[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 139 (Friday, September 8, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H8720-H8724]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                          BALANCING THE BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Fox of Pennsylvania). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from 
Connecticut [Mr. Shays] is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of 
the majority leader.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address this 
Chamber in a special order, and to say that I am interested in talking 
on a very different issue than the previous speaker, and to say for 
those who are in staff and want to know what time we are going to end, 
I do not intend to use the full hour. Twenty minutes is my goal.
  Mr. Speaker, I have been in public life for 20 years. I have served 
13 years in the statehouse and now 8 years in Congress, but I was in 
the statehouse and I looked at Congress, an institution that I revered 
as someone who in high school and college was an American history 
major, and wondered why Congress would not do its most basic 
responsibility, and that is to get its own financial house in order. I 
knew we had to do that at the State level, but I saw Congress 
continually deficit spend and wondered why it was happening.
  I realized it was not the fault necessarily of one party or the White 
House versus Congress or the Congress versus the White House. 
Republicans did not want to control military spending, and Democrats 
did not want to control the growth of what we call entitlements, 
Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, other programs. By law, you were 
entitled to the benefit, entitlements never being voted on by Congress 
on automatic pilot.
  So Republicans did not give on defense. Democrats did not give on 
entitlements, and then they got together each year to vote on budgets 
with large deficits, Republicans and Democrats together, the White 
House and Congress.
  During these 8 years I have served in Congress, I have noticed and 
felt a real privilege of being part of a small group really championed 
by John Kasich, our Budget Committee chairman, who 8 years ago 
introduced budgets to get our financial house in order and only 30 
Members at that time supported it.
  But each year I notice something very distinct. Each year I notice 
that more and more Members were troubled by the fact that we were 
increasing our national debt to such a point. It went up in the last 20 
years from $800 billion to now $4.9 trillion.

                              {time}  1415

  Each year I would notice 30 would vote for it, then 50, then 70, and 
during the last Congress, we had a hard core of 160 who were concerned 
about getting our financial house in order. In fact, at one point, 
there was a bipartisan effort, unique in this Chamber, comprised of 
Democrats and Republicans, called the Penny-Kasich proposal, which 
sought to make over $100 billion of cuts in Government spending.
  I went to the White House to encourage them to support this proposal, 
and if they could not support it, to at least not oppose it. They 
opposed it. It was defeated by only four votes, Republicans and 
Democrats uniting to get our financial house in order. We needed 218 
votes, and we had about 213.
  We now as Republicans have an opportunity to lead Congress, and it is 
the first time in 40 years. We have, under our watch, the opportunity 
to get this country back in balance. We have three basic goals. One of 
our goals is, first, to get our financial house in order and balance 
our Federal budget.
  Our second is to preserve, protect, and strengthen our trust funds, 
particularly Medicare, which we will see shortly is going bankrupt in 7 
years. It is
 starting next year to go bankrupt. The Medicare trust fund is the 
trust fund that working people pay into, 1.45 percent is their share; 
if they are self-employed then they pay double that, 2.9 percent, into 
a trust fund that pays for the hospital costs of Medicare.

  Our third effort is to transform our social and corporate welfare 
state into an opportunity society, where the most disadvantaged in our 
communities can have a better future.
  Mr. Speaker, as a moderate Republican I am very comfortable using an 
opportunity society, because that is what we need and that is what we 
are seeking to have. When we try to get our financial house in order, 
this first chart basically shows that overall, we are going to spend 
more money. When we talk about cuts, we are going to cut some programs. 
Foreign aid is going to be cut. We are going to spend less next year 
than we spend today. There are certain programs in what we call 
discretionary spending that are going to be cut. We are going to spend 
less in those programs than next year. We are going to eliminate some 
programs. We are going to consolidate some departments.
  There are some programs that are going to stay even. Defense spending 


