February 4, 1980
Page 1666
Mr. STENNIS. Mr. President, I have stated this already, but historically, the point here about the comparability pay between the civilian employees and the people in military uniform, was a bone of contention here for a long time. It was debated year after year, then held in abeyance a while, and then it would come back.
I remember how well satisfied all were, all of these employees, that there was comparability now. It was considered an achievement for the civilians and the military. One point was that, frankly, that would combine the power and push together for increases, which is part of our system, and I am not complaining about that.
But I use it as background to point this out, that just as certain as night follows day, if we pass the Armstrong amendment we are just ringing the bells of the civilian people and saying, "Come on, knock on the door, let us hear from you by mail, by air mail, every way, and get your organization together," because there will be a demand that will have some validity and some practical purposes. It will be a very effective weapon.
We will be confronted with — the best estimate I get is $1.5 billion for that purpose — $1.5 billion for a comparable increase for the civilian employees. That, added to the cost of the Armstrong amendment, which is most of the money it takes, would run it to well over $2 billion per year without any problem being solved.
That is the main point, if we are really going to dig deep and get the reason and comparison and make adjustments, according to the rules of proper consideration and comparability, instead of creating an upheaval here. If we really want to do the fair and just thing, we are going to have to have those hearings I have already mentioned. This is not an effort to put this matter off.
I believe in getting them solved, if possible, and getting rid of them one way or another, doing something about them. We might as well get ready. We had better fasten our seatbelts and put on our helmets, because we certainly are going to have trouble along this line. I want the Senator from Colorado to be on my side when it comes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. ARMSTRONG. Mr. President, in a moment I will yield to the Senator from Oklahoma.
I tell the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee that I always am going to be on his side, whether we agree on the pending amendment, or any particular amendment, or not. I always will be on his side.
I note with pleasure that the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. BELLMON) has come to the floor, and I am pleased to yield him 5 minutes.
Mr. BELLMON. I thank the Senator from Colorado.
Mr. President, I strongly support the Armstrong-Matsunaga amendment. As one of the original backers of the volunteer concept, I am embarrassed and ashamed to realize how far Congress has allowed that basic premise to erode.
The idea behind the volunteer service was that pay and allowances in the military would be made and kept comparable to earnings in the private sector so that those who chose careers in the military service of their country would not do so at severe economic sacrifice.
In our zeal to hold down the Federal deficit in the fight against inflation, we have, unwisely, I now believe, chosen to place one pay cap after another upon military salaries. The result has been that over the last 8 years, military pay has fallen behind the rate of inflation by 20 to 24 percent.
What this means is that a young person who chooses a military career does so with the full knowledge that the income received will be roughly one-fourth less than that of peers who take jobs in the private sector.
Mr. President, this is a complete violation of the volunteer concept. When those who now wish to go back to conscription point to the difficulty the military is having in recruiting needed personnel, they fail to take this serious income discrepancy into account.
Mr. President, I still believe that defense of our country is important enough that the citizens of the United States are willing to pay members of our military service salaries comparable to those in the private sector. I further believe that it is a serious abuse of the Government's police power to force young people into the military against their will during peacetime.
In addition, I seriously doubt that the manpower needs of our defense can be satisfactorily met through military conscription. As a marine veteran of World War II, I cannot imagine the difficulties unit commanders have in building effective combat units from draftees who are in uniform against their will and who have circled the calendar in red showing the date of their release from active duty and who have utterly no interest in making a career in the military.
The needs of a modern defense force for trained, skilled, technologically competent, highly motivated manpower is far greater now than it was in World War II. In my opinion there is no way those needs can be met in peacetime through conscription. While it is true in the short run that manpower will cost more if the volunteer concept is followed, it is equally true that in the long run costs will be less and proficiency will be higher if the services can succeed in attracting the number and the quality of personnel our defense requires through the volunteer concept.
Since the Russian invasion of Afghanistan a kind of war psychosis seems to have sprung up in our country. There is danger that this feeling may shade the decisions this body will make in ways that are temporarily appealing but which are devastating to our future strength and stability. I am fearful that conscription may prove to be one of these decisions.
It is for this reason that I am determined to help make the volunteer concept work. I feel an important first step is to begin to repair the damage which our past decisions have caused to the military pay structure. It is for that reason that I am supporting the Armstrong-Matsunaga amendment and intend to support other efforts to bring military pay comparability at least to where it was when the volunteer concept was adopted.
