[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 172 (Thursday, November 2, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S16568-S16569]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      LET US TALK ABOUT THE FACTS

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, we have been talking now for some time and 
will continue to talk, certainly through this month. I hope much of the 
bill will be completed within the next month so it will come to a 
closure that will be useful to the American people. I am confident that 
it will.
  In the meantime, I think it is important that we continue to talk 
about what it is we are seeking to do, that we continue to foster an 
understanding in the country of what the issues are that we are talking 
about. I have expressed before and again say that I am very concerned 
that in this democracy, in this country, this Government of the people 
and by the people and for the people, that we need to have facts upon 
which each of us can make the decisions that we need to make as 
citizens and as voters and as leaders in our communities there.
  There are differences of view. That is legitimate. There will 
continue to be differences of view. There are extreme differences of 
view among some of the Members in this place. But the decisions that 
are made, regardless of that point of view, have to be made on facts.
  We all have a right to our own opinion, but we do not have a right to 
our own facts. I am concerned about it. I am concerned about it. When I 
go home to Wyoming, people talk about what they perceive, what they 
have heard in the media, what they have heard from opinion analysts and 
things of that kind that are not necessarily so. So I hope that for the 
most part we can talk about the facts.
  I received a letter, as a matter of fact, from a lady in Afton, WY, 
whom I know, who has been very involved in public issues and has been 
active as a silver-haired legislator. She expressed her concern about 
some of the decisions that are being made and are being proposed. But I 
thought the interesting part was that she expressed her particular 
concern about the future and about her grandchildren and the things 
that would affect them. She talked about the fact that things are not 
going well, in her judgment, in the country. And, indeed, they are not 
where we would like them to be.
  I thought it was interesting that she resisted the idea of change. 
Basically that is what we are talking about here a lot. People will 
stand up, one after another, decry the situation we are in, talk about 
the future, talk about kids, talk about taxes, and then resist change, 
as if things were going to change by continuing to do what we have been 
doing. It seems to me that is a fairly simple concept. We have not 
balanced the budget for 26 years. We have got to do something different 
if we believe, as I do, that we need to balance the budget. I think 
most people know something of the condition that we are in, some of the 
conditions that we need to change. One of them is to balance the 
budget.
  Let me read from this column, the Parade magazine column. This author 
uses this example:

       Let's suppose you have an income of $125,760 that comes not 
     from work but from the contributions of all your friends and 
     relatives who work. You're not satisfied with what $125,760 
     can buy this year, so you prepare yourself a budget of 
     $146,060 and charge the $20,300 difference to your credit 
     card, on which you're already carrying an unpaid balance of 
     $472,548 . . . on which you pay interest daily. Multiplied by 
     10 million times, that's what our government did in the 
     fiscal year of 1994.

  That is what we have been doing, putting it on the credit card for 
these young people who will pay for it. We maxed out the credit card. 
We will be working in the next month to have to raise the debt limit to 
$5 trillion. So balancing the budget, most everybody 

[[Page S 16569]]

understands, is something that has to be done.
  Medicare and Medicaid. Clearly if you think Medicare is something you 
would like to have in the future, if you think health care for the 
elderly is something that we should maintain and strengthen, then you 
have to change. The trustees say you have to change. It cannot continue 
to go on the way it is.
  Welfare. Most everyone who has watched welfare at all would agree, 
first of all, with the concept that we ought to have programs that help 
people who need help, but that they should be designed to help people 
help themselves to go back into the workplace. That has not worked. 
There are more people in poverty than there were when Lyndon Johnson 
was here and started this whole system.
  Yet each year in the interim, as things did not go well, the solution 
was to put more money into the same program and expect different 
results, which of course, does not happen.
  Reduction of taxes allowing people to spend more of their own money, 
is that not a concept? And we are seeking to do that.
  So that is what we need to do. Unfortunately, we need to come 
together on these principles. We need to come together to move forward 
in an area that will accomplish these things. And guess what? Guess 
what? We do not have any leadership from the White House. These are the 
things that the President has said he is for--balancing the budget, 
saving Medicare, reforming Medicaid.
  He wrote a letter when he was Governor in 1989 asking that some of 
the mandates be removed so that the States would have more flexibility. 
That is what we are trying to do. The President in his campaign was the 
one that was going to change welfare as we know it. These are the 
things that everyone will stand up and agree we need to change. And all 
we find is resistance and denial, that, ``No, we can't do that. No. 
That is too fast. That is too much. That isn't the right way.''
  So we end up in something of a gridlock, a gridlock that I think we 
will overcome, a gridlock that we will overcome and still maintain the 
principles that are involved in making these things succeed.
  Let me talk just a minute about what happens if we do not do 
something. If we do not do something about balancing the budget, the 
deficit will top $460 billion by the year 2005. Now, that is a 
projection of the Congressional Budget Office. The deficit will be $288 
billion in the year 2000 and upward of $462 billion in 2005 if we do 
not do something different than we have been doing.
  The national debt now stands at about $18,000 for each of us. It is a 
debt of $18,000 per capita. The servicing on the interest of that 
debt--not the servicing on the debt, not the reduction of the 
principal--the interest cost each American $800 in 1994. Today's 
newborn child, who is born today, owes $187,000 over his or her 
lifetime just to pay the interest on the national debt. That is what 
happens if we do not do something. If we do not do something, six 
programs will absorb 75 percent of the Federal budget: 22 percent for 
defense, 18 percent for net interest, 15 percent for Medicare, 11 
percent for Medicaid, 6 percent for retirement programs; that is 75 
percent of all Federal revenues will go in those areas unless we make 
some changes.

  With respect to the Medicare tax, we pay now, what, 2.9 percent 
payroll tax? If we do not slow the program from 10.5 percent down to 6 
percent a year in growth, it will require an 8 percent payroll tax 
instead of 2.9 percent by the year 2030. So we need to make some 
changes.
  On the other side, what happens if we do? As a result of balancing 
the budget in 2002, a 2-percentage-point reduction in interest rates on 
a typical 10-year student loan for a 4-year private college would save 
American students 8,800 bucks. If we could get that 2-percent reduction 
in interest rates as is predicted, on a 30-year mortgage on an $80,000 
home, it would save the American home buyer $107 each month, or $38,000 
over the life of the mortgage.
  So not only do we have some very destructive kinds of things that 
will happen if we do not make some changes, there are some very, very 
positive things that will happen.
  So, Mr. President, I hope that President Clinton will reconsider his 
position and join in a useful dialog in terms of coming to some 
agreement and seek to deliver on some of the promises he made in 1992. 
I invite the President to drop the rhetoric and come to the table in 
good faith.
  Mr. President, I now yield to the Senator from Minnesota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota is recognized.

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