[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 203 (Monday, December 18, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H15083-H15086]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               BALANCED BUDGET REQUIRES BALANCED APPROACH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Fields] is recognized for 
60 minutes.
  Mr. FIELDS of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about 
America's budget. I think all of us tonight are in favor of a balanced 
budget. I am certainly in favor of a balanced budget. I think the big 
impasse that we have here in this Congress tonight is how we balance 
the budget, not whether or not we balance the budget in 7 years, 5 
years, or 10 years.
  The biggest issue that we are confronted with tonight is how do we 
balance the budget. I think there are too many people who want to 
balance the budget on the backs of the poor people and at the expense 
of the environment; who want to balance the budget at the expense of 
college students who are trying to matriculate in school and get a 
decent education; trying to balance the budget on the backs of 
individuals who want to go to schools that are drug-free and live in 
communities that are drug-free.
  So I think that is the real issue that we are faced with tonight is, 
how do we, in fact, balance this budget.
  In order to balance a budget, you ought to start with a balanced 
approach, and until we have a balanced approach, we will never have a 
balanced budget. This Government is shut down today because we do not 
have a balanced approach to balancing the budget. I want to stand 
tonight to talk about how we get to a point of bringing about a 
balanced approach to balance the budget so that we can look to create 
an atmosphere for our children in the future.
  If you look at this present budget, it cuts $750 billion over 7 
years. Quite frankly, I can stand tonight and be for a $750 billion 
cut. But the issue is where do we cut the $750 billion to balanced the 
budget by 2002. Under this balanced budget amendment, it takes $218 
billion and gives it to the richest people in America. One percent of 
the people in this country will receive a tax break under this balanced 
budget.
  The poorest people, 20 percent of the poorest people in America are 
impacted; the balanced budget affects them, 50 percent of those 
individuals will be affected by this balanced budget. Those cuts are on 
the backs of these individuals more so than it is on the backs of 
anybody else. Forty-seven percent of the proposed cuts goes to 12 
percent of Americans who make $100,000 or more.
  So the issue tonight is not whether or not we balance the budget; the 
issue is how do we balance the budget; $359 billion of the $750 billion 
in cuts are in Medicare and Medicaid. Over 7 years, $133 billion in 
Medicaid cuts will come about under this present balanced budget 
amendment.

                              {time}  2145

  Twenty-seven percent of those cuts will be in the Louisiana Medicaid 
Program. So I take a matter of personal privilege tonight to talk about 
how these cuts will affect constituents back home.
  I do not come from a State that is very wealthy. I certainly do not 
represent a district that is very wealthy. I represent one of the 
poorest congressional districts in the entire country and the poorest 
congressional district in the State of Louisiana.
  Medicaid cuts would deny benefits to about 3.8 million children. 
These are the individuals who can least defend themselves. They cannot 
come to the floor of the House. They cannot lobby in the Halls of the 
Congress. They cannot get on an airplane and fly to Washington, DC, and 
talk to Members of Congress. But they will be affected by these cuts.
  Three hundred thirty thousand elderly people could be turned away 
from nursing homes. These are the elderly, the sick people in this 
country, who have put everything they had over the years into this 
country, who have worked hard. People say, well, it is an entitlement 
program.
  We have had people who wake up every morning and go to work every 
day, and now they need the help of their Government. They have invested 
in Social Security. Now we have the audacity and the gall to stand here 
tonight and take an elderly person who has worked all of his or her 
life, take them out of a nursing home, and then turn around and give 
the richest person in this country a tax break, and the richest 
corporations.
  The issue is not whether or not we balance the budget. The issue is 
how we balance it.
  If I have two children, for example, and I have to cut back because I 
am spending too much, it is almost like telling one child, ``I'm going 
to deny you a college education because Daddy can't afford it 
anymore,'' but at the same time I tell the other child, ``I'm going to 
give you an increase in your allowance.''
  That is what we are doing under this budget. We are taking from the 
poorest people, our children, our elderly, and we are giving money to 
the richest people in this country, cutting Medicare by $200-some 
billion and then giving a $245 billion tax break.
  From rural Louisiana, $57.4 million in cuts resulting in higher taxes 
for 372,000 Louisianans. Families with one child, for example. We 
worked hard the last Congress to bring about something called an earned 
income tax credit, because we realized that we have to get people off 
the welfare rolls in this country and put them on payrolls.
  We all agree to that. We all know that in order for us to have a 
country that utilizes the free enterprise system and builds dignity 
among people, we have to get people off welfare. So what did we do the 
last Congress? We included in the budget something called an earned 
income tax credit, because we wanted to give the people who were trying 
to go to work and make a decent and honest living a tax break. So 
individuals who have children, and individuals who make $27,000, 
$30,000 a year, we gave them a tax break because we want to reward them 
for the work that they do.
  What are we doing today in this budget? We take away that tax credit 
to millions of families, and then we talk about how we want to get 
people off of welfare. The best way to get a person off of welfare is 
pay them for the work that they do and give them an opportunity, put 
value in work. This budget certainly does not do that.
  We also, as a result, raise taxes on 12.6 million families with 
incomes of $30,000 or less. That is what this budget will do; $100 
billion in cuts in food stamps and welfare programs.
  I know there has been a lot of talk about how we need to downsize the 
welfare program in this country. I stand before you today, Mr. Speaker, 
and say in no uncertain terms that we need to downsize and we need to 
revitalize the welfare program in this country.
  You are looking at one Member of Congress who believes that the 
welfare program in this country is very regressive and it needs to be 
more progressive. But how do we make welfare more progressive? We make 
it more progressive, in my opinion, by increasing job training, because 
many of the people on welfare do not have job skills.
  What do we do in this budget? We cut job training programs. Are we 
serious about revitalizing and reforming welfare in this country? I 
would think not.

