November 7, 1979
Page 31245
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. HOLLINGS. I will conclude in just a few minutes.
Mr. President, when I finally got to the conference, I said, "We on the Senate side always have difficulty, but we understand the difficulty on the House side."
We understand the difficulty on the House side, they do not have strong support from some of our Republican Members. They would rather have, we know, the lower vote all the time, and have their cake and eat it, too.
I went to my House colleagues on the Republican side, House conferees. We met in the hall and said, "Surely, if we can get the 3-percent commitment, we can make a list for those who did not vote on this budget resolution." It was a very close vote. We can give you a list.
We had Herkie Harris from OMB. He could not do anything but run around being pleasant because the White House would not allow him to be effective in this instance.
They finally complained in the hall, "Where are all these Pentagon people, these aides from the White House, where is the President?"
Well, they had Graham Claytor call me, and he said, I say to the Senator from Maine, that he had always understood Mr. MUSKIE never did want them to interfere with the budget process. So I doubted he would send anybody over. But, definitely, they were for the 3 percent.
We met in the conference, and the Senator from Oklahoma will remember well, I asked the conferees on the House side whether or not they had been contacted by the White House on behalf of the 3-percent commitment, because the letter of Jim McIntyre talked about the order of priorities.
I said, "Have you been contacted?" And they would break out laughing.
No one was contacted by the White House. They did not help at all.-
We recently went to the NATO conference in Ottawa. In all sincerity, I know what White House pressure and interest is. Everybody was there for the SALT II treaty. They had ambassadors, minions, and everybody. We could hardly move around town; they were working all over the place.
So what I am trying to say to my distinguished colleagues here, and particularly the distinguished Senator from Georgia, who has worked so hard, is something about commitments. Senator NUNN, on last Friday, made a very interesting address to the U.S. Senate about SALT II. We will not get into that today. But he said that he would like a clear and unambiguous commitment.
I am saying that I can get that kind of commitment any time he wants it from the White House.
But I can say in all honesty and candor, they will never follow through. These letters and statements — the record I am putting in today — prove that much.
This is the President who said he would cut $15 billion. This is the President who has cut $11 billion out, and the neutron bomb, the B-1, the aircraft carrier, closed down the Minuteman, canceled the MX, canceled the Navy contracts, and so on.
He is the same President who said in his January message that one submarine would be able to destroy all the medium-sized and large-sized cities of Russia. That is his approach to defense. And that is what their unambiguous commitments bring us.
I thank the distinguished Senator. I wanted to put this in the RECORD so everybody would know exactly what occurred.
Mr. MUSKIE. I thank my good friend from South Carolina for his usual lucid explanation of the events he has described.
My good friend from Virginia has indicated the desire to have 10 minutes of time to discuss this conference report. I am happy to yield to him.
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
Mr. BELLMON. I am just informed that the Senator from Colorado would like 5 minutes.
Mr. MUSKIE. That is fine with me.
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. Mr. President, I will yield 5 of my 10 minutes to the Senator from Colorado.
Mr. MUSKIE. I appreciate that.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. Mr. President, I just want to comment on a few figures.
The budget authority for fiscal 1980 will be $638 billion. That compares with the budget authority for 19'79 of $556 billion. That is an increase in budget authority of $82 billion in this one fiscal year.
Now let us get to outlays. This proposal calls for outlays — I am using round figures now — of $548 billion. That compares with outlays for 1979 of $494 billion. That means the spending for fiscal 1980, the year we are in now, will increase by $54 billion. That represents an increase in spending of 11 percent.
Yes, 11-percent increase in spending for the fiscal year 1980.
Let us take budget authority. The figure in this budget resolution calls for a 15 percent increase, a 15 percent increase in budget authority.
Through the years, in recent years, Mr. President, Federal spending has increased at a rate of between 9 percent and 14 percent year after year. This year the increase over last year will be 11 percent in spending.
I do not know how we are going to expect to get inflation under control with such huge increases in spending as are being presented to the Senate.
If we are going to get back on a sound basis in the financial affairs of the Federal Government, we must reduce the huge increases in spending
I do not contend we can reduce below what is being spent now. I do contend, however, the increases in spending must be moderated below what this budget resolution calls for and what has been done in the last few years.
Mr. President, take the question of the the national debt. The national debt has doubled in the past 8 years.
