November 16, 1979
Page 32962
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEARS 1980, 1981, AND 1982
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, on behalf of the Committee on the Budget, I send to the desk an original concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 1980 and ask unanimous consent for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will state the concurrent resolution by title.
The second assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 53) revising the Congressional Budget for the United States Government for the fiscal years 1980, 1981 and 1982.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following members of the staff of the Budget Committee and the Congressional Budget Office be accorded the privilege of the floor during consideration and votes on the revised second budget resolution: John McEvoy, Karen Williams, Sid Brown, Susan Lepper, and Rick Brandon.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, at this point I yield to my good friend, the ranking minority member of the committee, Senator BELLMON, who is under some time restraints, for his comments on the resolution, and then I shall add mine subsequently.
Mr. BELLMON. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Maine.
Mr. President, we are very pleased this evening that we appear to have an agreement on the second budget resolution for fiscal year 1980.
This has been a long and arduous conference. We have missed by 2 months the September 15 deadline in the budget process. We are hopeful, however, that missing this deadline will remain a unique experience and next year we intend to be back on schedule. The whole process relies on meeting deadlines, and the orderly establishment of appropriate fiscal policy requires keeping on schedule.
We have come very close to enforcing a reconciliation instruction for fiscal year 1980. We were disappointed by the House vote last week striking reconciliation from the conference agreement, although there were two other points which were more disturbing during the floor debate in the House:
First. The chairman of the House Veterans' Committee stood up to announce that even though savings in veterans' programs were assumed, his committee would not take any further action this budget year to save funds.
Second. One Member of Congress announced in floor debate that he was sure a third budget resolution would be necessary next spring and that the budget committees would likely report such a resolution to prevent a point of order from occurring.
Mr. President, what we have done today is to make every effort to achieve savings and to declare in this resolution that it is the sense of Congress not to have a third budget resolution to make up for any savings which are not achieved.
Make no mistake about it. There are savings assumed in the second budget resolution, and these savings will only be achieved with the help of the various committees of jurisdiction. If these savings are not achieved, we have only two options: Either we raise the deficit, or we crowd out of some future spending bill (probably next spring's supplemental appropriations bill) funding for some programs which may be high priority items. We are making clear now we will not have a third budget resolution to bail out committees who do not make the concessions. Therefore, we have only two choices: Either make the savings or crowd out future spending.
I wish to congratulate Chairman MUSKIE in particular for his perseverance during the long conference and also wish to express my appreciation to the other members of the Senate conference committee for their cooperation, as well as to the staff who have been of inestimable value throughout this entire process.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Mr. MUSKIE, Mr. President, I thank my good friend, the Senator from Oklahoma, for his compliments and his support which has made it possible to develop this discipline as far as we have developed it. He has described the circumstances which bring us to the floor.
Last week, the Senate adopted a second budget resolution which contained a 1980 budget agreed to by the House-Senate conference. That budget assumed savings of $3.6 billion in outlays and contained the reconciliation provisions the Senate had passed by a vote of 90 to 6 to require that those savings actually be made.
Last week, the House of Representatives also adopted that budget resolution and agreed to the budget totals which assume the savings but rejected the reconciliation provisions designed to require that the savings actually be made.
Thus, the budget resolution figures have now been approved by both Houses. But the second resolution will not be in place until the reconciliation issue is settled.
If the Senate passes the resolution as the House has returned it to us, the budget totals will be in effect, but the reconciliation provisions will not take effect.
The simple fact is that the budget resolution figures agreed to now by both Houses assume virtually the full amount of the savings contemplated by the reconciliation instructions. The question is whether those savings will be made voluntarily, as the House assumes, or will only be made if we insist on reconciliation, which has been the Senate position.
The Budget Committee has carefully weighed the options available to the Senate at this juncture. Let me report to you our advice under the circumstances.
First of all, we believe it is highly unlikely that we can force the House to accept reconciliation this year. For reasons fortunately unique to the House, no coalition can be created in the House at this time to pass a budget resolution which contains reconciliation provisions. The Republican side will vote for reconciliation, but will not vote for a budget resolution which contains it. The Democratic side will vote for a budget resolution, but not if it contains reconciliation.
