[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 194 (Thursday, December 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H14215-H14220]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  THE QUESTION OF THE BALANCED BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Metcalf). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from Hawaii [Mr. Abercrombie] is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, as you know, I have been coming to the 
floor in past days to discuss this whole question of the balanced 
budget. The previous speaker mentioned it again. It comes up on this 
floor with a regulatory that I think lets it amount almost to the point 
of prayerful incantation, Mr. Speaker. We hear over and over again 
phrases, like ``This is for my children and my grandchildren.'' ``We 
must have a balanced budget in order to give them an opportunity.'' 
``We have to have a balanced budget in 7 years.''
  Mr. Speaker, I will say yet again, and say for the record, that there 
is no proposal from the Republican majority to balance the budget in 7 
years. There is no such thing as a balanced budget. On the contrary, 
what is happening is a proposal that is now before the President and 
the negotiators that is now before the President and the negotiators 
from the White House from the Republican majority which mortgages the 
Social Security trust fund to the tune of some $636 billion, at least 
as of last January, and the conference report of the Republican 
majority in the House of Representatives, that does not include the 
interest.
  The facts are, then, that we will be paying somewhere in excess of $1 
trillion. I take that back, Mr. Speaker. I do not know if we will be 
paying it. We will certainly owe it. But I have not seen any plan 
whatsoever or language in the budget proposal which indicates how we 
are going to pay the $1 trillion back.
  For those who maybe have tuned in to our proceedings here and have 
been kind enough to contact me and ask for a little more detail and for 
those who may not know, of our colleagues, about this proposition that 
I am putting forward that there is no balanced budget, may not have 
heard it, let me reiterate where I get this proposition, Mr. Speaker.
  Let me indicate to you that I have in my hand a copy of the 
concurrent resolution of the budget for fiscal year 1996. This was 
printed on June 26, 1995, and this comes from your Committee on the 
Budget. This is, in fact, the official conference report.
  On page 3 of the conference report, Mr. Speaker, it lists the 
deficits, and I am quoting now from the document, ``For purposes of 
enforcement of this resolution, the amounts of the deficits are as 
follows:'' The fiscal years 1996 through 2002 then follow: In the first 
year, the deficit is $245,600,000,000. Deficits accrue each succeeding 
year until you reach the year 2002, the 7th year of this proposed 
balanced budget, in which the deficit amount is listed as 
$108,400,000,000.

  If we are talking about reducing deficits, that is one thing. 
President Clinton's budget did that. We reduced the deficit. We reduced 
the absolute number of the deficit, and the rate of the deficit has 
been going down and will have gone down for 3 years, something which I 
believe the record shows, Mr. Speaker, has not been done since Mr. 
Truman's administration in the late 1940's.
  So I repeat, the budget document itself, so we know the premise that 
I am operating from, indicates that we will have deficits, deficits 
starting in the $245 billion range this year and continuing on through 
to the year 2002, when supposedly we have a balanced budget.
  Let me indicate what the public debt is. The public debt, and these 
are not my figures, Mr. Speaker, this is what is printed in the record 
of the conference report of the Republican majority here, the public 
debt is as follows: The appropriate levels of public debt are for the 
fiscal year 1996, $5,210,700,000,000, $5.2 trillion; in the year 2002, 
7 years from now, when we supposedly have balanced the budget, the 
number has gone to $6,688,600,000,000, almost $6.7 trillion from $5.2 
trillion. I do not think it takes any great mathematician to realize 
that the public debt will have risen during the time we are supposedly 
balancing the budget by more than $1 trillion.
  Going on, again, quoting from the budget document itself, not figures 
I made up, section 103, Social Security, ``social security revenues,'' 
Now I think anybody that is observing our proceedings today or 
listening in to our proceedings, they know what they mean by a balanced 
budget. It is how much of the revenues you have, how much money comes 
in and what your outlay is, how much money comes in and what your 
outlay is, how much money goes out, and at the end of the year or at 
the end of a period of years, if you say you are going to balance the 
budget, that is what we mean by it, how much came in, how much went 
out.
  Well, I have just read to you that there is a deficit. Obviously, we 
are spending more money than we are taking in. Where are we going to 
get the money? ``Social security revenues, for purposes of this 
section, the Congressional Budget Act, the amount of revenues of the 
Federal Old Age and Survivors' Insurance trust fund and disability 
insurance trust fund are as follows: Social security revenues,'' Mr. 
Speaker, ``fiscal year 1996, $374,700,000,000,'' almost $375 billion, 
and again other amounts accruing each year from 1997 on through the 7-
year period to the year 2002.

