[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 78 (Thursday, May 11, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H4869]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


              A SMALLER, MORE EFFICIENT FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Brownback] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, for the first time today in 26 years, 
something very, very unusual has happened. That is, this morning at 
1:05 a.m., the Committee on the Budget of the House of Representatives 
proposed a balanced budget, a balanced budget, one so that in 7 years 
our kids and grandkids won't be having more debt to pay off because we 
were not willing to face the tough task and make the tough choices now 
to be able to cut things back.
  I think this is a grand moment that we are finally addressing this 
most critical of problems. This year alone the Federal debt is going to 
$5 trillion. If we don't balance the budget, going on the current 
projection path we have, if we don't put our oar into the water to make 
this happen, it is going to be at $7 trillion by the year 2002. It is 
time we do it.
  There is only one way we are going to be able to balance the budget. 
That is, creating a smaller, more focused, more efficient Federal 
Government, one that was originally intended by the Founding Fathers, 
one that is not into all functions and tries to do everything for 
everybody but a limited government, a focused Federal Government, one I 
think that Thomas Jefferson would be proud of, one that I would hope 
that Peter Drucker, the management guru, would be proud of for its 
efficiency, and one most of all that I would hope the American people 
would be proud of for what it delivers of services of what they call on 
their Government to do.
  We have had a Federal Government this past quarter of a century that 
has grown out of control and everybody has contributed to it, everybody 
in this country, and in this institution here on both sides of the 
aisle. It is time to get it back into control. It is time to cut it 
back. It is time to recreate the limited Government that was always 
intended by our Founding Fathers.
  The Federal Government was not meant to be all things to all people. 
James Madison wrote early on in the founding of our country this:
  ``The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal 
Government are few and defined.''
  We must get the Federal Government back to its core functions of what 
it was originally intended to be and not flung out here into so many 
different things but focused, efficient, and smaller so that we can be 
able to cut back on the spending, so that we can be able to not deliver 
so much debt to our children, so that we can hold the dream out and 
push toward even paying off the debt, the nearly $5 trillion in debt 
that has been accumulated.
  There are a number of proposals that have been put forward. Some of 
them call for the elimination of whole agencies in the Federal 
Government, agencies such as the Department of Commerce and Energy, HUD 
and Education, keeping certain of the core functions that are functions 
of the Federal Government and should be done by the Federal Government 
and eliminating other portions, privatizing some functions and sending 
some functions back to State and local units of government so that at 
the end of the day we have a smaller, more focused, more efficient 
Federal Government.
  This is an absolute need, if for no other reason than for our 
children and grandchildren, so that they can have a future, not saddled 
with this huge debt, not saddled with such an enormous mortgage on 
America.


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