January 23, 1980
Page 467
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, may I ask who controls the time?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time is controlled on this amendment by the Senator from California (Mr. CRANSTON) and the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. SIMPSON).
Mr. MUSKIE. Who controls the time in opposition?
Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I certainly will yield to the senior Senator from Maine for any period of time that he may require.
Mr. MUSKIE. I thank the distinguished Senator.
Mr. President, I have watched these votes on veterans' measures over 21 years. And after observing the vote that was just taken, it is clear that the course upon which I am about to embark is a very steep uphill course. But I rise to do it, because what is involved is the protection of the congressional budget process. And that process applies to the veterans function as well as all other functions of the Government.
If we were to adopt the proposal that is being offered in the pending amendments, and then apply similar behavior to the other 17 functions in the budget, we might just as well forget about the budget process.
Mr. President, I remind the Senate that last year, in response to a positive mandate from this body later supported by the other body, we adopted a budget not only for fiscal year 1980 but for 1981 and 1982. We did this because of the pressure on the entire Congress to let the people of this country know when, if at any time, they could plan on a balanced Federal budget.
The Senate mandated the Budget Committee to produce budgets which would be balanced in either fiscal year 1981 or fiscal year 1982. We presented both options to the Senate and the Senate adopted the more stringent one; a balanced budget in 1981.
I want to say to the Senate in all candor that the prospects for a balanced budget in 1981, whether or not this amendment is adopted, are diminishing rapidly if they have not already disappeared.
But the Senate's action on this amendment will be a clue, and it certainly will be evidence to the country as to the commitment of this body to even making the effort.
Senators may conclude that because we cannot achieve a balanced budget in 1981 in any case, why not adopt this amendment? It is simply going to throw the budget a little more out of balance in 1981.
But to those who think it is important to continue to try, I recommend opposing this amendment for reasons that I will try to describe.
Mr. President, I support S. 870 as it came out of committee. The bill makes a number of necessary changes in the GI bill education program.
Some of those changes are badly needed. For example, the bill will insure that our Vietnam-era veterans have a full opportunity to receive their training and educational benefits.
I also commend the Veterans' Affairs Committee for the reductions in reimbursement for flight training and correspondence school benefits included in this bill. But I regret that the committee did not go all the way in eliminating these low-priority programs.
As I pointed out during the Senate debate on the second budget resolution, these programs have been shown by both the GAO and CBO to be wasteful and ineffective in leading to relevant full-time employment for veterans. They do not really help veterans, and they are a waste of Federal resources.
I further regret that as of now the committee has not seen fit to report legislation to require private insurers to reimburse the VA for health care provided to insured veterans. Such legislation, which would not lead to a reduction in health-care services to veterans, is a commonsense protection of the taxpayers' dollars.
In this time of severe budget constraints it is absolutely essential to cut back in such low-priority areas so that resources can be applied where they are most needed. Adjusting priorities in this manner is the essence of good budgeting.
But how a case can be made for continuing such low priority programs in any form, and then seeking to add by amendment to the same bill higher priority items, which are squeezed out in part by these lower priority items, does not make a sound budget sense to this Senator.
Mr. President, I would also like to note that with the adoption of this bill, the Veterans' Committee will be barely within its crosswalk under the second budget resolution in fiscal year 1980. Costly amendments cannot be tolerated within the budget totals.
I, along with every other Member of Congress, would like to provide veterans with even more generous benefits. However, we all must be mindful of the need for budgetary restraint in our efforts to curb the inflation which harms veterans as well as all Americans.
For this reason, I will have to oppose any amendment to this bill which would violate the budget resolution totals, either for fiscal year 1980 or for future years.
Now, if I may, I will address myself, Mr. President, to the pending amendment specifically.
Mr. President, as an attachment to my remarks, I ask unanimous consent that there be printed in the RECORD at this point a table showing the status of the veterans' functions for entitlements funded in annual appropriations acts for fiscal years 1980-82.
There being no objection, the table was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[Table omitted]
Mr. MUSKIE. The table shows that in fiscal year 1981, the first year in which the pending amendment would apply fully, there is only $21 million in budget authority and $16 million in outlays remaining. There is only that much room for any additional spending authority.
