Volume 142, No. 1 covering the 2nd 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.
“TWO SIMPLE STEPS TO BALANCING THE BUDGET IN 7 YEARS” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the Senate section on pages S21-S22 on Jan. 3, 1996.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
TWO SIMPLE STEPS TO BALANCING THE BUDGET IN 7 YEARS
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, the shutdown of the U.S. Government is becoming a crisis. A recent article in the New York Times carried this headline: ``Judge Says Budget Impasse Could Shut Nation's Courts.'' The article reported that:
A senior judge who represents the policymaking board of the Federal judiciary today warned that the budget stalemate might force the nation's courts to shut down shortly after New Year's Day.
Mr. President, this is unthinkable. It is time to settle, and a settlement ought to be within reach. Here are two simple steps that I propose be taken immediately to break the stalemate and balance the Federal budget in 7 years:
First, drop the tax cut; and second, a 1-percentage point correction in the Consumer Price Index.
Under the President's December 1995 budget as scored by CBO, these two steps get you to a balanced budget in the year 2002. It's as simple as that, It's doable and ought to be done, and it ought to be done now.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a table entitled ``Two Simple Steps to Balancing the Budget in Seven Years,'' and the article from the New York Times of December 23, be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
TWO SIMPLE STEPS TO BALANCING THE BUDGET IN 7 YEARS
[By fiscal year, in billions of dollars]
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1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
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Deficit under administration's proposal as estimated by CBO................................ 148 162 155 148 145 130 115
Drop Tax Cut..................................... -3 -13 -14 -16 -22 -24 -25
CPI minus one percentage point................... -5 -15 -26 -37 -51 -66 -82
Additional savings on debt service............... ....... -1 -1 -2 -3 -4 -6
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Deficit Disappears........................... 140 133 114 93 69 36 2
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Compiled by Senate Finance Committee Democratic staff from CBO estimates.
January 2, 1996.
Judge Says Budget Impasse Could Shut Nation's Courts
(By Robert D. Hershey, Jr.)
Washington, December 22.--A senior judge who represents the policy-making board of the Federal judiciary today warned that the budget stalemate might force the nation's courts to shut down shortly after New Year's Day.
Gilbert S. Merritt, the chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, said in an interview that ``a breakdown in constitutional order'' could occur if money was not authorized soon.
His warning came as an additional 20,000 workers were ordered off the job today, bringing the total number of furloughed Federal workers to 280,000, about one in seven people on the Government's nonmilitary payroll. The partial shutdown reached its seventh day today, surpassing the six-day shutdown that involved 800,000 workers in mid-November and making it the longest on record.
The White House and Congress are trading accusations over who is more to blame for the deadlock. The shutdown results from their inability to agree on several spending bills needed to finance Government operations in the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1. Meanwhile, they are also arguing about legislation to balance the Federal budget by the year 2002.
The White House has issued a six-page list of Government functions suspended by the budget deadlock, ranging from granting farmers special permission to use restricted pesticides on crops to the reimbursement of banks for Government-guaranteed loans that have defaulted.
Judge Merritt's warning came in a separate statement. The 840 Federal judges would remain available for work, he said, but it is unlikely that the courts would continue to be staffed by clerical, probation and security personnel.
``The judges cannot run the court system alone,'' said Judge Merritt, who sits in Nashville. ``And if the judiciary shuts down, you can't arrest people for Federal crimes because you can't bring them to court.''
Republicans said the White House was to blame for the problems. ``President Clinton shut down the Government,'' said Michele Davis, spokeswoman for Representative Dick Armey of Texas, the House majority leader. ``He vetoed three bills last week that would have reopened'' national parks, museums and monuments, and restored the missing services, she added.
The shutdown of the national parks forced the cancellation today of the first of the annual Bracebridge dinners at Yosemite National Park in California. Bracebridge, an Ahwahnee Hotel tradition since 1927, recreates a Renaissance feast and includes an eight-course meal.
About 1,650 guests, picked by lottery from among 60,000 requests, were turned away after park rangers closed the gates to Yosemite on Wednesday.
Although the Clinton Administration cited various aspects of law enforcement among its examples of lapsed activity, it did not mention the threat Judge Merritt found to the judiciary.
``If this goes into the first week in January, we are going to have a serious problem,'' the judge said in the interview. He spoke as the chairman of the steering committee of the Judicial Conference, the policy-making body of Federal judges.
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist has long urged Congress to consider a separate financing bill for the judiciary, but there has been no response so far, the judge said. The judiciary is now running on funds it gets from fees, which are not allocated to any specific year's budget and which it is allowed to spend on its own. But this money will soon run out, Judge Merritt said.
The White House list included such highly visible examples of service loss as 23,000 passport applications not being accepted on the average day, 383,000 daily visitors affected by the closing of the national parks and 92,400 people in Washington denied admittance to the Smithsonian museums, the National Zoo and the National Gallery of Art.
Among other effects of the shutdown on the list were these:
Suspension of activity involving sales of timber from national forests.
No processing by the Federal Housing Administration of 2,500 home purchase loans and refinancing.
Suspension of civil enforcement actions by the Environmental Protection Agency, except for Superfund cases, that yield an average of $3 million a day in fines or injunctive relief against polluters.
No processing of 20,000 applications a day for student loans or Pell grants.
Blockage of more than $92 million a day in foreign sales because of the closure of the center that licenses exports of military items and sensitive technology.
In a related development, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said that publication of the Producer Price Index and the Consumer Price Index, scheduled for Jan. 11 and Jan. 12, respectively, would be delayed about a week even if furloughed employees returned to work by Tuesday. And employment figures for December scheduled to be made public on Jan. 5, will be delayed if workers do not return by Tuesday.
``The absence of this information potentially could create a degree of short-term paralysis in decision making with resulting long-term adverse effects on the nation's economic well-being,''' said Commissioner Katharine G. Abraham. ``For example, companies could delay investment or hiring decisions, causing a decline in output and national income.''
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