying that it finds an inflation rate of 10-plus percent more dangerous to American society than an unemployment rate around 6 percent and fairly stable. It will also be acknowledging that temporary stagnation in the economy is preferable to a permanent balance the budget amendment in the Constitution.

Congress would be right on both points. But as the economy slows and federal funds become less lavish, the burdens will not fall equally on all citizens. Speaking of morality, it is important to remember that those who benefit most from lower inflation will not necessarily be those who are out of work. The two budget committees have tried to provide more help for the people most at hazard, and that concern needs to be preserved in the hard bargaining ahead.

Mr. MUSKIE. It is easy at any time, Mr. President, once the Budget Committee has made the effort that this Budget Committee has made to restrain spending and, at the same time, to try to keep the economy on an even keel, to argue what could have been done, that more could have been cut. If we had come in with the figure that the Senator from Wisconsin now proposes, I would be willing to bet that he would be advocating a 5 percent cut in that total. And if we had come in with that figure, I expect that he would have proposed a 5 percent cut in that total.

That is easy to do. I could do it. I could stand here, on the floor of the Senate, as chairman of the Budget Committee, beat my breast, and say, "I can cut 5 percent more than the rest of my committee was willing to cut." Those are easy things to say, Mr. President, but our responsibility is to make cuts, to restrain spending, and to do it in an economic environment and in a context that will enable us to achieve a balanced budget that is not upset, because we push the economy into a recession which destroys any prospect for a balanced budget. That is the important point.

The Senator from Wisconsin casually fluffs that off as something that can be taken care of by the Federal Reserve Board. The Federal Reserve Board is not that assuring to us. Sure, Chairman Miller promised cooperation, but he did not guarantee that the kind of cooperation which he was offering was a guarantee against a depression if we cut too deeply.

And he warned about cutting too deeply,as well, in his testimony before us.

I have no better way than the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin of looking into the future to prove that he is wrong and I am right or that he is right and I am wrong. All I can say to the Senate is that we have done our best to meet two mandates: Achieve a balance in 1981 by a stringent budget, or a balance in 1982 by a less stringent budget. Both of those chores have been met by the Senate Budget Committee. The judgment of the Washington Post, at least, is that we have offered something that is pretty stringent and even cruel.

I yield to my good friend from Oklahoma.

Mr. BELLMON. Mr. President, I thank my chairman for yielding. I want to begin by saying that I agree with the efforts to achieve a balanced budget. That is an objective I have had for a long time. I certainly do not want anything I say to make it sound as if I had changed my mind. I feel that balancing the budget is a matter of highest national priority and that Congress needs to balance the budget as quickly and in as responsible a way as possible. I feel that the resolution which the Budget Committee has brought does that; it meets that test.

I am afraid that, as laudable as Senator PROXMIRE's efforts are, they will not, as Senator MUSKIE has eloquently stated, achieve a balanced budget, as Senator PROXMIRE states they would. A $28.8 billion cut in spending from the committee's mark would tend to weaken the economy and result in a loss of revenues of about $6 billion. This has been well stated already by Senator MUSKIE.

Outlays would also increase by $2 billion, due to higher unemployment payments and increases in other entitlement programs. After accounting for these effects, the Proxmire amendment would still leave the budget out of balance by about $8 billion, so we would still have to have some more cuts.

I believe our staff estimates show that $38.3 billion of spending cuts would be required to balance the budget in fiscal year 1980. In contrast to the position taken by Senator PROXMIRE, in my opinion, spending cuts of this magnitude would have a distinctly negative economic impact.

Economists measure these effects, at least in the short term, in tenths of a percent. What I am concerned about is the longer term, including not only fiscal year 1980 but 1981, 1982, and the years that follow.

The goal of the budget resolution recommended by the Budget Committee is to adopt a policy which will lead us in an orderly way to a balanced budget; and not a balanced budget for only 1 year, but for the foreseeable future, provided we can achieve economic stability.

This will not be achieved by a continuation of the "stop-go" policies of the past. Since the early 1960's, when Congress first adopted its activist approach, economic policy has been characterized by massive stimulus at cyclical low points and massive restraint at cyclical peaks. The Proxmire amendment, and any other amendment that contemplates bringing the budget into balance with a single dramatic move, in my opinion, constitutes an unworkable "quick fix" to the problem of budget deficits.

