[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 179 (Monday, November 13, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H16947-H16948]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   WE ARE GOING TO BALANCE THE BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Tiahrt] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, the truth is now documented. The President's 
latest veto shows that he does, in fact, not want to balance the 
budget.
  This weekend I was in the Fourth District of Kansas. I was speaking 
with some of my constituents. One of them told me, well, it was going 
to happen sooner or later because there is a deep philosophical 
difference between the American public, those of us who believe we need 
to balance the budget and the President who apparently does not want a 
balanced budget. Well, they were absolutely right.
  If you go back to the campaign when the President was running for 
office, he said that he would present a balanced budget that would 
balance in 5 years. We have yet to see that budget. Then he did present 
us a budget that would balance, allegedly, in 10 years. However, when 
it was scored by those in Congress who do scoring, we found out that it 
has a $200 billion deficit a year for 10 years. It never balances.
  Well, so now we have the facts out. He does not want to balance the 
budget. He has not presented us a balanced budget.
  When he was given a budget that does actually balance in 7 years, he 
refuses to sign it.
  Some of the allegations have been that there are things hung onto 
this continuing resolution and this temporary debt ceiling; that there 
should not be anything on there. ``Send me something clean.'' There is 
a long history of hanging things on continuing resolutions.
  You heard earlier there have been 57 continuing resolutions since 
1977, 10 since 1980, and one of them during the 1980's hung the entire 
Federal Government's budget on one continuing resolution, not just a 
few riders, the entire budget for a whole year. So this is nothing new.
  The President should not shirk away from it. His chief of staff 
should not tell people that it never happened before.
  But the President has made it very clear there in his latest action 
not to balance the budget and reminds me of something my uncle John 
Armstrong told me when I was younger. He said, ``When you don't want to 
do something bad enough, any excuse not to do it will do, any excuse 
will do.'' Well, you have heard one of the excuses. There are cuts in 
Medicare. Mr. Speaker, there are no cuts in Medicare. The average 
spending is going from $4,800 per recipient this year up to $6,700 per 
recipient in 7 years. It is increasing by some 43 percent.
  Well, I think it would be a little more clear maybe if you were a 
baseball player. If you understood there were 48 baseballs in this one 
bag and 67 baseballs in another bag and you said which bag has more 
baseballs, they had say you are increasing it 19 baseballs to 67. That 
is what we are doing with Medicare. We are increasing spending.
  Medicare part B premiums are scheduled to go up $7. The alternate 
plan, current law, is the Government's portion would increase, and 
individuals would go from 31 percent of the part B premium per month to 
25 to 18 percent, and the Government's portion, which comes out of the 
general fund, which comes out of borrowed money, would go from 75 to 82 
percent.
  So what are we doing, after borrowing $170 billion this year, we 
would have to increase that amount of money and pass that debt on to 
our children.
  Right now our Federal debt is $5 trillion. If you had gone into 
business the day after Christ rose from the dead and lost $1 million 
that day and every day of every week of every month of every year 
almost 2,000 years, you would only be one-fifth of the way toward 
losing $5 trillion. Most of us think that $1 million a day would be a 
lot of money. To do that for almost 2,000 years and still not be a 
fifth of the way to the Federal debt is a phenomenal amount of money. 
Yet we want to stack more on top of that.
  It is morally wrong to our children. We cannot afford it.
  But by doing this, we will just force Medicare into bankruptcy 
sooner, put the debt on our children. Any excuse will do.
  We have heard about cuts in nutrition programs. You remember last 
spring the President went to a school and said these children are going 
to starve under the Republicans' plan to balance the budget. I was in a 
school just recently in Wichita, KS, Dodge-Edison Elementary School. 
Not one child has been reported starving in that school. In fact, no 
reports across the Nation have any children starving in a school. It 
just was not true.
  But, Mr. President, any excuse will do.
  In fact, funding for nutrition programs is going up 4 percent each 
year the next 7 years, a total of $1 billion.
  Any excuse will do.

[[Page H 16948]]

  Cuts in Medicaid, funding for the poor is going up hundreds of 
millions of dollars in the Federal budget over the next 7 years.
  Any excuse will do.
  Well, Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, the American public is tired of the 
excuses. They are tired of business as usual. They are ready for a 
fresh wind in this country. They are ready for some hope. They are 
ready to balance the budget.
  I head it in the Fourth District of Kansas.
  I urge the President to come to the table with Congress. Let us sit 
down and see what your true problems are, but we are going to balance 
the budget.

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