[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 28 (Tuesday, March 15, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 15, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                          OUR NATION'S BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Maine [Mr. Andrews] is recognized for 60 minutes, as the 
majority leader's designee.
  Mr. ANDREWS of Maine. Mr. Speaker, last week this body engaged in a 
debate over our Nation's budget, and we had a vigorous debate over a 
variety of proposals, and we finally passed out a budget for this 
country.
  This week, beginning tomorrow, we are going to debate whether or not 
we should have a constitutional amendment to our budget, that is, a 
constitutional amendment to balance our Federal budget. Once again, we 
will be engaged in the debate and discussion about priorities and about 
how we can and should restructure our Government in order to have 
fiscal responsibility and fiscal sanity in this country.
  I would like to take a few moments in between these two debates and 
try to gain a little perspective on where we are and where we are 
going.
  You know, back at home in Maine, I have had a variety of people in 
the business community tell me, ``Well, Congressman, why cannot the 
Government act a bit more like a business? Why can it not be more 
focused and disciplined? Why can it not do more and function more like 
we in the business world have to function?''
  I thought a lot about that, and I just want everyone to think a 
minute about what it would be like today to take over a business that 
used to be very profitable, but because of bad mismanagement is now 
failing. Your job is to turn that business around. What do you do?
  Well, I suggest that there are two basic things you are going to do 
at the very least. No. 1, you are going to look at the budget of your 
company, and you are going to ask yourself how much of the expenditures 
that we are engaged in have nothing to do with the success of our 
company. And as difficult and as painful as it may be, if you are going 
to succeed as a company, you are going to make the difficult and 
painful cuts necessary to keep that business afloat.
  But the second thing you are going to do, which is probably, in my 
view, just as important as the first, is you are going to have a 
business plan. You are going to set some goals, what you want that 
company doing, where you want it to be. You are going to create a 
strategy to reach those goals, and then you are going to make 
investments to put that strategy to work. You may need a new wing to 
your plant. You may need some new equipment, perhaps some new computer 
technology. You may need to train or retrain some of your work force. 
You may need to hire people with different skill levels.

  But whatever it is, whatever it takes, you make an investment that 
will make your strategy reach the goal that you have set for your 
company.
  It may set you back in the short run. You may have to borrow capital 
to make those investments in the short run. But you measure the wisdom 
of those investments on the capacity of those investments to get you 
where you want to go to reach your goals. You look long term, and in 
the long term, you seek to bring your company back to life, producing 
the goods and services that you want it to produce and to reach that 
level of profit that you seek to reach.
  Now, why, ladies and gentlemen, can we not in Washington look at our 
budget in much the same way? Why can we not have a budget like most 
budgets in most households of this country, like the budgets of all 
solvent businesses in this country, that divides itself and divides our 
spending into two fundamental different categories, capital investment 
on the one hand and operating expenses on the other hand, so that we 
take a look at where we want this country to go, what are the tools and 
strategies that we need to get our country there, and develop a long-
range strategy, an investment strategy that puts this country to work?
  Now, what does that mean? Well, I had the pleasure this morning of 
meeting with citizens from my State, members of the Maine Municipal 
Association, who came in. There were city and town managers, mayors, 
city and town councilors, and others who day in and day out have to 
struggle with municipal budgets and an economy that is in a recession, 
people who are facing great difficulties, and they came to ask for some 
help.
  They were saying that, ``If we are going to have to meet some of the 
responsibilities that you are asking us to meet, some of the 
responsibilities, and we think some of the goals are very laudable, 
very good, clean water, for example, sewage systems that work, 
infrastructure, roads and bridges and rail systems that serve our 
community and build our economy.''