I would like to point out that my 8 Republican friends on the House Budget Committee, who are not known as particularly big spenders, apparently agree with me on this point. Let me quote from the minority views of the House Budget Report on page 268:

We believe that balancing the Federal budget in 1980 would simply be too much of a shock to an economy in so precarious a state as ours is today.

Clearly, Mr. President, my colleagues in the House agree that such "quick fixes" do not achieve desirable results. In fact, quick fixes have contributed to the problems of inflation and high interest rates which we confront today. I do not think it is necessary to repeat the mistakes of the past, and I ask the Senate to reject Senator PROXMIRE's amendment.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Two and a half minutes remain to the opponents on the Proxmire amendment.

Mr. MUSKIE. I reserve the remainderof my time.

Mr. PROXMIRE. Mr. President, my good friend from Maine has indicated that, or implied, at least, that I have not specified where I would make the cuts. I appeared before the Budget Committee and I appeared with a statement that detailed precisely where I thought the cuts should be made. Furthermore, I submitted to cross-examination for some period before the Budget Committee. I answered in detail where I thought the cuts should be made, so there is no question that I have been very specific and definite where I thinkwe should make reductions.

I did not write them into this particular amendment, because, of course, thisis the first budget resolution, it is not the second. The Senate and the House may disagree with the kind of recommendations that I have suggested, but I have suggested substantial cuts that would approximate $28 billion.

Cuts, I think, can be made without seriously, adversely affecting our economy.

Now, the question has been raised by the distinguished Senator from Maine and the Senator from Oklahoma, too, that we are moving too fast, that, after all, if we move at this rate and reduce the deficit to zero in 1980, it will be too hard for the economy to accommodate to that.

Mr. President, I think that those who favor continuing an unbalanced budget, even one that has been reduced somewhat, ignore the fact that inflationary pressures are likely to increase in the economy from other sources of Government influence on prices other than the Federal budget.

What I am saying is that the reduction in the deficit will be counterbalanced by other factors in the economy we know are coming on.

What is likely to happen to the big surpluses cities and States have enjoyed over the past few years?

The big surplus the cities and States enjoyed last year and still enjoying this year are diminishing.

There is every indication that they may drop by as much as $20 billion in the coming year. Such a drop would have the same effect in increasing aggregate demand and stimulating the economy and pushing up prices as a $20 billion Federal deficit.

All the time we had this deficit, I recaIl very clearly the arguments by economists who said that the deficit is not so bad, because we have big surpluses in the local and State governments.

Now they are disappearing and I think the argument should go the other way.

There is another element that very few people paid any attention to.

Mr. President the State Department has indicated that we can expect a $10 to $20 billion improvement in our balance of trade in 1980.

Secretary Cooper, who is an eminent economist, one of the finest economists in this field in the world, has indicated that the reduction in our balance-of-trade deficit has exactly the same effect in stimulating the economy and driving up prices that $10 to $20 billion of more Federal spending would have, as far as increasing aggregate demand is concerned.

As we increase exports and tend to decrease imports, the effect on aggregate demand is the same as running a Federal deficit.

The State Department has told us they expect in the 1980 period to have reduction in the balance of trade by $10 to $20 billion.

So the threat to our economy today is not from the prospect of too little pressure on prices, but of too much pressure on prices.

How anybody can stand up on the floor of the Senate now in 1979, in April, with the kind of price increases we have suffered, with the recognition of what is happening to city and State budgets, with an understanding of what is happening with our balance of trade, and argue that a sharp reduction of the kind this amendment would call for in a deficit would be bad economic policy, is beyond me.

I realize that many economists disagree with that, but I think they overlook the tremendously beneficial psychological effect of balancing a budget this year.

Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, how much time remains on both sides?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Two and a half minutes to the opponents and 4 minutes and 40 seconds to the proponents.

Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President. I do not want to use my 21/2 minutes at this time.

Mr. BUMPERS. Will the Senator yield me 1 or 2 minutes?

Mr. MUSKIE. I cannot yield that much. I have only 21/2 minutes.

Mr. BUMPERS. I understood that there were 41/2 minutes.

Mr. MUSKIE. No. Senator PROXMIRE has 4.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I am going to vote against this amendment, because I think it is irresponsible.

