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


                    IMPORTANCE OF A BALANCED BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Smith] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, a few minutes ago, roughly 28 
minutes ago, the President of the United States made a nationally 
televised address indicating that he was now convinced that we should 
have a balanced budget. I wanted to give this 5 minutes tonight because 
I am delighted to welcome the President aboard, because he now 
realizes, or the pollsters realize, that a balanced budget is going to 
be very important if we are going to spur the economic and job 
development of this country, if we are going to be very important if we 
are going to spur the economic and job development of this country, if 
we are going to end up not giving our kids and our grandkids a 
mortgaged future. Let me just make a couple of comments on how serious 
the overspending of this Congress is and what is happening to the 
obligation of future generations.

                              {time}  2130

  We now have a debt of approximately $4.9 trillion. That means that 
the interest on that debt this year is going to be $339 billion, the 
largest expense item of anything else on our budget. But the problem is 
of jobs and economic development. If we are not able to balance that 
budget, then we continue to obligate a greater and greater portion of 
our budget to the interest. But more than that, here is the Federal 
Government today going out and demanding that they have 42 percent of 
all of the money lent out in the Untied States this year. That means 
that extra demand for money is driving up interest rates.
  Our top banker of this Nation, Chairman Greenspan of the Federal 
Reserve, estimates that if we are able to balance the budget, we can 
see interest rates drop between 1\1/2\ and 2 percent. What is that 
going to do for business? What is that going to do for people that want 
to go out and buy a new home or a new car or business to expand their 
operation and to hire more people? It is going to do a great deal.
  The other problem, or course, is the U.S. needs to have the kind of 
tax policy that is going to spur economic development.
  The President tonight said nothing to stimulate the economy through 
taxes, but he was for those good political things of a middle class tax 
cut. And so I an concerned that whether or not this was political 
rhetoric on the part of the President tonight is going to be shown 
really in his details as he presents those details to the United States 
Congress.
  It is good news that we are all going to talk from the same goal of 
eventually achieving a balanced budget. The President suggests we 
should wait for 10 years to get that balanced budget. But this is a 
problem technically, because the problem of compounding interest, the 
longer we wait to cut some of those expenses, the more drastic those 
cuts are going to have to be. That is why it is important that we start 
early, that we try to get this balanced budget in 5 years. The House 
and the Senate have said, let us take 7 years to do it, but let us do 
it at least in 7 years and then start paying off the actual debt that 
we have incurred for future generations.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank you for this opportunity.
  Mr. President, welcome aboard in the legitimate budget discussions of 
having a true balanced budget and saving our future for our kids.


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