[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 171 (Wednesday, November 1, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H11663-H11664]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE DEBT CEILING

  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, first I would like to ask the 
previous speaker if I could have that 

[[Page H 11664]]

chart. It is a beautiful chart. It must have taken several dollars to 
construct that chart.
  Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, and our colleagues what is happening 
with the efforts of the Republicans to reach a balanced budget. In 
Kemp-Roth in the early 1980s, we talked about reaching a balanced 
budget and we set out a plan and we failed. In 1986 and 1985, Gramm-
Rudman again tried to develop a plan and a proposal to reach a balanced 
budget and, again, we failed. In 1990 the same thing happened.
  Now we are talking about a situation where we have increased the 
spending of this country from $370 billion in 1970 to the $1.5 trillion 
that we have today. Back in 1970, $370 billion. Today the interest on 
the public debt is almost that.
  Last year the interest on the debt that is subject to the debt limit 
was $330 billion. This Congress, politicians in Washington, Members of 
the Senate, Members of the House, the White House have found it to 
their political advantage to spend more money to do things for people, 
and they have decided that maybe increasing taxes is not so popular so 
what we have done is expanded our borrowing.
  Do you know what we are doing when we borrow all this money and go 
into debt like we are today? We are saying to our kids and our 
grandkids, we are going to make you pay this back out of earnings and 
wages that you have not even earned yet, possibly that you have not 
even had a chance to go through school yet, and yet we are saying to 
you that our overindulgence today is going to be paid for by your 
earnings 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now.
  How do we get to a balanced budget? Well, the debt limit and the vote 
on increasing the debt limit is not a way to have leverage. It was used 
in 1985 and 1986. In fact, we have increased the debt limit of this 
country 77 times since 1940. I mean it has become a way of life. Nobody 
seems to care.
  The consequences of that debt are now devastating the kind of 
economic expansion we could have. We had four individuals from Wall 
Street down to Washington today. They came down to talk to Members of 
Congress about what they thought the consequences of not sticking to 
our guns and not achieving a balanced budget was going to be.

  They simply said, look, you are halfway through this stream. If you 
do not stick to your guns, you are going to see the stock market fall. 
You are going to see the bond market fall, and you are going to see 
more chaos than if you stick to your guns.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Is it not true, though, that what you want to try to do 
here with this debt limit is use it as leverage, as you have said, in 
order to force the President on the budget? That in itself has created 
chaos on Wall Street.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, that is 
exactly what we are trying to do. We are trying to use the debt ceiling 
vote as leverage to force not only the President but those 160 of us, 
it was not 130, it was 160.
  We sent the letter to Bob Dole. We sent the letter to Newt Gingrich. 
We said, look, our interest is in achieving a balanced budget. We know 
it is going to be difficult. We know it is going to be hard, but here 
is what we are saying. We are saying we are not going to vote to 
increase that debt limit unless we get on an absolute glide path to a 
balanced budget.
  Now Stan Druckenmiller came down from Wall Street today; James Capra 
came down from Wall Street; Edward Hyman, ranked the number one 
economist for each of the last 16 years came down here today, and 
Kenneth Langone came down here today.
  Ladies and gentlemen, what they said is, you have got to stick to 
your guns. If we do not stick to our guns, we are going to perpetually 
continue to spend and tax and borrow. The question to the American 
people is, do you want a bigger government with more taxes or do you 
want a smaller government with fewer taxes? I mean, that is the 
question. The American people answered it last November. They are now 
giving us a chance to fulfill that commitment.
  Go home and ask your constituents that question.

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