April 4, 2001 Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania for his kind words. I have always enjoyed working with him. He is right. I hope it is not too late to have a bipartisan approach to this budget. We are rapidly running out of time. Very soon we will be casting the final votes that will set this budget in place. Nobody should doubt what that will mean for the rest of this year and perhaps for the rest of the decade. This morning in the Washington Post I noticed an opinion piece by former Republican Senator Warren Rudman, former Democratic Senator Sam Nunn, who are cochairmen of the Concord Coalition, and three former high officials in the Federal Government: Robert Rubin, former Secretary of the Treasury; Paul Volcker, former Federal Reserve Chairman; and Pete Peterson, who was Secretary of Commerce in the Nixon administration. I want to bring to the attention of the Senate this opinion piece because they make a great deal of sense in how they have alerted us. They say in part in this opinion piece that `"great care must be taken to ensure that any tax cut medicine treats the short-term economic symptoms without adversely affecting the long-term prognosis.'" They go on to say: We believe an immediate fiscal stimulus can be provided independently of the proposed 10-year tax cut. Any additional tax cut should be limited to account for the enormous uncertainty-- Something the Senator from Pennsylvania mentioned in his remarks-- of long-term budget projections and the huge unfunded obligations of Social Security and Medicare. A compromise based on this framework would help ensure passage of a budget resolution with substantial bipartisan support. They are right. We could have substantial bipartisan support on a plan to provide immediate fiscal stimulus. I wish we would halt work on the budget right now, go to work on a stimulus package right now and pass it this week, get it into the hands of the American people as quickly as possible, and then go to work on a 10-year package that would take account of both the uncertainty of this 10-year forecast and also, as former Senators Nunn and Rudman and their group have advised, `"the huge unfunded obligations of Social Security and Medicare." They go on: The first part of the compromise, passing immediate tax relief, already has overwhelming support. They are right. The second part of the compromise involves an entirely separate issue--the extent to which policymakers should gamble on the accuracy of 10-year projections that the Congressional Budget Office itself says could be off by trillions of dollars. In our view, it would be exceedingly unwise to rely on these projections to lock in a series of large, escalating tax cuts, particularly before addressing the implications of the future financing requirements of Social Security and Medicare. Mr. President, how much time have I consumed? The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has consumed 4 minutes. Mr. CONRAD. If the Chair will inform me when I have consumed 8 minutes, I would appreciate it. This chart talks about the uncertainty former Senators Nunn and Rudman have discussed. This is from the Congressional Budget Office itself, the ones who did the forecast. They tell us the projection of a $5.6 trillion surplus has only a 10-percent chance of coming true, a 45-percent chance there will be more money, a 45-percent chance there will be less money. Of course, this forecast was made weeks ago. In the interval, the economy has weakened further. I will bet that the chances are we will probably have less money over this 10-year period than was previously forecast. Yet we are about to lock in a 10-year plan that leaves little margin for error. It uses all of the non-trust-fund money for the tax cut. That means if the forecast does not prove out, if there is less money, we will be into the trust funds of Medicare and Social Security, and we will be into them at a critical time--right before the baby boomers start to retire. And all of these surplus numbers will turn to substantial deficits. I hope very much that colleagues will take a look at this opinion piece by our very respected former colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, who are saying: Enact the stimulus package now. That is something we should do and then go to work on a 10-year plan that takes account not only the uncertainty of the projections but that also takes account of the massive unfunded liability in Social Security and Medicare. That would be the responsible thing to do. That would be the wise thing to do. And I think we could come together on a bipartisan plan to do both of those things. Let me conclude on the question of the uncertainty of the forecast by saying this chart shows that in the year 2006 we can have anywhere from a $50 billion deficit to more than a trillion dollar surplus, and this is according to the people who made the forecast. That is the uncertainty. It is just unwise to come out here and support a plan that uses all of the non-trust-fund money for a tax cut. I think it virtually assures that we will be raiding the trust funds of Medicare and Social Security if the President's plan passes. Let me say that the plan we have offered on our side as a potential compromise protects the Social Security and Medicare trust funds--every dollar of those moneys--and then, with what is left, divides it in the following ways: a third for a tax cut; a third for the high-priority domestic needs of prescription drug benefits, money to improve education, money to strengthen our national defense; and then, with the final third, we do what is proposed by our colleagues in this opinion piece this morning--set aside $750 billion to begin to deal with our long-term liability in Social Security and Medicare. That is a conservative approach. To me, it is a wiser course than using all of the non-trust-fund money for a tax cut--a tax cut that is predicated on a 10-year projection that is highly uncertain. There has been a lot of talk about what the differences are between our plan and the competing plan on the other side. The fundamental difference is right here--short-term and long-term debt reduction. Our plan dedicates $3.65 trillion of the $5.6 trillion projected surplus for short- and long-term debt reduction. President Bush's plan dedicates $2 trillion for that purpose. I suggest to my colleagues that the plan we are offering is conservative; it takes account of the uncertainty of this forecast; and it gives us maximum paydown of both short-term and long-term debt. With that, I yield the floor and look forward to our remaining 1 hour of debate on the amendment before us.