On the other hand, if the savings assumed by the resolution are not made through reconciliation, as the Senate has proposed, and are not made voluntarily, as the House assumes, important national budget priorities will simply be crowded out by the spending necessary to make up for the lost savings.
If none of the savings assumed by reconciliation occur, as much as $3.6 billion of the $10.7 billion in outlays contained in the agreed-upon budget for important supplemental appropriations priorities will have to be spent for the savings instead.
Some of the priorities which would be simply crowded out include supplemental funding for food stamps, the space program, refugee assistance, student assistance, strategic stockpile acquisitions, the Economic Development Administration, and countercyclical revenue-sharing programs.
This is not some horrors list, designed to frighten and alarm. It is the actual list of major "controllable" supplemental appropriation requests which will have to bear the brunt of spending for the lost savings.
The Budget Committee has rejected the alternative of a higher deficit to solve this dilemma. Although it might be easy simply to add the jeopardized $3.6 billion in savings to the budget, that course would increase the deficit by more than 10 percent — to $33.4 billion — and betray all our efforts toward budget control.
Instead, the committee recommends the following course of action to the Senate:
First, we should refuse to honor the House action of last week which rejected reconciliation.
Second, we should continue to press Senate and House committees to make the savings assumed in the budget resolution totals which have been agreed to by both Houses. We should do so because those savings should be made and because without them other important spending priorities will have to be sacrificed.
The Senate has established a record of restraint this year which is in tune with the needs and aspirations of our fellow citizens. While we regret that House action last week appears to have ended our effort to achieve these important savings through the reconciliation process this year, we believe our responsibility requires us to continue to press in every way possible for the savings and to put the House clearly on notice that failure to make those savings will not justify a revision of the budget resolution.
Unfortunately, the difficulties of achieving these savings without reconciliation was nowhere more clearly demonstrated than on. the floor of the House of Representatives just yesterday. By a vote of 234 to 166, the House voted to gut the savings proposed by the hospital cost containment bill, a key element of the budget resolution's savings plan.
So we believe we must serve notice on the House and on the whole Congress that failure to enact the proposed savings will not, under any circumstance, be a cause for revising the budget we have adopted.
Nonetheless, in light of the House refusal to accept the reconciliation provisions, we must reluctantly recommend that the Senate delete them from the resolution.
We recommend we replace those instructions with a strong sense of the Congress commitment to make the savings and to stand by the budget we have adopted.
It was necessary to report an original concurrent resolution, Mr. President, because the conference report had been amended as far as it could be amended. So technically it was necessary to report an original concurrent resolution, and that original resolution contains the substance of the conference report on the budget, so there is nothing new in the substance.
Then the committee has added a sense-of-the-Congress commitment on reconciliation, and it reads as follows:
SEC. 3. Sense of the Congress on Reconciliation.
It is the sense of the Congress that there shall be no Third Budget Resolution or any other revision of the budget figures contained in this Resolution unless justified by significantly changed national or international developments beyond the power of Congress to control and not foreseen in the Development of the Second Budget Resolution for fiscal year 1980.
The amount of savings assumed in the Second Budget Resolution but not made in a timely fashion will crowd out funding for other priorities in the budget and may require rescission of already-enacted appropriations to stay within the budget ceilings.
Therefore, Congress calls upon the Committees of Congress named in the reconciliation instructions to make the savings assumed within the totals of this Resolution and calls upon all other Committees of the Congress to exercise the maximum restraint in spending and maximum effort toward savings in order that important national priorities will not be crowded out by the failure to make those savings.
Mr. President, this language has been included in the resolution for the purpose of putting the Congress on notice that the budget numbers agreed to in conference assume savings that have not been made, and if they are not made, then the effect on the spring supplemental will be to crowd out important programs that I am sure will have a high priority in the judgment of many Members of both Houses of Congress.
We hope that this notice will impel committees of Congress in both Houses to look at the prospects for savings with a sense of urgency so that when we get to the spring supplemental in March or April we will not find it necessary then, or the Appropriations Committee will not find it necessary then, to crowd out high-priority items in the budget.
I have discussed this with Members on the House side, Mr. President, and this procedure accords with what they think the circumstances require.
Except for the deletion of the reconciliation instructions and the addition of this sense of the Congress language, the budget resolution we propose is identical to the conference agreement the Senate passed last week by a vote of 65 to 27.
