[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 181 (Wednesday, November 15, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S17082-S17083]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           A BALANCED BUDGET

  Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I think the Senator from Oklahoma has 
hit upon the real issue. I think it is important that we get back to 
the real issue, focus on the real issue, what all this complex debate 
is about. It simply boils down to whether or not we want a balanced 
budget--whether or not we want a balanced budget. All the discussion, 
all the debate, all of the figures, all of the back and forth--do we 
want a balanced budget, and what are we willing to do to achieve it?
  Everybody says they want a balanced budget. Everybody gives lip 
service to a balanced budget. We came close to passing a constitutional 
amendment, lacking one vote, to balance the budget, and everybody said 
we do not need a constitutional amendment. All we have to do is balance 
the budget and do the right thing. The day of reckoning now has come, 
and we are challenged to do the right thing.
  Why does everybody admit that we have to have a balanced budget? It 
is because of the simple fact we are in the process of bankrupting the 
next generation. The fact we say it over and over again, like water 
rolling off a duck's back, does not make it any less true.
  That is what is happening. That is why many of us ran for office. 
That is why many of us came here--not because we want to say no to 
anybody; not because it will not be more comfortable to have business 
as usual, continue the same programs, the same levels of spending, and 
making everybody happy; not because of that but because we realize that 
there was going to be some heavy lifting to do. That is a challenge for 
a serious person.
  I like to think there are a lot of serious people addressing this. 
Now the very people who are crying the loudest over students--who are 
the purported defenders of the elderly and all of the other people who 
these large deficits are hurting and creating a Nation and an economy 
that will hurt them because of the deficit presided over this last 30 
years with the lack of a balanced budget--perhaps can tell those of us 
who have not been here that long why, if they are concerned about all 
of these little people, they allowed this country to get into the shape 
of a $5 trillion debt. They say, ``Well, the Republicans were in the 
White House part of that time.'' That is true. The Democrats controlled 
the Congress almost all of that time. And that is true.
  And half the time that I listen to the debate here it is ``who shot 
John?'' Who is the bigger person that is the most blameworthy in all of 
this debate? We have to get past that. We have to get past this idea 
that one side is for the average person and the other side is not.
  The real issue here is whether or not we want to balance the budget. 
The President says now that he wants a balanced budget. But the 
American people are gradually going to focus in on the fact that the 
President, and those that are supporting the President in this deadlock 
that we are in right now, are twisting and squirming and maneuvering 
all the time they say they want a balanced budget to do everything in 
the world to avoid a balanced budget. Why would they want to do that? 
Because, if we have a balanced budget, we cannot continue to spend the 
way that we have been spending for the last 30 or 40 years in this 
country. And everybody likes to spend.
  In all of the congressional hearings we have up here nobody comes up 
here and testifies, ``Please cut out our grant.'' Nobody comes up here 
and testifies that ``we get too much money.'' Everybody loves spending. 
Everybody wants a little more. Everybody wants their nose in the 
trough, and everybody has been there for the last several decades in 
this country. Now we have to decide not who is going to give lip 
service to a balanced budget but who is willing to do what is 
necessary.
  The fact of the matter is that the irony is if we act now, if we do a 
responsible thing now in order to get a balanced budget, a major step 
toward a balanced budget, we do not have to engage in draconian 
measures. We can make some incremental adjustments. We will be spending 
more money.
  The Senator from Oklahoma pointed out that over a 7-year period we 
will be spending more money--$1.9 trillion in this country. We do not 
have to hurt anybody. But we have to get to our job. We have to start 
down that road toward what everybody says they want. Everybody wants to 
go to Heaven. Nobody wants to do what is necessary to get there.
  The President now has figured out, apparently, how we can balance the 
budget without really making any incremental adjustments. He decided to 
turn his back on his own figures that he said he wanted--the 
Congressional Budget Office figures over all these years to let his 
staff come up with new figures, and they produced about a half a 
trillion dollars out of thin air because they changed the estimates. 
They changed some estimates, projections, and figures and said, ``Well, 
we do not really have to do anything.'' Of course, that will get them 
past the next election, will it not? It will get them past the next 
election before that little house of cards comes tumbling down just 
like every other projection in this country over the last decade has 
come tumbling down.
  We are trying to use real figures over here. The President said 
during the campaign that he had a plan to balance the budget in 5 
years. Then when he is submitting his budget, everybody kind of looked 
at it, and said, ``Well, that is $200 billion a year of deficits as far 
as the eye can see.'' They kind of acknowledge that was the case.
  Then the President said, ``Well, we need to balance it maybe in 10 
years.'' Then, since that time, he has been at 7 years, 8 years, and 9 
years, too, I think. I do not think he has gone back to 5 years, or 
anywhere along the line.
  Then he submitted another document purported, I guess, to be a budget 
document that has the new figures in it. Lo and behold, we really do 
not have to make many adjustments at all because we have this windfall 
over $400 billion 

