Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 111 Part 3.djvu/660

 Ill STAT. 2748 CONCURRENT RESOLUTIONS-JUNE 5, 1997 (1) an April 1997 study by the Internal Revenue Service of Earned Income Credit (EIC) filers for tax year 1994 revealed that over $4,000,000,000 of the $17,000,000,000 spent on the EIC for that year was erroneously claimed and paid by the IRS, resulting in a fraud and error rate of 25.8 percent; (2) the IRS study further concluded that EIC reforms enacted by the One Hundred Fourth Congress will only lower the fraud error rate to 20.7 percent, meaning over $23,000,000,000 will be wasted over the next five years; and (3) the President's recent proposals to combat EIC fraud and error contained within this budget resolution are estimated to save $124,000,000 in scoreable savings over the next five years and additional savings from deterrent effects. (b) SENSE OF THE SENATE. —I t is the sense of the Senate that the provisions of this resolution assume that the President should propose and Congress should enact additional programmatic changes sufficient to ensure that the primary purpose of the EIC to encourage work over welfare is achieved without wasting billions of taxpayer dollars on fraud and error, SEC. 321. SENSE OF THE SENATE SUPPORTING LONG-TERM ENTITLE- MENT REFORMS. (a) FINDINGS. —The Senate finds that this resolution assumes that— (1) entitlement spending has risen dramatically over the last thirty-five years; (2) in 1963, mandatory spending (i.e., entitlement spending and interest on the debt) made up 29.6 percent of the budget, this figure rose to 61.4 percent by 1993 and is expected to reach 70 percent shortly after the year 2000; (3) this mandatory spending is crowding out spending for the traditional "discretionary" functions of Government like clean air and water, a strong national defense, parks and recreation, education, our transportation system, law enforcement, research and development and other infrastructure spending; and (4) taking significant steps sooner rather than later to reform entitlement spending will not only boost economic growth in this country, it will also prevent the need for drastic tax and spending decisions in the next century. (b) SENSE OF THE SENATE.— I t is the Sense of the Senate that the levels in this budget resolution assume that Congress and the President should work to enact structural reforms in entitlement spending in 1997 and beyond which sufficiently restrain the growth of mandatory spending in order to keep the budget in balance over the long term, extend the solvency of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds, avoid crowding out funding for basic Government functions and that every effort should be made to hold mandatory spending to no more than 70 percent of the budget. SEC. 322. SENSE OF THE SENATE ON DISASTER ASSISTANCE FUNDING. (a) FINDINGS.— The Senate finds that— (1) emergency spending adds to the deficit and total spending; (2) the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 exempts emergency spending from the discretionary spending caps and pay-go requirements;

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