  How much do we get in revenues in 2002? $498,600,000,000. Now, where 
that money comes from, Mr. Speaker, is from your paycheck and mine and 
from paychecks all across the country, under the so-called FICA 
position on your paychecks, FICA. That is your 

[[Page H 14216]]
Social Security payment. And I will explicate about that a little bit 
more in my talk. It is $375 billion in 1996, $499 billion approximately 
in the year 2002.
  What are the Social Security outlays? Okay, that is the income. What 
are the outlays? In 1996, $299,400,000,000, approximately $300 billion. 
In the year 2002, what is it? It is $383,800,000,000, approximately 
$384 billion.
  Keep those figures in mind.
  In other words, we have a surplus. If you look at the fiscal year 
1996, this next year coming up, we are taking in $375 billion in Social 
Security revenues. We are laying out $300 billion. We have 
approximately $74 billion to $75 billion in surplus, what is called 
surplus.
  We all know that there are going to be more people in the next 
century utilizing the Social Security trust fund for their benefits 
than there are now because the age of people getting the Social 
Security funds is increasing; that is to say, their life expectancy is 
increasing. There are going to be more people drawing on the Social 
Security fund with less people paying into it, and yet here we are 
drawing on the Social Security fund, borrowing from it. I think that is 
the polite word for it. Other people have used other words, like 
``embezzlement.'' I have quoted others in the other body who have used 
that word, embezzlement. I say we are mortgaging our future, our Social 
Security future, by taking from it. But that nonetheless, Mr. Speaker, 
is the surplus supposedly for this year.
  Under the outlays for the year 1996, as I said, it was about $300 
billion. In the year 2002, the seventh year when we are supposedly 
balancing the budget, the Social Security trust fund will take in 
approximately $499 billion. Almost a half a trillion dollars will come 
in. And what is the outlay? $384 billion.

                             {time}   1630

  Now, let us say that we understand that there is liable to be an 
increase or decrease in these estimations, because that is what they 
are, estimations, but take a look at that number, What did I say was 
going to be the deficit in the year 2002? According to this budget 
document, it is going to be approximately $108 billion. If we allow for 
a factor or $2 or $3 billion on either side, let us use that, say $105 
billion to $110 billion. The $108 is right in the middle. That is the 
figure being used. What is the Social Security surplus? Wonder of 
wonder, it comes to about $111 billion, just about exactly what the 
deficit is, according to your own budget document. And what does that 
mean? It means that when the Republican majority says that they have a 
budget in surplus in the year 2002, what they really mean is they have 
magically worked the numbers so that the Social Security trust fund 
surplus becomes just slightly more than the amount of the deficit, so 
that you can claim there is actually a surplus in the budget.
  It is entirely illusionary, it is entirely a matter of doing ballet 
with the books, it is an accounting trick, it is just moving numbers 
around on paper, and it bears no relationship to reality. Why? Because 
the reality is at that point, even if you succeeded, Mr. Speaker, in 
doing exactly what you propose in the budget, of being able to have 
deficits every year and offset them with the Social Security trust fund 
by borrowing against that trust fund, in the year 2002, unless I am 
sadly mistaken and have misread the budget document, there is no 
provision in here whatsoever as to how the money is to be paid back. No 
plan. No proposal. No acknowledgment. As a matter of fact, the 
Congressional Budget Office even indicates to me that it is implicit 
that it will be paid back, but there is no explicit recommendation in 
the entire budget conference report as to how you will pay back the 
$630 or $40 or $50, or whatever the number comes out to be, $630-plus 
billion, plus interest, that has to be paid back into that Social 
Security fund in order for it to be utilized.
  If one and I obviously, Mr. Speaker, do not think you would believe 
for a moment that I am making any of this up, that I do not have the 
documents, but if one was to consider that that was merely my reading 
of the budget figures and that perhaps I was misunderstanding what the 
information was, let us refer then to the Congressional Budget Office 
itself.
  Now, I understand that there has been a great deal of discussion in 
the press and I have witnessed it myself with the Speaker of the House 
in great umbrage indicating that the Congressional Budget Office is the 
resource that we must refer to if we are going to make any 
pronouncements on the budget. So, Mr. Speaker, I take that, I am a 
humble serving Member of this body. I am in the minority. If the 
majority, the Speaker of the House of representatives, Mr. Gingrich, 
says that we have to use the figures of the Congressional Budget Office 
and only those figures when we comment on the budget, I will 
accommodate him.
  So I have before me the economic and budget outlook for the fiscal 
years 1996 to 2000 as of January 1995. The source, Congressional Budget 
Office. That is what I have in my hand, given to me from the 
Congressional Budget Office, the budget outlook through 2005 as a 
matter of fact. What does it show? It shows that in 1996, as of January 
1995, we have a deficit starting in 1996 with the figure $207 billion. 
It goes on to the year 2002, where the figure is $322 billion. Then it 
shows the Social Security surplus starting at $73 billion and ending up 
in the year 2002 at $111 billion. Those are the figures from the 
Congressional Budget Office.