[[Page H 8721]]
under our proposal stays even. I would like it to be a reduction, but 
it is a hard freeze for the next 7 years. In real dollars it is a cut. 
In absolute dollars it is the same.
  In some programs, like Medicare and Medicaid, we are going to spend 
more dollars. We are not cutting Medicare and Medicaid, we are 
increasing it. It is only in Washington, when we increase spending but 
do not spend as much as some people say we should spend, we call it a 
cut.
  One of the ironic things that I found when I became a Member of 
Congress 8 years ago was that if Congress spent $100 million for a 
program, in the next year to run the same level of service it has to 
spend $105 million. If we spend $103 million, even though we were 
spending $3 million more, Congress, the White House, and the press 
would call it a $2 million cut in spending, whereas most people I know 
back in my district would say, ``My gosh, you spend $100 million this 
year, next year you are going to spend 103, so that sounds like a $3 
million increase.''
  In our original spending we are at $1.5 trillion. Under our proposal 
in the seventh year we are going to be spending $1.8 trillion. We are 
going to be spending more dollars in the seventh year than we spend 
now. We are going to change, though, the spending line, which is in 
red, so it automatically, in 7 years, will intersect revenues, which is 
in blue.
  That green line is our conference agreement. We are tilting down the 
spending level of Government, still allowing it to increase, but 
knowing that it will intersect revenue and therefore have a balanced 
budget in 7 years.
  The challenge for us when we balance our budget, and in this pie 
chart it illustrates it quite well, the purple colors are what we call 
entitlements: Social Security, which we are not going to change at all; 
Medicare, Medicaid, other entitlements. If you fit the law, you get the 
benefit of the program.
  What you see in yellow is interest on the national debt. Because of 
Congress' and the White House's failure to control spending, having 
annual deficits, at the end of each year the annual deficits are then 
brought over to the national debt, the national debt keeps increasing.
  These added deficits added to our national debt that have meant we 
spend $235 billion this year in
 interest on the national debt, 15 percent of our budget, is interest 
on the national debt. We cannot spend it on programs for children, we 
cannot spend it on programs for the middle class, we cannot spend it on 
programs for the elderly. We are having to spend $235 billion on 
interest on the national debt.

  Interestingly enough, now, we pay more in interest on the national 
debt than we have as a deficit. If we did not have to pay so much 
interest on the national debt, we would not have deficits. What I vote 
on as a Member of Congress is about a third of the budget. I vote on 
defense spending, which is about 17 percent; foreign aid and the State 
Department, about 1.4 percent of the budget; and I vote on 16 percent 
of the budget, domestic discretionary spending, all what we call, in 
the pink, discretionary spending, and what we vote on in the Committee 
on Appropriations every year, I just vote on the pink, it is a third of 
the budget.
  Then I am making decisions on what we spend on defense, what we spend 
to run the executive branch and the administration in its entirety, all 
the branches. I vote on what we spend for the judicial branch and what 
we spend for the legislative branch. In the executive branch, I am 
voting on all the grants that I have to make decisions on, but it is 
only, basically, one-third of the budget I vote on.
  The blue I do not vote on. It just happens. It is on automatic pilot. 
We refer to what is in blue and what is in yellow. Two-thirds of the 
budget is mandatory spending, and we have not touched it in years.
  When people say how come those of you who remember Gramm-Rudman, you 
were going to control deficits and eliminate them and not keep adding 
to the national debt. The reason Gramm-Rudman failed is that it only 
focused in on the pink, it only focused on domestic discretionary 
spending and defense spending, foreign aid. It ignored all the 
entitlements.
  Now what we are looking to do is to focus in on other programs, 
Medicare and Medicaid in particular Medicare and Medicaid are 17 
percent of our budget. These areas here, 17 percent of our budget, just 
two programs, are equal to all domestic spending. We are not looking to 
slow the growth. We are looking to not have Medicare and Medicaid grow 
at 10 percent a year. For a few years it actually grew at 20 percent a 
year.
  As these programs become larger and larger, and they are mandatory, 
they are entitlements, what is in the pink, what I vote on every year, 
becomes smaller and smaller.
  The budget is just simply getting out of control. We want to improve 
and protect and strengthen Medicare and Medicaid. We think, and we 
believe with all our heart and soul, we can have a better Medicare and 
Medicaid Program at an increased cost, but not have a 10-percent 
increase each year.
  What is our budget doing? Our budget is having an annual decrease in 
domestic discretionary spending of 1.6 percent a year. We are having an 
annual decrease in foreign aid of 4.5 percent a year. Defense spending 
is not going up, and it is not going down. Some people would say, ``How 
can you have such a large program and not cut it at all, just keep it 
constant?'' I would like it reduced, but there is one serious issue 
that we are faced with. The Congressional Budget Office says that the 
defense budget in the next 7 years is over $100 billion oversubscribed. 
We have weapons system that if we funded all the weapons system that we 
have authorized, we would have $100 billion over what we are going to 
be allowed to spend. The Government Accounting
 Office, the GAO, says we are $150 billion oversubscribed. We are going 
to have cuts in defense spending just to stay at a constant no increase 
in spending.

