[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 128 (Thursday, August 3, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1614]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                           THE BUDGET CRISIS

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                       HON. ERNEST J. ISTOOK, JR.

                              of oklahoma

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, August 3, 1995
  Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, my fellow Oklahoman, Paul Harvey, recently 
gave this commentary on the budget debt and the cronic budget deficit. 
This reemphasizes the importance of our work on balancing the budget 
within the next 7 years and reversing the trend of Federal budgets of 
the past. It is important for Congress to continue working to restore 
fiscal integrity to the Federal Government.
  [Paul Harvey commentary follows:]
                            Too Many Alarms

       There are too many alarms going off: Americans are refusing 
     to heed any of them.
       Seismologists predict quakes which may or may not happen 
     and about which we can't do anything anyway.
       Even the sky is falling, as ten thousand hunks of space 
     junk wait their turn for re-entry.
       Daily headlines threaten us with invasions of killer ants, 
     killer bees and killer diseases for which we have no cure.
       And so it is that it is that a time bomb more certain than 
     any of these is mostly ignored.
       We are about to be buried alive under a national debt of 
     4.8 trillion dollars and it's growing 10 thousand dollars a 
     second!
       But are not both the President and the Congress promising 
     to defuse the bomb? They are.
       President Clinton says he can balance the budget in ten 
     years; Congress talks of doing it in seven.
       But nobody is doing it!
       And history justifies anxiety.
       The President who promises to balance the budget in ten 
     years told Larry King in June of 1992 that he'd accomplish 
     that objective in five years.
       However, instead of presenting a balanced budget in 1993--
     the year he took office--he increased our debt by $253 
     billion.
       Then, instead of presenting a balanced budget in 1994, he 
     increased our debt another $203 billion.
       Then, instead of presenting a balanced budget for 1995, he 
     proposed a budget that would increase our debt another $320 
     billion.
       Then, instead of promoting Congress' plan to balance the 
     budget in seven years, he's threatening to veto it claiming 
     that that's going too fast!
       Now, a full three years after Mr. Clinton promised to 
     present a five-year plan to balance the budget, he is 
     promising--oh, so promising--to balance the budget in ten.
       If the situation were less dire . . . if the time bomb were 
     not so big and so unstable perhaps we could wait and see and 
     hope and pray that this time--this time--something will be 
     done.
       We must not wait.
       Even Newt Gingrich says it may take ten years. We may not 
     have ten years.
       Every child born today will pay a lifetime tax rate of over 
     82%.
       Every child born tomorrow will pay $187,000 in taxes for 
     the interest on what we owe.
       That's just the interest . . . $187,000 in Interest on our 
     debt.
       Every American man, woman and child will owe $24,000 by the 
     year 2000, and that, by the way, is just one presidential 
     election away.
     

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