[[Page H15084]]

  To add insult to injury, we take the child who we want to see off of 
the streets during the summertime, and the child who we would like to 
see do something constructive during the summertime, how do we penalize 
the child in this program? We tell children in this budget, about 4 
million of them, that this summer they will not have a summer job.
  Those are the kind of problems that we are having, real problems that 
we are having with this budget. Until we come with a balanced approach, 
we will never have a balanced budget, because if the philosophy here 
tonight is to balance the budget by giving the rich more and giving 
those who can least help and defend themselves less, then we will never 
come to a balanced budget agreement.
  Student loans, for example, cut by $10.2 billion at a time when less 
kids are taking advantage of college opportunities. Why? Because many 
of them do not have the financial resources.
  So should we stand here tonight and say, OK, let us balance the 
budget in 7 years; if you want to cut student loans, cut it for the 
sake of balancing the budget. I would feel a little better if we were 
not giving a $245 tax break to the richest people in America.
  That is why we have an impasse tonight. That is why the Members of 
this Congress not should but must sit down and talk about how we really 
can bring about a balanced budget for our children and for our country.
  Last, before I yield to a distinguished colleague of mine, I want to 
talk about the increased interest rates on student loans.
  Now when you are in college and you take out a student loan, you have 
a 6-month grace period. What kind of Congress are we, when we take a 
grace period away from a college student who just graduated from 
college and who just took out a student loan and who does not even have 
a job, for crying out loud?
  We tell this college student, ``We are going to balance this budget 
on your back,'' but yet we want every kid to go to college. We want 
them off welfare. We want them off the streets in the summertime, but 
we take away their summer jobs. And we have the audacity to stand on 
this floor and talk about it is the best thing to do, we have got to 
balance this budget.
  There is nothing wrong with balancing a budget, but it is how we 
balance it. Do we penalize people who can least help themselves, young 
college students?
  I see that I have been joined by my distinguished friend and 
colleague from the great State of Illinois. Let me just welcome the 
gentleman to this august body and welcome him to this U.S. Congress 
where I have been awaiting his arrival. It is good to have him here.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to my good friend the gentleman from Illinois 
[Mr. Jackson] for as much time as he may consume.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. I thank the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. 
Fields] for yielding me time this evening.
  We really need to stop kidding the American people. I support a 
balanced budget. Most Democrats do. But can we project natural 
disasters for the next 7 years? Can we project hurricanes on the east 
coast for the next 7 years? Earthquakes on the west coast for the next 
7 years? Or floods in the Midwest? Can we project wars present and 
unseen? Are we making decisions for a Congress yet to be elected 
severely restricting their ability to set the Nation's priorities as 
they see fit based on national need?
  And so if you like I am tired of hearing Republicans talking about 
the Federal budget deficit and the debt, those who are primarily 
responsible for deliberately creating deficits acting like they are 
actually concerned about them, then maybe you are ready to listen to 
something real about reducing budget deficits.
  How did we get in this mess? David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's Director 
of Office of Management and Budget, revealed first in the Atlantic 
Monthly and later in his book that the Republican strategy in 1981 was 
to deliberately create huge budget deficits and dramatically drive up 
the national debt as a way of forcing cutbacks in domestic social 
spending.
  For a little bit of perspective. For over 200 years from George 
Washington to Jimmy Carter, the accumulated national debt was $908 
billion. After just 12 years of Reagan and Bush economic policies, huge 
tax breaks for the rich, originally $750 billion, reduced in 1983 to 
$600 billion, and massive military spending, $750 billion over 5 years, 
the debt actually quadrupled to nearly $4 trillion. One expert has 
estimated that tax cuts enacted since the late 1970's for the richest 1 
percent of families cost the Federal treasury $164 billion in 1992.
  For example, $84 billion in decreased revenues and $80 billion in 
interest on the accumulated debt. The Reagan-Bush fiscal policies which 
on the one hand allowed the rich to pay less for their fair share of 
taxes, on the other hand forced the Government to borrow from them to 
finance the debt, a double bonanza for the very wealthiest Americans.
  The deficit must be put in perspective. Deficit fixation and attempts 
to cut the deficit too deeply and too quickly can paralyze efforts to 
bring about much needed domestic change. It can drag the economy down, 
increase unemployment, and actually increase the deficit itself.
  Borrowing per se is not necessarily bad. Borrowing to buy a house or 
to fund one's education is different than borrowing to pay off a 
gambling debt or to buy drugs or to buy alcohol. Therefore, there is an 
important difference between consumption expenditures and investment 
expenditures.
  Additionally, if one takes out a mortgage on a house and then gets a 
promotion and a significant salary increase on their job, the mortgage 
payment actually becomes less burdensome. Therefore, the size of the 
deficit in and of itself is not a drag on the economy. When business 
does not expand, it is because of lack of demand, not necessarily 
because of the budget deficit. Thus if the economy were to become a 
high-growth, high-wage, full-employment economy, the burden of the 
deficit would actually decline.
  Another argument from the Republicans for deficit reduction is that 
the deficit pushes up interest rates. During the 1980s, when the 
deficit shot up, interest rates remained essentially the same. Why? 
Because there is a much stronger link between Federal Reserve policies 
and rising interest rates than there are between the deficit and rising 
interest rates.