  Finally, we have interest on the national debt, which under our plan 
is going to grow at 2.7 percent a year. That is the interest payments 
that we have to pay. By the way, when we pay interest, we are not 
reducing the national debt, we are just carrying the cost. If it was 
your home mortgage, you are setting some aside on interest in the 
national debt and you are paying off some of the principal. We are not 
paying off the principal, we are just paying off the interest and 
trying to stay harmless. Other entitlements are going to grow at 4.1 
percent a year, Medicaid, and going to grow at 4.9 percent a year, 
basically 5 percent each year.
  We are not cutting Medicaid. Medicaid is health care for the poor, it 
is nursing care for the elderly. It is going to go up at basically 5 
percent a year. Medicare, health care for the elderly, is going to grow 
at 6.3 percent a year. You have heard that Republicans intend to cut 
Medicare and Medicaid. It is not true. What we intend to do is slow 
their growth. In the process, we are looking to change these programs.
  Basically, Social Security is going to grow at 5.3 percent a year. We 
have not looked at Social Security. We are not going to touch Social 
Security. We are going to focus in on these other parts of the budget. 
What are we looking to do with Medicaid? We intend to have Medicaid go 
from $89 billion in this year, to the year 2002 when it is going to go 
up to $124 billion. That is a significant increase in the seventh year.
  It continually goes up, but what we have done is we have reduced the 
rate of increase. We are not cutting Medicare, we are increasing 
Medicare spending quite significantly. In fact, Medicaid spending in 
the next 7 years, we are going to spend $773 billion. In the last 7 
years we spent $444 billion. We are going to spend $329 billion more in 
the next 7 years than we spent in the last 7. Only in Washington, when 
you spend $329 billion more, do they call it a cut. I know nowhere else 
in the country, when you spend more money do people call it a cut. We 
are going to spend $329 billion more.
  With Medicare part A, which is health care for the
   elderly, money that goes to hospital costs, what we know from the 
trustees report, five of the members were appointed by President 
Clinton, three of them are Cabinet officials, and one is head of Social 
Security, all appointed by the President, and they issued a report 
earlier this year. They said conservatively that Medicare will start to 
have more money going out of the fund, Medicare part A trust fund,than 
comes into the fund. Remember, what comes into the 

[[Page H 8722]]
fund is what you pay, that 1.4 or 1.5 percent every week or every 2 
weeks or every month out of your paycheck. That goes into a fund and it 
should be building up, but we have 136 billion this year, it is going 
to go down $1 billion, and by the year 2002, 7 years from today, that 
blue line goes to zero. There will be no money in the trust fund. Then 
the only way we fund Medicare would be as the money comes into the 
fund, it immediately gets taken out. The Medicare part A trust fund is 
going bankrupt.

  We have four ways to save this fund. We can affect the beneficiaries, 
those that get the service, we can affect the providers, those who give 
the service, we can decide to raise taxes on those who are working 
today. However, we must realize that if you are self-employed, 15 
percent of your paycheck--before--you pay your income tax is going into 
Social Security and Medicare. We have intention whatsoever in 
increasing that tax. We are not going to increase the tax.
  We have one other choice. We can change and transform the system and, 
in the process, benefit beneficiaries and benefit providers. We are 
looking to transform the system. We are looking to protect it. We are 
looking to preserve it. We are looking to strengthen it. We are looking 
to allow Medicare patients to have the same kind of health care that 
everybody else has. What their children and their children's children 
have, we want for seniors. If they want to stay in traditional fee-for-
service, the traditional Medicare program, what they have now, they 
will be able to do that, but we are going to try to encourage more 
Americans in Medicare to get into the private sector, where they can 
have a variety of new services, and we believe at less cost. Medicare 
part A is going bankrupt. We are looking to preserve, protect, and 
strengthen that program.
  Are we going to spend less on Medicare? We are going to slow its 
growth. We are going to spend more on Medicare. We are going to have it 
go from $178 billion to $274 billion in the seventh year. We are 
looking to spend 50 percent more, over 50 percent more on Medicare than 
we spend today in the seventh year. It is going to go up that much.
                              {time}  1430