In supporting this amendment, I am fully aware that we are imposing additional pressure on a defense spending ceiling already seriously threatened by supplementals and inflation. However, I note that there are at least two ways to compensate for the $0.5 billion estimated cost of the Armstrong amendment. The administration assumes no absorption of the $2.9 billion pay raise supplemental requested by the President. If Congress requires 25 percent absorption, there is an approximately $0.7 billion savings which would offset the cost of the Armstrong amendment.
Alternatively, the Congress could continue to refuse the DQD the $0.8 billion which is now being requested as a supplemental. In supporting either the Nunn or the Armstrong pay amendments, I caution the Senate to appreciate the budget implications of such a decision. This increase, however worthy, will require compensating budget discipline in order to maintain the viability of the defense spending ceiling. I trust that all Senators will join later in insuring this discipline.
So I am happy to join the Senator from Colorado in his amendment, and I thank him for yielding me this time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I direct a question to the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma.
During the course of the deliberations by the Senate Armed Services Committee, the thought of increasing the pay was viewed in the context of the question of whether or not pay should be decoupled for the military from the civilian. Many of us felt that it was such an important issue that it should be considered separately by the appropriate committee of the Senate and then debated by the Senate as a whole.
If the Armstrong proposal were to be voted upon favorably by the Senate today, we would have established a prejudicial precedent to the effect that the Senate has indicated that it is on record that civilian and military pay should be decoupled.
Will the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma address that issue?
Mr. BELLMON. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield me a couple of minutes, I will do my best to respond.
Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, if the Senator could get some time from the other side, it would help. We are running short on our time.
Senator MATSUNAGA has permission, under the unanimous-consent agreement, to yield time.
Mr. MATSUNAGA. The Senator from Colorado is in the Chamber.
Mr. BELLMON. Mr. President, do I have time remaining from the 5 minutes I had?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. ARMSTRONG. I yield the Senator from Oklahoma 1 additional minute.
Mr. BELLMON. Mr. President, I readily agree that there should be no coupling of military pay raises and civilian pay raises.
The fact is that in the civilian Government services, pay increases come in various ways. There are cost-of-living increases. There are step increases or merit increases. I think one will find that in the civilian civil service, pay has kept up more with inflation than is true in the military.
In addition, so far as I can tell, and based on the number of applications our office receives for Government jobs, there is no problem recruiting people for civilian Government service.
Therefore, I feel that we should look where the needs are, and the needs obviously are in the military, because we are not able to get the personnel we need for the defense of our country.
Mr. WARNER. The Senator is quite correct in his observation about meeting needs. But the Secretary of Defense, the Deputy Secretary, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the service chiefs all say that dollars — whatever dollars we can make available — are needed to help the career force, to stop this flow of persons from the career force.
It was for that reason that the Senate Armed Services Committee, in its wisdom, and with its knowledge based on how to help this career situation, decided between the alternatives, favoring the Nunn-Warner approach, as opposed to the Armstrong approach, thereby avoiding a prejudicial precedent with respect to the decoupling of civilian and military pay.
Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, if the Senator from Maine desires the floor, I will be glad to yield him 15 minutes on the bill.
Mr. MUSKIE. I will need only 5 minutes.
Mr. NUNN. I yield the Senator from Maine 5 minutes on the bill.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I make it clear at the outset that, on strictly budget grounds, I will vote against whichever of the two proposals survives in the preliminary voting.
I will start my discussion of the pending measures by giving a preliminary status report on the fiscal year 1980 budget situation which I would like to share with the Senate.
I emphasize that this is a preliminary report. Congress has yet to act on the major spring supplemental appropriation bill, and the Congressional Budget Office has not yet completed its reestimate of the budget totals taking account of the latest economic forecast and the new technical program information in the President's budget. Thus the numbers could change somewhat.
But the basic message is clear, and whatever uncertainties there are in the numbers will not change it: The spending totals may well exceed the second budget resolution ceilings by large amounts.
Taking account of Senate action to date, possible supplementals, and the CBO reestimate now under way, budget authority could be as high as $649 billion, or $11 billion above the second budget resolution ceiling. Outlays could be as high as $565 billion, or $17 billion above the resolution. These estimates do not include proposals the Senate is considering at this time.
