[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 189 (Wednesday, November 29, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H13735-H13736]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   TRICKLE-DOWN ECONOMICS HAS FAILED

  (Mr. WILLIAMS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. Speaker, I find wearisome this continual Republican 
litany that claims only Republicans want to balance the budget and 
somehow Democrats are opposed to it.
  I have served here 17 years. In my early years here Ronald Reagan was 
President, and by count, no President, with the exception of Franklin 
Roosevelt, ever got more of his economic policy agreed to by the 
Congress than did Ronald Reagan. Mr. Speaker, you remember it. It was 
called trickle-down economics. What happened to the deficit? It 
tripled. It tripled under Reaganomics.
  Under President Clinton, the deficit has come down every year of his 
Presidency, and this is the first time that has happened since Harry 
Truman was President. If the Republican balanced budget attempt passed 
and was put into effect, it would not decrease the deficit in its first 
3 years of operation as much as Clinton's economics has reduced the 
deficit in the last 3 years.

[[Page H 13736]]


                      LINE IN THE SAND ON SPENDING

  (Mr. LINDER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, the magic number is $730 billion. In this 
morning's congressional article, it said $730 billion is what the 
President wants to spend in excess of what the Congress has passed. We 
both want balanced budgets, but they want to use different numbers to 
get there.
  We are preparing to spend $2.6 trillion more in the next 7 years than 
we spent in the last 7 years, a total of $12.1 trillion. It seems to me 
that we can fight on priorities within that number, but we should put 
the line in the sand: $12.1 trillion and no more.
  If the assumptions that the President wants to use are correct and we 
do wind up with $730 billion more in revenues or less in spending, we 
can apply that to our children's debt. However, we should draw the line 
in the sand: $12.1 trillion and not a dollar more.

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