  In fact, in the last 7 years, we spent $926 billion on Medicare and 
we are looking to spend $1.6 trillion, $1,601 billion more, in the next 
7 years. That represents $675 billion of new money. Only in Washington 
when you spend $675 billion of new money do they call it a cut. We are 
not cutting Medicare. We are going to spend $675 billion more, a total 
of $1.6 trillion, in the next 7 years. It goes up from the sum of $178 
billion to the sum of $274 billion.
  The President had at first said that we should not, quote-unquote, 
cut Medicare and Medicaid. He described the efforts of Congress to slow 
the growth of Medicare and Medicaid as a cut. But then a few months ago 
he came in with what he called his 10-year budget.
  I want to say without any hesitation that I am very grateful, and I 
mean this sincerely, that the President has weighed in and said, yes, 
we need to balance the budget, we said 7 years, he said 10 years. But 
there are some of us who believe it should be 5 years, not 7, some of 
us stretched out into 7, but the President said we should balance the 
budget in 10 years.
  He also said that we should slow the growth of Medicare and Medicaid. 
So he has weighed in on admitting and acknowledging that we need to 
slow the growth of these two programs, and he said we are going to 
spend more but we cannot spend as much as we were originally intending.
  What was interesting, though, was when the Congressional Budget 
Office looked at the President's 10-year plan, they said it does not 
get balanced in 10 years. They said he is more optimistic on revenue 
than he should be, he is more optimistic that we can control other 
costs than he should be, and they said his budget never gets in balance 
in those 10 years.
  One of the reasons why I am here today is the President constantly is 
referring to his 10-year budget and that he has weighed in on the 
balanced budget. The Congressional Budget Office says it is not 
balanced.
  How does he say it is balanced? Because the Office of Management and 
Budget with their numbers, done out of the White House, have said that 
it is a balanced budget. They are using different economic projections.
  When the President was at that dais there when he spoke to us, he 
said that it was important for us to sing out of the same hymnal, he 
said it was important for us to use the same referee, the same umpire, 
and he said it should be the Congressional Budget Office. We have dealt 
with the conservative projections of the Congressional Budget Office, 
in part because that is our obligation, in part because the President 
said that is who it should be. When we look at what the Congressional 
Budget Office has said about what is under current law, current law is 
what passed last year and the year before, if you remember, there were 
tax increases 2 years ago, there was a lot of disharmony, there was the 
thought that tax increases would slow the deficits, the Congressional 
Budget Office has weighed in and said under current law, the national 
debt is $175 billion today, the deficit, excuse me, will be $175 
billion. Remember, deficits are the annual difference between revenue 
and spending, and they say it will be $175 billion. They say the next 
year under current law it will go to 210, to 230, to 232, to 265, to 
296, to 310, to 340, to 372, to 408, to 454. That was the President's 
tax plan of 2 years ago. It does not begin to head us in a balanced 
budget. It is the top line, it is in black, it is current law, it goes 
in this direction. That is the whole debate. We have got to get that 
line which is headed up to head down so it gets to zero and does not 
keep going up.
  The President's budget of February, which is hard to see, it is just 
below the current law, and it is only a 5-year projection, they say 
that the President's February budget, which the President asked us to 
act on, would have a deficit of basically $177 billion, 211, then it 
goes to 232, 231, 256, 276.
  The President's budget of February keeps going up. What do they say 
about the President's 10-year budget? That is in red. When CBO scored 
the President's budget, they said it goes from 175 to 196, 212, 199, 
goes down, then it goes up, 213, 220, 211, 210, 207, 209, 209. It never 
gets below $200 billion a year. That is the President's 10-year budget. 
That is the budget that he says balance in 10 years.
  He can say it because the Office of Management and Budget have given 
him numbers that allow him to say it. But when the Congressional Budget 
Office scores it, the organization he said should judge our budget and 
his budget, when we look at that budget, it never is in balance. It is 
in a constant deficit of over $200 billion.
  When the Congressional Budget Office scores what we intend to do, and 
what we intend to do is have cuts in discretionary spending, cuts in 
foreign aid, eliminating some programs, consolidating other programs, 
eliminating some departments and agencies, reducing others, having a 
freeze on defense spending, allowing Medicare to go up, allowing 
Medicaid to go up, they say that our budget goes from $175 billion to 
170 to 152 to 116, to 100, to 81, to 33, to minus 6 in the 7th year. 
Obviously we are estimating. We could be off, we could reduce the 
deficit a little sooner, it could go out a little more. so every year 
we are going to have to look at it and be firm that we get to a 
balanced budget in the next 7 years.
  Some people said that when Congress voted for a balanced budget 
amendment and said they would vote to balance the budget that we, 
Congress, boxed ourselves in. We did box ourselves in. We felt that if 
we were in support of a balanced budget in 7 years, a balanced budget 
amendment, which is the easiest thing to vote for, all you have to do 
is vote for saying we will balance it, we said that the important thing 
is that
 we vote to balance the budget, and so we boxed ourselves in.

