[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 193 (Wednesday, December 6, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H14143-H14144]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     CONFRONTING OUR NATIONAL DEBT

  Mr. SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Maine [Mr. Longley] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LONGLEY. Mr. Speaker, I come before the House this evening to 
inform the House that as of this afternoon at 3 o'clock, the bureau of 
public debt has reported our national debt is now 
$4,988,766,009,862.29. Interestingly enough, it is actually a decrease 
from yesterday to today of about $125,665,000.
  But I point this out again to call attention to the fact that the 
preeminent issue now confronting this Congress is that for the first 
time in 60 years we are seriously questioning our need to address the 
elimination of the deficits which have led to the debt, which is now 
approaching $5 trillion. One of the reasons that I am appearing on the 
House floor this evening, and I intend to continue to try to appear 
each day until we can come to some consensus on a 7-year balanced 
budget, is because I think we have lost sight of the problem we are 
seeking to solve, and I want to call on the combined efforts of all of 
us, Republicans and Democrats, to find a way to bridge the gap 
between us on the issue of how we once and for all balance the Federal 
budget.

  It is interesting to me that, and again Members of Congress are known 
for sending out news releases, and certainly I am no exception, but, 
Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that I have a policy in my office where 
I really try not to send a release out to the news media unless we 
actually have something concrete to say. When we began several days ago 
obtaining the national debt figure every afternoon, I began a program, 
using the fax machine, to inform the media in my district. It is 
interesting, and I think it says a lot about the difficult challenge 
that we face in dealing with the public, that there is an opinion 
column today in one of the newspapers in my district that actually 
questions my informing the public about the national debt, in fact, 
suggests it is a waste of Government money and a waste of my time.
  I want to read from the opinion piece. He said, ``I got a new twist 
on,'' in his words, ``the tax waste watch this week when Congressman 
Longley sent us a single-page fax proclaiming the daily debt watch.'' 
He says, ``Golly, I hope he watches more than that each day.''
  I would suggest to the news media that this is probably the single 
most important thing we need to watch every day is that we have got to 
finally, once and for all, put an end to the national deficits that 
have built up almost to a $5 trillion debt.
  Again, to put this debt into perspective, with Federal spending under 
any of the plans being debated in this Congress, ranging between $12 
trillion and $13 trillion over the next 7 years, $5 trillion are 
existing debt, money which has already been spent for programs, is 
almost 40 percent of the total amount of money that the Federal 
Government will spend in the next 7 years.
  Furthermore, when you look at our annual interest payments alone, of 
almost $250 billion, that amount of money dwarfs the difference in 
spending priorities between the Republicans and the Democrats in the 
House. Or, if you will, if you say there is about a $15 billion or $20 
billion difference in what we propose for spending in fiscal year 1996, 
$250 billion in interest payments, minus the $20 billion difference 
means that we could preserve every nickel that we are currently 
spending on every program in Washington and have a $230 billion surplus 
on top of that. This ought to bring to the attention of 

[[Page H 14144]]
the public, particularly the news media that questions the need for me 
to call attention to this deficit and the debt, the fact that we would 
be far healthier fiscally if we had dealt with this problem before 
today.
  Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Speaker, I have to comment on this 
afternoon's veto by the President of the budget. I can respect the fact 
that the President may disagree very strongly, very deeply with our 
priorities versus what his priorities would be for spending. But I 
would submit that it is a disservice to the electorate and to the 
Congress and to the Government of the United States for the President 
not to tell us how he would balance the budget. We have given him a 
budget. We have tried to tell him how we would do it. Frankly, as a 
Member of Congress, I would welcome the opportunity to see his version 
of how he would balance the budget in 7 years.
  I think that if he would present us his alternatives, if he would 
stand on principle and tell us what does he really believe in the terms 
of his spending priorities over the next 7 years, then I think, for 
starters, we could start to have a healthy debate in this body over 
exactly what we need to do to balance the budget in the next 7 years.

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