[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 176 (Wednesday, November 8, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H11936-H11937]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      ADDRESSING THE FEDERAL DEBT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bilbray). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon] is 
recognized for 24 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I realize the time is late. The Committee 
on Rules has been meeting all evening, and we have just produced a rule 
which will bring to the floor a debt ceiling extension.
  This debt ceiling extension will extend the debt so that the American 
Government can meet its obligation to the debt holders. This is a bill 
that I have never voted for in my 17 years in the Congress because I 
have always objected to what I would call the irresponsible, reckless 
spending of this United States Congress.
  A lot of people like to blame that on a President but the truth of 
the matter is, a President cannot spend a dime. Only Congress can spend 
the taxpayers' dollars.
  I often look back to the early days of Ronald Reagan, who was a hero 
of mine, because Ronald Reagan attempted to do what we Republicans are 
doing right now, and that is why I call this year the second beginning 
of the Reagan revolution.
  In 1981 when President Reagan took office, it was his intent to 
downsize the Federal Government, to shrink its power, and to return 
that power to the States, to the counties, to the towns and villages 
and cities, to the local school districts, and to the private sector 
where it belongs.
  Because, ladies and gentlemen, over 200 years ago we formed this 
republic. A lot of people think this is a Federal Government, but it is 
not. We are a republic of States that was formed primarily for the sole 
purpose of defending these States against outside military aggression 
that would threaten the sovereignty of the States.
  Unfortunately for these States over the years, we have lost many of 
the States rights. The Federal Government has usurped those rights, and 
this Federal Government has just ballooned into a bureaucracy that 
really infringes on the very freedoms of the people that we would try 
to protect.
  When you look at the deficits that we have piled on the generations 
to come, we now have a national accumulated debt of almost $5 trillion, 
$4.9 trillion.
  When we look at the debt service, in other words, the amount of 
interest that it takes just to pay the interest on that debt each year, 
it comes to almost $250 billion.

                              {time}  2340

  When you look at the whole pie of the Federal Government, one big 
round pie, and you take a slice out of it of $250 billion, that is a 
huge, huge slice. And if we had allowed these deficits to continue to 
accrue like they have over the last 10 or 15 years, the annual debt 
service, that is, the amount of taxes we have to raise just to pay the 
interest would have grown if we had adopted President Clinton's budget 
projections. 

[[Page H 11937]]
We would have added $1 trillion to that debt over the next 5 years. 
That is, we would have gone from $5 trillion to $6 trillion.
  What happens to the interest, then, that we have to pay, if we added 
another trillion dollars? The interest would have grown from $250 
billion up to $350 billion, a larger slice of the pie, and less money 
then available to take care of those people that truly do need help.
  I yield to my good friend, a member of the Committee on Rules, from 
Miami, FL, and who does yeoman work here in the Congress, the gentleman 
from Florida [Mr. Diaz-Balart].
  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. I thank the gentleman. I appreciate you very much 
yielding.
  I am very proud of the work that the Committee on Rules has been 
doing over not only these 10 months but very specifically these last 
two nights. We have been working, like tonight, until just before 
midnight in the Committee on Rules, bringing to the floor, first, the 
legislation we brought to the floor today to keep the Federal 
Government running, functioning, until December 1, and that is an 
important, important task while we work on trying to resolve that issue 
for the next fiscal year, and hopefully at some point getting, 
obtaining some collaboration, some cooperation from the White House 
down Pennsylvania Avenue, just a few blocks, and, of course, then the 
work that we did tonight where we fashioned the rule, the guideline, 
the framework with which we will bring to the floor tomorrow the 
legislation that you, Mr. Chairman, just referred to now, which is the 
legislation that will permit the Government of the United States to 
meet its fiscal responsibilities until December 12.
  I think it is important, and obviously we discussed this in the 
Committee on Rules, as we focus in on these important pieces of 
legislation, which are obviously not only important but extraordinarily 
so, that we not, while we focus in on the trees, to use that analogy, 
we not lose sight of the forest. And that is very much related to what, 
Mr. Chairman, you were referring to just a few minutes ago.
  I have to admit that I felt great uncertainty just months ago that we 
could actually in this Congress frame and pass a framework, a glide 
path toward balancing this budget in 7 years. Now, unfortunately, 
during those 7 years more debt will be accumulated, but at least what 
seemed very, very difficult and, in fact, is very, very difficult, is 
being done by this Congress, and that is we are in the process of 
passing a framework, a glide path that leads to an end of deficit 
spending by the year 2002.
  And that sounds sometimes, Mr. Chairman, technical. Sometimes it 
sounds that is an issue simply of numbers, but there is no country in 
the history of the world that has been able to accumulate without end 
public debt and has not ultimately gotten to a position where its 
economy falters because of it.
  It is true that we are the richest Nation in the world. We are, in 
fact, the most powerful Nation in the history of the world, but unless 
we would have done what the American people decided in the election of 
1994 had to be done, and that is get the economic house in order and 
balance the budget in the Federal Government, I fear that we would have 
reached a situation in 7 or 10 or 15 or 20 years where we would have 
passed beyond the point of no return.

