| No. 59 | March 26, 1998 |
S. Con. Res. 86 -- Concurrent
Budget Resolution, FY 1999
| No. 59 | March 26, 1998 |
S. Con. Res. 86 -- Concurrent
Budget Resolution, FY 1999
Calendar No. 330
Reported on March 20, 1998, as an original concurrent resolution by the Senate Budget Committee by a vote of 12 to 10. S. Rept. 105-170. Additional and minority views filed.
See attached listing of spending totals for FY98-2002, by function, provided by the Budget Committee.
Adhering to the Historic Balanced Budget Agreement
The FY 1999 Budget Resolution fulfills four years ahead of schedule the seven-year deficit-elimination policy set forth in the first session of the 104th Congress by the new majority. The federal budget will be balanced in 1998 and remains in balance through 2003.
As Congress' blueprint for federal spending, the budget resolution sets the binding limits on spending and revenue levels. For spending, the budget resolution allocates spending levels among committees of jurisdiction through the so-called 302(a) allocations, which are enforced by 60-vote Budget Act points of order. The budget resolution can direct the authorizing committees of jurisdiction to make changes in mandatory spending or revenues through reconciliation instructions; this generates a reconciliation bill that is considered under expedited procedures -- although this is not done this year.
The FY 1999 budget resolution continues the agreement reached last year between the congressional majority and the President on May 2, 1997. It marks the fourth consecutive balanced budget resolution that the Senate will have passed.
Although an agreement was reached last year between Congress and the President -- which resulted in two reconciliation bills embodying the agreement over budget and taxes being signed -- agreement has not marked the other years since 1995, when a new majority assumed control of Congress.
Because the President does not sign the budget resolution, there have been in past years significant discrepancies between the budgets Congress passed and what actually was enacted into law. In 1996, the FY 1997 budget resolution provided for three reconciliation bills to be sent to the President, one by one, after he signed the preceding one. Congress only sent the first of these bills -- welfare and Medicaid reform -- which President Clinton vetoed. Congress was finally able to enact welfare reform when the President later signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996.
The FY 1996 process was even more torturous. The FY 1996 appropriations process was not completed until well into calendar year 1996 when President Clinton finally signed an omnibus appropriations bill, after having vetoed four appropriations bills and a continuing resolution the year before. The Balanced Budget Act of 1995, which incorporated the results of the FY 1996 reconciliation process, was also vetoed by President Clinton on December 6, 1995.
In fact, it took two years for the Administration simply to agree to the goal of a balanced budget in 2002 using objective CBO numbers. It was not until this year that the White House had ever submitted a budget that CBO was able to score as balanced without reservations.
Regretfully, the budget that the White House submitted this year did not adhere to last year's budget agreement: it violates the discretionary spending caps by $68 billion, adds $37 billion in new mandatory spending, and increases taxes and user fees (thus violating last year's net tax cut figure) by $100 billion. Furthermore, if Congress chose to follow the Administration's lead, it would be in violation of the Budget Act in several instances, in addition to violating last year's agreement.
It still remains to be determined, therefore, whether the Administration sees last year's budget comity as merely a one-year phenomenon.
The Democrat Alternatives: More Spending, More Taxes, and Less Surpluses
The President's budget adhered to neither last year's bipartisan budget agreement nor his own stated goals. According to CBO, President Clinton's FY 1999 budget violated the discretionary spending caps, which were extended through 2002 (along with the pay-go provisions), by $12 billion in FY 1999 and $68 billion over the 1999-2002 period (the discretionary caps expire after 2002) . By the Administration's own estimates, its budget included a net tax and user fee hike of $100 billion. Furthermore, according to CBO, it reduced projected surpluses by $43 billion over the period. This contradicts the President's own proposal from this year's State of the Union address that "we reserve 100 percent of the surplus -- that's every penny of any surplus -- until we have taken all the necessary measures to strengthen the Social Security system..." Overall, the Administration's budget would have increased mandatory spending by $28 billion and total spending over the CBO baseline by $118 billion over five years.
According to the Senate Budget Committee, compared to the Committee-passed budget resolution, the President's budget has $125 billion more in spending, $80 billion in additional taxes (not including user fees), and a surplus of just $98.9 billion FY99-03 -- $50 billion less.
Senate Budget Committee Democrat members offered the President's budget with some modifications. However, their amendment (rejected 8-14) -- like the President's budget -- contained spending and tax increases and smaller surpluses than did the FY 1999 budget resolution. In comparison to the FY 1999 budget resolution passed in committee, the minority alternative budget contained $82.1 billion in additional spending and $79.9 billion in additional revenues; the surplus was $2.2 billion less.
Additionally, in several instances, the Democrat alternative listed no or dubious offsets for new spending proposals. No offset was included for either $10 billion of President Clinton's "Funds for America Initiatives" or the multi-billion-dollar increase in transportation spending arising from the ISTEA agreement. Assuming that the Democrats matched the budget resolution's $25.9 billion increase for ISTEA (which contains identified offsets), these two provisions alone result in $36 billion in un-offset spending. In response, to higher CBO estimates of their discretionary non-defense spending, Budget Committee Democrats also were forced to assume a 1 percent across-the-board reduction in all discretionary non-defense programs (excluding transportation and education).
In short, both the President's original FY 1999 budget and the version presented by Budget Committee Democrats contained more spending, more taxes, and smaller surpluses than did the committee-passed resolution. If the budget agreement of last year is to be maintained and if we are to adhere to the President's own stated proposal to reserve the surplus for a solution to Social Security financing, then the committee-passed budget resolution is the only viable alternative thus far offered.
