[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 186 (Monday, November 20, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H13631-H13632]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




WHAT THE AGREEMENT TO BALANCE THE BUDGET IN 7 YEARS MEANS FOR AMERICA'S 
                                 FUTURE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Tiahrt] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, I want to take a few moments tonight to talk 
about the significance of what has gone on this past weekend. As many 
people in the House know, as everyone in the House knows, we have had a 
partial shutdown of the Government. Last evening there was an agreement 
reached by the President and leaders in both the Senate and the House 
and we have been able to restart the Government and postpone any 
shutdown until December 15.
  The agreement on the continuing resolution was that we would, in 
fact, balance the budget not later than the year 2002, and that we 
would use the Congressional Budget Office figures. We also went on to 
list a series of items that are of priority for both sides of the aisle 
in the House and the Senate, as well as the President, and we will work 
toward getting those priorities established through the debate process, 
some of which I would like to start this evening.
  As we all know from November 8, 1994, we have been given marching 
orders from the American people. Many people ran in their campaigns and 
wanted to talk about various issues that were important to them. It was 
picked up by members of the public and those individuals who expounded 
on those issues, such as a balanced budget, were elected to this 
Congress.
  We have, over the course of the last year, been working toward that 
balanced budget. But just as a review, what we have been given as 
marching orders are in the accompanying chart I have, which says, 
basically, Congress is to balance the budget in 7 years, to save 
Medicare from bankruptcy, to reform welfare, and to provide tax relief 
for families and job creation.
  Those are the priorities that I believe, Mr. Speaker, are from the 
American public. Those are the priorities that we are going to work 
toward over this next month, next 3 weeks, and, 

[[Page H 13632]]
hopefully, into the next year. And perhaps as we carry out this effort 
to balance the budget by the year 2002, we are going to achieve these 
goals on our route to a balanced budget and securing our future.
  Mr. Speaker, people have said why should we balance the budget, and 
we have told people it is important because of our children, and I 
think that is true. And the reason I do is because our debt is so 
significant. I brought another chart just to list the amount of the 
Federal debt.
  As of November 8, our Federal debt, this is November 8, 1995, our 
Federal debt is $4,985,913,011,032.65. Now, that is a tremendous amount 
of money.
  To give people a perspective as to how much money that is. If an 
individual had gone into business the day Christ rose from the dead, 
and they lost a million dollars that day, and the following day, and 
every day of the week, and every week of the month, and every year for 
almost 2,000 years, they would only be one-fifth of the way to losing 
$4.9 trillion.
  Most of us think a million dollars would be a sufficient amount of 
money to perhaps retire on. To think of losing that amount of money 
each day for almost 2,000 years and not even getting one-fifth of the 
way to losing what we have currently as our Federal debt gives us an 
idea of how much money that is.
  For a child born this year, it would amount to about $187,000 in the 
form of taxes just to pay the interest on this debt, if we are unable 
to balance in 7 years.

                              {time}  1845

  Next year, in fiscal year 1997, the interest on the loan, on this 
debt, the national debt, the interest will exceed every other 
expenditure except for Social Security. It will be more than we spend 
on the Army and the Navy and the Marines and the Air Force and the 
Department of Defense structure, the intelligence-gathering community. 
The entire Department of Defense budget will be secondary to the amount 
we pay on interest on the debt, with Social Security being the only one 
we expend more on.
  With all of that going toward interest, we do nothing to meet the 
needs of the poor; we do nothing to meet the nutrition programs. We do 
nothing to provide part B Medicare support. Nothing on Medicaid. Only 
interest on the debt.
  It is a tremendous problem that we must deal with and solve, and we 
do that by balancing the budget. When we establish priorities toward 
getting to that balanced budget, we are going to have to deal with a 
lot of disinformation that is flowing. One, we have heard that we are 
trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor, and the earned 
income tax credit has been drastically cut. But, Mr. Speaker, between 
1995, this year, this fiscal year, in which we are spending $19.85 
billion, by 2002, in the budget that we just passed tonight, we plan on 
spending $25.4 billion by that year. That is an increase. From 19.85 to 
25.4, an increase, and yet we have heard that it is a cut and that we 
are trying to cut individuals to balance the budget. Mr. Speaker, only 
in Washington, DC, is that called a cut.

  The school lunch programs, we saw last spring, the President go to an 
elementary school and state that the budget that was before the 
Congress was going to take food away from these children, that they 
would be starving.
  Well, I have visited some of the elementary schools in Wichita, KS, 
in my district, the Dodge-Edison School, and there were no reports of 
children starving at that institution, nor at any school in Kansas or 
any school across the Nation. In fact, the budget that we passed 
tonight allows for $6.3 billion to go to school lunches this year. It 
will grow. It will increase to $7.8 billion by 2002.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to close tonight by saying that we must establish 
priorities, we must balance the budget in 7 years, and I am pleased to 
be able to work toward that effort.

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