The estimate of revenues is dependent on the outcome of the windfall profit tax legislation now in conference. But there seems little prospect that revenues will rise above $518 billion, which is about the level of the second budget resolution.
Thus the deficit could be as high as $47 billion, or $17 billion above the second budget resolution.
Mr. President, with a deficit of that level facing us — if there is only one Senator who votes against any additional spending proposals that add to that deficit level — it must be the Senator from Maine as chairman of the Budget Committee. I do not know how else I can make the point, that however urgent a particular proposal may be which the Senate is considering, the urgency of budget discipline must be emphasiz and the urgency of holding the deficit down must be emphasized. Both of the proposals now before us will add to th deficit in this fiscal year, one to a greater extent than the other, as I will soon point out. Both of them will add to that deficit, and we are already talking about a possible $17 billion increase in th deficit since the second budget resolution was approved last fall.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous con sent to print at this point in the RECORD a table showing these amounts.
There being no objection, the table was ordered to be printed in the RECORD as follows:
[Table omitted]
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, this is not a pleasant picture, and the possible spending overages should give each Senator cause for concern. We will need to assess carefully each supplemental request that comes before us to see if it is urgently needed or indeed if it is required at all. We will also need to take a hard look at amounts we have already enacted to see if possible savings through rescission can be made.
Through such efforts, we may be able to hold the spending totals to lesser amounts than I have cited. We must leave no stone unturned in our efforts to hold the budget to the minimum possible levels consistent with meeting high priority national needs. Thus far we have achieved very few of the savings mandated first by the Senate and then assumed by the entire Congress in the second budget resolution. Faced with the new status information, let us now see if we can do better.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the RECORD at this point a table showing the major elements of the spending totals as we now see them.
There being no objection, the table was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[Table omitted]
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, may I remind the Senate of three votes in the last 10 days, where we faced the question of achieving savings and we refused to achieve them or we refused to make cuts when we had the chance. The last of these opportunities was on disability legislation that came out of the Finance Committee. We were committed to make savings on disability legislation in the first and second budget resolutions, and yet this Senate overwhelmingly rejected those savings. We wiped them out, and increased the cost above the budget on legislation which was designed to achieve savings.
Mr. President, I recognize that there is need to improve the enlistment and re-enlistment rates in our Armed Forces.
I do not have to remind my colleagues that this recognition comes at a time when world tension — both economic and military — is increasing.
I agree that action must be taken to minimize our manpower problems. There are two basic questions that must be asked as we reach a decision on this issue.
The first question is, Does the proposed solution resolve the issues that create the retention problem?
The second is, Can we afford it?
Regarding the first question, two basic solutions have been suggested. One is Senator ARMSTRONG's proposal that provides an across-the-board pay raise of 3.4 percent for military personnel. The other solution is offered by Senators NUNN and WARNER and it provides pay raises aimed at selective ranks where retention is a significant problem. The Nunn proposal also provides incentives such as bonus pay for critical skills and increased allowances to meet rising housing costs and increased change-of-station moving costs.
The Nunn proposal costs approximately $500 million in budget authority and outlays. The Armstrong proposal costs over $600 million and this could rise to an even higher figure as I will discuss shortly.
In examining the merits of these proposals, I think there are clear advantages to the Nunn approach compared to the Armstrong approach, although further study might improve even that approach.
The Nunn proposal is targeted to specific military manpower problems — the problems of a fair standard of pay for middle level enlisted and officer personnel who manage the forces and equipment in the field. It does this by basic pay or bonuses. This proposal goes one step further and addresses military housing problems in high-cost areas and it would bring moving allowances of the military up to Federal civilian levels.
The Armstrong proposal provides an across-the-board pay raise. In my opinion, it does not address the real problems of military personnel. It mainly pays more money to the highest officer levels. I ask unanimous consent that a table displaying that be printed in the RECORD at this point.
There being no objection, the table was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[Table omitted]
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, for instance, under the Armstrong proposal, a major general would receive an additional $125 a month. But a sergeant first class would receive only $28 a month. Now, how does such inequality resolve retention problems?
