[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 15 (Wednesday, January 25, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H682-H686]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gekas). Under a previous order of the
House, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Barton] is recognized for 60
minutes.
Mr. BARTON of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
Mr. WELLER. Well, you know, thank you. I would like very much to
thank the gentleman from Texas for your hard-fought long effort
historically to bring this initiative to the floor of the House for
debate, and you have worked long and hard to bring a tax-limitation
balanced budget amendment, and I just want you to know the phone calls
that I have been receiving in my office here in Washington tonight from
the taxpayers in my district, they are calling. I had six calls
tonight.
Mr. BARTON of Texas. I, too, have received a number of telephone
calls, and I had a constituent call my office in Texas today and said,
``We want Congressman Barton to vote for that Barton three-fifths tax-
limitation amendment.'' And my receptionist said, ``Well, he is the
named sponsor.'' He said, ``Well, you just tell him if he does not vote
for it, he is not going to get my vote next year.'' She said, ``Well, I
think you can expect the Congressman to vote for his own amendment.''
But there may be some people in this Chamber that want to make a
phone call to their Congressman and do not know the phone number. The
number, if anybody in the Chamber would like to make such a phone call
tomorrow, is area code 202, 224-3121, and then just ask for their
Congressman, Congressman Barton, Congressman Forbes, Congressman
Weller, you know, whoever your Congressman happens to be, and you will
be put through, and since the vote is going to be at about 11, 11:30,
Eastern time tomorrow, those phone calls should come in earlier. If
Congressman Forbes wanted to call his own office, he would need to do
that before 11:30 tomorrow morning.
I yield back to the gentleman from Illinois.
Mr. WELLER. You are absolutely right. You know, there is nothing I
value more than hearing from the folks that I have the privilege of
representing, and when I know that I get 10 phone calls from the
taxpayers in my district, I recognize that they probably represent a
total of 100 voters who agree with them and just did not take the time
to make the telephone call. So those telephone calls, I know, are
extremely important and, you know, one of the questions that a caller
told me tonight is that they say, you know, the Republicans are in the
majority now. It is going to be an easy sell. You are going to be able
to pass that, are you not? I said, ``Well, you realize it takes a
supermajority to pass a constitutional amendment like this.'' We need a
bipartisan vote. We need, if every Republican votes for this, we need
over 60 Democrats to support us, and I said, ``You know, if you have
friends that know Democratic Members of Congress that they should call
them and support the balanced budget amendment.''
It is so very important that they make calls, and I certainly made
that point, and again, I want to thank my colleague for his leadership
on this issue. It is so important that we give Congress the discipline,
the backbone to balance the budget and to resist the temptation to go
back to the old ways which is always to raise taxes.
I served in the legislature for the last 6 years in Illinois. We were
fortunate to have a balanced budget provision in the State
constitution. That was effective in giving those of us who wanted to
balance the books the backbone, the discipline, to get the job
done before we went home.
However, my State is one of those that unfortunately does not have
what we call the tax accountability amendment, and we are still trying
to do that in Illinois, which would require a three-fifths vote. We
know if you require a three-fifths vote to pass a tax increase, those
who would like to push a tax increase know it is going to be much more
difficult, and the obvious solution is to cut spending.
Congress needs that discipline. I am proud to cosponsor the Barton
amendment, the tax-limitation balanced budget amendment, in the
Contract with America, and I certainly am proud to join with you
tonight and participate in tonight's discussion on this important
initiative which frankly is a historic change on how Washington works.
Mr. BARTON of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from New York if he
sought time.
Mr. FORBES. I thank the gentleman.
I would say that it is startling to me to listen to this experiment
that they had in Arizona, if you will, the notion that they went
forward and did the responsible thing, but they did not hold the taxes,
and the people of Arizona unfortunately were the recipients of some bad
policy that hurt them over the years, and my concern here is that our
Federal taxpayers, our folks back home, understand the urgency of
getting to the phones and making sure that Members of Congress
understand that they want Congress, while they want them to balance the
budget, they do not want them to take the easy way out and increase
spending and that they want a balanced budget amendment that does put a
lid on the ability to raise taxes.