Yes, the national debt has doubled in the past 8 years.
The interest on the national debt in this present budget is some $65 billion, $66 billion, or $67 billion. That is the interest charges on the debt.
That is not much less than the total cost of Government was only a few years ago.
I think we are in a very serious financial position. The Government is getting in a more serious position every year. Things are not improving. The Government is going into the money markets during this year for 50 percent of its total spending. It is going into money markets for $260 billion — $60 billion in new money and $200 billion in rollover money.
Is there any wonder that interest rates are high? Is it not logical that interest rates will continue to be high, so long as the Federal Government goes into the money markets to borrow the money to operate its huge spending programs and to finance its huge deficits?
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the RECORD a table showing the national debt in the 20th century.
There being no objection, the table was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[Table omitted]
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I always appreciate the focus that the Senator from Virginia puts on the budget resolution. I think it is a very appropriate one.
The increase in outlays from 1979 to 1980 is roughly 10 percent. Inflation is running about 13 percent. So that, overall, I think there is a shrinkage below the rate of inflation.
Second, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the RECORD a statement breaking down the figures which the Senator from Virginia has given us in terms of aggregates, so that we can see where the increases are. I think the table speaks for itself. I simply put it in the RECORD for the further enlightenment of Senators. I think perhaps the Senator from Virginia will find it useful.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[Table omitted]
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of the time to the Senator from Colorado.
Mr. ARMSTRONG. I thank the Senator for yielding.
Mr. President, the other night, my wife and I were leaving the post office in McLean; and as we turned out on the road, we watched in horror as another driver, coming down the road, turned right into a clearly marked one-way street, going the wrong way.
It was a sensation something like that I feel here tonight, because the driver of this car was going against all the signs. The street was clearly painted with an arrow that said, "Don't Go This Way." There were three signs that said "Do Not Enter" and two others that say "Wrong Way." There were great posts with diagonals and fluorescent paint on them.
It could not have been more plain that he was going the wrong way. As we watched and gasped out a warning, he zipped out the wrong way, anyway. He avoided a catastrophe because there was not a car coming in the other direction, and no one was killed.
That is exactly the sensation that rises within me as we adopt this budget resolution.
The last thing I want to do at this point is oppose my dear friends and colleagues on the budget conference committee. I would like to join them in endorsing it and say, "Let us go with it"; because from the standpoint of the effort and time and sincerity and scholarship and legislative skill that have gone into it, it is a wonderful report. But it is a report that takes this country one more step down a disastrous direction. Maybe we will be lucky. Maybe we will not go one step too far and push ourselves over an economic precipice. My instinct is that we are very close to the edge, and we are not doing anything to improve the economic future of this country by adopting this resolution.
Let me make a couple of observations and spell out in specific terms my concern.
First, I compliment the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. MUSKIE, and my distinguished Republican leader on the Budget Committee, Mr. BELLMON, for the way they have handled this matter. The Senate gave them the responsibility of sitting down with the House and hammering out an agreement to reconcile the differences between the Senate and the House versions of this resolution.
They have done so with consummate skill, with extraordinary patience, and in a way which I think makes the very best of a very bad situation. I compliment them for it.
I particularly compliment the chairman and the ranking minority member for their skillful handling of the Senate position on military spending on national defense issues. I think that is important and very worthwhile. My concern is with the totals.
This budget, by its terms, will impose a deficit of at least $30 billion, a deficit which cannot fail to have enormous inflationary consequences at a time when inflation is already wracking every family and every business and every employee in this country. So I am concerned about that.
Second, I am concerned about the fact that this budget is at least 2 months late; and it shows what is the matter with our process.
I commend to my colleagues the possibility that maybe we need to take a long, hard look at the budget process, with a view toward strengthening it, possibly imposing more discipline, and finding a way to write that necessary discipline into the United States Constitution.
Third, I am concerned that, despite our best efforts, even the $30 billion which is mentioned as the deficit in this resolution is far less than we are going to end up with. This budget is wildly unrealistic, in my judgment, in its estimate of the outlays for fiscal year 1980. I could be wrong, but I would be willing to predict to anybody who is interested that when we add up the final figures on September 30, 1980, the outlays will be much, much higher than contemplated by this resolution and that revenues may well be less.