In fiscal year 1982 there is only $18 million in budget authority and $13 million in outlays. The Cranston amendment for those 2 years would draw down $376 million in budget authority for fiscal year 1981 against the available $21 million and $366 million in outlays against the available $16 million. In fiscal year 1982, it would draw down $422 million in budget authority as against the available $18 million, and $430 million in outlays as against the available $13 million.
I remind the Senate of what I said just a few moments ago — that when we adopted the first and second budget resolutions for this year and implemented the mandate of the Congress — we established ceilings not only for fiscal year 1980, but for 1981 and 1982 as well. I take it that the Veterans' Affairs Committee reassures itself about this amendment because it is within the fiscal 1980 crosswalk. However, we have an obligation under our own budget resolution to also maintain discipline for fiscal years 1981 and 1982.
Because of the figures which I have just stated politically may I assure the Senate that the most comfortable stance for me to take would be to sit silent on this amendment, and just gently roll over and play dead. I have an idea where the political clout on this issue is in this body.
However, Mr. President, it is precisely because of these figures that I must rise in opposition to the Cranston amendment. Although passage of this amendment would not, as the distinguished floor manager has pointed out, violate the fiscal year 1980 crosswalk for the Veterans' Affairs Committee under the second budget resolution, it would exceed the congressional budget for veterans' benefits and services by $0.4 billion in budget authority and outlays in both fiscal years 1981 and 1982. The table which I have put into the RECORD displays this.
Mr. President, I do not yield to anybody in my support for veterans and their efforts to successfully readjust to civilian life, and my record discloses it. That is why I intend to support the reported bill. But if we are ever to curb the inflation that is crippling all Americans, Mr. President, including veterans — maybe especially veterans to the extent that they are on fixed incomes — we must stay within the budgetary limits that we have set for ourselves, not just for this fiscal year, but for future years as well.
Mr. President, the prospects for the fiscal 1981 budget are not promising. The President will send his 1981 budget to the Congress next week, and if the advance indications are correct, he will be proposing a deficit of $15 billion or more. That is disquieting news which we cannot ignore.
But again let me point out that near the end of the last session, we set in place a congressional budget plan to guide us over the next 3 years. This amendment asks the Senate to ignore that plan.
I do not argue that the budget plan for fiscal years 1981 and 1982 is set in stone — that it cannot be touched. But we cannot toss out the orderly procedures we have established for considering budget priorities.
Mr. President, every Senator has a channel for pursuing a GI bill cost-of-living increase for fiscal year 1981 within the budget process. Each Senator can try to persuade the Congress that such an increase is of sufficiently high priority that it should be included in the budget plan.
But this amendment would ignore the budgetary process. By bringing it up now, the sponsor of this amendment is asking that his program be given special consideration apart from all other programs. He is asking the Senate to treat one program — the GI bill program — outside the discipline of the budget process. Considering such amendments now will foreclose our options and bring a $15 billion deficit in 1981 closer to reality.
I reject that proposition and urge all other Senators to reject it as well.
To vote for this amendment is to vote against budget discipline. Any Senator who holds himself out to be an advocate of fiscal restraint cannot logically bring himself to ask for this amendment.
Mr. President, I brought these considerations to the attention of the floor manager and his staff and they argued that there is no crosswalk for fiscal years 1981 and 1982 at this time, no appropriations bills for those years have yet been passed, and how is it possible to breach fiscal year 1981 and 1982 ceilings?
Mr. President, that is the most cynical view of the meaning of the second budget resolution with respect to 1981 and 1982 that I can imagine. If the numbers in that budget resolution have no control whatsoever over the actions we take with respect to potential spending in those two years, why did we bother to include them in those budget resolutions?
The crosswalks are made in the year in which the actual budget resolutions for the year are adopted. But as the Senator knows, we build the 1981-82 budgets on the basis of projections which flow out of what we authorize in fiscal year 1980. So let me state some of the assumptions which go into the conclusions reflected in the table which I put into the RECORD earlier.
That table assumes that the disability compensation program — which is subject to congressional discretion — will not be held sufficiently below inflation in 1981 and 1982 to offset the cost of the Cranston amendment. This is a fair assumption.
But is Senator CRANSTON prepared to tell us that he would support such action to hold those cost-of-living increases below what was assumed in the budget resolution for 1981 and 1982 in order to fund his current amendment? I doubt that he is willing to make that commitment.
Second, it is assumed that additional legislative savings in other programs will not be achieved in sufficient magnitude to make room for this increase. I am talking about other veterans' programs.
