[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 9 (Tuesday, January 17, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H250]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


          WE NEED TO MAKE TOUGH CHOICES TO BALANCE OUR BUDGET

  (Mr. GRAHAM asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, I too rise to speak on an important topic to 
everybody in this Nation; that is, the balanced budget amendment.
  I will comment on what my colleague across the aisle said. If you 
want to blame people, that is fine, there is plenty of blame to go 
around. The only thing the balanced budget threatens is politicians' 
ability to spend money beyond their means. We simply cannot write bad 
checks up here and get away with it.
  If you want to stop that at home, let people know that you want a bad 
check from the Congress, and that would be the only one I know who is 
against a balanced budget amendment.
  When we do that, and I hope we do, we have to make some hard choices. 
The National Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS, and the National 
Endowment for the Arts are things that mean a lot to me personally. But 
when it comes time to balance the budget, we are going to have to say 
``no'' to groups of people we have never said ``no'' to before.
  That is what you do every day at home, you have to do things that you 
have to do within your budget constraints; you have to say ``no'' to 
yourself. That is a new and novel idea up here, to say ``no.''
  But let the great debate begin, once the balanced budget amendment 
passes, I hope we will have the courage to say ``no,'' even to 
worthwhile projects.


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