I know the people on Long Island, we have amongst the highest taxes
in the Nation. We have the highest property taxes and sales taxes and
Federal taxes to boot, and it is tough on the people of Long Island and
our economy is still very shaky there, and people are struggling to
hold onto their jobs, and many people do not have jobs. They are
looking for them.
The difficulty is to think that you have a Federal Government that
just does not quite get it and continues to grow at alarming rates, and
the need, I think, across America is understood, the need for a
balanced budget amendment, and most particularly the need again, and I
cannot stress it enough, the need to make sure that it is a balanced
budget that does put a lid on this Congress' ability to just wantonly
raise taxes.
{time} 2210
Mr. BARTON of Texas. I thank the gentleman from New York and I yield
to the gentleman from Indiana.
Mr. SOUDER. I thank the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. Speaker, I have a question. The gentleman from New York [Mr.
Forbes] and myself have served as staffers in the other body and have
some healthy skepticism. The gentleman from Texas [Mr. Barton] as a
Member maybe could enlighten us a bit. Under the balanced budget
amendment, and part of the reason I am sure the gentleman has his tax
limitation supermajority in it, is it not possible to have a category
that would say with waste and fraud as a deficit reduction?
Mr. BARTON of Texas. In my town meetings, and I am sure as the
gentleman begins to do his town meetings, his constituents are going to
come and demand that he cut out that waste, fraud, and abuse and cut
out pork-barrel spending. The gentleman would say that he will do it
and he is going to be a bulldog to do it. The problem is there is no
line in the Federal Government's budget that says waste, fraud, and
abuse. When you get to a specific program and you say, ``Mr. Director,
can you tell me where the waste, fraud, and abuse is, in your
particular program?'' And the director is going to say, ``Congressman,
there is no waste, fraud, and abuse in my program.''
Now, I was a White House Fellow at the Department of Energy in 1981,
part of 1982, and was a staff liaison to the Grace Commission that
President
[[Page H683]] Reagan empowered to look for waste, fraud, and abuse in
the executive branch of the Federal Government. One of my jobs was to
look at all the committees that Department of Energy officials served
on. It turned out there were over 300 standing committees that either
the Secretary of Energy, Deputy Secretary of Energy, the Assistant
Secretary of Energy served on.
So I sent out a questionnaire to everybody who served on these
standing committees. I said, ``How often do you meet? What are the
subjects? Do you think you can do without this committee?''
Not one Assistant Secretary, Deputy Secretary, or Secretary himself
wrote back in response to my question and said that the committee was
eliminated and did not need to be established. Some of those committees
have never met. They had never met, and
yet they were not even willing to disestablish any of these intra-
agency committees, Department of Energy, Defense, Department of
Commerce.
The bottom line, as the gentleman well knows, is we have simply got
to put a disciplinary tool in the Constitution that says, ``You shall
balance the budget.'' We need to put in that with it, ``You shall
balance the budget, with the incentive being cutting spending, not
raising taxes.'' That is why the three-fifths' tax increase is so
important.
Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I am most concerned that most of the
agreements that are made wind up with tax increases because the
spending cuts are not real.
Is it possible to give another possibility of how this could evolve?
While I think the tax increases could be permanent but the spending
cuts never occur, a common tactic is to have an asterisk saying,
``Specifics will come at a later date.'' Is it possible under a
balanced budget amendment to do that; that is, to have illusory
spending cuts but the tax increases be real?
Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, in order to answer that, it might
be illuminatory to explain how the tax limitation balanced budget
amendment is actually structured. Section 1 says that the President
shall submit to the Congress a balanced budget and Congress shall vote
on a balanced budget. It requires that the actual expenditures and
receipts be less than the estimates, it requires that in order to
increase receipts, there shall be a three-fifths' vote in both bodies
in order to borrow money in any fiscal year and in order to increase
the debt ceiling there shall be a three-fifth's vote in both bodies.