[[Page S17083]]
because he is using the figures now that he derives from his own staff. 
Bobbing, weaving, turning, and twisting all the time saying he wants a 
balanced budget but every few days coming up, ``Well, we can do it in 
this number of years,'' changing to, ``No. We can do it in that number 
of years.'' One of his advisers, Ms. Tyson, who says somewhere along 
the line we do not really need to have a balanced budget. It would hurt 
us to have one. The next day, I guess we really do. But we should not 
have it before 10 years.
  Are these the comments, are these the actions, of a serious leader 
who really wants a balanced budget? Are these the actions of someone 
trying to get past the next election giving lip service to a balanced 
budget but not willing to do one thing--not willing to say to anybody 
that we cannot continue your program with a 10 percent increase a year, 
we can continue it maybe at 6.4 percent? I think the answer to that is 
clear.
  But the President bobs and weaves, twists and turns, and now his 
latest impasse when legislation was sent down with the Medicare 
provision is that he cannot go along with the submission because it is 
raping Medicare, and we are trying to do all of these terrible things. 
A person dealing with the complex issue who is willing to use scare 
tactics--and he has the most bully of all pulpits--is going to win that 
argument in the short run because you can scare people on these 
important matters and complex issues. It takes a while for it to set 
in. But the truth does set in, and it will set in just like on his 
health care plan.

  The President now says with regard to Medicare part B--and everybody 
acknowledges that Medicare is in terrible shape, and going bankrupt--
but he wants a temporary reduction in premiums until the next election, 
a temporary reduction in premiums when he and all of his advisors have 
acknowledged in times past that premiums are going to have to be 
increased. What is the difference between the increase that we are 
saying is going to be necessary to save it and the increase that the 
President says is necessary? Four dollars by the year 2002; a $4 
difference. We are $4 higher than he is.
  If he can convince the senior citizens and get them so excited, and 
appeal to the worst instincts of the American people in terms of greed 
and selfishness, that they are not going to be willing to make any 
incremental adjustment, even to the extent of $4 for the benefit of the 
next generation, then I guess this is a hopeless cause. But I do not 
think we have come to that point yet.
  But this is what he is trying to sell. This is what he is trying to 
sell at a time when it is going bankrupt, at a time when everybody 
knows we have to make some incremental adjustments. Between now and 
next November he wants actually those premiums to be able to decrease 
at a time when everybody knows they have to go up a little bit, and 
even acknowledges it but he is waiting until after the election to do 
it.
  Why resist the balanced budget this strongly? Because spending is a 
hard habit to break. I guess there is nothing more attractive 
politically in this entire world than the proposition and the idea of 
being able to have your cake and eat it too. And if the American people 
can be convinced that the President really wants a balanced budget but 
that we really do not have to do anything in order to achieve it, and 
that anybody who suggests we have to make incremental adjustment is 
against students, or against his own parents, or against retirees--if a 
person is willing to play that game, he is going to make some points. 
But he is not going to win because I think people understand that is a 
short-term game, and that we have a long-term problem; and that, if we 
will face up to what we need to do, we will have to make some short-
term adjustments but we will have some long-term benefits that will 
inure to the benefit of our children and our grandchildren that we will 
be extremely proud of.
  The Heritage Foundation just this month issued a report using a 
widely regarded model of the U.S. economy and found that balancing the 
Federal budget between 1996 and 2002, and cutting taxes, caused the 
economy generally to grow more than not balancing the budget and 
cutting taxes. According to this simulation that they used, the 
balanced budget plan with tax relief would mean that gross domestic 
product would grow by $10.8 billion more than under current law by the 
year 2002. If we balanced the budget, we would get an additional $32 
billion in real disposable income over that period of time. If we 
balanced the budget, we would have an additional $66.2 billion in 
consumption expenditures over that period of time. If we balanced the 
budget, we would have an additional $88.2 billion in real 
nonresidential fixed investment over that period of time.
  If we balanced the budget, we would have a decrease of four-tenths of 
1 percent in the conventional mortgage rate in this country. That means 
that a balanced budget with tax relief will save a home borrower of 
$100,000 about $10,000 over the life of a 30-year mortgage. If we are 
concerned about working people and middle-income people in this 
country, we need to balance the budget. People out here trying to buy a 
home, seeing their wages stagnated, young working people's wages 
actually going down, interest rates being what they are, trying to 
borrow, what are they going to be if we do not balance the budget? The 
tax rate, some say, will be 70, 80 percent if we do not balance the 
budget--astronomical interest rates.
  Here is the result if we do balance it: additional construction of 
over 104,000 new family homes over the next 7 years; the additional 
sales of 100,000 automobiles over the next 7 years worth $10 billion, 
and a decrease of 7 percent in the growth rate of the Consumer Price 
Index, a decrease in the Consumer Price Index for things that average 
people go to K-Mart, Wal-Mart, or whatever, and buy.
  It is not all gloom and doom. It is not all gloom and doom. We are 
going to have to reduce the rate of growth in some of these programs 
without question. But after that, we stand to see real long-term 
benefits in this country.
  So again, Mr. President, let us get back to the real issue. The real 
issue is whether or not we really want to balance the budget in this 
country and whether or not we really want to give any more than lip 
service to it. We are at a point now where we are either going to put 
up or shut up.
  The President of the United States needs to know that there are many 
of us here who would like to work with the President. We would like to 
do this thing together. I think ultimately we are going to have to do a 
lot over the next several years to get this job done. It is not a 1-
year deal. Ultimately, it is going to have to be Democrats and 
Republicans together, it is going to have to be the Congress and the 
White House. I would like to get on about that. But if he is going to 
continue to stand in the way of what we all know has to be done, he 
ought to know there are some people in town who are just as stubborn as 
he is. And if we were not willing to finish the job we came here to do, 
we would not have taken the job in the first place.

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