  Perspective also means seeing the deficit in relationship to the size 
of the economy. The sum may be large in 1995, but in 1945 due to the 
unprecedented size of wartime expenditures, the Federal deficit was 
more than 22 percent of GDP, compared to roughly 5 percent in 1993. A 
rise in unemployment and the resulting loss of production that often 
ensues is a far worse drain on the economy than the deficit.
  In Germany, for example, with the Weimar government's memory of 
hyperinflation in the 1920's and high unemployment during the 
depression of the 1930's--among union members in 1932 it was 44 
percent--they chose classic budget deficit reduction policies instead 
of government spending on public works and an expansion of the money 
supply. The resulting mass unemployment helped to pave the road to 
fascism.
  Obsession with the budget deficit creates even more tragic deficits. 
Our deficits are also in rundown infrastructure of our roads, of our 
bridges, of our airports, of waste disposal facilities and lack of 
environmental protection. They are also in our failure to combat crime 
and drugs and in a significant part of a generation growing up 
semiliterate, in an unending cycle of poverty.
  Our deficits are in an educational system increasingly falling behind 
other systems in the world, and in gaps in child care, health care and 
inadequate housing of millions of Americans.
  We are a Nation of enormous national wealth. We are just tragically 
suffering from an anemia of national will to do what we know is just.
  The gentleman mentioned a few moments ago a mother and her children. 
If a mother has three children, and two pork chops, she does not 
conclude that she has one excess child. A mother takes two pork chops 
and she makes gravy and she expands that meal to take care of three 
children.
  That is what a caring mother should do. It is certainly what caring 
Government should do.

[[Page H15085]]

  Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. Let me just say to the gentleman, he 
mentioned the 12 years of Republican leadership as relates to how they 
dealt with the budget and how they dealt with spending. The gentleman 
makes a very valid point. I think they used to call it voodoo 
economics.

  Basically what took place for 12 years, and one of the reasons, not 
the only reason, but one of the reasons why we find ourselves in the 
mess that we are in today is because for 12 years the Republican 
philosophy was if you give the rich a tax break, then we have something 
called a trickle-down effect. If you give rich people a tax break, give 
the corporations a tax break, it will trickle down and create jobs.
  What happened was it did not trickle down. The rich just got richer 
and the poor got poorer and now we find ourselves with this big 
deficit.
  Let me go back to the educational piece, because I think that is a 
core part of my debate and my resistance in terms of this budget, is 
because the way we penalize the elderly with Medicare, but also how we 
penalize people who are trying to better themselves.