If the economy goes into the kind of tailspin that seems to be heading up, entitlement programs will inevitably push up welfare programs and unemployment programs. There will be a temptation for so-called pump priming.
I stand by my prediction that there will be a 1980 tax cut, given the economic and political situation which is bound to prevail next year.
So it is not hard to imagine add-ons of another $8 billion, $12 billion, $15 billion, perhaps even $20 billion, to the deficit which already is written into this budget.
I hope I am wrong. I hope it does not work out that way. But I am told that the White House is now privately stating that the deficit will be at least $10 billion more than the official figures.
For these reasons, I come to two conclusions.
We have here a budget which probably is unrealistic, which is terribly inflationary, at a time when inflation already is undermining the productive base of the country, which has cost us thousands and tens of thousands of jobs, which has priced the young people out of the housing market and threatens the economic security of our country. This is reflected by all the national indicators of the strength of the dollar, of the gold price, of the stock market, of all the economic as well as human indicators, at a time when we have $800 billion in debt. This is going to impose another $30 billion and perhaps even more in debt.
I want to vote against the conference report, which I intend to do. But starting tomorrow morning, after we have had a chance to look at this by the new perspective of how things look after we have adopted it, I am going to pick up where we left off and renew my call for effective, decisive action at the earliest possible date to amend the U.S. Constitution to require Congress to bring Federal spending under control.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of the distinguished Senator from Colorado. I appreciate the good spirit and the patience with which he works and is involved in this process, the product of which, on the basis of principle, he. disapproves.
However, I make this comment: I have struggled with this method of trying to bring about budget discipline, and it represents disappointments for me as well as for the distinguished Senator from Colorado.
I know that he is a strong advocate of another method, a constitutional amendment. It is my judgment that if, over the period we have had the budget process, we had had a constitutional amendment instead, the results, in budget terms, would not have been much different; because it is not budgets that spend money, it is people — people back home who look to the Federal Government and the State and local government for assistance in dealing with problems; people in their legislative bodies who seek to represent their interests.
Whenever there is a strong surge of public interest in more spending, as in the case of defense this year, or in the case of fuel assistance for those at the bottom of the economic ladder who need help, there is a surge of spending.
So there is no way of containing those surges except through discipline that is very difficult to get anyone to accept.
A constitutional amendment might work better.
I have no experience upon which to base a judgment. This one has had some disciplinary effect, more than I think many of us expected, but in any case, it is the only thing we have.
I urge the Senate to give it an overwhelming vote of endorsement today.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I want to express, on behalf of the minority, sincere appreciation to the chairman and ranking member of the Budget Committee for their fine work in bringing about a satisfactory resolution to theserious problems the committee dealt with in this conference report.
Senators MUSKIE and BELLMON, as well as all members of the committee, have done yeomen's jobs on this most complex issue of setting spending limitations. It is truly a thankless task, one sure to make a Member unpopular with not only his colleagues but his constituents as well. Yet this fact has not deterred these Members from achieving their goal of getting our national budget under control.
I realize that the conference was long and difficult. But thanks to the efforts of Senators MUSKIE and BELLMON, and the Budget Committee members most of us will be voting in support of this workable and satisfactory compromise.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise to support the second concurrent budget resolution conference report that our Senate Budget Committee has negotiated with the House of Representatives. As a Budget Committee conferee, I can assure the Senate that we held an unprecedented 17-day conference to decide the issues confronting the conferees. And, while we did not get all we wished, we did win substantial victories on behalf of our Senate colleagues.
I am especially glad that we have kept intact the entire budget authority of $141.2 billion for defense. For defense, the budget authority number is the critical number and the Senate was totally successful in keeping this function intact. In addition, we were able to salvage sufficiently large budget authority numbers for the energy function. This means that we will be able to fund synthetic fuels legislation, conservation, geothermal, and solar initiatives, as well as gasohol programs, within the budget resolution's numbers.
While I had hoped that the House would agree with our historic reconciliation motion, I am glad that this issue will be presented specifically to the House for its decision. I believe that a majority of the House believes that spending ought to be cut and that they will be inclined to support the Senate recommendation to truly impose discipline on spending this year.
I wish to congratulate Senators MUSKIE and BELLMON for their heroic efforts on behalf of the Senate, and the staff of the Senate Budget Committee for its diligence and hard work during this extremely difficult set of deliberations.