  Attached to those figures is a letter written to the Honorable Byron 
L. Dorgan, U.S. Senate, dated October 20, 1995, from the Congressional 
Budget Office, signed by June E. O'Neill, who, as you know, Mr. 
Speaker, is the Director of the Congressional Budget Office. Copies of 
this letter are sent to the Honorable Pete V. Domenici, the chairman of 
the Committee of the Budget in the Senate, and the Honorable J. James 
Exon, the ranking minority member on the Committee on the Budget, an 
identical letter sent to the Honorable Kent Conrad.
  I wish to quote in part from it. ``As specified,'' I am now quoting 
from the Congressional Budget Office letter to Senator Dorgan, ``As 
specified in section 205(a), the Congressional Budget Office 
projections''; in other words, the budget document, Mr. Speaker, that I 
just quoted from, ``was not arrived at randomly.''
  Randomly. I am not accusing the conference committee or its author in 
the Committee on the Budget here in the House of just coming up with 
intuitive projections, although the Speaker of the House indicated at 
one point, Mr. Gingrich did, that he arrived at the 7-year period by 
intuition. I think that I would prefer to lay intuition aside for the 
moment and get right to the figures as provided by the Congressional 
Budget Office.
  Once again, ``As specified in section 205(a),'' we are talking about 
the act which forms the foundation for the budget resolution, ``the 
Congressional Budget Office provided projections.'' There is then a 
parentheses, ``using the economic and technical assumptions underlying 
the budget resolution and assuming the level of discretionary spending 
specified in that resolution.''
  In other words, the Congressional Budget Office, Mr. Speaker, in this 
letter, Ms. O'Neill, Director O'Neill, is indicating that the 
projections in the announcement she is about to make in this letter are 
based on the economic and technical figures that are in the budget 
resolution, and they assume the level of spending specified in the 
resolution that I have just quoted to you.
  Going on, the projections of the deficit or surplus of the total 
budget, that is, the deficit or surplus resulting from all budgetary 
transactions of the Federal Government, including Social Security and 
Postal Service spending and receipts, are designated as off-budget 
transactions.
  Now it comes out, this is how we perform the sleight of hand. This is 
the David Copperfield of budget tricks that takes place. You simply 
declare all the money that the people of this country have put into the 
Social Security trust fund as being off budget.
  Do I not wish that I could take what I owe on my credit card and 
declare it off budget? I would not have to take that into account when 
I balance my budget at the end of the month or at the end of the year. 
I can just ignore all the money that is on that credit card, because I 
am declaring it off budget.
  What happens as a result of that off budget transaction? Again, 
quoting from the letter from Director O'Neill: ``As stated in the 
letter to chairman Domenici, the congressional Budget Office projected 
there will be a total 

[[Page H 14217]]
budget surplus of $10 billion in the year 2002.'' mark that, Mr. 
Speaker. A budget surplus in the year 2002.
  We have triumphed. We have achieved a 7-year budget balance. In fact, 
we will even have a surplus of $10 billion. Oh, happy day. Why has it 
not been done before? Why did the Democrats fight us all this time on 
it, when here it was, right before us, so easily accomplished, and we 
have the Speaker and everyone who supports the Speaker now ready to 
give us this wonderful present in 2002 of a $10 billion surplus.