                              {time}  2200

  You take the national service program for example, AmeriCorps, a 
program that you and I both are strong advocates of. We know that there 
are so many parents in America who are right now caught in the middle. 
They make a little bit too much money to qualify for government 
assistance but do not make enough money to send their kids to college.
  So we came up with the idea of a national service program so that 
kids could go to college and earn their way through college, pay their 
student loans after they finish college by participating in the 
national service program. They eliminate that program. The issue is not 
whether or not we balance the budget tonight. The issue is how we 
balance the budget. Do we have a balanced approach in balancing the 
budget?
  Drug-free schools and communities, the gentleman from Chicago, he 
knows the problems that we have. He knows about the problems that we 
have in schools. I recall many times visiting his district as a college 
student, and we both went from school to school speaking to kids about 
staying away from drugs and alcohol. This budget eliminates, a cut over 
half of the drug-free schools and communities money, $466 million; it 
cuts $266 million, not when drugs in our schools and communities are 
going down but going up. So those are some of the real problems that 
Members on our side of the aisle have with this budget agreement.

  The other thing I wanted to talk about, and that was the CRA. This 
budget, if you are a bank, for example, with under $100 million in 
assets, you do not have to comply with CRA standards. So you are going 
to have less investment in communities across this Nation as a result 
of this budget.
  There are real problems with this budget. If the gentleman is 
familiar with the Head Start Program, and I will be happy to yield to 
the gentleman after I talk about this Head Start Program. Head Start 
cuts, for example, 135 million in 1996 alone and it freezes funding 
that would deny 180,000 children the opportunity of Head Start.
  I am a product of the Head Start Program. Here again, I take a moment 
of personal privilege. I do not know how many Members of Congress 
actually participated in the Head Start Program, but I did. I know what 
the Head Start Program did for me. Cutting it like we are doing in this 
budget is wrong.
  The summer jobs program. I do not know if the gentleman from Chicago 
participated in the summer jobs, but I qualified for a summer job when 
I was going to school. The first time I was able to punch a clock was 
when I received my first summer job. It taught me personal 
responsibilities on the job, gave me job training. Every Saturday, 
every Monday through Friday I had to get up in the morning during the 
summertime and go to work, taught me job ethic. We wipe it out in this 
budget.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Let me thank the distinguished gentleman 
from Louisiana for yielding once again.
  During the course of my most recent campaign in the Second 
Congressional District, I had the privilege of speaking at Bowen High 
School, around 89th and Commercial on the South Side of Chicago. I was 
meeting with the principal, Mrs. Alverez in her office. I happened to 
notice on a mural that was in her office, I saw African Americans and 
Haitians, male and female, all going to work at a steel mill known as 
USX, United States Steel. In the middle of this mural was a large 
furnace. Out of the back of that furnace was coming rail and coming 
engines and coming bridges and tremendous infrastructure.
  Two blocks from Bowen High School is 600 abandoned acres of United 
States Steel where USX used to be. If you step outside of the 
principal's office now, you see metal detectors. There are students at 
Bowen High School wearing uniforms. What are you saying? I am saying 
that there is a relationship between that mural, between those metal 
detectors, between the behavior of our children, between the absence of 
those jobs and the number one growth industry in our country: jails.
  We have more public housing, more public housing has been in the form 
of jails in the last year than it has been in the form of building 
public housing and affordable housing for the American people, while it 
costs more for us to incarcerate Americans in jails than it does to put 
Americans through college and put them back to work.
  So, we must not only measure our budget deficit in terms of numbers, 
which the Republicans so skillfully illustrate on this floor, we must 
measure our budget deficit in our failure as a nation to reinvest not 
only in our infrastructure but, most importantly, in our people. When 
we reinvest in our people, the return on our investment actually plays 
a role in reducing the deficit.
  Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about the 
environment, if the gentleman would bear with me just for a moment, 
because that is another issue that is very important in this budget.
  EPA cuts: EPA enforcement alone is cut by 25 percent. To cut EPA 
enforcement by 25 percent at a time that more companies are polluting 
and at a time that we need to be more environmentally conscious, not 
only in the country but in the world. Certainly you can have the best 
department of environmental quality or environmental protection that 
you want, but if you do not have the law enforcement officers out there 
enforcing the law, then what difference does it make? We can pass all 
the rules and regulations we want in this Congress, but if we do not 
have the enforcement mechanism to go out and make sure that companies 
abide by the laws and rules and regulations to make our environment 
safe, make our water clean, our air clean and our soil clean, then it 
matters not what kind of legislation we pass--not to mention--safe 
drinking water and clean water fund, cut by 45 percent.
  I mean, almost 50 percent of those dollars are cut. I am talking 
about moneys that are being cut with no studies, no rhyme or reason, 
just sitting around the table, saying cut it for the sake of cutting it 
because we want to give people who make $100,000 and people who make 
$200,000 a year a tax break. We want to give the wealthiest people in 
this country a tax break. That, I suggest to you, my friend, is wrong.