I know the political pressures are intense on everybody in this body to balance the budget. But I think to try to balance it now, in the face of seven-tenths of 1 percent of growth rate the first quarter of this year, could set off an economic recession that would, literally, bring the wrath of the country down on this Congress.

I have introduced two resolutions since I have been in the Senate to balance the budget and I hope we can do it by 1981. I think I may vote for the resolution presented here to balance it, and I may vote to take some broad ax to the 1980 budget, but not 5 percent.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.

Mr. BUMPERS. I thank the Senator.

Mr. PROXMIRE. Mr. President, I will yield the Senator half a minute, if he wants it.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I was just looking over the Democratic Policy Committee's capsule of these resolutions. It is interesting to me that if this body took each one of these items the Budget Committee says they have cut, I do not care which one it is, whether it is the commissaries, taking commissaries away from the military people, we look down the list of the cuts and we could not get this body to vote for a single one of them, because every item here has its own constituency.

When they come up, it only takes three people visiting in a Senator's office to convince him there is a groundswell of opposition to everything on here.

So I have mixed emotions about the shotgun approach being used by the Senator from Wisconsin as opposed to a scalpel, more selective cut.

But all I am saying is that I think at this point, to cut this budget by 5 percent, after the Budget Committee labored into the hours of the night for 3 weeks, trying to come up with something sensible and walk that fine line between recession and responsibility, and reach a balanced budget at sometime, say, in 1981 or 1982—

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.

Mr. BUMPERS. So I must reluctantly oppose this amendment.

Mr. MUSKIE addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.

Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin has referred to cuts which he proposed when he appeared before the Budget Committee. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the RECORD what the Senator from Wisconsin then presented.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

PROPOSED SPECIFIC CUTS

Military: I propose a $5.04 billion cut in outlays and $7.4 billion in budget authority in the FY 80 defense budget. The specific items numbering 18 in all are attached.

Revenue sharing: We have no revenue to share. The states and localities are in surplus. I would cut the entire $6.8 billion. It is wrong in principle in that those who spend the money do not have to raise it.

Foreign aid: We could have $1.3 billion by holding it to FY 79 levels. While I favor the people to people programs involved in the Peace Corps, the Technical Assistance programs, and others, the big project foreign aid, both through our bilateral programs and the international banks, appear to me to belargely an extension of the public works and highway lobbies abroad.

Housing and urban development: I propose savings of $845 million by not funding the Urban Development Action Grants ($400 m.), the proposed National Development Bank ($275 m.), and by reducing the number of persons eligible for Federal Housing Assistance and increasing rents to 30 rather than 25% of income ($170 m.) Added savings could be made through targeting Community Development Funds to the genuinely needy.

Travel: The agency-wide government travel budget is $7.9 billion. I propose a cut of $2 billion in this overall figure to be accomplished through less travel, the substitution of less expensive for more expensive travel, greater use of car pools, and the end to the outrageous practice of driving more than 150 Washington officials, let alone those abroad, to and from home in violation of the clear language of Title 31, Section 638a.

LEAA: I would abolish LEAA for a savings of $621 million. Established as a program to promote innovation, it is now too often paying routine operating expenses. There seems to be no cause and effect relationship between it and the crime rate, except that the latter has gone up during LEAA's existence. We should take the advice once proffered by the Attorney General and get rid of it.

Small Business Administration: We could save $694 million by abolishing this agency as well. Beset by scandal and political favoritism over the years, virtually all of its functions can now be performed by the private banking system and performed better. Only a minute fraction of small businesses benefit from it. Its minority programs have been of little help to minorities. And many of its loans are to those who not only could not qualify locally but should not have qualified locally.

Public relations: The government public relations budget is estimated at $1 billion including 20,000 public information officers. A cut in P.R. activities by half could save $500 million.

Space: While I personally would stop the space shuttle program the point of no return may have been reached but we could save $228 million by delaying the space telescope and the Galileo-Jupiter Probe.

CETA: The use of CETA funds to protect existing employees rather than to add jobs for the needy is a key fault of the program. In addition, they perform such useless work as counting the dogs, cats, and horses in Ventura County, California and the Samoans in Orange County. I would cut $2 billion in total from Title VI and the Summer Youth Programs.

EPA: EPA will be unable to obligate the $8.4 b. they will have. I would cut their proposed increase from $3.8 b. down to $3.0 b. or by $800 million because of this fact.

Legislative branch: The increase from $85 to $135 million for the Hart Office Building should be voted down.

