Mr. President, what the 104th Congress is all about is ending business as usual in Washington. We started out by passing the bill that Senator Liebermanand I introduced to make Congress live by the same laws it passes for everyone else. Then we passed a bill to restrict unfunded mandates.<p>
These proposals represent a change from business as usual. The voters last November demanded a change in business as usual in Washington. And this Congress has delivered. And I am confident that we will continue to deliver.<p>
One of the changes the American people wanted is a balanced budget amendment. They are tired of Congress coming up with clever rhetoric that has defeated this amendment over the years. Now, those same critics want us to spell out on an account by account basis the receipts and outlays for fiscal years 1996 to 2002. The proposal is yet another rhetorical trick designed to let big spenders defeat the balanced budget amendment by people who want no fiscal discipline.<p>
The proposal represents a last gasp by the old guard to continue business as usual. For them, business as usual means a continually expanding Federal Government. The voters have spoken, and the business-as-usual crowd refuses to listen. That is not what representative government and democracy is all about.<p>
We all know that a balanced budget is achievable. I know that our respected colleague Senator Domenici,chairman of the Budget Committee on which I serve, is working on a variety of fiscal strategies to show that it can be done--without touching Social Security. The numbers are clear.<p>
We can limit spending growth to over 2 percent and reach a balanced budget, again without touching Social Security. Under current fiscal policy, Federal spending in fiscal 2002 will be 44 percent higher than this year if we do nothing. By holding growth to 22 percent, Republicans can balance the budget without cutting Social Security or raising taxes. Federal spending will increase under either approach.<p>
But by how much? That is the question. Many of the supporters of this right-to-know amendment think Government spending must double by 2002. Supporters of the balanced budget amendment think Government can get by on approximately $260 billion more than we are currently spending, but half of what other people think we should spend.<p>
I say that is enough money, taking inflation into account, to balance the budget while still allowing programs to grow. The argument has been made by my colleagues that, in 1993, Congress and the President acted honestly and forthrightly in enacting the fiscal 1994 budget. They say specific cuts and tax increases were spelled out to bring us toward a reduced budget deficit. Now opponents say supporters of this constitutional amendment have a similar obligation to spell out our plan. But the premise of the argument is invalid and the conclusions do not follow.<p>
The 1993 tax bill raised taxes, and it had very few spending cuts. I doubt that anybody outside of the beltway can name a single real cut. The whole premise of the tax bill that the deficit would be cut was fallacious. The President's own budget predicts $200 billion in budget deficits for the next 5 years if we do nothing. Notwithstanding the 1993 tax bill, the President still projects deficits as high as an elephant's eye.<p>
And so the debt still continues to grow clear up to the sky. The so-called honesty in budgeting of 1993 is a very slender reed on which to base a so-called right-to-know amendment.<p>
In addition to serving on the Budget Committee, I also serve on the Judiciary Committee and I am concerned that the Democratic leader's amendment--another amendment before our body--will be beyond the intent of the Constitution. It says that the amendment shall not take effect until Congress passes a budget reconciliation act.<p>
But article V of the Constitution--that is, the amending article--provides that when both Houses of Congress pass a proposed constitutional amendment, it `shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as a part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress.' But the proposal before us would not allow the amendment to be effective once Congress has passed it and, in this case, three-fourths of the State legislatures having ratified it. Instead, we put a whole new condition on the amendment that we have before us, the amendment to be ratified: The passage of a 7-year budget reconciliation act.<p>
That is not a constitutional convention for the ratification of an amendment. And I think this amendment by the leader of the minority should be beaten.<p>
We have heard it said that if Congress may constitutionally insist as a condition for ratification that the States ratify a proposed constitutional amendment within 7 years, then it is constitutional for Congress to impose a condition such as the Daschle amendment before Congress submits the proposal to the States. This analysis is incorrect for two reasons.<p>
First, the courts have upheld limitations on the ratification process, but no case has ever upheld the imposition of a condition for initiating ratification proceedings once Congress has adopted an amendment.<p>
Second, the Supreme Court has ruled that although it is a political question, article V implicitly requires a contemporaneous majority to ratify an amendment. Thus, a 7-year or equivalent period is a constitutional necessity under the case law. But no such status pertains to the proposal by the Senator from South Dakota.<p>
So, Mr. President, we should pass the balanced budget amendment. We should not adopt the Daschle amendment to that amendment because it is impractical and because it is unconstitutional. The American people want us to end business as usual. They see the so-called right-to-know amendment to be business as usual--a business-as-usual approach, rejected by the people in the November 8 election, a business-as-usual approach rejected by Congress for the first time in 40 years, as we try to bring to a vote all of the things that have been buried in Congress by a Congress controlled for 40 years by the now minority party.<p>
We accept our responsibilities to reject business as usual, with our surveys showing 80 percent support for the constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. It has been before this body four or five times over the past 15 years. Now is the time to pass it.<p>