  But, wait. That is not all. There is another sentence. And what does 
it say? ``Excluding an estimated off budget surplus of $115 billion in 
the year 2002 from the calculation, the CBO, the Congressional Budget 
Office, would project an on-budget deficit of $105 billion in 2002. If 
you wish further details on this projection, we would be pleased to 
provide them.'' A staff member and number is then left.
  Yes, there is that little matter of the $105 billion deficit. But, of 
course, we do not want to count that, because we were able to put that 
off budget somewhere. That does not really exist.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, I have been in various legislative bodies for a 
long time. I have negotiated budgets. I have been a subcommittee 
chairman in which I received a figure, a spending figure, that I had to 
conduct my legislative affairs within, in higher education, in Health 
and Human Services, in education itself, in lower education. I know 
what it is like to have to live within certain boundaries that have 
been set.
  I have also served on the Committee on Ways and Means, a committee 
which decides what kind of spending can take place, what kind of 
appropriation is going to be allowed. I think I understand the process. 
I have served on a city council where we had to make those decisions. I 
have had responsibility in those areas.
  That does not make me an expert, by any stretch of the imagination, 
but I think as a citizen in a free country, someone who has had the 
honor and privilege of serving in public office because people exercise 
their voting franchise and put their faith and trust in my judgment, 
that I took it seriously, that I tried to do my job as well as I could 
and understand it. I think I am a reasonably intelligent person who 
understands the English language and the implications of it.
  I am here to tell you, Mr. Speaker, when I read those comments and 
when I see those numbers, there is no way that I could have gotten away 
with saying that we were balancing the budget, had I been proposing 
this in the Honolulu City Council or in the Hawaii State Legislature, 
nor could I propose it to my wife and family and get away with it, 
because they would understand immediately that there was no way for me 
to account for the debt that I had incurred and how I was going to pay 
it.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, let us move to another Congressional Budget Office 
deficit projection, if that observation of mine is not sufficient, 
because I want to point out yet once again that this is what the 
Speaker has told us to do. Speaker Gingrich has said as a matter of 
fact, I regret to say, Mr. Speaker, that Mr. Gingrich has put it in 
quite threatening terms as recently as the last day or so. And this is 
his general proposition for the country at large, and I grant you, Mr. 
Speaker, that I am saying words to the effect. Mr. Gingrich has said 
words to the effect, if you do not abide by the balanced budget 
proposition as put forward by the Congressional Budget Office, the 
stock market is going to crash, and the interest rates are going to go 
through the roof, or we will shut down the Government, and it will be 
all your fault.
  Now, Speaker Gingrich indicated he was going to bench himself 
previously. If this is being on the bench, I am not quite sure what 
being on the field would be. But, nonetheless, this is what he has 
done. He is the Speaker of the House, he won a majority of votes, and I 
think I would like to remind him that it is one thing to stand in the 
back and throw rocks when you are in the minority. I have been in the 
minority before. I have been in the minority even when I was in the 
majority. I understand what that is all about. It is easy to criticize 
when you are not in a position of authority. But now he is the Speaker 
of the House, and the things he says and the actions that he takes are 
taken very seriously by the people of this country. I assure you, Mr. 
Speaker, I take them seriously.

  So I stand here before you today, taking Mr. Gingrich's admonitions 
to heart, and so I refer to another document here in the economic and 
budget outlook of the Congressional Budget Office indicating the 
Congressional Budget Office deficit projections by fiscal year. This is 
the updated version. This is updated as late as I know one exists.
  Now, I understand the Congressional Budget Office is going to provide 
a further update next week, so the figures that I am going to cite to 
you, I do not cite them as if Moses has come down from the mountain and 
given them to me. The best source I have is what the Speaker says I 
should use, which is the Congressional Budget Office with the latest 
figures.
  Here they are. Congressional Budget Office deficit projections, 
August 1995, and what do I find on this page? By the way, this is in 
billions of dollars. I find a section of the Congressional Budget 
Office projections which say what? ``Off budget surplus.'' And what do 
I find under it? Social Security and the Postal Service. The Postal 
Service surplus is a minor amount. It is not a minor amount to the 
average family, I am sure, because we are talking about up to a billion 
dollars. But compared to the off budget surplus of Social Security, it 
is a minor amount.

                              {time}  1645

  The off-budget surplus. Is that not a beautiful phrase, the off-
budget surplus? I can imagine how virtually anybody in this country 
would be delighted to have an off-budget surplus available to them when 
it comes time to pay their bills.
  For 1996, it is $63 billion, and goes on up to the year 2002 in which 
the projection is $96 billion. Is that not nice to have that surplus 
available to us?
  So we go on then from the Congressional Budget Office, and we get 
what is the base line budget projections, and there we see a word which 
has been used on the floor of this House over, and over, and over 
again, but not since we started talking about the balanced budget. We 
used to hear about how we had to reduce the deficit. That was a litany 
that was recited with the fervor of a rosary being recited. We had to 
have the deficit be reduced.
  We do not hear that anymore, Mr. Speaker. Now we are balancing the 
budget. We have a new prayer, but this is an unanswered prayer, because 
this Congressional Budget Office base line budget projection for the 
fiscal year 1996 read in two ways, and it is really convenient.
  I am so pleased Speaker Gingrich asked us to use the Congressional 
Budget Office because they have this beautiful comparison here. On one 
line, the on-budget deficit. Unfortunately, our deficit cannot get off 
budget. There is no way to hide the deficit. We have to stay on the 
money, no pun intended, Mr. Speaker, on the money when it comes to the 
deficit, and the Congressional Budget Office understands that.
  So the on-budget deficit is $253 billion in 1996, as of August 1995, 
according to the Congressional Budget Office; and goes on, by the year 
2002, to be a total of $436 billion. And do not forget we are 
accumulating 253, 286, 301, 338, 373, 397 and 436. We add all those 
numbers up to get what the deficit is.
  And what do we see as the off-budget surplus? We have an on-budget 
deficit in three figures, we have an off-budget surplus in the year 
1996 of $63 billion, in the year 2002, $96 billion, and we have a 
series of numbers going on for every fiscal year up to the year 2002.
  So what we have there, Mr. Speaker, it seems pretty clear, is that we 
have an ever increasing deficit. An ever increasing deficit under our 
budget, under the Speaker's proposal. An ever increasing deficit and we 
have Social Security funds in a trust fund, supposedly off-budget, that 
we are going to use to try to reduce that deficit. But that does not 
take into account, then, how we pay for the money that we have borrowed 
from Social Security to make up for what we are spending in a deficit 
fashion in the budget we have proposed before us.
  Mr. Speaker, one does not have to be a Nobel prize winner to figure 
that one out. It means that we are going to keep on spending. In fact, 
I see members of the majority party come to the floor 