Health: HEW should tighten the Medicaid and Medicare administration where theGAO has alleged excessive spending and fraud. The $6.7 b. budget for health includes massive increases in spending over the years for the Health Institutes with disappointing results. Dr. Pauling wrote me that he can get funded for any "orthodox" research he wants to do but that the NIH frowns on any proposal not along traditional paths. Surely $1 billion could be cut from the totality of health, NIH, Medicaid and Medicare budgets.

Education: In my view at least $500 million could be saved in education programs by targeting the grants for the disadvantaged, and by cutting the bilingual and some of the smaller higher education programs.

This list totals more than $20 billion. There are other areas as well. In fact, there is scarcely a program in the government where cuts could not be made and the program improved if done properly. In my book, none should be sacred.

Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, it is not easy to add up the items to get to any total, but the Senator said, "This list totals more than $20 billion."

That is substantially less than the $38.3 billion cut that would have to be achieved in order to implement his objective of a balanced budget in 1980. So it is far from a complete list.

Yesterday, the Senator put in the RECORD another list that I think he says represents about $28 billion in cuts.

There is detail with respect to the defense budget and there he shows a cut of $7.4 billion in budget authority and $5.04 billion in outlays.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time of the Senator from Maine has expired.

Mr. PROXMIRE. I yield the Senator an additional minute.

Mr. MUSKIE. I have asked my staff to analyze this to get down to what it really represents. This list represents, as best my staff can determine, cuts from the President's budget.

Well, the Budget Committee has already cut from the President's budget. On a comparable basis, we have cut the President's budget by $11.8 billion. So we have already taken some of these cuts, as best we can determine, that Senator PROXMIRE put in the RECORD yesterday.

Our best guess is, and we have not any better basis for estimating it, that at best this list represents about half the cuts he would have to make to meet his objective of a balanced budget in 1980.

So even if we adopt his amendment, we still do not have the details. The only details that would add up to a cut of $38.3 billion are those I suggested in the RECORD yesterday.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.

Mr. PROXMIRE. Mr. President, let me challenge any Senator to tell me under what circumstances this Congress will approve a balanced budget.

I would oppose a balanced budget if this country were in a depression.

I would oppose a balanced budget if this country were in a recession.

I would oppose a balanced budget even if we were not in a recession if economic growth were stagnant. If we were growing at less than 3 percent, the budget should not be balanced.

The assumption is not, as the Senator from Arkansas implied, that we will operate on the basis of seven-tenths of 1-percent growth, which was the annual rate of growth in the first quarter, but the assumption the Budget Committee and the President makes in that we will have growth of more than 3 percent in real terms.

Mr. MUSKIE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. PROXMIRE. Not until I finish. I. have not the time.

Mr. President. I would not be so concerned about a balanced budget if we were not suffering the worst inflation in the peacetime history of this country.

But I make the case for a balanced budget in 1980, when we face real growth of 3 percent or more, according to the Budget Committee; when we face inflation of 8 percent or more according to the Budget Committee; when we are suffering record interest rates which a balanced budget could moderate; when we have enjoyed the longest sustained period of job growth in history; and when in the last 3 months alone we have addeda million jobs to our work force, and when a higher proportion of the American adult population is working than ever before in our history.

I submit that if we cannot move to a balanced budget now, we are not ever likely to do so without the kind of constitutionally mandated restraint on the budget that most of us deplore.

Mr. President, the best answer this Congress can give to those who would force a constitutional amendment on Congress is for us to balance the budget now. That is the answer, to show that we can do it now. We can imagine the arguments they have, when, in a period when we have the worst inflation, when the Budget Committee assumes we are going to have real growth of 3 percent and inflation of 8 percent on top of that, they want a $30 billion deficit.

That is the kind of situation which persuades many Americans, State legislators, and others to feel that the only way they are going to get a balanced budget and fiscal responsibility is to amend the Constitution. It would mean that we would not have a balanced budget in the event of inflation or slow growth.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.

Mr. MUSKIE. Is there any time remaining, Mr. President?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is no time remaining.

The question is on the adoption of the amendment by the Senator from Wisconsin.

Mr. PROXMIRE. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a sufficient second.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on the adoption of the amendment by the Senator from Wisconsin. On this question 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 23, nays 67, as follows:

[Roll call vote tally omitted]