There is a section that requires that the Congress shall implement
the amendment by the appropriate legislature. There is a section that
says the amendment shall become effective in the year 2002, or 2 years
after requisite 38 States ratify the amendment.
Every effort has been made to close all the loopholes so that in fact
the President will be submitting a balanced budget, the Congress shall
be voting on a balanced budget, the actual numbers during the fiscal
year cannot exceed the estimates so the magic asterisk that OMB
Director David Stockman used as a Director of the Office of Management
and Budget for President Reagan in the early 1980's, the magic
asterisk has gone away.
Even the unspecified savings that Director Darman, President Bush's
Office of Management and Budget, unspecified, to be determined later--
he had over $300 billion in those types of savings--would go away.
Under the leadership of the new chairman of the Committee on the
Budget, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] and the distinguished
leadership of our new Speaker, and, of course, the Senate majority
leader, Senator Dole from Kansas, we are going to present to the
American people a true budget that does move us toward a balanced
budget by the year 2002. There will be no budget gimmicks, no magic
asterisks, no funny money. This is real, it is serious, it starts
tomorrow at approximately 11:30 on this floor in this city when we vote
to pass the tax limitation balanced budget amendment and send it to the
other body. So people in America can call the U.S. Senate.
Mr. SOUDER. I thank the gentleman for his leadership.
Mr. BARTON of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona [Mr.
Shadegg], and I see the former member of the Gang of Seven a few
Congresses ago is back and loaded for bear and is just brimming to
speak in the next 3 to 4 minutes.
I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.
Mr. SHADEGG. I thank the gentleman from Texas, and I will be brief.
You know, as I listened to the discussion tonight, it occurred to me
it might be helpful if there was a practical explanation of at least
how one Member of this body thinks this provision will work day to day.
Let me tie into that how we got into the mess we are in now.
Mr. Speaker I am on this floor for the first time. I am a freshman
Member of this Congress. I have not served in any public office before.
But I did serve a period of 7 years in the Arizona attorney general's
office. Then I was hired to advise the Arizona State Legislature.
I sat in on literally hundreds of meetings in those capacities where
a member of the Arizona legislature would be present and a contituent
or a group of constituents would come forward and they were well-
intended, serious, concerned citizens. And they would come forward and
explain to the members of the Arizona legislature their dire need, this
severe problem this, unmet problem in society which
government could solve. In Arizona it was easy for the citizens to get
to their legislature and to go and implore their members of the
legislature to help solve this problem with one little program.
That same scene happens here in Washington thousands of times every
day. It happens in your office, I suspect, and in my office and the
office of every Member who votes on the floor of this Congress.
Constituents come in, lobbying groups come in, organizing groups come
in and say, ``We have a small problem, but it is serious and it needs
your help. We need just a little bit of money. It is not a lot of
money, but a little bit to solve this very serious problem,'' sometimes
it affects children, sometimes we say it is going to solve a problem
that will pollute our society or pollute our Earth. Whatever the reason
is, it is always compelling, whoever the advocate is, he is always
sincere and well-intended.
But there is something missing in that conversation.
What is missing is the person of the people who have to pick up the
tab. They are not sitting there. I often thought as I sat in on those
conversations in the members' offices in the Arizona legislature, why
not have one more Chair sitting in that discussion, empty, that says,
``The Arizona taxpayer''? We ought to have somebody. We are all talking
about lobbyists. The President devoted a great deal of time last night
to the pressure of lobbyists.
It occurs to me that the people do not have a lobbyist who sits in on
that conversation.
So the pressure is there and no one is sitting in that empty chair
that I envisioned, saying, ``Wait a minute. Who is going to pay for
this?''
Well, a supermajority requirement for future tax increases raising
the hurdle so that it is not just 50 percent but rather 60 percent
would be a structural change which would put essentially that Chair in
the room and say, ``It may be a good idea, but somebody has got to pay
for it, and you have to go get the assent of just a few more people to
do that.'' It is the kind of discipline we desperately need in this
body.
I thank the gentleman. I ask if it is possible to join in this
conversation briefly with the gentleman from Illinois, my colleague.
