[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 98 (Thursday, June 15, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H6026-H6027]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                         THE PRESIDENT'S 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, thank you very much.
  Last night President Clinton unveiled his second budget of this year. 
This budget aims to balance the Federal budget 10 years from now. This 
means that if you know any third graders, that third grader will be 
graduated from high school and the budget still will not be balanced.
  It also means that we hope that a decade from now we are going to 
really balance the budget. I mean, if a politician told you today that 
we are not going to balance the budget now but we are going to balance 
it in 10 years, I wonder how many of the American people would believe 
that promise.
  Remember, the President did not say the debt would be paid off. He 
said if all goes well, we will stop adding to the debt rate. Put it 
this way: Does it not all sound a little ludicrous? Do we really think 
that Congress will balance the budget 10 years from now? We just cannot 
do it today, and therefore we have to put it off for 10 years?
  President Clinton is saying we will not pay you back 10 years from 
now, but we are going to stop and make the promise today that we will 
not be borrowing money 10 years from now. The President has said that 
it would be too painful to bring the budget into balance in less than 
10 years.
  Now, remember that Thomas Jefferson, while President, introduced a 
plan to pay off the Federal debt at that time in 16 years. That meant 
that he thought it prudent not just to balance the budget, but run 
enough of a surplus to pay off the debt.
  If you consider the real problem, the serious problem, that we not 
only have to balance the budget, but the fact is we have an actuarial 
debt in Medicare of an estimated $8 trillion, we have an actuarial debt 
in Social Security of an additional $5 trillion, we have an actuarial 
debt of what we owe Federal retirees, the pension plans for Federal 
workers and military workers, of an estimated $1.5 trillion additional. 
It is serious.
  I am delighted the President has come to the forum. But now we need 
to decide if he is going to actually give us the details of those 
budget reductions and cuts so that we can incorporate those ideas into 
our thinking as we proceed with this budget resolution.
  You know, the pain we are hearing about when the President says it is 
too painful to balance the budget in 7 years is political pain, 
involved in admitting to reality. As the great 19th century French 
political philosopher, Frederic Bastiat told us, government cannot 
provide what it does not contain.
  The only way government can give you $1 of health care services is to 
take that $1 from your neighbor in taxes. There is no such thing as 
Federal money that can be handed out by 435 Congressmen and 100 
Senators. If the Federal Government does not tax your neighbor to get 
that dollar, then it has the option to borrow it from that neighbor or 
print the dollar. If the Government borrows the dollar, then your 
neighbor cannot use it to buy a machine or go to school or to buy a car 
or to buy a home and to make more productive workers and an expanded 
economy in the United States. If the Government prints the dollar, then 
the savings of your elderly neighbor has gone down in value, which is 
taxing by inflation.
  We must admit that Medicare is going bankrupt, as well as Social 
Security, and that Medicaid is bankrupting States as well as the 
Federal Government. To say that it is too painful to balance the budget 
only makes sense if you think that government has the right to your 
earnings and will just leave you with whatever is left over after the 
politicians divide it up among the people who have political access or 
political pull.
  Let us follow in the footsteps of Thomas Jefferson and force the 
politicians to admit that the emperor, in this case the Federal 
Government, has no clothes, has no dollars. We cannot exist by using 
Government as a mechanism to engage in stealing from each other. We 
must as individuals recognize our responsibility towards the less 
fortunate, the sick and the elderly.
  Governments cannot be charitable. They can only redistribute under 
force. I have faith in the American people and [[Page H6027]] their 
willingness to provide true altruism.


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