[[Page H 14218]]
everyday and brag how they are spending more money on Medicare, more 
money on Medicaid, more money here and more money there. Charts come 
down on the floor, facts and figures are thrown forth, but I notice 
they never bring anything out of the budget document. I am the one 
quoting from the budget document. I am the one quoting from the 
Congressional Budget Office a to the actual figures.
  Mr. Speaker, I do not have some pie chart or something that has been 
drawn up in the basement down here on the floor. I am quoting the facts 
and figures as they are, and I am here night after night bringing this 
out with no refutation from anybody. I do not seek a contest on this. I 
am just saying that these are the facts and figures for the American 
public to figure out.
  Now, let us take a look at what this means. I have cited a lot of 
numbers, and I am sure my colleagues that are tuned in, and others 
across the country who might be observing our proceedings, they are not 
sitting there with pen and pencil trying to copy down everything I am 
saying. I hope that they believe that I am quoting accurately from the 
figures. Certainly the staff here at the House takes these documents 
afterwards to check for what they are going to put into the 
Congressional Record, so I can assure everyone that these documents 
will be quoted in the Congressional Record and the sources will be 
there.
  So what do these numbers mean? If we take my fundamental proposition 
that there is not a balanced budget proposal on the table; that, in 
fact, we are increasing the deficit; that, in fact, we are borrowing 
money from the Social Security trust fund with no plan to pay it back, 
what does it mean?
  Well, there is a very interesting table that the Congressional Budget 
Office has provided, and it is as follows: What is the on-budget 
deficit? If the Speaker will recall, that is what I just recited. And 
the off-budget surplus, what does that mean in terms of being a 
percentage of the gross domestic product? That is, I think, a 
reasonable way for the average American, and certainly myself, I am an 
average American, I do not think, as I say, I have any special 
mathematical ability or any special insight into economics, but I think 
I understand a straightforward presentation, and these Congressional 
Budget Office tables are straightforward.
  The on-budget deficit. How much we are in the red. Off-budget 
surplus. How much extra money we have. What is it as a percentage of 
our gross domestic product? That is to say the sum and substance, the 
sum total of all that we have produced. What are we worth? Well, it is 
very interesting that the budget, which supposedly is going to be 
balanced in 2002, starts out in 1996 as a percentage of the gross 
domestic product. It starts off at 3.5 percent. 3.5 percent of the 
gross domestic product is the on-budget deficit.
  If we were really balancing this budget, Mr. Speaker, why is it that 
in the year 2002 the percentage of the gross domestic product, which is 
in deficit, is 4.4? I will repeat. How can we say that we have balanced 
the budget if, as a percentage of our gross domestic product, we move 
from 3.5 percent in 1996 to 4.4 percent of the gross domestic product 
in the year 2002? It cannot be done. It cannot be done.