The following amendments were offered during Committee markup. Those accepted are listed first, followed by those rejected, and then followed by those offered and withdrawn.
The following amendments were offered and accepted, either by voice vote or rollcall vote, during the Senate Budget Committee's markup of the FY 1999 Budget Resolution.
1.) Hollings: Sense of the Senate to balance the budget without counting Social Security surpluses and to reform Social Security. [Adopted by voice vote.]
2.) Bond: Sense of the Senate that savings in the School-to-Work program should be applied to early childhood development. [Adopted by voice vote.]
3.) Bond: Sense of the Senate regarding taxpayer rights. [Adopted by voice vote.]
4.) Feingold: Sense of the Senate regarding full funding for the National Guard. [Adopted by voice vote.]
5.) Wyden et al.: Sense of the Senate on Medicare Payment. [Adopted by voice vote.]
6.) Wyden: Sense of the Senate on long-term care. [Adopted by voice vote.]
7.) Wyden: Sense of the Senate on climate change research and other funding. [Adopted by voice vote.]
8.) Snowe et al.: Sense of the Senate on additional tax relief and spending increases for child care. [Adopted by voice vote.]
9.) Snowe: Sense of the Senate that legislation should be enacted to ensure that lenders do not withdraw from the guaranteed student loan program to the detriment of students. [Adopted by voice vote.]
10.) Durbin et al.: Sense of the Senate regarding deductibility of health insurance premiums for self-employed. [Adopted by voice vote.]
11.) Grams: Sense of Congress that funds should not be provided to put into effect the Kyoto Protocol prior to its ratification. [Adopted by voice vote.]
12.) Lautenberg: Sense of the Senate calling for a tax or other price increase of at least $1.50 per pack of cigarettes. [Adopted 14-8.]
The following amendments were offered and rejected:
1.) Conrad: To amend the resolution's tobacco reserve fund to allow tobacco revenues to be spent on anti-tobacco programs instead of being devoted solely to Medicare solvency. [Amendment defeated 10-12 (party-line).]
2.) Conrad: To amend the resolution's tobacco reserve fund to allow tobacco revenues to be spent on Social Security instead of being devoted solely to Medicare solvency. [Defeated 10-12 (party-line).]
3.) Conrad: To amend the resolution's tobacco reserve fund to allow tobacco revenues to be spent on children's health insurance programs instead of being devoted solely to Medicare solvency. [Defeated 10-12 (party-line).]
4.) Conrad: To amend the resolution's tobacco reserve fund to allow tobacco revenues to be spent to assist tobacco farmers instead of being devoted solely to Medicare solvency. [Defeated 9-12 (Feingold opposing).]
5.)Conrad: To amend the resolution's tobacco reserve fund to allow tobacco revenues to be spent on a comprehensive tobacco program instead of being devoted solely to Medicare solvency. [Defeated 10-12 (party-line).]
6.) Boxer: To amend the resolution's tobacco reserve fund to allow tobacco revenues to be spent on National Institutes of Health instead of being devoted solely to Medicare solvency. [Defeated 10-12 (party-line).]
7.) Grams: To dedicate half of the budget surplus to debt reduction and half to tax relief instead of reserving it entirely for Social Security reform. [Defeated, 2-20 (Nickles and Grams supporting).]
8.) Grams: Sense of the Congress on the Department of Energy budget. [Defeated by voice vote]
9.) Murray: To create a reserve fund to allow revenue increases for spending on a new mandatory program to reduce school class size. [Defeated 10-12 (party-line).]
10.) Murray: To create a reserve fund to allow revenue increases for additional mandatory spending for child care. [Defeated 10-12 (party-line).]
11.) Lautenberg: To create a reserve fund to allow revenue increases for additional mandatory spending on a new Environmental Resources Fund. [Defeated 9-13 (Hollings opposing).]
12.) Lautenberg: Sense of the Senate that the Food and Drug Administration is fully funded and has full authority to regulate tobacco (nicotine) as a drug. [Defeated 9-13 (Hollings opposing).]
13.) Lautenberg: Substitute amendment, offering a Democratic alternative budget. [Defeated 8-14 (Feingold and Hollings opposing).]
The following amendments were offered and withdrawn:
1.) Johnson: To create a reserve fund for Indian School Construction.
2.) Wyden: Regarding Defense inflation.
Under the Budget Act of 1974, as amended, a budget resolution is a privileged piece of legislation, as outlined below. It is not subject to filibuster and debate time is limited to 50 hours, equally divided. However, this does not mean that Republicans have 25 hours for debate and the offering of amendments. As time is used on debate or amendments, remaining time is equally divided as debate proceeds. In addition, votes do not count against this time limit, nor do quorum calls just prior to votes. [For an explanation of Budget Act points of order, see Riddick's Senate Procedure, revised in 1992, pp. 615-618.]
Craig. Instituting a 60-vote point of order requiring new mandatory spending to be offset with mandatory spending savings.
Allard. Related to retiring the federal debt.
In addition, Minority Leader Daschle in public remarks predicted Democrats would offer a "series of amendments" on education, tobacco, and child care, mirroring efforts during the committee's markup. [See a listing of amendments offered and defeated during the markup, beginning on p. 6.]
Additional Republican amendments are anticipated but not known at press time.
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