A further problem with the Armstrong across-the-board proposal is that it opens the door to claims for equality in pay for the total Federal civilian workforce. This is its hidden cost. If a 3.4-percent pay raise is extended to all civilian employees of the Department of Defense, the cost of the Armstrong proposal rises from $600 million to $1 billion. If it is extended to all Federal civilian employees, the cost of the Armstrong proposal goes to $1.5 billion. The targeting provisions of the Nunn proposal minimize the likelihood that this would happen.
Turning to the question of affordability, regardless of which approach seems reasonable for solving the problem, the fact is that either of these pay proposals, plus all other possible later requirements in the function, would likely breach the functional ceilings in the fiscal year 1980 second budget resolution. And there are no savings elsewhere that we can count on to hold the aggregate budget ceilings to the second budget resolution levels. Indeed, there are pressures on the rest of the budget that are as great as in the national defense category.
So, Mr. President, I find myself in a real predicament. Military manpower problems are real. They are significant. They are a No. 1 defense priority. But, the budget situation is critical. We cannot ignore it. I, as chairman of the Budget Committee, especially cannot ignore it.
Mr. President, we must determine our priorities among all the remaining potential items in the national defense function. Some are required. Others may not be — at least to the extent of the request by the President. I ask unanimous consent that a table showing the current status of the national defense function with a listing of all possible later requirements, including the impact of the Nunn and Armstrong proposals, be printed in the RECORD at this point.
There being no objection, the table was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[Table omitted]
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the Armstrong proposal costs twice as much as that of Nunn. I do not believe it can be absorbed within the function when examining all requirements.
Further, Mr. President, after an evaluation of all aspects of both the Nunn and Armstrong proposals, I find I cannot support either one, except that I will support Nunn in preference to Armstrong. Due to the pressures that the proposals create on the spending levels of the national defense function, and in view of the overall budget situation confronting us, the Senate should reject the proposals in order to maintain budget integrity.
Mr. President, I must state that Senators NUNN and WARNER have approached the manpower problem with reason. They have targeted a solution toward a very serious problem. I am hopeful the fiscal year 1981 defense budget will alleviate the serious problems of retention that face our Armed Forces. To achieve this goal, I hope that the Department of Defense will submit recommendations to the appropriate congressional committees in order to achieve such a result in the event that the Senate does not approve one of these proposals this afternoon.
But today, Mr. President, the No. 1 problem of the Nation is our economy. The situation is critical. The budget cannot absorb excessive spending proposals at this point.
So, for those reasons, principally on a budget basis, I will oppose final passage of either of these propositions, although I will vote for Nunn in preference to the Armstrong proposal. I will vote for Nunn/ Warner because I think they have targeted a solution to the growing crisis in our military forces, and because the potential budgetary impact is substantially less.
Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I yield myself 2 minutes on the bill to ask a question but, first, I want to say I thank my colleague for making the budgetary impact most apparent.
The $17.5 billion we may be over the budget and the budget resolution, has the Senator got any broad categories where that $17.5 billion in overages is?
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes. I can identify the specific causes of the overage.
The $17 billion is comprised of Senate action to date, possible supplementals and budget reestimates by the CBO. I repeat an earlier comment. The Nunn/ Armstrong proposals are not included in the $17 billion, so Members supporting Nunn are adding $500 million to the deficit — while Armstrong would add up to $1.5 billion to the deficit. Let me provide examples of the reestimates. These include items such as the cost of interest on the public debt and reestimates based on the grain embargo, and other similar factors. These items may vary. They may turn out less than I have assumed in the $17 billion figure, but I thought I had better get the outside dimensions of the problems facing us.
Now, with respect to the supplementals, the $17 billion assumes $2.8 billion or the full cost of military and DOD civilian pay raises. This total could be adjusted downward by the Appropriations Committee assuming absorption of the pay raise to some extent. But, as the Senator knows, absorption of the pay raise usually hits O. & M. and that is a particularly sensitive area right now.
In addition, the program supplemental of $800 million recently submitted by the President is assumed in those totals. The Appropriations Committee may well find it possible to reduce that item. So there is some possibility of reducing the $17 billion. But, I doubt that there is a possibility of reducing it by more than $3 billion — assuming the most optimistic estimates on the cost of the grain embargo and the most optimistic estimates of reducing some of the forthcoming military supplementals.
Mr. NUNN. I thank the Senator, and I yield the floor.