                              {time}  1320

  We think these are good things, but we need help. We need investment. 
We need the opportunity to take these things and put them into 
operation without breaking the backs of the property taxpayers of our 
community and the small businesses of our community that are having a 
very difficult time making ends meet.
  I thought about the two debates, last week's debate over the budget 
on the one hand and the balanced budget amendment that we will be 
debating tomorrow on the other hand. I took a look at some of the 
alternatives to the budget passed on this floor last week, specifically 
the one that was sponsored by, promoted by the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. 
Kasich], for whom I have the greatest respect, and I saw in some of the 
very programs and investments that are so critical to these Maine 
communities, and I saw proposals for cuts.
  The Community Development Block Grant Program, for example, that 
takes Federal dollars and helps to meet critical needs in local 
communities without breaking the backs of property taxpayers was 
proposed to be cut. I looked at important loan and grant programs, 
revolving fund programs to help the cause of clean water in these 
communities, and developing sewer systems and infrastructure that 
works. I saw those proposed to be cut.
  I have to ask myself the question: What ultimately is going to get 
this budget under control? What ultimately is the key to our success as 
a country when it comes to our fiscal problems? The answer is: Our 
economy, the creation of jobs and jobs growth, investment, and 
productivity; that is the key.
  So, we have a proposal before us that seeks to undermine and cut the 
very economic foundation that communities across this country need in 
order to be successful, investments that are needed to produce goods 
and services efficiently, investments that are needed to take products 
from plants and get them to the marketplace efficiently, investments 
that communities are seeking so that they can provide that kind of 
economic assistance while not breaking the backs of our property 
taxpayers.
  And I look at a budget that includes as cuts those very investments, 
and I ask: Why? What is wrong with this picture?
  Well, I frankly think, ladies and gentlemen, that what is wrong with 
this picture is that we have developed in this country a vision that is 
simply too narrow. In the business world, we look at investments too 
often and look at the returns that will be provided in the next 
quarterly profit sheets. In Government, in politics, in Washington, 
D.C., too often we look at these issues and these questions and these 
resolutions and we see them only in terms of the next election.
  We have got to change. We have got to change in the private sector; 
we have got to change in the public sector. We have to begin to look at 
our investments long term, not just in terms of what the next quarterly 
reports are going to show us but in terms of what is the long-term 
strength of these communities and the corporations, what that is going 
to be with the long-term ramifications for our communities and our 
neighborhoods and our working families.
  The same is true here. We should not be immune from that test. 
Members of Congress have got to take a look at these votes and see not 
just what the ramifications are in the next election cycle but what the 
ramifications are for the next generation of Americans, whether or not 
we are going to take the tough stands today to generate a return of 
economic strength and growth tomorrow.
  We have got to look ahead. But we have got to have the tools to put 
the proposals before us in that prism. Judge these proposals on the 
basis of whether or not, A, we can afford them in terms of operating 
expenses day to day; B, whether or not long-term investments are going 
to generate economic strength and growth for tomorrow.
  Ladies and gentlemen, the budget structure that we have today makes 
no distinction between capital investment on the one hand and operating 
expenses on the other. That is wrong, it is short-sighted, and it needs 
to change.
  Mr. Speaker, I testified before the group of Members of the House and 
Senate who worked over the last several months to reorganize Congress, 
to restructure Congress, to reform Congress. And I proposed, as one of 
my major proposals, that we change all that by dividing our budget into 
those two categories and that when it comes to the first category of 
capital investment, that we engage in a national debate about what 
critical investments we need to make today in order to increase 
productivity, increase private investment, increase economic growth and 
job creation, and focus our debate on that.

  Pass a capital budget geared to that, and then measure the success of 
that capital budget on the degree to which this country moves forward 
and meets those economic goals.
  You know, I am a member of the Democratic Party, I am a proud member 
of the Democratic Party, but I like to make reference to a Republican 
President of a few years ago who understood this notion, Dwight D. 
Eisenhower.
  Eisenhower looked across this country and he gave a vision of a 
National Highway System, and he said, ``You know, it may take a few 
decades for us to get there, but I envision a national highway system 
that will not only create jobs in the creation and building of that 
National Highway System, but will create thousands and thousands of 
jobs once it is built by making our transportation system in this 
country that much more efficient.''
  Well, it took a vision, it took some investments, and it took 
capital, but we put thousands and thousands of people to work, and we 
have in fact built, 35 years later, that Interstate Highway System that 
is doing the job it was set out to do. It took some vision, it took 
some investments, and we are now reaping the returns on that 
investment.
  You know, when I look around the planet and I see those nations that 
we are competing against in the new, emerging global economic 
competition of the future, I see nations that are making enormous 
investments in this kind of capital investment that we are talking 
about here this afternoon, investments in roads and bridges, in first-
class rail systems, first-class ports, first-class communications 
systems, telecommunications systems, the kinds of investments that they 
are seeing as critical to their nations' success in new, emerging 
competition of the future.
  President Clinton has laid out some challenges for this Congress in a 
very similar fashion. Vice President Gore has talked a lot about the 
superhighway of telecommunications. I was very pleased that President 
Clinton came into Maine and talked about the need to give our 
commercial shipbuilders the chance to compete internationally and to 
join with us in Congress in making an investment of dollars to assist 
those shipbuilders to do that job with shipyard modernization, 
developing new technologies, providing low-cost loans for those who 
want to buy American-made ships in the commercial market.
  This makes sense, ladies and gentlemen. There is a $356 billion 
commercial market out there in this next decade that independent 
analysts are telling us is going to be there--for those nations who are 
prepared to seize that opportunity, that is. If we are going to seize 
that opportunity, we need to make the investments. Those are examples 
of investments that we are making.
  But tomorrow we are going to have a debate over a balanced budget 
amendment that makes no distinction between those two categories of 
spending, that assumes that operating expenses are exactly the same as 
capital investments and that we are going to establish a constitutional 
amendment that will say that we must balance our budget at a certain 
period of time, period. All things look the same, all budget categories 
are the same. It makes no difference if it is capital investment or an 
operating expense, we balance that budget.

