[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 44 (Thursday, March 9, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H2976-H2977]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


    A CHALLENGE TO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY: GIVE US YOUR SPENDING CUTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Longley). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] is recognized for 5 
minutes.

                              {time}  2145

  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, the balanced budget amendment is not truly 
dead, but it is in the hospice care unit across the hall. In the House 
about 130 Democrats voted against it, 2 Republicans. In the Senate, 33 
Democrats and 1 Republican voted against it, so apparently, I know the 
Democrats had some heartburn with the concept of a balanced budget 
amendment.
  One of the big reasons that they gave, particularly in the Senate, 
was monkeying with the Constitution. Apparently, not monkeying with the 
Constitution is more important than not letting the country go 
bankrupt. Obviously, interpretation of the Constitution and its 
sacredness is relative to proximity to reelection.
  I would say that so many times, if you watch the Senators speaking, 
they flip-flop back and forth more than an old Patsy Cline record on 
the jukebox.
  First, they said, the Constitution: ``I'm not going to vote for a 
balanced budget amendment because of the Constitution.'' Then, they 
said ``Give us your specifics, Republicans. You want to balance the 
budget by the year 2002, give us the specifics.''
  Last week, the Committee on Appropriations gave $17 billion in 
specific cuts, very difficult cuts, heart-wrenching in many cases, 
painful, many times politically risky, politically unwise. Members had 
programs in their own districts that were reduced, at a time when there 
is a lot of screaming and crying back home to keep these programs.
  What the Republican Party has had to do is say ``Look, we are on a 
sinking boat. We are asking everybody to throw out a little bit of your 
own luggage, but we think if you do that, we can get the boat ashore. 
We can guarantee you if you won't let go of your luggage, we are going 
down.''
  At a $4.5 trillion debt, and an item on our budget called interest on 
the national debt, which is the third largest expenditure in the 
national budget, $20 billion a month, we are going bankrupt.
  Yet, Mr. Chairman, we hear time and time again, as we did earlier 
tonight from the gentleman from Missouri, ``We are not doing things for 
the children.'' Back home, Mr. Speaker, it reminds me of when I was a 
kid. My daddy had a charge account at a pharmacy.
  [[Page H2977]] I found out when I was about 10 years old I could go 
down there and get myself a 25-cent Coke and charge it to my dad, just 
write his signature, and I didn't have to reach in old Jack's pocket, 
because I just had to sign my dad's name.
  Then at the end of the month my dad would see a 25-cent charge for 
Coca-Colas and he would have some stern words for me, but he would also 
get his 25 cents back.
  We have got an opposite case going on in the U.S. Congress, 
particularly on the Democrat side, particularly on those who will not 
give it a rest on the school lunch program. They would prefer 
misinterpretation of reality to reality.
  Mr. Speaker, what they are saying is ``Go ahead and charge it, not to 
your dad, charge it to your son and your grandson and your daughter and 
your granddaughter. Years from now, when your children's children come 
to pay the bill, you will be dead and you will not have to worry about 
their debt.''
  That is what we are doing. We talk about doing things for children. 
How about not saddling them when they get out of school, when they get 
out into the work world, how about not saddling them right off the bat 
with a huge, tremendous debt? That is what we are doing.
  It is kind of like saying, you know, people want ice cream for today. 
It might not be in their best interests to eat ice cream three meals a 
day. Let us kind of cut back a little bit, and maybe there will be 
enough tomorrow, but we have to take some meat and vegetables now. It 
is very important to do it.
  We had $17 billion in specific cuts. To my knowledge, not one 
Democrat voted for any of them. They grandstanded about how harsh all 
of them were. I understand that, that is fair game. I would say the 
Republican Party has done it to the Democrats many times themselves.
  However, the fact is we are taking away one of their arguments for 
voting against the balanced budget amendment, Mr. Speaker. We are 
giving specific cuts.
  Now, in the spirit of good sportsmanship, in the spirit of 
preservation of America, in the spirit of the best interests of the 
taxpayers, I challenge the Democrat party, give us your cuts. You do 
not like ours. That does not change the fact that we have a $4.5 
trillion debt. That does not change the fact that we are paying $20 
billion a month in interest. That does not change the fact that the 
third largest expenditure on our national budget each year is interest. 
So give us your specifics. We need to hear from you.
  I think if the Democrat Party would go ahead and decide to jump in 
the water with us, that maybe we could take the best of their ideas 
with the best of the Republican ideas and do what is best for the 
United States of America, so that our children and our children's 
children will not be saddled with such a huge and tremendous debt and a 
bankrupt nation.


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