[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 199 (Thursday, December 14, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H14917-H14918]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE NATIONAL DEBT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Chambliss). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Longley] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. LONGLEY. Mr. Speaker, this afternoon  I  would  like  to  again  
call attention to the fact that as of 3 o'clock this afternoon, the 
Nation's Federal debt, official debt, is $4,988,313,115,981.39. Very 
interesting, this is again an additional decrease of $126 million, 
actually almost $127 million.
  As a new Member of Congress, Mr. Speaker, I have to confess that I 
did not come here with all of the answers, and very frankly I am not 
sure I even understood all of the problems. But one of the problems 
that I want to bring to my colleagues' attention today is that a member 
of the Committee on the Budget asked me earlier in the week whether 
this number was accurate. Under his recollection, the national debt 
limit was actually $4.9 trillion. As we can see, the number before us 
today is $4.988 trillion plus $300 million, or literally $4 trillion, 
$988 billion, $88 billion more than the official national debt.
  Frankly, that caused me to go back to my office staff and question 
whether we had appropriately researched the number. Well, lo and 
behold, we have researched the number, and this is the correct number 
because, in addition to the $4.9 trillion of Federal debt, we have 
authorized another $88 billion of debt that does not count against the 
limit.
  As if that were not enough, earlier in the week, Mr. Speaker, I 
addressed this Chamber on the basis of a New York Times article from 
Wednesday, December 6, 1995, wherein it indicated that the 
administration, since November 15 of this year, has actually borrowed 
another $61.3 billion on top of the $88 billion that does not count as 
part of the national debt. In addition to the $4.9 trillion that is the 
national debt, the administration borrowed that $61 billion from the 
Federal Civil Service retirement accounts and that apparently that was 
permissible under law. I hope that in the earlier vote in the afternoon 
that we are able to pass a measure that will preclude that.
  The point I want to make today is that, the more I as a new Member of 
Congress, Mr. Speaker, learn about the nature and the extent of the 
problems with Federal spending, the more alarmed I become. Literally, 
just in the last 3 days I have found $88 billion of debt that we were 
not counting against the national debt. That is on top again of another 
$60 billion that has been borrowed out of Civil Service retirement 
accounts. That is over $150 billion. We were not even counting it. We 
are not even counting it. This is over and above the congressionally 
authorized limit of $4.9 billion.
  I have to mention this afternoon that another bit of information came 
to my 

[[Page H14918]]
attention. That is that the new budget, Mr. Speaker, that has been 
submitted by the administration is actually not going to balance within 
7 years. This is a serious issue because we came to a solemn agreement 
about 3 weeks ago wherein the administration and the Congress agreed 
that we were going to balance the budget in 7 years and use 
Congressional Budget Office numbers. Again, there was an issue of 
debate over whether we should use CBO numbers of OMB numbers.
  To be perfectly honest, I do not care whose numbers we use, but we 
owe it to the children of this country and to the public to use the 
most conservative numbers. If we are going to meet the goal of 
balancing the budget in 7 years, I think we should take the most 
cautious course to get there.
  The issue in Washington, in this body, Mr. Speaker, is not whether we 
are going to balance the Federal budget, because we are going to 
balance the Federal budget. The question is how. That is where partisan 
debate is appropriate, where Republicans can present their version of 
how to balance the Federal budget; Democrats can present their view of 
how to balance the Federal budget. And together, like all of the 
households in my district, including Republican households, Democratic 
households, Independent households, all of whom have to take 
responsibility for balancing their budgets, and they may do it 
differently. That is what is wonderful about America, is that we do 
have a lot of differences between us, but we need here in this body, as 
Republicans and Democrats, to come together to balance the Federal 
budget.
  I hope, Mr. Speaker, that over the next 24 hours as we approach 
tomorrow's deadline that we will once and for all be able to work 
together, Republicans and Democrats in this body, with a Democratic 
President who will keep his word and submit a budget that will balance 
in 7 years.

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