                              {time}  1330

  Well, thank goodness, while my specific recommendation did not find 
itself in the final report of my colleagues' recommendations for a form 
of this Congress, it has made its way into this debate, and tomorrow 
this Congress is going to have the opportunity to make a distinction 
between these two types of spending and establish a constitutional 
amendment that says that, yes, we must, and we will, balance the 
operating side of our budget, that like any family, like any solvent 
business, we can only spend what we take in in any given year when it 
comes to our operating expenses. But it recognizes, novel in this 
debate, a thing called capital investment and the need for a capital 
investment strategy, and it establishes, as part of this process, a 
capital budget within the Federal budget in which we will make 
decisions and take a look at the long range implications for 
investments that we make today on our economy tomorrow.
  As my colleagues know, even the cuts in those fundamental ingredients 
to make economic growth that were proposed last week in the Kasich 
alternative, even those cuts in the things that the communities in my 
State care so much about in terms of giving them economic strength, 
even those cuts were not enough to balance this budget, that at a point 
in time those budget numbers go up, and we are going to have to take a 
look once again at what additional cuts are going to have to be made in 
order to balance the budget.
  Mr. Speaker, I say to my colleagues, ``Ladies and gentlemen, if you 
agree that the key to solving our deficit problem is economic growth 
and strength, then you must agree that we need a strategy to build on 
that economic growth and strength, and that includes critical 
investments that will help our economies grow: roads, bridges, rail 
systems, communication systems, ports, the basic building blocks of 
strong economic growth, the investments that generate a return on 
investment for our workers, for our families, for our companies.''
  My colleagues do not need to be rocket scientists or political 
pundits to understand how this works. Go back to that same business 
that we started out with trying to save, and think about the fact that 
we may want to make some additional investments, perhaps build a new 
plant. Where is it going to be? Well, in one area we have got an area 
that has a first class rail system. We have got a first class airport. 
We have got a water and sewer system that is state-of-the-art. We have 
got workers who are trained, who, first of all, know how to read and 
write, and, second, are trained with the basic skills that one needs to 
be a success. And we have a vocational school and a university system 
nearby willing to work with us and make sure that our additional needs 
are met. My colleagues, that is community A.
  Community B has long believed that what we need to do is save our 
budgets by cutting, and cutting and cutting, and so we may not have the 
best roads, but we will have what we got. We may not have a decent rail 
system, we may not have decent ports, we may not have those basic 
building blocks that someone in Washington was once on the floor of the 
House talking about. But we are trying to keep our tax rate low, and of 
course we are not getting much help from the Federal Government, so we 
do the best we can.
  Well, I say to my colleagues, ``If you're that businessperson seeking 
where you're going to make that investment, where is it going to be; 
community A or community B? I would suggest, if you want the best 
return on your dollar, it's going to be community A.''
  As my colleagues know, very often on the floor of this House we have 
these pitched, ideological battles waging day after day, sometimes hour 
after hour. One side thinks that Government is inherently incapable, 
inherently incompetent, and the best thing we can do in this Chamber is 
to eliminate and reduce Government to the greatest degree possible. 
``Get out of the way,'' they say, ``of the private sector.''
  And then we have another group who believes that the private sector, 
the business sector, cannot be trusted, that if we do not watch their 
every move, they are going to create dangerous work places, they are 
going to rip off the consumer, they are going to engage in scandals 
like the S&L scandal, they are going to pollute our air and water and 
laugh all the way to the bank, and we have got to watch their every 
step.
  Now we have different variations of those debates, but very often we 
can see one of those two polarities emerging in those debates. It is 
time for this community to turn a corner. We cannot afford those old, 
tired ideological debates of the past.
  The fact is, my colleagues, that wealth is generated in this country 
by the private sector, and, unless the private sector is strong and 
growing, I do not care what we want Government to do. It is not going 
to be able to do it because we are not going to have the resources to 
do it. The private sector generates wealth and growth, and we have to 
understand that and respect that.
  But at the same time, if the private sector wants to be successful, 
it is going to need a vital public sector that is working and working 
well to get those products to market, to provide employees that are 
willing and ready to do the job, to provide for an environment that is 
clean and healthy and the kind of environment that we want to bring up 
our families in. The public sector and the private sector need to be 
working together, not pitted against one another in a senseless, 
ideological debate, but the working together to meet the goals of this 
country, and that is a vital, strong, and growing economy.
  We need to look ahead, beyond this next election cycle, beyond the 
next quarterly reports for profits for a company. We have got a look at 
the next generation. We have got to look at the payback and investments 
that we make today, tomorrow.
  Perhaps this is the most critical in the area of defense. As we all 
know, we are reducing defense spending in this country. It is 
reasonable and a sensible thing to do given the change in our world, 
given the elimination of the cold war threat of the former Soviet 
Union. It is a different world with different challenges requiring a 
different strategy and different investments, but along the way we find 
ourselves confronted with the very difficult, sometimes very bitter, 
reality that the defense plants are going to cut down their work force, 
other defense plants are going to close, and defense facilities across 
this country are going to be shaken down, and some are going to close 
completely. Never in this area of debate, and nowhere in this debate, 
is investment more important or planning ahead more important than when 
it comes to those communities that are suffering the loss of defense 
jobs, defense facilities and private employers building weapons.
  We have a vital industrial base in place out there that has been 
highly successful in building things that we needed during the cold 
war. They won the cold war for us, and we have first class military 
facilities all across this country that were built, and were supplied 
and were maintained by people who wanted to see this country succeed 
and meet the challenge of the cold war. Now that the challenge has 
changed, and now that we are turning a page in our history, and closing 
down plants and closing down defense facilities, we owe it to those 
communities, to those workers, to those families who were there when we 
needed them in the cold war, to be there when they need us in this 
post-cold-war era, who offer this country enormous industrial strength, 
and assets, first class facilities, highly trained work forces, ready 
to go to work to rebuild the economic foundation of this country. And 
what they need is a nation that is forward looking enough, bold enough, 
visionary enough, and courageous enough to make the investments in 
those plants, in those facilities, in those communities, that will 
allow them to be successful in the post-cold-war era.
  Yes, that is going to take investment. Yes, that is going to take 
capital. And, yes, we may not see the return on the capital between now 
and the next election, or perhaps the one after that.