  There is no way we can twist the English language sufficiently to 
enable us to come on this floor and say that the deficit is less in 
2002 than it is in 1996 if we have moved from 3.5 percent of the gross 
domestic product to 4.4 percent of the gross domestic product as 
representing the deficit of this Nation. That is the fact. At the same 
time, Mr. Speaker, the off-budget surplus stays approximately at 0.9 
percent. The highest it goes is 1.0 percent in the year 2000 and again 
in the year 2002. In only 2 of the 7 years does the off-budget surplus 
reach the level of 1 percent of the gross domestic product.
  Now, these are the facts and these are not facts that I have twisted 
and turned in order to make my case. The case came to me from reading 
the facts. I had no preconceptions on this. I do not sit on the 
Committee on the Budget. I had to do my homework on this. I had to read 
through these documents. I had to wade through all the piles of numbers 
and propositions, and decreased revenues stemming from downward 
revisions on income projections, and full percentage points lower than 
previous forecasts, and Federal debts held by public standing, and 
lower rates which translate into significant interest savings. I had to 
wade through that. It is my duty to wade through that.
  When I looked at it, and when I read it, I kept thinking, can this be 
true? Can someone be coming down here and saying we are going to 
balance the Federal budget by 2002? We are going to balance the Federal 
budget in 7 years? We are going to save our children? We are going to 
save our grandchildren?
  The Congressional Budget Office figures do not fudge anything. The 
Speaker of the House, Mr. Gingrich says, let us use honest numbers. 
Everything that I have read today, everything that I am speaking about 
on this floor comes from the Congressional Budget Office or from the 
conference document on the budget as presented to this Congress. Every 
single number. Nothing has been made up by me. I am not trying to put 
it in any particular order to try to make my case. The case, as I said, 
was made for me by reading the numbers and understanding what they 
meant finally.
  They meant to me that we are engaged in an illusion. I will not use 
the word ``fraud''. I may have used it in the past, because that just 
has a pejorative connotation, and I do not care to get into that. There 
has been enough of that kind of discussion taking place. I wish the 
Speaker himself, Mr. Gingrich, would take that to heart and come down 
here and start using some honest numbers that he admonished us with.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, let us take a look at what that means. Let us try 
to get some understanding, then, of what that means to the children; 
what that means to the taxpayers who have the children and the mothers 
and fathers who may be on Social Security. There is a phrase that has 
been utilized, Mr. Speaker, utilized on this floor and utilized in 
discussions, utilized in media discussion, and it is called 
backloading. It is called look-back provisions.
  Now, these are our little catch phrases that are utilized, and I do 
not think, necessarily, they are explained, and I fault the media. I do 
not fault the political figures that are trying to dance around this 
case. I mean I do not fault them in the sense of trying to figure out a 
way to fool people, because that is what the object of this is. I 
fault, frankly, the journalists and those whose job it is to cover what 
we are doing from inquiring further.
  Why are there not more probing questions? We could do with a few less 
celebrity journalists and entertainers disguised as journalists and get 
some people who will ask some serious questions of the people that are 
presenting these phrases about balanced budgets and lowering the 
deficit.
  What is backloading? What is a look-back provision? I will tell the 
American people what it is. What it means is if over the next 7 years 
some of these figures fall down, if they do not hold up, what it means 
is in the 7th year we will look back, see how much we are off the mark 
that we set for ourselves, and them impose draconian cuts. At that 
point that will eviscerate even further, if that is possible, Medicare, 
Medicaid, nutrition programs for children and the helpless among us. 
How will we care for them?
  That is what look-back means. That is what backloading means. 
Backloading is when we start out and we have a lower number than we 
really need because we do not want to scare people too much. After all, 
there is a Presidential election coming up. Our reelection is coming 
next year. Let us not frighten them too much, but let us load that up 
at the backside, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 on to 2002, so that when we get 
to 2002, then we can whack them.
  By that time, a lot of people in here have said they are leaving 
office. There is all kinds of folks in here that have said I am for 
term limits. I am only going to be here three terms. I am going to come 
in, destroy the budget of the United States, I will take the social and 
economic stability of this Nation apart brick-by-brick, and then I am 
going to walk away and leave the mess for somebody else to clean up.

                              {time}  1700

  That is what is going to happen. That is what the implications of 
this budget are. It goes beyond the partisan argument among Democrats 
and Republicans. It comes down to what kind of 

[[Page H 14219]]
Nation are we going to have? What kind of people are we? Do we care 
about one another? Do we have any feeling for one another? Is it 
literally a case, as in the Gilded Age, in which a financial pirate 
like Jim Fiske could say, ``It is every man, drag out his own corpse.''
  Is this to be a war of each against all? Is that what this country is 
all about? That is one of the reasons that we have the difficulty in 
Bosnia, because we have a war of each against all. I come from Hawaii 
where we do not have that kind of ethic. Our diversity defines us 
rather than dividing us in Hawaii.
  Mr. Speaker, we live on an island. I grant you, Mr. Speaker, not 
everybody lives in the kind of situation that perhaps you and I do. 
Island people, we know our limitations. We know that because we are on 
an island, because we recognize that nature in the end rules, that we 
have to get along with one another. We have to find ways to accommodate 
one another; not to set one against another.
  Mr. Speaker, that will be the inevitable result of this budget if we 
are not fair and honest and play fair and honest as we go into the 
budget. If we backload the budget to have the full impact come in a 
given year, we are not going to be able to do it without hurting people 
and hurting people deeply. That is not just opinion on my part. I think 
it is a reasonable projection that anybody who is being honest about it 
would make.
  Let us try to get a little more detail on that. What exactly is going 
to take place? Does anybody believe that in the year 2002, the 
Government stops; that there are no payments to anybody anymore; that 
we have no obligations, social or economic, to one another? What 
happens in 2003 and on out? It is very interesting.
  Again, Mr. Speaker, I am not trying to just bring my own opinion to 
the floor. I will quote from what they call a myth, the balanced budget 
myth, from USA Today written November 6 of this year, just last month.
  USA Today, Gannett Corp., they are no friends of mine. The Gannett 
Corp. in Hawaii, they would like to see me drop through one of those 
volcanic cracks on the Big Island and never come back. I am proud to 
say that those newspaper people in Hawaii, they have been against me 
all of my life. All of my political life they have opposed me. I know I 
am doing something right when I have the newspapers going against me in 
their editorial departments in my own hometown. Mr. Speaker, you know 
perfectly well that a person must have something useful to say.
  I am not quoting an organization that has any favorable twists 
towards me. There is no question about that. So, what does their 
editorial say? Let me quote.