We hope with this vote today to complete Senate action on this budget resolution once and for all this year.
Mr. President, did the Senator from Virginia (Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR.) wish me to yield? I know he likes to be a close observer of these budget developments, so I want to be sure I did not overlook his interests.
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. I thank my friend from Maine. I was merely listening to his argument. I always like to hear him speak.
Mr. MUSKIE. I thank my good friend.
I yield to my friend from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I have a request on my side for the yeas and nays. So, as a Senator on our side, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays ware ordered.
Mr. DOMENICI. I understand Senator BELLMON had to leave, so I ask how much time is remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Eight and a half minutes remain.
Mr. DOMENICI. I understand Senator HATCH wants 3 minutes, so I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Utah.
Mr. HATCH. May I have a copy of the resolution?
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, the Senator from Utah desires to wait a few minutes before he speaks.
Does the Senator from Maine have any other time requirements?
Mr. MUSKIE. No, I do not.
Mr. DOMENICI. I do not know that we need 81/2 minutes, but I yield myself 2 minutes.
Mr. President, the Budget Committee conferees have gone through a most arduous experience. I know that we would have preferred to accomplish our task many weeks ago and been here before the Senate at a much earlier point in time. But I think it is fair to say that the job of getting a resolution agreed to by both the House and Senate is becoming more and more difficult. The process has become more and more fragile.
I think it is fair to say that but for the distinguished leadership of Senator MUSKIE and Senator BELLMON, the process would have been in serious jeopardy. We had to remind ourselves a number of times that the Congress of the United States has a budget process in the past that has failed, much as this one almost did when the bodies could not agree on some very basic principles that, taken singly and separately, did not amount to that much.
But there was just kind of a refusal to get on with resolving the issues. I think it was because everyone on that conference, especially on the Senate side, was committed to the proposition that we want this budget process to work, and that the more difficult the economic times are in America the more difficult it is to retain the process, that all signs indicated that that just means it is more important that we retain it, maintain it, and see that it continues as a process and procedure of fiscal constraint and responsibility here in this institution.
With that we have a resolution in which the numbers are not much different from what we have already approved, so those who voted for it in the past can vote for it again, and that did pass the Senate rather handsomely. But we have succeeded in putting in a resolution language that clearly indicates that we do not intend, the Senate and, hopefully, the House when they pass it, do not intend, in a third resolution to make room for the moneys that should be saved if the letter and the spirit of this second concurrent resolution are followed. By that I mean it is contemplated that significant savings will occur both in the entitlement and Finance Committee process, and certainly the appropriation process so that the second concurrent resolution numbers become the budget numbers for the country.
Yet, we know there will be a supplemental, and we are saying now in advance we are not going to provide a third resolution to make up for the shortcomings of the Congress that would be called for if we do not make these savings contemplated by the resolution.
I think this is historic. It is a way of reconciling, and reconciliation was indeed the cornerstone of the Senate's second concurrent resolution.
We are warning again that we are not going to provide for over-expenditures or failure to make savings in the third resolution, and if this body adopts it and the House adopts it, we are saying, "Be careful now in the next few months to avoid a very painful process that is going to require that discretionary items be cut back to accommodate it."
I want to tell the Senators what some of those discretionary items are: food stamps, space shuttle, countercyclical assistance, student assistance, refugee assistance, Economic Development Administration, strategic stockpile acquisition, and others.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 2 minutes have expired.
Mr. DOMENICI. I yield myself an additional minute.
So if we want to avoid the painful discretionary cuts, we are not only going to have to live up to the spirit of the second concurrent resolution, but we are going to have to see to it that the appropriate actions here for the next 2 months result in a reduction of spending consistent in every respect with the second resolution.
There are many who think that the basic budget should have been cut more, and many of us who are going to support it feel that way. But, indeed, when you understand that we are on the border of having no process, and there is a real chance that the budget process could die, we are standing here today with a pretty restrained budget deficit, under $30 billion, for the most part; but for a new direction in defense, we have held to the approach that was formulated in the first concurrent resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 1 minute has expired.
Mr. DOMENICI. I yield an additional minute.