  We were much like Cortez when he left the old world for the new world 
and was to conquer the new world. He landed in this new world and he 
came with sailors and soldiers and the sailors and soldiers looked back 
at the old world longingly, Cortez did something quite dramatic, he 
burned his ships. He said there is no retreat.
  We have no retreat. We did box ourselves in. We have committed to 
balancing this budget. We are not looking back at the old world. We are 
looking at the new world. We are looking to get 

[[Page H 8723]]
our financial house in order, we are looking to balance the budget, we 
are looking to save our trust funds, particularly Medicare which is in 
the most trouble, and we are looking to transform this social corporate 
welfare state into an opportunity society where the poor have a future, 
and we have boxed ourselves in eagerly so. There is no retreat. There 
is no going back to the old world. We are in the new world and we are 
out to conquer the new world and to transform our society. The worst 
that could happen is we would fail. What is the alternative, to go back 
to the old world?
  When the Congressional Budget Office and OMB's numbers are put 
together, you can learn some very interesting information. Thr red line 
that goes parallel horizontal is the President's budget scored by the 
Congressional Budget Office. The red line with black dots is the 
President's budget scored by the Office of Management and Budget, the 
President's own office. They say he balances his budget in 10 years.
  Now, when we look at the congressional budget, scoring our budget, 
they say we balance, this green line here, they say we balance the 
budget in 7 years. If we use the Congress's numbers using the Office of 
Management and Budget, in other words, have the Office of Management 
and Budget score our budget using the same projections, then they say 
we balance the budget in 6 years.
  My greatest fear, or one of my greatest fears is that we will have a 
budget disagreement and people call it a train wreck, I do not call it 
a train wreck, a train wreck implies tremendous destruction and it is 
pretty irresponsible to have a train wreck.
  What we have is a disagreement between the White House and the 
President. The President says he wants us to balance the budget in 10 
years but it is never balanced according to the Congressional Budget 
Office. We want to balance it in 7 years. The President has opinions 
about our spending cuts and our changes to the growth in spending. We 
have opportunity to have dialog on that issue.
  There are things that Republicans are going to, and this majority in 
Congress is going to hold firm on and there are other issues that I 
think should be open to debate. One thing that is firm in my judgment 
is that we need to balance the budget in 7 years. My goodness, we 
should balance it in 5 years.
  I think another issue that clearly is one in which we will hold to 
strongly, we need a tax cut. When we talk about a tax cut, understand 
that $145 billion in the next 7 years of loss in revenue. In a spending 
of over $11 trillion in the next 7 years, we are going to spend over 
$11 trillion in the next 7 years and we are saying let us just reduce 
taxes by $245 billion. Half of that tax cut is going to be a $500 tax 
credit to families under $200,000 for every child. If you have 3 
children, you will get $1,500 back from the Federal Government. Now 
some people might think of that as a gift. I do not.
  Mr. Speaker, I notice I am going over 20 minutes. I apologize. I am 
getting to my end here. Some people think of it as a gift. I do not 
think of it as a gift. I think of it as trying to direct money where it 
is nost needed, for families.
  I come from a family of 4 boys. I happen to be close to 50. In fact, 
my biggest shock was I got an invitation to join AARP a few months ago. 
I do not know if you know what that is like, to get an invitation to be 
a member of AARP when you are still in your 40's. But my family, my dad 
and mom, were able to deduct in today's dollars per child from their 
income tax over $7,000 per child. The laws in the 1950's and early 
1960's allowed you to deduct per child over $7,000 per child. Today you 
are only allowed to deduct $2,450, I believe, per child. So that meant 
in today's dollars if you were a family of 4, you could deduct $28,000 
from your income, you would subtract it, and if you made $50,000, then 
you had only $22,000 that was taxable. That is if we had the same 
system now that we had when my family was raising their 4 boys. We were 
far more family friendly then.
  People say, well, we need to be more family friendly. We need to help 
families. What is the best way to do it? To have a government program 
where the government takes off a certain amount of money before it 
directs it to a child? Or to allow families to decide how to spend 
money on their family? What we want to do with half the tax cut is to 
give $500 per child. If you have 5 children, you can figure out pretty 
clearly what you are going to be able to get from that. The other is we 
want a capital gains exemption.
  What do I think is going to basically happen in this budget 
disagreement? Republicans are going to hold firm to 7 years, 
Republicans are going to hold firm to a tax cut. The President should 
weigh in and say I do not like where you are making your spending cuts 
and tell us how he would do it differently and we can come to some 
agreement, he may say we are having too large a tax cut, but ultimately 
I think the issue should be can we make the tax cut apply to families 
that are not as high income.
  For instance, the President has advocated having the child tax credit 
apply to families with $75,000 income or less. That is an area that it 
seems to me makes sense for there to be compromise. Have the tax cuts, 
just have it apply to families that make less
 income, so we get away from any argument that he may have that it is 
going to wealthy people.

