Volume 141, No. 185 covering the 1st Session of the 104th Congress (1995 - 1996) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“BALANCED BUDGETS” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the Senate section on pages S17478-S17479 on Nov. 19, 1995.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
BALANCED BUDGETS
Mr. REID. Mr. President, people in the audience, people in the State of Nevada, people all over this country, are wondering what this is all about.
Kevin Phillips, who is a Republican, did a piece on public radio this week that I think fairly well illustrates what the problems are between those on that side of the aisle and those of us over here, when he said:
If the budget deficit were really a national crisis instead of a pretext for fiscal favoritism and finagling, we'd be talking about shared sacrifice with business, Wall Street, and the rich, the people who have the big money making the biggest sacrifice. Instead, it's senior citizens, the poor, the students, and ordinary Americans who will see programs they depend on gutted while business, finance, and the richest 1 or 2 percent, far from making sacrifice, actually get new benefits in tax reductions.
Mr. President, this is what it is all about. This is extremely inconvenient, extremely difficult for everyone in the country, especially States like Nevada where there is such a huge Federal presence, national parks, large recreation areas, the busiest recreation area in America, the biggest entity of the Park System. I should not say the largest--the most heavily visited in the entire Park System, Lake Mead Recreation Area. Almost 10 million people visit there each year, almost a million a month. They cannot get there. It is locked up.
A lot of sacrifices. But the principle, Mr. President, is important, as indicated by a Republican, Kevin Philips, when he said what is being done by the Republicans is something to benefit the rich, those people of position, and hurting the middle class and the poor. That says it all.
Mr. President, why are we in this situation we are in today? I see my friend from the State of California, the mayor previously of one of the most famous cities in America, the city of San Francisco, someone who recognizes crisis because she was thrown into the mayorship as a result of an assassination, an American who has spent her life trying to balance budgets, who has come to Congress and the Senate, talking about money, someone who has struggled with how to vote on these issues--
because I have spent time with her--and who recognized she would not balance the budget on the back of senior citizens by virtue of her vote, earlier, when we excluded from the balanced budget amendment, Social Security. These are tough decisions, tough decisions for people who strongly believe in a balanced budget.
I resent, Mr. President, because it is not factual, that people on the other side of the aisle say those of us here do not believe in a balanced budget. I point to my friend from California as someone who has lived for balancing budgets.
Yesterday, when I was on this floor, I was between the two Senators from the State of Nebraska, former Governors, the former chairman of the Budget Committee, Jim Exon, and the former Governor of Nebraska, Bob Kerrey, chairman of the Entitlement Commission. In a dialog they indicated how they had worked over their political lives for a balanced budget.
No, Mr. President, the balanced budget is not something that the Republicans hold the prize on. We have as many on this side of the aisle who have spent their entire lives talking about balanced budgets.
This is not a battle over a balanced budget. We all acknowledge there should be a balanced budget. It is a question of priorities. We all believe there should be a balanced budget. This Senator from Nevada believes there should be a balanced budget. But I, along with the Senator from California, did not feel it should be done using Social Security proceeds. I, like Kevin Phillips, Republican political analyst, do not believe the sacrifices should be made ``by senior citizens, the poor, students, ordinary Americans who will see programs they depend on gutted, while business, finance, and the richest one or two percent, far from making sacrifices, actually get new benefits and tax reductions.'' This is not a Democrat who wrote this for a Democratic magazine. This is a Republican who gave an honest analysis on National Public Radio.
Why are we here? We are here because the Republican majorities in the House and the Senate have not passed the appropriations bills. It is as simple as that.
We could spend a lot of time discussing how is the best way to balance the budget, and I think it is appropriate that we do that. But we should do it in the context of real legislation, not contrived crises that we see develop here. If the appropriations bills had been passed on time, we would all be home today with our families.
We all have stories to tell. I will have my five children together for the first time in a long time, Thanksgiving. They are all now gathering in Nevada without the patriarch of the family. But that is OK, because I believe what we are doing here is important and I believe my five children also believe what I am doing here today is important, because what we are doing is a matter of principle.
People have called my office. They want this thing resolved. I do not blame them. They do not identify themselves as Democrats or Republicans. They are average Americans whose greatest expectation of Government is it operate to serve people's interests. They are the kind of people who pay their taxes, play by the rules, and vote for the person and not the party. They want to know why this standoff is occurring, and I have explained why the standoff is occurring. It would be easy for all of us to fold our tents. I would go home to Nevada to my five children and everybody would disperse throughout the United States, but it is not that easy.