I believe those are salutary signs. So I rise today to commend the conferees and the floor leaders, Senator MUSKIE and Senator BELLMON, for an extraordinary effort not only at general fiscal restraint, but at a warning mechanism, a red flag saying that the Senate is not going to break the budget just because there are some painful votes down the line, and that there is a way to avoid it, which is by making the savings recommended in the reconciliation process adopted by such a significant margin here in the Senate.
I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Utah.
Mr. HATCH. I thank the Senator.
Mr. President, when the first budget resolution came up, I proposed that we start the reconciliation process by having all appropriations bills held at the desk until the second budget resolution was passed, and any reconciliation that might be necessary taken care of. If that amendment had passed last spring, the Senate would be in a much stronger position now, it seems to me. First, none of the appropriations bills would have been acted upon, the whole Government would be operating on a continuing resolution, and we could put the House under more pressure to accept the reconciliation than we are presently doing.
Second, all committees, including the Appropriations Committee, would have been given advance notice that we were serious about enforcing the first resolution ceilings and savings, and they would have been more cooperative.
I believe the committee should put everyone on notice right now that we intend to follow this approach on the first budget resolution for fiscal year 1981.
I think it is a reasonable and workable approach, and strengthens the hands of the Budget Committee in an area where they deserve strengthening, and I think in the final analysis would avoid the problems we are having now. Under the circumstances, I can see where the Budget Committee would be for this particular resolution, but I think we would have been in a better position had we done what we were urged to do last spring. I urge that we do that during the coming year, and I know my friend from Maine will give every consideration to that suggestion, as he has given to my suggestions heretofore, and thank him for that.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Utah for the approach he suggested earlier this year.
My frustrations grow as the budget process develops, and I find myself more and more receptive to propositions I might have considered a little strong or a little unreasonable earlier. It may take that kind of effort; but sometimes you have to build slowly. It has been slower this year than I had hoped. I had more optimism when we passed the second concurrent resolution in the Senate than I have now.
Nevertheless, yesterday's developments in the House have visibly strengthened the support on the House side for the kind of discipline suggested, reflected, and recommended in this original concurrent budget resolution. It will be interesting to see whether the House will buy what we propose here today.
I thank the Senator froth Utah for his cooperation.
Mr. HATCH. I thank the Senator from Maine for his kind references to me.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I, too, wish to commend the Senator from Utah for his observations. I recall we did give the Senate an opportunity, in the second concurrent resolution, to vote on holding the appropriations bills at the desk until they were all in, so that we could have an opportunity to evaluate them versus the budget message. That did not pass, but, as the Senator from Maine indicates, we are all still in the process of understanding the overall significance of the Budget Act. It does provide for that mechanism in either the first or second resolution, and I believe this year will be an indicator that we are going to have to try some of those kinds of activities if we want the budgetary process.
With that, Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.
Mr. HATCH. I thank my friend from New Mexico as well.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is all remaining time yielded back?
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. Mr. President, will the Senator from Maine yield for a question?
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President; do I have some time remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 2 minutes and 40 seconds.
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. Will the Senator give the numbers again? What is the total?
Mr. MUSKIE. The recommended level of Federal revenues is $517.8 billion.
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. That was what? I did not understand.
Mr. MUSKIE. $517.8 billion for revenues. For new budget authority, $638 billion.
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. $638 billion, in new budget authority?
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes. And for outlays, $547.6 billion.
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. For outlays, $547.6 billion. Those are the same figures as the Senate adopted just recently.
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes, in the conference report. These are the same figures identically. I think the Senator made his analysis of them at that time.
Mr. HARRY F. BYRD, JR. I thank the Senator. I just was not clear on that point.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the resolution before us maintains the budget levels set in the initial conference report. At that time and during debate on the second budget resolution, I opposed reconciliation on the grounds that reductions are mandated without knowledge of the programs impacted.
The sense of the Senate resolution substituted for reconciliation instructions makes it clear that a third budget resolution will not occur unless developments not foreseen during debate on the second budget resolution make it necessary to raise budget levels. Since the levels contained in the budget resolution assume savings from reconciliation it is unlikely that Congress can meet the targets without rescinding previously enacted programs and funding levels.
I respect the chairman of the Budget Committee for his diligence and hard work in fashioning a resolution. I am constrained however by my conviction that given conditions foreseen during debate on the budget resolution, reconciliation will still take place with unknown consequences to specific programs. I therefore must oppose the conference report on the second budget resolution.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.