[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 16 (Thursday, January 26, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H698]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


          IN SUPPORT OF THE STENHOLM BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT

  (Mr. CLEMENT asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. CLEMENT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of a 
constitutional amendment to balance the budget. I have had three 
opportunities to vote on the balanced budget amendments since I have 
been a Member of Congress. We failed three times.
  I do not think we will have a better opportunity than now to pass 
one, finally.
  I support the Charlie Stenholm balanced budget amendment because it 
has strength and it is realistic and it is doable.
  I also know that Members of Congress, most of us, are well-
intentioned; we want to do the right thing; but the fact is every one 
of us has a laundry list of where we are going to cut costs. The 
problem is that we all have a different laundry list of where to cut, 
and therefore nothing is cut.
  Every day we spend $816 million interest payments on the debt alone--
that is right, $816 million every day. That is money that we could use 
to control crime, make job training and education available to more 
Americans and immunize our children.
  Interest payments are simply devouring large portions of the Federal 
budget and preventing the Congress from funding programs that are 
important to the American people. We know we are accountable for our 
actions, we know we are not doing the right thing, we know we need some 
enforcement powers. We need to do it by passing a balanced budget 
amendment.

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