  What is going to happen with Medicaid and Medicare? We are going to 
spend in Medicaid in the 7th year $124 billion. He has suggested 
spending $150 billion. There is not much difference between us. But 
what the President does is he says he is saving $54 billion from 
Medicaid and Republicans are saving $182 billion. The problem is his 
$54 billion is scored by OMB and he is using our $182 billion scored by 
CBO. If we are going to be fair, if we use the number that we are 
reducing the growth in Medicaid by $54 billion, that is his number, 
then our number has to be $114 billion. We are not that far apart. If 
we use our number of $182 billion of slowing the growth of Medicaid, 
then CBO says his number is $122 billion. We are simply not that far 
apart. We have the ability to work out our differences.
  Finally, with Medicare, the President says he wants to slow the 
growth, he wants to spend $260 billion in Medicare in the 7th year and 
we want to spend $244 billion. There is a difference. The program if we 
made no change would be over $300 billion on the 7th year. He uses the 
number of $127 billion, OMB says he is reducing the number $127 
billion, then he says Republicans in the majority want to reduce it 
$270 billion.
  In fact, if we use OMB to OMB, if he uses $127 billion scored by OMB, 
then our number is $205 billion. We are simply not that far apart. If 
we say we are slowing the growth $270 billion using CBO, his number is 
not $127 billion, that is scored by OMB, we have to use CBO's number. 
They say he is slowing the growth of Medicare by $192 billion.

                              {time}  1445

  We are simply not that far apart. On a per beneficiary basis, we are 
spending $4,800 per beneficiary today to Medicare, and in our 7th year 
we would spend $6,734 per beneficiary. Not only did we have a 50-
percent growth in Medicare, but a 40-percent growth per beneficiary. 
The President wants to spend $7,128 per beneficiary. We are simply not 
that far apart.
  In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, and thank you for this time, I know you 
have other things to do and I appreciate it. Mr. Speaker, in 
conclusion, we are going to get our financial house in order. We are 
going to balance our Federal budget and we are going to do it in 7 
years and we are going to have a tax cut.
  I am hopeful that the President will weigh in and make that tax cut 
more responsive to low-income people. I am hoping he will weigh in and 
look at some of our spending reductions and make suggestions that we 
can compromise on. There is no reason for us to have ultimately a 
disagreement.
  But I do know this. As a Member of this majority party, when our debt 
ceiling, the amount that we are allowed to borrow based on our national 
debt, being at $4.9 trillion, when the President comes in and says, ``I 
need you to raise the debt ceiling, because we have to increase the 
national debt above $5 trillion,'' myself, Nick Smith, and a whole host 
of other Members on this side of the aisle intend to not raise the debt 
ceiling. We will not allow this House to increase the debt unless the 
White House weighs in on a 7-year budget.

[[Page H 8724]]

  Is that a train wreck? Is that gridlock? In one sense it is gridlock. 
We have never had gridlock on the budget. When I started out, 
Republicans and Democrats agreed. Democrats did not want to control the 
growth of entitlements and Republicans didn't want to control the 
growth of defense spending. So they both agreed to pass budgets with 
large deficits.
  These budgets with large deficits have been agreed to by both 
Republicans and Democrats, but you have this majority Congress agreeing 
that we are going to get our financial house in order. It is an 
unprecedented thing to have Congress say it wants to spend less. 
Usually Congress wants to spend more.
  We do not intend to waste this opportunity that we have. We have been 
in the minority for 40 years. We are in the majority. It is under our 
watch, and we look forward to getting our financial house in order.
  We will have gridlock until the White House recognizes that we are 
determined not to increase the debt ceiling, we are determined to 
balance the budget in 7 years, we are determined to have what we 
consider a very fair tax credit. But that gridlock will end when the 
President agrees to a 7-year budget using real numbers, not numbers 
cooked by OMB, and then the debate will be in my judgment how we spend 
those dollars and how we effect the tax cut.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to address 
the House.


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