[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 189 (Wednesday, November 29, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H13773]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      COMMON SENSE AND THE BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Graham] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, I think a good way to start is to echo what 
the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Taylor] just said. I agree with his 
analysis of Bosnia, and I hope that we can bring some common sense to 
bear on that issue.
  Let us talk about the budget and see if we can get some common sense 
and a level of agreement on what we are trying to do up here in 
Congress. A lot of people have said they want to balance the budget. I 
hope they are sincere. My gut instinct is that some mean it and some do 
not. The best way to judge whether a person means what they say is to 
look at what they do.
  When I was a prosecutor in the Air Force and a defense attorney, I 
had this as my guide. I never quite believed everything my client told 
me as a defense attorney, and when the accused said he did not do it, I 
did not stop the investigation there. I looked behind what people say, 
and you judge their actions by their deeds.
  So when somebody comes up here and tells you they want to balance the 
budget, the first question you need to ask them is are they willing to 
spend within the revenues generated, because if you want to spend more 
than you take in, you are not going to balance the budget. Does anybody 
have any idea how much the Federal Government has grown since 1969? I 
do not have that answer right now, but I have been told it has been 
several hundred percent. I am trying to find out how much the Federal 
Government has grown since we last balanced our Federal budget. I think 
the number is going to be shocking.
  We have some folks visiting here today, and those that are listening 
at home, what is your estimate that the Federal Government spends per 
person to run the Federal Government, on Federal Government programs? 
How much do you think we spend per person to operate the Federal 
government? Let me tell you what it was for the last 7 years. Over a 7-
year period, we spent $145,962 on a family of four. We spent $9.5 
trillion over the last 7 years to run the Federal Fovernment.
  We have come up with a new budget that balances, that has been 
certified to balance. Guess how much we spend as Republicans, the mean 
old Republicans who want to devastate everything? Guess how much money 
we have spent? Twelve trillion dollars. Where does that $12 trillion 
come from? It comes from you, the taxpayer; it comes from you, the 
senior citizen. It is hard to make the money, it is far too easy to 
spend the money up here, but over the next 7 years we are going to take 
$12 trillion of your money and run this Federal Government.

  I ask one simple thing of my colleagues: Let that be enough. Twelve 
trillion dollars is enough to spend in Washington, DC. We can argue 
about how to spend it, we can rearrange the $12 trillion pie, we can 
move money around, but for the sake of future generations, for the sake 
of fiscal sanity, please do not spend more than $12 trillion of hard-
earned taxpayer money.
  Do you know what that equates to, for a family of four over a 7-year 
period? It is $184,373 that will be spent by your Federal Government on 
a family of four. It is hard to make that much money and it is far too 
easy to spend it. If you do not like the tax cuts, fine. If you think 
we have spent too much money on defense, fine. If you think we have not 
spent enough money on Medicare, fine. Just agree with me and evey other 
American who knows the facts. Rearrange the $12 trillion pie, and do 
not go into our pockets any deeper. We do not have much of a picket 
left as it is. This is not a shoestring budget. Twelve trillion dollars 
is unimaginable. They tell me that if you spend $1 million a day from 
the time of Christ to the present, you would not have spent $1 
trillion.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask the people who are listening here, Members of 
Congress, to agree on one simple fact: That we can run an efficient 
nation on $12 trillion, we can satisfy legitimate needs on $12 
trillion, and that any politician who wants to spend more than $12 
trillion has a problem. They do not need to be up here.

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