Mr. BARTON of Texas. If the gentleman, the distinguished gentleman
from Illinois, requests such time yielded to him as he may require.
{time} 2220
Mr. SHADEGG. I would like to ask one quick question. I noted that
like Arizona----
Mr. BARTON of Texas. The gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Shadegg] has to
ask the question of me, and then we would yield time to the
distinguished gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Weller]. That is the
parliamentary triangle that we have to honor.
Mr. SHADEGG. Then let me honor that tradition and ask the question.
I understood from the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Weller] that they
[[Page H684]] have a balanced budget requirement in their State, but
they do not have what Arizona now has, which is a supermajority
requirement for future tax increases.
Mr. BARTON of Texas. Would the gentleman from Illinois like to have
time to answer that question?
Mr. WELLER. I say to my colleagues, ``Thank you, thank you very much.
I appreciate this opportunity, and I thank the gentleman from Texas for
the opportunity to respond to the gentleman from Arizona's question.''
As I pointed out in my little brief conversation with my colleagues a
few minutes ago, Illinois is a State, of course a great State, and I am
proud to represent the State of Illinois, and we have a balanced budget
provision in the Illinois constitution. However it only requires a
simple majority to pass tax increases, and I served in the Illinois
legislature for 6 years, and during that period of time I was actually
involved in the appropriations process where I was involved in the
spending end of the State legislature, handling the human service
appropriations portion of the State budget. It is about half the State
budget. We have a State budget of $34 billion, 10 percent of what would
be called the gross State product, which is a big chunk of the Illinois
economy, and we wrestled every year.
Of course we have a balanced budget provision which requires we have
to balance our books, and all too often at--towards the end of session
or at the beginning of session, if we had a hole in the budget where we
knew we were short of dollars, all too often particularly certain
special interests, and always representing those who want to spend
money, would always say to the legislature, ``You know, we really need
to do the right thing, and you know the right thing is to raise
taxes.''
Well, they knew that the so-called right thing to raise taxes, which
they always argued for, is the easier way out because I guess, if we
look at the history of this Congress, it has always been easier for
Congress to raise taxes than it has been to cut spending, and I saw how
those pressures worked in the State legislature, and rather than
cutting spending the special interests would always say, ``Why don't
you just raise taxes,'' because, as the gentleman from Arizona pointed
out, the taxpayers are not in the room, and that three-fifths provision
is the silent partner that the taxpayers need to have in this room when
we debate whether or not we should raise taxes.
And let me tell my colleagues, if we have a three-fifths majority in
the Constitution as a requirement to pass a tax increase, there has to
be a lot of public support, there has to be a real justification, to
get those 290 votes to pass the tax increase, and, had we had that
provision in Illinois, I can think--during the period of time that I
was in the legislature I can think of about half a dozen tax increases
that would not have been passed on the taxpayers of my State.
I think it is so important that we include the tax limitation
provision because not only does it protect the taxpayers' interest, act
as a silent partner, but it is a reality check. It is going to require
a supermajority. The special interests are going to realize that
Congress is going to think twice before they raise taxes.
It is time to protect the taxpayers' pocketbooks.
Mr. BARTON of Texas. I thank the gentleman from Illinois.
I would like to point out that the three-fifths requirement for a tax
increase would not mean 290 votes in the House. It would mean 262 votes
in the House. It is certainly more than 218----
Mr. WELLER. If the gentleman would yield, that is certainly Illinois
math. I apologize. It is the end of the evening I guess.
Mr. BARTON of Texas. I might also point out that those who say all
that necessary--the only protection that is necessary is protection of
a constitutional majority to pass a tax increase--we have researched in
the House, and there has not been a tax increase that passed with a
minority vote.
Now there have been some that passed on a voice vote, two in the last
30 years that passed by a voice
vote, but if it came to a vote, in every occasion obviously it won by
getting a majority vote.
So to say that a constitutional majority is sufficient protection
against the tax increase on this floor every time a tax increase is
passed by rollcall vote, it has had a majority, and in most cases it
has had a constitutional majority, which is 218. A simple majority
would be maybe 216, if several people were not voting, and
traditionally the Speaker does not vote.