                              {time}  1340

  But what we are going to see is an economy that is building up from 
the ground, a Government willing and able to make investments in those 
industrial assets that are so critical for our success, and we are 
going to see communities beginning to thrive, building the products and 
producing the services that we need in the post-cold-war era just as 
they produced the weapons and services we needed in the cold war era. 
But we cannot do it if we continue this old ideological debate, if we 
continue to tolerate budget schemes that are way out of step with most 
businesses and households in this country, that do not give us the 
chance to look ahead and make those decisions.
  Mr. Speaker, we have an enormous opportunity at this time, this week, 
to turn that corner, to change that budget debate, and to look ahead. I 
urge my colleagues and I urge everyone across America to rethink the 
balanced budget amendment, reject the balanced budget amendment that 
makes no distinction between capital investment on the one hand and 
operating expenses on the other, and to adopt the Wise amendment on 
this floor tomorrow. The gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Wise] has 
taken what I just described and has put it in the form of an amendment 
for all to see, and he will be arguing tomorrow on the floor before 
this Congress and before this Nation, along with me and others who 
support this idea that we need to balance our operating side, because 
there is no question about it, we cannot take in any more than we spend 
in any year, but we need to distinguish between an operating budget on 
the one hand and a capital investment budget on the other hand and 
establish a capital investment strategy for this Nation that looks 
ahead, that recognizes that the true strength of this country lies in 
our work force, in our communities, in our neighborhoods, and 
recognizes finally that successfully dealing with this budget crisis, 
and finally bringing fiscal sanity to this town and this institution is 
going to depend first and foremost on economic strength and economic 
growth. That is going to take vision, and that is going to take 
investment.
  Mr. Speaker, it is going to be an interesting debate tomorrow. I 
encourage my colleagues to engage in it fully, to consider this 
amendment, and perhaps starting tomorrow, we can turn this Nation 
around and get away from the silly debates, with those polarities that 
get us nowhere, and start talking about the working public and private, 
business and government, the American people, Democrats, Republicans, 
and Independents, so we can begin to rebuild this Nation's economic 
strength and give our children the future they deserve.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Baesler). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] is recognized for 60 
minutes.
  [Mr. OWENS addressed the House. His remarks will appear hereafter in 
the Extensions of Remarks].

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