Consider, for example, what is being done in the pending bill with respect to the flight training program and correspondence school benefits, which are obviously low priority and a place to make savings. If those were difficult sayings to make for the purpose of helping fund this 15-percent cost-of-living increase, what in heaven's name are the other legislative savings which could be used to fund this cost-of-living increase?
Third, Mr. President, it is unlikely that the actual inflation rate for fiscal year 1981 and 1982 will not be sufficiently below the projected inflation rate to reduce the cost-of-living increases in the compensation and pension programs by enough to offset the cost of the Cranston amendment. I would be interested in hearing that assumption challenged. It is an assumption that the Budget Committee staff and CBO have the responsibility for making in accordance with their best judgment.
If inflation, for example, is a full 1 percent lower in both fiscal year 1981 and 1982 than currently projected, the cost of the compensation and pension programs will be reduced by only $0.1 billion in each year. That $0.1 billion is only a fourth of the annual cost of the pending amendment. So we would have to project an inflation rate 4-percent lower than the currently projected inflation rate for 1981 and 1982 in order to recover sufficient funds to support the pending Cranston amendment.
Mr. President, I submit that this is not an arbitrary analysis. It is a responsible analysis, one that I think is consistent with the quality of performance by the Budget Committee staff and CEO over the years. What I am saying with complete conviction is that this pending amendment will break the ceilings the budget resolution sets for fiscal years 1981 and 1982. Senators can rationalize that conclusion away in any way they see fit, but I would be willing to bet a dollar to a doughnut that this analysis will stand up in the light of events.
If we choose instead to indulge in ad hoc, wish-induced analyses of our own to justify a vote today, that is every Senator's prerogative. But that, Mr. President, is the way that Congress got into this whole budget mess over the last 50 years and over the first 15 years of my own Senate service. If that is the decision and the will of the Senate, I guess I shall have to live with it and accept it. However, such decisions will have a devastating impact on the budget process.
Mr. DOMENICI. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes, I yield to my good friend from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. I know how difficult it is for the Senator to make the remarks he just made with reference to veterans and increases for them, because, obviously, in his past legislative history, he is proud of having been on the side of the veteran at every opportunity that he could have been. I know that.
But I want to ask a specific question about the Senator's statement on inflation.
When the Senator said that even if we had 1 full percent reduction over the projected inflation rate, am I correct that even our projected inflation rates are already missing the point on the low side?
Mr. MUSKIE. I would think those that we projected in the second budget resolution may be on the low side in the light of events since then.
Mr. DOMENICI. It is my understanding that even those we have most current in our second concurrent resolution, and they were projected by the best experts we could get and then subjected to the legislative process in arriving at our concurrence, that they are already low.
I think if that is true, then what the Senator has just said is further exacerbated. Is that not correct?
Mr. MUSKIE. The Senator is absolutely right.
Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. CRANSTON addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mr. CRANSTON. Mr. President, I do not find persuasive the assertion of the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee that this body should not approve a cost-of-living increase in the GI bill because, with respect to fiscal years 1981 and 1982, it would cause the projections in section 4(b) of the second concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 1980 to be exceeded.
Mr. President, the fiscal year 1980 cost of the cost-of-living increase that I have proposed is within the appropriate crosswalk allocation made by the Committee on Veterans' Affairs for fiscal year 1980 under the second concurrent resolution; and fiscal year 1980 is the only fiscal year with respect to which that resolution has any effect under the terms of the Budget Act.
I support the Budget Act. I participated in its writing. I served under the distinguished leadership of the chairman, the Senator from Maine, on that committee. I have great admiration for the Senator from Maine and for his outstanding work on that committee, and for the budget process.
I believe this amendment is consistent with that act's provisions.
However, Mr. President, the outyear figures set forth in the fiscal year 1980 second concurrent resolution are not in any way binding as to other years; the outyear figures are simply projections that have some usefulness as rough measures for planning purposes. They have no standing under the Budget Act.
Indeed, even on the face of section 4 of the second concurrent resolution for fiscal year 1980, the outyear numbers indicate "appropriate" levels for major functional categories based on government wide "recommended" budgetary levels for fiscal years 1981 and 1982.
