[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 194 (Thursday, December 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H14212]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    NATIONAL DEBT CONTINUES TO GROW

  The 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 want to thank Lisa and Melinda for 
helping me bring out today's total of the debt. As of 3 o'clock this 
afternoon, the United States national debt is $4,988,640,469,699.34. 
For the second day in a row, it is actually a decrease of $125 million 
over yesterday.
  Now, to reassure anyone who might think that we have suddenly 
reversed course in Washington, I want you to know that, unfortunately, 
that is not the case. In fact, the debt will fluctuate on a daily 
basis, but overall, during the current fiscal year, we can expect that 
the Federal debt will probably increase by another $200 billion. In 
short, we will pass the $5 trillion mark at some point in the next 6 or 
7 months.
  Having said that, again, I rise before this House, Mr. Speaker, to 
point out the incredible burden that this debt presents, not only to 
this generation, but to the generation represented by Lisa and Melinda 
and other generations that will follow us in the future. The $5 
trillion is almost 40 percent of every nickel and dime that the Federal 
Government will spend over the next 7 years.
  Now, one of the reasons that I think it is important that this number 
be brought to our attention on a daily basis is that I think we have a 
hard time as a country realizing that this is not some abstract number 
that has no meaning to the way we live our lives.
  During my campaign for office in 1994, I campaigned on a theme of 
payroll taxes. Specifically, I would talk in various troops around my 
district about the fact that if I went into a store in Maine and bought 
a pack of cigarettes, I would pay three taxes. If I bought a can of 
beer, I would pay four taxes. And we call those taxes on beer and 
cigarettes sin taxes, because they are taxes designed to discourage our 
behavior, behavior that we consider adverse to our health.
  Well, yet, then what do we say when, if I created a job and I pay or 
manage 9 different taxes in the State of Maine and a number close to 
that in other States across the country, and those 9 taxes on a job 
total almost 25 or 30 percent of the total cost of hiring an employee, 
then what do we call that? Does it become a sin today to create a job 
or create economic opportunity for an individual?
  I would suggest before this Chamber that there is a connection 
between an extremely high tax burden across the country, again 9 taxes 
and almost 25 percent of gross cost at the minimum wage, not at a high 
wage, not at some $100,000 salary level, but at a lousy $4.25 an hour. 
In fact, the minimum wage today really is an appropriate term to 
describe the problem that men and women have when they find a job. The 
real issue today is take-home pay, not minimum wage. When you look at 
the difference between the two, it is staggering.
  Now, I mentioned yesterday that I have been criticized by a columnist 
in a local paper back in my district that this was a waste of time.
  Specifically, this editor had objected to the fact that I was faxing 
the debt total out to him and other editors throughout my district on a 
daily basis. In fact, he criticized me and he said, ``Congressman 
Longley should consider his own contribution to the national debt by 
his wasting of our tax dollars on faxes such as this, which cost paper, 
employee time, computer time, et cetera.
  The editor went on to say, ``I intend to let him know that we do not 
need to see a new fax each day or ever again. Thank you.''
  Now, the irony is that these several paragraphs were maybe less than 
20 percent of a column describing the need of the local community to 
look ahead in planning the use of their downtown.

                              {time}  1600

  I point that out, and in some sense this is humorous but there is 
also a very serious point that needs to be made and this is 
fundamentally the problem that we must confront as a Congress and we 
must confront as a country, is that Washington has become so remote 
from day-to-day life in America, from what goes on in our town halls, 
and in our State governments, that we have ceased to realize that the 
debt is actually a tangible factor that affects the way we live our 
lives, and when the editor of a prominent local paper suggests, when 
talking about downtown improvements, that the city cannot afford to 
just keep chugging along not particularly worried about the future, it 
would not hurt to think again.
  Again, this is the ultimate issue. This debt not only is a monument 
to an incredible level of spending but it represents the fact that 
Washington has gone beyond a high level of taxes, it has gone beyond a 
high level of spending, and it has actually spent far more than it has 
taken in and it is now threatening to leave a $5 trillion stone around 
the necks of our children and our grandchildren and the future of this 
country.
  In my opinion, with all due respect to this editor, there is no issue 
more important than once and for all coming to grips with this national 
tragedy.

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