But to get real protection against tax increases you do need the
three fifths, and, as the gentleman from Arizona pointed out, in many
of the States that have tax limitation provisions it is two thirds, and
in some it is three fourths. In the President's home State of Arkansas
it is a three-fourths vote necessary for a tax increase, so a three-
fifths vote, or 60 percent, is certainly stronger than the
constitutional majority, but it is by no means as strong as many of the
States have in their statutes or their constitutions.
I see that the gentleman from California has approached the rostrum,
and I would be happy to yield to him and welcome him back to the 104th
Congress.
Mr. RIGGS. I thank the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Barton] for both his
kind comments and his outstanding leadership on this extremely
important legislative initiative.
The gentleman just a moment ago referred to--I cannot recall if he
said famous or infamous gang of seven, but I can remember standing on
this very floor in the wee hours of the morning, actually much later
than it is now, participating with my fellow gang of seven colleagues
on the debate regarding the balanced budget tax limitation amendment in
the 102d Congress, and I can tell the gentlemen--in fact I frequently
relate this story back home, that that was probably my single greatest
disappointment from my prior service in this distinguished body.
I recall though on that occasion one of the gang members, who has now
gone on to greater heights in the other body as a junior Member from
the State of Pennsylvania, holding up at a particularly poignant moment
in the proceedings the photographs, little wallet sized snapshots, of
his young children who now obviously are a few years older and making
the point, as several of my colleagues did earlier, that we are really
acting on their behalf and in their interests. We are talking about, of
course, the future taxpayers
of the United States of America who will inherit this enormous sum and
growing debt that we, sad to say, have imposed upon them as a rather
dubious legacy, one which, in fact, does indeed mortgage the future and
diminish the economic opportunity they and their children will be able
to realize.
So, that was a tremendous disappointment, and I also wanted to share
with the gentleman that just today I fielded a few calls from the media
saying, ``Well, why is this really necessary? After all, you in
legislative branch have the ability to ultimately adopt and enact a
balanced Federal budget.''
And I hasten to point out to those particular folks who--frankly they
are the skeptics and the pundits who do not face the difficult
decisions we will make in the days following our adoption of the
balanced budget tax limitation amendment, but I point out to them that
of course the Federal Government has the unique ability to make money,
print new currency and to borrow more to continue its deficit spending
ways.
I also point out to them that history, as the great teacher, shows us
that basically anything Congress does can be undone, short of an
amendment to the Constitution, and that has clearly been the case in
the past, and prior efforts of the Congress, as the gentleman well
knows, have been routinely circumvented by this body whether it is
sequestration procedures or the Gramm-Rudman Act which effectively
gutted over a short period of time but allowing us to continue our
spendthrift ways.
The other thing I wanted to point out to the gentleman is that--he
obviously knows, and he has been a leader in this body in terms of
making this point frequently during this critical debate, and that is
that we are not an undertaxed society. We need to make it difficult to
raise Federal income taxes and to raise the debt limit.
As my colleagues know, I--again having the distinct honor and
privilege of serving in this body before, and taking
[[Page H685]] a sabbatical away from the body, and now returning--I
have a unique perspective on the matters that are deliberated in this
body.
I reflect back on that prior service, the 50 some odd town meetings I
did the width and breadth of my Congressional District over that two
year period, and I cannot recall a single occasion when a constituent
came up and said ``you know, Congressman, we really are an undertaxed
society, and I would like to pay more taxes.''
{time} 2230
To the contrary, as the gentleman well knows, with 42 percent of our
economy going to some taxing authority or another, 21 percent of that,
I believe the numbers are roughly, or about 19 percent of that, rather,
is going to the Federal treasury, and we are spending the equivalent of
about 21 percent, and, of course, running these enormous deficits. But
with 42 percent of our $6 trillion economy going to the taxing
authorities, we are not an undertaxed economy. Furthermore, we have
received a clear mandate from the American people to cut spending and
taxes as well. In order to do that, the first step is clearly the
gentleman's balanced budget and tax limitation amendment.
