[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 127 (Wednesday, August 2, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S11224]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


          WAS CONGRESS IRRESPONSIBLE? CONSIDER THE ARITHMETIC

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, on that evening in 1972 when I first was 
elected to the Senate, I made a commitment to myself that I would never 
fail to see a young person, or a group of young people, who wanted to 
see me.
  It has proved enormously beneficial to me because I have been 
inspired by the estimated 60,000 young people with whom I have visited 
during the nearly 23 years I have been in the Senate.
  Most of them have been concerned about the enormity of the Federal 
debt that Congress has run up for the coming generations to pay. The 
young people and I almost always discuss the fact that under the U.S. 
Constitution, no President can spend a dime of Federal money that has 
not first been authorized and appropriated by both the House and Senate 
of the United States.
  That is why I began making these daily reports to the Senate on 
February 22, 1992. I wanted to make a matter of daily record of the 
precise size of the Federal debt which as of yesterday, Tuesday, August 
1, stood at $4,954,700,676,689.14 or $18,808.12 for every man, woman, 
and child in America on a per capita basis.


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