[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 81 (Tuesday, May 16, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H4962-H4963]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                  A SMALLER, LESS-INTRUSIVE GOVERNMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. Hutchinson] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Speaker, the House Committee on the Budget under 
the very capable leadership of John Kasich is to be commended and 
congratulated for producing for us and for the Nation a credible 
balanced budget plan. As the budget plan was released last week amid 
the howls of those who would defend the status quo, one could almost 
sense a collective nationwide sigh as it sank into the American people 
that at long last there is a Congress that is dead serious about 
balancing the budget and confronting our debt problem.
  The litany numbers had become all too familiar to millions of 
Americans: Seventeen percent of Federal revenues for interest on the 
debt; $200 billion deficits as far as the eye can see, $1 trillion of 
new debt in the next 5 years. We will pay more on interest than on 
national defense by 1997. The impending bankruptcy of Medicare is 
spelled out by President Clinton's own trustees; $18,000 in debt 
assumed by every new baby born in America.
  But there is a glimmer of hope in America this week as we prepare to 
vote on this budget plan. Oh, it is mixed with a lot of skepticism. 
Twenty-five years of deficit spending breeds a lot of skepticism.
  But there is a feeling that maybe, just maybe, this Congress means 
business. Under the GOP budget plan there will be a smaller, less 
intrusive and more efficient Government. It forces us to do what scores 
of corporations have had to do, and that is downsize and eliminate 
wasteful spending. It terminates 283 programs. As I talked about the 
budget in my district this past weekend, it was that line that received 
the most applause, above all others, 283 programs eliminated. It 
eliminates 14 agencies and 68 commissions. It makes real cuts in 
discretionary spending. And the squealing has already begun. We will 
hear from the ``Prince of Wails'' over and over this week as the 
defenders of the past wail ``You can't do this.''
  [[Page H4963]] Sure, there are provisions in the budget I wish were 
not there. But that is the beauty of it. Nothing is excluded. Everyone 
will feel the squeeze. While Federal spending increases each year under 
the plan, it increases at a slower rate to allow revenues to catch up 
with spending, or, as William Safire wrote yesterday of the civil war 
general, who instructed a gunner to ``elevate them sights a little 
lower.''
  Under the plan, power and money are shifted back to the States and 
local communities. In welfare, Medicaid, nutrition programs, and job 
training, there is consolidation, elimination of needless duplication, 
and block granting to the States.
  The budget plan would save Medicare from bankruptcy. On April 3d of 
this year, the Medicare trustees, three of whom are Clinton 
administration appointees, sounded the alarm with their warning that 
Medicare part A would run out of money in 2001. this budget plan puts a 
tourniquet on Medicare to stop the hemorrhaging while a task force 
develops long-term solutions. Meanwhile, the President has been 
unwilling to assist in finding those solutions. Here again, expect the 
fear mongers and the scare tacticians to be out in force.
  Under the Committee on the Budget assumption, spending on every 
Medicare beneficiary would actually increase, from an average of $4,684 
now to almost $6,300 in the year 2002.
  But I believe that the most important feature of this budget plan is 
the tax relief for the hard-pressed American family. This budget plan 
provides for the full $500 per child tax credit. It provides for our 
correction of the marriage penalty. It allows the implementing of the 
adoption tax credit and the elder care credited. It allows for the 
raising of the earnings limit on Social Security recipients. These very 
meaningful pro-family policies will only be a reality if we pass the 
House GOP budget plan.
  It was Alan Greenspan who, in pointing out some of the benefits that 
would happen if we balanced the budget, said if our economy was not 
constrained by Federal deficits, the balanced budget would mean a lower 
interest rate, higher productivity, improved purchasing power, reduced 
inflation, and accelerated long-term economic growth. Paul Johnson, the 
noted historian, asserts that the legitimization of envy is that which 
a stable society should fear the most. And there are going to be 
repeated efforts to legitimize envy by pitting one group of Americans 
against another group of Americans.
  I think Thomas Jefferson, one of our Founding Fathers, said it best 
when he said, ``To preserve our independence, we must not let our 
rulers load us with public debt. We must make our choice between 
economy and liberty, or confusion and servitude.''
  That is the choice that this Congress will face this week. I believe 
that most Americans know in their guts, most Americans know 
instinctively, that balancing the budget is the right thing to do, and 
we must do it for our children and for our grandchildren.


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