The other point I wanted to share with the gentleman is a few weeks
ago I had the opportunity to go up to Baltimore. I obtained an
invitation to go up and, actually a first for me, observe a focus group
being conducted by a well-known research group, and it was quite an eye
opener.
The purpose of this particular focus group, which we were able to
observe through a one-way mirror, was to watch as ordinary Americans,
and these were actually I believe above average in terms of their
educational and economic backgrounds, but to watch the proceedings as
they attempted to go through one of these exercises involving balancing
the Federal budget.
They were provided I think with a three or four page list of all the
discretionary spending items in the Federal budget and then asked to
make specific programmatic spending cuts by going down that list. And
after two hours of discussion, they had not agreed on a single specific
spending cut, illustrating the difficulty of our challenge ahead. They
were able, after another hour or so of conversation, to finally agree
on across-the-board spending cuts, which is frankly something we are
going to have to consider in this body I think in order to meet our
mandates and in order to comply with the balanced budget tax limitation
amendment.
But it was a very revealing experience for me and a very sobering
drive back from Baltimore to the Capitol as a result.
But in the course of that conversation, one of the folks in the room
said ``if we all ran our personal finances like the government, we
would all be bankrupt,'' reminiscent of the wonderful movie ``Dave,''
where the accountant is brought in to look at the Federal Government's
books, and said, ``Who did these books? If I did my books like this, I
would be out of business.'' The point being that, you know, the time
has come to impose some very real constraints, a sense of restraint on
what we do back here with the Federal taxpayers' dollars.
Previous attempts short of the constitutional amendment approach have
not worked. It is very clear that in enacting the constitutional
amendment, the balanced budget requirement, we have to create, as the
gentleman has put it, a disincentive for raising income taxes.
So I commend the gentleman, and urge him on in his efforts tomorrow,
which I fully intend to support on this floor, in the hope that
ultimately we will do the right thing and we will show to the American
people at the conclusion of the debate tomorrow by our votes as we
stand and ultimately become accountable that we really did get the
message from the voters last November, and that we really are serious
about rearranging and ultimately reducing the size, the scope, and the
cost of the Federal Government.
Mr. BARTON of Texas. I thank the gentleman from California, and again
cannot express in the most positive terms how delighted we are to have
him back serving with great distinction in the body.
The hour is getting late. I would be happy to recognize the gentleman
from South Carolina for some brief remarks, so we may hopefully soon
conclude.
Mr. GRAHAM. I was very intrigued by the gentleman from California's
comments there. I think they are right on point, especially the comment
from the constituent or the lay person that said if we ran our affairs
like you do up here, we would be bankrupt.
Would the gentleman agree that if the American public ran their
affairs like we do up here, that they would go to jail?
Mr. BARTON of Texas. I would agree with that in a fiduciary sense. No
cooperation in America could
utilize its assets and abuse its borrowing privileges like we have
here in Washington the last 30 to 40 years.
Mr. GRAHAM. The essence of this debate I think comes down to this
point: During your dissertation a while ago you made some very
important points that I didn't realize, that I believe you said for the
first time 30 years ago, in 1964 and 1965 era, that the entire Federal
budget was less than $200 billion. Is that correct?
Mr. BARTON of Texas. We reached the $100 billion spending mark at the
Federal level in 1961 or 1962, and in the current fiscal year, it is
expected we will expend just for interest on the national debt, over
$225 billion. So we now pay more in interest than the entire Federal
budget was in the early 1960's.
Mr. GRAHAM. I believe the gentleman stated further that during that
period of time the national defense sector spending has increased by
1300 percent.
Mr. BARTON of Texas. Thirteen hundred percent since 1964. This year
we are expected to spend $1 trillion, which is 1 thousand billion, $531
billion. Those numbers are from President Clinton's Office of
Management and Budget. Those are not the Republican numbers, but the
official budget numbers of the President of the United States.