  I would hope that in the remaining weeks of this year, I would hope 
that we could sit down and talk about real solutions to a real problem. 
We have a real problem in this country. Neither you nor I are naive to 
the extent that we do not realize we a budget problem. I did not create 
this problem. My colleague certainly did not create it because he just 
got here. I got here about 3 years ago.
  But I want to solve it. I want to be a part of the solution. And in 
order for us to solve this problem, we have to do it with a clear 
conscience. We have to sit around the table, and we have to cut some 
programs that, quite frankly speaking, need to be cut.
  I am not standing at this mike, and neither are you, saying, do not 
cut. Yes, we need to cut. We need to reorganize the way we do business 
in our country. We want to balance our checkbook. We want to do that. 
Seven years, 5 years, 10 years, we want to balance it. But we have got 
to balance it with conscience and we have to balance it in the most 
appropriate way and not just be punitive in nature.
  I mean not just pull seniors out of nursing homes, not just cut 
people who 

[[Page H15086]]
fought for this country, the veterans in this country, and close some 
of their hospitals. Not just take kids' summer jobs, for crying out 
loud, and taking away a little drug-free schools and communities 
program that benefits communities and schools. Not snatching milk from 
babies in the food stamp program and then give it to a big millionaire 
or a big corporation and then hold a press conference and say we 
balanced the budget. I think that is the biggest problem. Those are 
some of the problems that we have with balancing the budget.
  If the gentleman wishes me to yield, I will be happy to yield, but I 
wanted to make those comments.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to thank the 
gentleman once again for yielding.
  I would go so far as to say that when we look and compare the 
Republican method of balancing the budget, they plan to balance the 
budget in 7 years with deep cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, four times 
greater than any health cuts in history, deep cuts in education, a 
rollback obviously in environmental protection, and a tax increase on 
working families.

  The President's balanced budget approach is much different. He 
balances the budget in 7 years while protecting Medicare, Medicaid, 
education and the environment and targeting tax relief to the middle 
class without any new tax increase on working families.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is correct. The issue here is about 
direction. Are we going to balance the budget on the backs of people 
who are poor and who are defenseless and cannot come and participate in 
this august body or part of this conversation? Who is asking and who is 
being asked to forgo what? Students are being asked to forgo interest 
rates on loans. Seniors are being asked to forgo Medicare.
  There are 41 million Americans who have no form of health care at all 
and are not part of any debate. There are 19 million people who are 
working part-time jobs and they are being asked to forgo full-time 
work. There are 8 million homeless people, roughly 8 million homeless 
people who are being asked to forgo housing. There are youth who are 
being asked to forgo education. Our cities are being asked to forgo 
development while we balance this budget.
  In my district, if I may take a moment of personal privilege, the 
cities of Harvey and Phoenix and Posen and Robbins and Dixmoor are 
being asked to forgo debt forgiveness while we can forgive the debt of 
Mexico. We can forgive the debt of the Soviet Union and former Eastern 
Bloc countries, but we cannot forgive the debt of townships in our own 
districts and in our own country.
  There is nothing wrong with balancing the budget. We agreed that that 
should happen. The only issue is what direction that balanced budget 
should take.
  Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman 
from Chicago. I want to thank him for his time tonight. Again, I 
welcome the gentleman to this august body. I enjoyed participating in 
this colloquy with the gentleman and want to thank him once again.
  Let me just conclude by saying, we, as Members of this Congress, and 
as well as the executive branch of Government, we should, we must sit 
down and talk about balancing this budget and get this train moving 
again. Let me tell my colleagues, it is almost like a driver of a bus 
and a mechanic, a bus just breaking down on the side of the highway. 
And you have got a bunch of people on the bus. And the mechanic and the 
driver get into a big fight about what to do to get the bus moving 
again. The people on the bus do not really care about the differences 
between the driver and the mechanic. They just want to get to their 
next destination.
  The American people really want to get to the next destination. We as 
grown men and women in this Congress, we must sit down and get this 
Government moving and open and balance the budget. But we must come to 
grips with the fact that we will not and we should not do it on the 
backs of the most defenseless people in this country, the elderly, the 
poor, and the young. And those people who are in the middle, who are 
trying to make a living, who are trying to do better, who are 
benefiting from the earned income tax credit. I would hope and pray 
that this Congress, this institution with all of its great wisdom, with 
its infinite wisdom would come to the conclusion that yes, we need to 
open our Government up. Yes, we need to move our Government forward. 
Yes, we need to balance our budget, and need to do it in a fair and 
equitable way.

                          ____________________