We are stuck at an impasse because the bills that finance Government were simply not passed on time. Under the congressional budget process, the House Appropriations Committee is supposed to finish the last annual appropriations bill by June 10. Is it not interesting, we have 13 appropriations bills and none of them were finished on time. Commerce, State, and Justice, July 19, 6 weeks late; DC appropriations, October 19, 4 months late; Labor-HHS, July 24, 7 weeks late; Defense, July 25--on and on, and, simply, they could not do it. The Senate then had to follow suit. We did the best we could.
I have to hand it to the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, the senior Senator from Oregon, a fine, fair chairman who has done the best he can under very difficult circumstances.
There is no excuse for these bills not having passed. But I think it was part of a contrived program, established by the leaders in the House. I do not make this up. Why were these annual appropriations bills not passed on time? Because stuck inside most of these bills are controversial legislative proposals that otherwise would not be passed. Abortion, in many of the appropriations bills, has simply drawn them to a grinding halt.
Wiping out environmental protection--one bill had 17 environmental riders to, in effect, wipe out the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to protect clean air, clean water. They stuck in things like grazing.
I am a western Senator and I have fought the good fight on grazing for many years. There is a time and a place for grazing. It should be in authorizing legislation, not on appropriations bills. The same as mining, same as drilling in ANWR, same as clear-cutting of trees in various parts of this country. Why do we not do these in the ordinary, regular procession of authorizing regulation? Why in appropriations bills?
Many of these appropriations bills read more like legislative wish lists. The majority knew these bills must be signed into law to keep the Government operating, and they viewed these bills from a gambler's perspective. They gambled, notwithstanding controversial legislation that they could not get passed in the ordinary process, that the President would sign them anyway.
They were wrong. Even if the President refused and the Government were to shut down, they would use the shutdown as a weapon, and that is what they have done. They would force the President to sign legislation that the majority of the American public opposed for the sake of keeping the Government operating. This was apparent as far back as April.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is advised, at his request he was to be reminded when he had 1 minute remaining.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to have 4 more minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. In April, House Speaker Newt Gingrich vowed to create a titanic standoff for President Clinton by adding vetoed bills to must-
pass legislation increasing the national debt. This was reported in a number of places, including the Washington Times, on April 30. He boasted that ``the President will veto a number of things and we will put them all in the debt ceiling, and then he will decide how big of a crisis he wants.'' Again, this is a quote from Speaker Gingrich.
We learned, a couple of days ago, why the Speaker is allowing this standoff to continue and why, even from his own perspective, it is tougher than it would have been ordinarily. Do you know why? Because he had to leave Air Force One from a door that he did not feel was appropriate, and the President did not spend enough time with him on the airplane. This is going to the funeral of an assassinated Prime Minister of the State of Israel.
In the Washington Post, the Speaker is quoted as saying, because the President did not speak with him on the flight to Israel for Prime Minister Rabin's funeral, ``that is part of the reason why you ended up with us sending down a tougher interim spending bill.'' The Speaker is also quoted as saying, ``It is petty, but I think it is human.''
I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that it is not human; it is just plain petty.
Let us talk about some facts. Fact No. 1: Speaker Gingrich said, as early as April, that a Government shutdown and default were political tools he was likely to use as a lever to push his extreme agenda. That is a fact.
Fact No. 2: There are 12 appropriations bills necessary to fund the Government. Since this Government has been in session starting last January, the majority has simply failed to do this, and that is why we have the crisis we have today.
Fact: President Clinton favored a balanced budget and is fighting for one. The fight is over how to get there. The Republicans want to do it on the backs of seniors, the poor, students, and ordinary citizens. The Republicans want to do it in their own way.
We have now an economy that is great. We have the lowest inflation, the lowest unemployment in 50 years. We have the third year in a row where we have had declining deficits--certainly not enough, but the third year in a row for the first time in 50 years. We have 175,000 fewer Federal employees than we had 2\1/2\ years ago, the highest economic growth since the days of Johnson, the highest corporate profits in the history of the country. Why? Because the Democrats, a couple of years ago, passed a budget that cut $500 billion from the deficit. That is why the economy is so good.
Do you know we did not get a single Republican to vote with us? The Vice President had to come and break the tie.
Fact: Recent polling shows Americans do not want the extreme agenda pushed by the radical right in the GOP. That is why the Speaker is using the Government shutdown and the threat of default as a way to blackmail this Congress and this President.
Final fact: Since the Republicans cannot pass their ideologically extreme agenda through normal legislative channels, they are trying to force the President to agree to their demands to shut the Government down. That is not how the system should work.
Mr. President, the crisis has been planned by Professor Gingrich. He knows how crises develop. He has studied it. We have one here. It is all of his own doing, and I say, people of good will, both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, should stand up and say that is not the way to run a government.
Legislation is the art of compromise, and we should work this out. We all agree on a balanced budget. It is a question of priorities. Let us fight out the priorities on the floor of the Senate and the floor of the House the way we have done it for 200 years.
Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized.
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