Mr. GRAHAM. Would the gentleman agree with that tendency in place,
the ability to spend far more than we make and it is escalating at
monumental proportions, that if there ever was a time to have a three-
fifths majority vote it is now, and could you comment on the likelihood
of balancing the budget with tax increases if we don't have the three-
fifths majority?
Mr. BARTON of Texas. If the gentleman would yield on that point, in
the early 1980's, then President Reagan accepted a tax increase with
the understanding for every dollar of taxes that were increased, there
would be $2 of spending cuts. Well, we got the tax increase, but we got
$1.58 of spending increase for every dollar of tax increase.
We have researched that back to the mid 1940's. And in no year have
we seen when a tax increase was passed, that the next year the spending
cuts materialized. In the time that I have been in the Congress, and I
was elected in 1984 and sworn in in 1985, we have eliminated in its
entirety one Federal program, the Urban Development Action Grant
Program.
Now, we have reduced some in real terms, but in every year Federal
spending in the aggregate has gone up, and it has averaged over $50
billion a year increase in the time I have been in the Congress. And in
the nineties it has averaged over $65 billion a year. I don't know
about the gentleman from South Carolina or the gentleman from New York
or California or Indiana, but in my family household, if I had an extra
sixty or seventy billion dollars a year, I believe I could get by. I
believe I could make it. And yet we talk and talk and talk about making
the tough choices and cutting spending. The reality is in almost every
case in Washington, that is a phony game. We take the baseline, adjust
it for inflation, adjust it for growth, adjust it for unanticipated
consequences that may never occur, and then say that is what we would
really like, but we will take 10 percent less than that, and they end
up with 10 or 15 percent more than they had the year before.
There have been years when the average Federal program had a net
increase after inflation and after growth in the economy of over 13
percent. Yet we still cry out about needing more revenue. That is
simply not the case.
I am going to conclude this special order, if none of the other
distinguished gentleman wishes time, by
[[Page H686]] simply stating the obvious: Tomorrow is a historic
occasion. For the first time in over 200 years, we have a real
opportunity to amend the Constitution of the United States to require a
Federal balanced budget, and to do so in a way that we would cut
spending and not raise taxes by adding a three-fifths requirement for a
tax increase.
{time} 2240
Thomas Jefferson, one of our founding fathers, the author of the
declaration of independence, rued the fact that when the constitution
was adopted in 1787, it did not have a requirement that the budget be
balanced. In the modern era, it is, I think, factual to state that if
we do not amend the constitution to require a balanced budget, we will
never have a balanced budget.
When our current President's economic advisors state that there is
not even an attempt to get to a balanced budget and that balanced
budgets do not count and that under the most rosy scenario, the budget
deficit begins to climb next year and climb to infinity after we get to
the millennium in the year 2000, it is absolutely imperative that we
act now.
This dialog, colloquy that we have had this evening on the House
floor is not an exercise in academic opportunism. We are going to vote
on the constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget with a tax
limitation provision tomorrow morning between 11 and 12 o'clock Eastern
Standard Time. And if 290 Members of this body vote in the affirmative,
we will have passed it. If less than 290 vote in the affirmative, we
will have 4 other amendments that are made in order and whichever of
those 4 gets the majority vote will be the vote on final passage for
the two-thirds requirement sometime early tomorrow evening.
This colloquy this evening on the House floor has the potential to go
down in history as the most important colloquy that has ever been heard
in this chamber in terms of fiscal responsibility. It is not of the
same significance as declarations of war, which we have had in the
early 1940's and some of those types of debates, but in terms of fiscal
responsibility and our children's future to have the same type of
economic opportunity that we have had, it is important.
If the American people agree with the distinguished Members that have
participated with us this evening of its importance and if they take
advantage of the opportunity to express their serious demand that we
pass the tax limitation balanced budget amendment, we will do so.
I want to thank the gentleman from New York for having the first
special order and the gentleman from Indiana and the gentleman from
South Carolina and the gentleman from California and all the other
distinguished gentlemen and gentlewomen that have participated this
evening and simply ask that they really search their consciences and
come prepared tomorrow to exert every effort in a positive way to pass
this historic amendment.
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