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.
“PROCESS FOR BALANCING THE BUDGET” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the Senate section on pages S15415-S15416 on Oct. 23, 1995.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
PROCESS FOR BALANCING THE BUDGET
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I understand that other Republican Senators would like to be heard this morning on the subject of the balanced budget process and our effort to get a reconciliation bill before the Senate this week for action and the general policy that we have embarked upon to try to do a better job of controlling the Federal deficit.
As part of this effort, of course, we have been trying to reduce the levels of funding in individual appropriations bills. We passed a budget resolution earlier this year. The conference report was agreed to by both Houses of Congress setting specific targets for spending, many of which are below last year's levels of funding for the operations of the Federal Government.
Let me give you one example of the success that we have achieved to date. And I am confident that more success will be achieved as we go through the balance of this legislative session.
The President signed a bill on Saturday appropriating funds for the Department of Agriculture and related agencies. This is the fiscal year 1996 appropriations bill that had previously been passed by the Congress. This bill represents, first of all, successful negotiation with the administration over what had been some very contentious issues. We were able to work with our colleagues in the House and here in the Senate, on both sides of the aisle, to work out an agreed-upon bill which was passed here in the Senate, Senators may recall, with only three dissenting votes.
This bill provides funding at a level over $5 billion less than the level of funding that was made available for this Department and these agencies for the fiscal year that ended on September 30. That shows remarkable restraint because many of the programs funded in that bill are mandatory programs, the programs that we will have to deal with when we take up the reconciliation bill later this week.
My recollection is that funding level for the bill was about $63 billion. And of that amount, some $50 billion was required to be funded by law: entitlement programs, reimbursements to the Commodity Credit Corporation for net realized losses, food stamp benefits that are made available to those who are entitled under the definition of the law of statutes to certain levels of food assistance. The qualifications for those benefits are set out in other laws, not the appropriations bill.
And so I am using this as an illustration to describe why it is so important if we are to continue to achieve reductions in spending in later years for us to take up and pass the budget reconciliation bill which does make changes in the eligibility for Government resources and funds under the definition of statutory law.
The amount of funds provided in the Agriculture appropriations bill for the discretionary funding programs amounted to only about $13 billion of the total $63 billion included in that bill. So even if we did not appropriate any money for the discretionary programs funded in that bill, next year or the next there would still be required to be spent by the Government way more than half, more than two-thirds of the total funds appropriated in that bill. That is true not only of that appropriations bill, but many others like it.
I am very glad the President signed the bill and that we were able to successfully negotiate our way through the process so that we could get a bill passed by this Congress that could be signed by the President and that does carry out the directive of the congressional budget resolution to cut spending, to try to do with less, to try to make do with less money than we have in the past for many of these programs. But we were restricted and restrained because of the provisions of law in most of the accounts that are funded in that bill.
So, to take care of that problem, to address that need, to deal with the realities facing this Congress on how we approach the challenge of reductions in spending to achieve a balanced budget, we have to make changes in the law which qualify individuals and other entities for Federal dollars every year.
The reconciliation bill carries out that important requirement by assembling a package of changes from every legislative committee in the Congress, which will, if passed and signed by the President, reduce the costs of Federal programs over the next 7 years to the extent that by the year 2002 we not only will have a balanced budget, but we will have a surplus in the annual operating budget of the Federal Government.
That is the plan. That is the purpose of the passage of the reconciliation bill, and also the adoption of the individual appropriations bills as we are taking them up now in a process, as a part of a plan, that will meet the challenge of developing a new policy of fiscal responsibility at the Federal level.
This is the change, I am convinced, Mr. President, that the American people voted for in the last election. It is the change that President Clinton ran on when he was elected President, but he did not do anything after he was elected President to force the changes that we are now requiring under the budget reconciliation and budget process that has been adopted by the Republican Congress.
So we are trying to deliver on the promise President Clinton made when he ran and also deliver on the promises that were made by those who were candidates for Congress in the House and the Senate in the last election, and we are making progress. That is the point.
This Agriculture appropriations conference report that we adopted and the bill that was signed on Saturday by President Clinton shows that we can deliver on the promise to cut spending, to be more responsible, to make tough choices. We would like to be able to appropriate more money for the funding of programs under the jurisdiction of that committee, but we were confronted with the reality of a $200 billion operating deficit in the last fiscal year and a budget that recommended the same thing for next year, and that was intolerable.
The Congress decided, when it adopted the resolution on the budget, that it was intolerable, and so we changed that policy and determined that we would bring the deficit down. We started doing it, and I am proud of the Congress for taking up the challenge and delivering on the promises. I hope we can continue to carry through with this kind of momentum until we achieve the success that the American people deserve and want and achieve a balanced budget by the year 2002.
Mr. President, I know there are a number of Senators on our side who indicated an interest in speaking on this and related subjects. I am happy to yield the floor so that Senators can be recognized under the previous order.
Mr. CRAIG addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
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