[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 179 (Monday, November 13, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H12165-H12166]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       HOW TO BALANCE THE BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Barr of Georgia). Under a previous order 
of the House, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Roemer] is recognized for 
5 minutes.
  Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk just briefly about 
where we are tonight at 10 minutes of 8 o'clock to my constituents back 
in Indiana, roughly 4 hours and 10 minutes before the Government might 
shut down, which is a very, very serious consideration and a serious 
subject for people throughout this country.
  I think, Mr. Speaker, quite frankly that it should not have come to 
this. It should no come to a situation where we are messing around with 
the credit rating and the ability of the Secretary of the Treasury, and 
the U.S. Government, and the President, and Members of the Republican 
Party and the Democratic Party, to negatively affect our ability to pay 
on our debt. I think the American people at this time, 4 hours from 
now, talking about the Government shutting down, are saying to one 
another they do not want us to act like Republicans and Democrats, and 
pointing our fingers, talking about gridlock, and partisan games, and 
even deadlock as we reach this midnight bewitching hour, but what are 
we doing for the best interests of America? What kinds of 
considerations are we making for the hard-working people of this 
country that want to balance the budget, that do not want to see their 
taxes go up, but want a fair outcome when we balance the budget, that 
want to make sure that the budget is not balanced on the backs of 
senior citizens that barely make it month to month on their Medicare or 
their Social Security, senior citizens that I listen to and work with 
in my district all the time who tell me, not only do they barely make 
it by the dime or the quarter, but these senior citizens are the people 
that, when they get a gift, somebody gives them a present, a birthday 
present, an anniversary present, they usually keep that wrapping paper 
and reuse it, or, if they are going to buy something from the 
supermarket, oftentimes the seniors in northern Indiana will go to 
three and four different places to find the best bargain, sometimes 
eating up, maybe, in gas money what they may have saved looking for the 
best bargain because they know month to month they are barely going to 
make it.
  Mr. Speaker, we should not be cutting Medicare by $270 billion. We 
should also not be cutting student loans by $10 billion. One of the 
most 

[[Page H 12166]]
important things to the constituents that I represent here in 
Washington, DC, when I come here to work from Indiana, is that we give 
them and their children the opportunity to get to college. Some of my 
people that have been working for 10, and 15, and 20 years find because 
the economy is changing they have to go back to school and learn some 
new skills, some computer skills, some blueprint skills, some total 
quality management skills, and they are going to schools in Indiana to 
learn these new skills. We should not make it more difficult, we should 
not make it more expensive we should not make it more arduous for these 
people to get this education and training, to help our economy move 
forward.
  But where do wo cut, Mr. Speaker, because we do need to balance this 
budget in 7 years? I think that is where the Republican colleagues of 
mine have it right. We do need to make tough decisions with a fair 
ourcome to get this balanced budget on line in 1995.
  I think we start with B-2 bombers that the Pentagon does not even 
want, that the CINC commanders, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have said we 
do not need these. I think we talk about tobacco subsidies where we 
cost taxpayers money twice, once by paying their tobacco subsidy 
through the Government, another time by paying hospital costs for 
patients that go to the hospital and contract cancer. I think we cut in 
a host of areas, through eliminating the Interestate Commerce 
Commission, to elimiante or at least reforming and changing, the market 
subsidies we give to big corporations to advertise overseas. These are 
corporate welfare proposals and programs that we do not heed in 1995 if 
we are going to balance the budget.
  Mr. Speaker, over 300 Members of Congress have voted for a balanced 
budget; 73 voted for a coalition budget; over 230 Republicans voted for 
a balanced budget proposal some weeks ago. Now I think we should begin 
to move forward in bringing a number of these people together, 
hopefully 218, that will come up with a fair way to our seniors, and 
our students and our working people in this country to get that 
balanced budget in effect.

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