       Each day, the debate over balancing the budget produces 
     another dire warning. That cuts are too deep, say the 
     Democrats. Taxes must fall, say the Republicans. But after 
     they compromise and begin arguing over who won a few weeks 
     from now, one truth will remain. Both sides will be lying, 
     because neither is talking about a truly balanced budget at 
     all.

  ``The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office,'' the documents that I 
have been quoting, as the Speaker admonished us to do underscored that 
point recently. It pointed out that come 2002, when the balance will be 
`balanced' under the Republican plans, the Government will still be 
borrowing more than $100 billion a year. This is done by writing IOU's 
to the Treasury, to Social Security and other trust funds that Congress 
declares off budget.'' That is what I have been saying all along in the 
course of my remarks.
  ``The bill for this little game will not come due in the political 
life of President Clinton or much of today's Congress.'' That is just 
what I indicated. ``But, the public will pay soon enough.''
  Here is what the editorial says, and I quote:

       To understand, look ahead to 2005. That is just 10 years 
     away, about the time it takes for an 11-year-old child to go 
     from grade school through college.

  Let us think about that, because we have heard over and over again 
from our friends here on the majority Republican side, ``Think about 
the children. Think about the grandchildren.'' I hope it does not sound 
pejorative, Mr. Speaker, but there have been some crocodile tears shed 
on this floor about the kids and the grandkids.
  So, I am just going to talk about 10 years from now, in the time an 
11-year-old goes from grade school to college.

       That year, 2005, that year, a critical balance tips. 
     Increased costs for Social Security will begin to deplete 
     Congress' cushion. Because the Social Security trust fund 
     is a fiction, filled with nothing but Government promises 
     to pay, Congress will gradually lose its fudge factor. By 
     2013, when the trust fund peaks, taxpayers will feel a 
     hard bit. They will have to start doing what the trust 
     fund was supposed to do: pay for the retirement of 75 
     million baby boomers. The budget will plummet into a sea 
     of red ink with $760 billion a year deficits by the year 
     2030. By then, the Government will have had to double the 
     current 12.4 percent employer-employee payroll tax to 
     cover Social Security obligations.

  Again I emphasize, Mr. Speaker, that is not some partisan rhetoric 
that I made up in order to try to embarrass Speaker Gingrich, with his 
admonitions to us about having to balance the budget. That comes from 
an editorial from someone who is certainly not a friend of mine. But 
the fact still remains that they have hit upon what the real 
difficulties, and believe me that is a word that beggars the enormity 
of what is about to take place, the difficulties, the hardships, the 
pain that is going to be inflicted on this country as we apparently 
want to mutually agree to fool ourselves and, by extension, fool the 
American people into thinking that we are balancing the budget.
  Mr. Speaker, we cannot in good conscience come down to this floor and 
go through this ritual recitation about a balanced budget and not 
acknowledge the facts as I have presented them.
  Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that by borrowing from the trust funds, 
we are not really balancing the budget. By not being honest about what 
the deficits are, it simply means that we are going to have to raise 
taxes on the next generation, or else we are going to have to make cuts 
that are unacceptable in a civilized society.
  I suppose it would be possible to make the kind of cuts that would 
enable us to get into balance in 7 years if we decided that there were 
whole portions of our populace that were expendable, with whom we could 
dispense, that we have dispensable people.
  Right now, Mr. Gingrich is very fond of reciting individual instances 
where children who were on welfare have been killed or maimed or 
tortured or some horrifying element such as that coming into play, and 
cited it over and over again, and then associate that with programs 
that have failed, in his estimation.
  Well, I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to consider if we are going to go by 
the number Speaker Gringrich raised with us, namely an intuitive one 
about 7 years, are we not then taking a chance, given the figures that 
I have outlined, of doing exactly that? Of having a society in which 
people, some people, will be considered less human than others; less 
deserving than others? In which providing for the general welfare of 
all of our people will be transposed into ``some will get and some will 
not,'' and those without power will be left without the capacity to 
defend themselves?
  The strong, the powerful, the wealthy, they can always take care of 
themselves. We all know the old joke about Democrats borrow and 
Republicans collect interest. Well, it has a certain cachet to it, and 
probably more than one person out there who is tuning in, including our 
own colleagues, will say, ``Yes, that, is right.''
  Mr. Speaker, you may think that is the way we should put our budget 
together. I do not. I am down on this floor trying to exercise my 
franchise on this floor on behalf of those who cannot speak for 
themselves. That is why the 435 of us are here. This is a 
representative government. This is not a parliament.
  Mr. Speaker, Mr. Gingrich is not the prime minister. We do not have 
to follow blindly in the footsteps of anybody in this country, 
including the President of the United States, as he learns every single 
day, I am sure, more than once. Probably once an hour, once a minute, 
he probably feels it is like somebody is telling them that they do not 
have to pay attention to what he is saying or what he is requesting.
  Mr. Speaker, it is our obligation as men and women freely elected by 
a free people to come onto this floor and defend the interests of those 
who cannot 

