[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 96 (Tuesday, June 13, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H5898-H5899]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                          BALANCING THE BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Barr). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to follow up on the comments of 
the gentleman from Michigan about the President making a speech tonight 
concerning balancing the budget.
  I, too, welcome the President in this discussion. We have had a game, 
I guess since January, of where is Bill, and I am glad to see that he 
has emerged. I regret that it is after the House has passed its 
balanced budget. I regret that it is after the Senate has passed its 
balanced budget. But there is still time, and this is going to be many, 
many years and a very long process. So I am glad to see he has decided 
to go ahead and jump in the game at this point.
  But I am concerned that now, after fighting against a middle-class 
tax cut, he has come out for one.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Hayworth] on 
this matter because that is what I understand that he did notice; is 
that correct?
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia, my 
good friend, for yielding to me.
  I think it is very important, in the wake of the Presidential 
address, to go on the record as the new majority party at a historic 
moment in our history to say that we welcome the President, albeit 
better later than never, finally owning up to the task of leadership 
and perhaps reading the polls and seeing that the American public does, 
indeed, want its politicians, no matter their party affiliation, to 
work toward a balanced budget.
  But even as we welcome the President's constructive move, I know my 
friend from Georgia will be surprised when he hears that the harshest 
criticism, according to the wires of the Associated Press, Mr. Speaker, 
the harshest criticism comes from the ranking House Democrat on 
appropriations. Let me quote what our friend, Mr. Obey, the Democrat of 
Wisconsin says about the President and tonight's exercise.

       I think most of us learned some time ago that if you don't 
     like the President's position on a particular issue, you 
     simply need to wait a few weeks.

  Now, let me hasten, Mr. Speaker, and my good friend from Georgia, Mr. 
Kingston, to again reinforce the fact that the words are not ours. They 
come from the President's own side of the aisle. Indeed, those who 
bemoan the rise in partisanship and who continually talk of gridlock 
would do well to remember tonight that the harshest criticisms, again, 
comes from the President's own party, those defenders of the statute 
quo who have yet to meet a Government program they do not like, who 
have yet to meet a tax increase they do not like. And even as the 
President talks of tax cuts, again, he always qualifies those comments 
by talking of the middle class or the working class. [[Page H5899]] 
  I know the gentleman from Georgia remembers the State of the Union 
Message where the President stood here behind us at the podium just in 
front of the Speaker's rostrum and offered a very curious type of 
family tax cut for families making only $75,000 a year, so a family 
making $76,000 a year I guess did not qualify as a working family, but 
also perhaps the gentleman from Georgia remembers the curious provision 
of what the President talked about at that time. Do you remember what 
that was? It was this, that the tax cut would only apply to children 
before the age of 13.
  So, in short, the President's idea back in January was to penalize 
anyone who succeeded who made over $75,000 a year and not only to 
penalize people who succeed but to penalize their children for growing 
up.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I think maybe the President's idea was to put them all 
in the national service league so they could get paid for volunteer 
work. When they are 14, they do not need the money anymore. It was 
typical of this administration to come up with a complicated middle-
class tax relief plan. It looked a little bit to me like Mrs. Clinton's 
health care revision last year, just a chart of dots and arrows and 
boxes and squares going this way and all over the page and that is 
their idea, I guess, of simplification and so forth. That is, I think, 
why the American people are getting a little leery of it.
  My 2-year-old, actually 3-year-old, sings a song, did you ever see a 
laddie go this way and that way and this way and that way. That is what 
we have got going on. We all know that. One day you are for tax cuts; 
the next day you are against them. One day you cannot balance the 
budget; the next day you can.

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