These recommended outyear levels include no mission or sub-functional breakdowns. Thus, Mr. President, since function 700, veterans' benefits and services, consists of a combination of so-called entitlement accounts and appropriations accounts, it is not even possible to determine whether this cost-of-living increase in GI bill benefits would cause the projected function 700 outyear totals to be exceeded unless and until we know how much the Congress appropriates for the function 700 appropriations accounts in fiscal years 1981 and 1982. I do not know what these amounts will be; nor does anyone else. Thus, it simply cannot be said that my amendment would cause the projections to be exceeded.
Incidentally, it is not my amendment alone. There are other cosponsors. I now add three more: The distinguished Senator from Wyoming (Mr. SIMPSON) , the distinguished Senator from South Carolina (Mr. THURMOND) , and the distinguished Senator from Kansas (Mr. DOLE).
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent they be added as cosponsors.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CRANSTON. Mr. President, it may be that the Budget Committee chairman has in mind some specific figures for each function 700 program and account for fiscal years 1981 and 1982, but those figures are not in the second resolution. They were not considered by the Senate; there was no debate or deliberation on them.
I suspect that the Senator from Maine wishes that the Budget Act did provide for binding effect for so-called outyear projections and for the allocation of such projections by sub-functional categories — but the act does not so provide.
Nevertheless, Mr. President, I would point out that the outyear cost savings resulting from enactment of the bill as reported would yield very substantial savings — the first 5-year cost savings totaling an estimated $119.8 million — which would offset in part the outyear costs of the cost-of-living increase.
Mr. MUSKIE. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. CRANSTON. Certainly.
Mr. MUSKIE. With respect to 1980, there are no sub-functional numbers in the budget resolution. The functional totals exist for 1980, 1981, and 1982 in the second budget resolution. No more, no less.
So the argument the Senator is making is a non-argument.
With respect to the 1980 numbers, they are based on assumptions.
The Senator, who was a member of the Budget Committee from its beginning until last year, knows we make assumptions based upon current programs.
I have already given him some of the assumptions made with respect to 1981 and 1982, the same kind we made with respect to 1980. And the word "appropriate" is used with respect to the 1980 numbers, as well.
They are appropriate numbers because we do not undertake to dictate to authorizing committees and the appropriation committees how the functional totals will be built up.
But to say that we have no basis upon which to implement the will of the Senate as expressed last year is to say that the 1981 and 1982 figures are totally meaningless. What I understood the Senate to be saying last spring when it mandated the Budget Committee to produce a budget that would be in balance in either 1981 or 1982 was that we should produce realistic numbers that would make it possible.
Now the Senator tells me that was a meaningless exercise? If that is meaningless, the whole exercise is meaningless, I say to the Senator.
I will not belabor the point. I think I covered it in my opening on this amendment. But I simply wanted to correct the notion that the numbers in the resolution in respect to 1981 and 1982 are different in nature than those for 1980.
It is true that we do not have the disciplinary powers with respect to 1981 and 1982 that we have with respect to fiscal 1980. There are no points of order we can raise.
But to say that only until we get a point of order can we do anything about restraining spending in 1981 or 1982 is, again, a cynical reaction.
If we really committed ourselves to a balanced budget in 1981 last year, is the Senator saying that notwithstanding that commitment we can add billions to any function for that year and not be backing down on our commitment?
That is not my view of it. But it may be his.
Mr. ROBERT C. BYRD. Mr. President, my understanding is that the vote will occur shortly. It may run a little beyond 6 p.m., and Mr. HEINZ wanted to be protected. So I ask unanimous consent—
Mr. CRANSTON. May. I make a suggestion?
Mr. ROBERT C. BYRD. Yes.
Mr. CRANSTON. That if a tabling motion is offered on the pending amendment, the Heinz amendment be laid down following that, as the order of business for tomorrow — as an amendment to the amendment.
Mr. ROBERT C. BYRD. Whether the motion to table carries or does not, that Mr. HEINZ be recognized to call up his amendment, after which the Senate stand in recess, under the previous order, until 8:30 this evening.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Chair hears none, and it is so ordered.
Mr. CRANSTON. Mr. President, in response to the question from the distinguished Senator from Maine, I point out that, unfortunately, he did not hear some remarks that I made about him earlier and about the budget process and my desire to work with him and the great work he has done.
Mr. MUSKIE. I did hear those remarks, but I have trained myself not to yield to flattery but to do my job. I take it that the Senator will continue to be flattering if I continue to do my job.