[[Page H 14220]]
otherwise defend themselves. That is what this budget is about. It is 
not about an abstract document. The fact that I happen to be able to 
grab a piece of paper and budget figures on a piece of paper does not 
mean that that is the budget. The budget is people. This is the 
people's House. We represent the people. We have a certain time on 
Earth given to us to justify our existence. That is the way I look at 
it.
  I do not deserve anything. I am not entitled to anything. But I will 
tell my colleagues what I am entitled to under the Government of the 
United States, is consideration. Consideration, based on 
the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of 
Independence that formed the basis of our association with one another 
as a republic.

  So, it is important for us to transpose and translate this document, 
this budget, into human terms and to consider the human dimension. If 
we do, I think we are going to look at it a little differently. I am 
perfectly content, Mr. Speaker, I have been a legislator all of my 
life. I understand that not everybody thinks as I do, and I understand 
that positions I may have held at one time I have changed over the 
years.
  Mr. Speaker, I have changed them because I have learned more. 
Hopefully, I am not so set in my ways as to believe that revealed 
wisdom is somehow mine at a given point in my life and there is nothing 
else for me to learn. In this particular context, I think there is a 
lot for us to learn, and there is a lot for us to give to one another 
in terms of the knowledge that we have acquired.
  If we want to reduce the deficit, and I do think that is important, 
and if at some point we want to balance the budget, and I do think that 
that is important, by all means let us do it in a sensible way. Very 
few people, Mr. Speaker, are able to buy their house on the day that 
they move into it. The bank advances them a sum of money on the basis 
that they will be able to balance their budget. That is to say, they 
will have sufficient funds to be able to make the series of payments 
necessary in order for them to pay off that house.
  We do that as governments all the time. What we say, if we are on the 
city council or in the State government or in a village situation where 
we have a bond issue for sewers or for roads or for schools, we say 
that over a period of time we will pay for that, because not just the 
people of today, but the people of tomorrow, the young people as they 
grow older, will be using these facilities.
  We have a budget that takes that into account and over 5, 10, 15, 20, 
and 30 years, we pay the principal and interest associated with those 
projects and those expenditures that we feel are in the general 
public's interest; in the common interest of the people in our 
communities.
  We see this as being fair and equitable. That is all I am asking for, 
Mr. Speaker. So, I want to close perhaps by reiterating and summarizing 
as follows: If we truly want to have a budget that we can go before our 
families, our friends, our communities, go before those folks who 
depend upon us, and speak with them honestly about it; that will review 
the premises upon which this balanced budget is being proposed; that 
will deal with some honest number, recognizing that we cannot command 
the next Congress; that there are 2 Presidential elections over the 
next 7 years, then we have to try and set a basis, a foundation, for a 
budget that will enable us to be able to carry on the legacy, the 
heritage of freedom in this country, and to pass on to those who will 
have the responsibility after us, a responsible budget which has been 
arrived at in an honest fashion, and which preserves and protects not 
just Social Security and the other trust funds, but protects the basis 
upon which we are able to conduct the proper business of the people of 
this country.
  That budget, fundamentally, in the end, Mr. Speaker, is people, and 
unless we translate this budget into people terms, we are doing a 
disservice to the very people who have given us the responsibility to 
be here today.

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