[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 13 (Monday, January 23, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H479]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


              INTRODUCING A FAIR BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Wise] is 
recognized during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WISE. Mr. Speaker, by the end of this week we will have under 
consideration a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. That is 
fine. West Virginia has a balanced budget requirement, as do most of 
the States in the Union. I myself have introduced a proposal for a 
balanced budget amendment.
  Mr. Speaker, however, before the House undertakes that, and 
particularly before it begins debate on something so serious, it should 
definitely spell out, though, exactly how it intends to make the cuts 
to balance the budget, because that is the concern many of us have, and 
indeed, many West Virginians have contacted me about. Yes, the idea of 
a balanced budget within 7 years is an excellent proposal. It sounds 
good, looks good on a bumper sticker, but how do you actually propose 
to balance the budget? What is it that gets cut? Do you cut Social 
Security? ``Oh, no,'' recoil many in horror, ``Oh, no.'' Well, if you 
are not going to cut that, do you cut Medicare? What health care do you 
cut? What education programs? Is it Head Start? Is it WIC? Is it the 
defense budget? What is it that gets cut by the roughly $700 billion 
that is estimated to balance the budget by the year 2002?
  West Virginians alike tell me ``We don't buy a pig in a poke.'' By 
the same token, if we go and we are looking to buy a house, we ask 
details about the mortgage: What are the interest payments going to be 
over the next 7, 10, 20 years? Does anyone walk on a car lot and say 
``Just give me any car off the lot; don't show me the invoice, don't 
show me the payment terms''?
  Does anyone go and authorize major work to be done to their house by 
a contractor without having it spelled out in advance before you start 
what it is you hope to do? You set the goal: ``I want the house 
painted, or I want the furnance put in,'' but don't you also ask how 
you are going to get there and how much it is going to cost?
  So before signing off on a balanced budget amendment, I would hope 
that all of us in the public and the Congress alike would say ``how are 
you going to get there?'' We have asked the Republican leaders bringing 
this to the floor for their budget, for their 7-year proposal of how 
you balance the budget. Don't just put it in the Constitution, write 
out how you get it, what it is that gets cut, what programs get 
rearranged. So far we are waiting to see that.
  I myself have introduced a balanced budget amendment, Mr. Speaker. 
Mine is a little different than some of the others, but it has much the 
same goal, to require a balanced budget by the year 2002. It does 
several things. First of all, it takes Social Security off budget. It 
cannot be considered. It is gone. Everyone says they want to protect 
Social Security. Fine. Adopt my amendment and you will protect Social 
Security. It has self-generating funds that are paid by every employee 
in this country. It runs a surplus. Social Security does not need to be 
in the budget process.
  The second thing my amendment does is it encourages investment. My 
concern about many of the balanced budget requirements is that they 
will encourage, they will reward cuts in vital programs, like highway 
construction, water and sewer construction, airports, infrastructure, 
that make us stronger economically, not weaker.
  Therefore, what my amendment does is to permit capital budgeting and 
permits you to treat the cost of physical infrastructure like roads and 
bridges differently than you do other expenditures.
  Is that something new or novel? No, Mr. Speaker, every State has some 
form of capital budgeting along these lines. Every homeowner knows that 
you pay for your house on a mortgage and that the debt service is what 
is figured in your budget, not the actual cost of the house. Everybody 
knows that when they buy a car they buy it on a payment plan and they 
spread that cost out over the life of the car. That is all that my 
amendment does.
  What my balanced budget amendment to the Constitution would do, which 
I hope will be made in order to be considered this week, is it will 
take Social Security off budget and it will encourage investment by 
permitting capital budgeting.
  What we are asking, Mr. Speaker, is that as the House moves toward a 
balanced budget discussion this week, that if it is going to bring up 
the balanced budget amendment, that first of all we be honest with the 
American people and we tell the people where we are going to make the 
cuts and how deep those cuts are going to be.
  Second, we say that we take Social Security off budget, because it 
does not have any business being involved in the overall budgeting of 
the Federal Government, since it has already been paid for and there is 
a surplus.
  Third, Mr. Speaker, that the balanced budget amendment encourage 
investment, not discourage it; that we put in the balanced budget 
amendment those things that will make the economy grow, not shrink. 
That is what a fair balanced budget amendment needs if it is to be 
considered this week.

                          ____________________