  So, Mr. Chairman, these tasks that involve our committee and that I 
am so proud to be able to be a part of under your leadership, day in 
and day out, where we work these long hours and sometimes, as the hours 
pass, we never forget, but it is always important for us to keep our 
eye on the big picture of why we are doing this work, and it is for our 
children and their children, and that this economy will remain an 
economy because of what we are doing now and because of the tough 
decisions that we are engaged in now. And it will remain an economy 
where a child that is being born today will not only be able, after he 
finishes school, to find a job, but also to create a job if he or she 
wants to, and that is what we are doing.
  I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your work along with the rest 
of the leadership in this Congress in permitting the situation to come 
about where that child who is born today will be in an economy that 
will be the most competitive and the wealthiest economy in 20 or 40 
years.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. SOLOMON. I want to thank the gentleman from Miami, FL, for the 
great work he does on the Committee on Rules with me. He is a new 
member on that Committee on Rules this year. You have certainly been 
like a right arm to me, Lincoln. I know the people you represent in 
Miami certainly appreciate it.
  They appreciate something else, too. I do not know how many people 
know it, but Lincoln Diaz-Balart has been a fighter of communism for 
all of his life. I have been involved in it for some 40 years myself, 
ever since the outbreak of the Korean war back in 1950, and I know that 
one person that has stood firm against Castro and this atheistic, 
deadly philosophy of communism has been the entire Diaz-Balart family, 
and, Lincoln, we deeply appreciate that.
  It was because of standing up way back in those days that Ronald 
Reagan and the rest of this country and our allies were able to bring 
down the Iron Curtain, and now we see democracy spreading out all over 
the world instead of communism spreading out throughout all of the 
world.
  One point the gentleman was making was that when great nations become 
debtor nations, when they become fiscally irresponsible, they usually 
fail shortly thereafter. And as I was talking just before the gentleman 
came in, when we talk about this escalating debt and the debt service 
that is required to pay to support that debt every single year, that 
pie continues to grow bigger and bigger, that slice of that pie, and I 
was about to say that if we had followed the Clinton programs of 
expanding that debt by another trillion dollars over the next 5 years, 
the debt service would have grown from $250 billion to almost $350 
billion.

  And if inflation had set back in, as it usually does when you have 
fiscal irresponsibility in this Congress, like in the days of Jimmy 
Carter when interest rates rose, inflation rose to 9, 10, 11, 12, even 
13 percent, interest rates followed. That is, the amount of money small 
business has to borrow, the rate it borrows from the banks, went to 
21.5 percent.
  What kind of business can support itself paying out that kind of 
interest? None.

                              {time}  2347

  Mr. Speaker, consequently, we could not allow that to happen. That is 
why we have put ourselves on this glide path to a balanced budget. This 
bill that we will bring up tomorrow, this increase in the debt service, 
goes a long way toward keeping us on that glide path, because for one 
thing, it gives regulatory relief to business and industry in America. 
It shrinks the size further of this Federal Government, which means 
less tax dollars to support it, which means more money in the pockets 
of people in business and industry in America, so that this country can 
survive and compete and be profitable and create jobs for the high 
school graduates, for the college graduates.
  That is really what we are about. We are not going to be deterred. We 
are going to complete this job. It is going to be tough, it is going to 
be difficult, but we will do it.

                          ____________________