[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 204 (Tuesday, December 19, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S18912]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          BALANCING THE BUDGET

  Mr. INHOFE. All right. Mr. President, I was interested in the 
statement that was made by the very distinguished Senator from 
Washington State a few minutes ago when he was talking about those who 
are not represented here and the moral issue of the conduct in which we 
have been conducting our country over the past 30 years.
  I was reminded of an experience the other day of back when we had our 
prayer breakfast. This was the international prayer breakfast where we 
had people here from all over the world, and I was in charge of 
international visitors, when one of the visitors who was here from 
Moldavia, which was a former Soviet republic that had gained its 
freedom, came in and he asked me a question during one of our visits 
that we had.
  He said, ``Senator Inhofe, I have a question to ask you. In the 
United States, how much can you keep?'' And I said, ``I am sorry, I do 
not understand what you mean.'' He said, ``How much money do you have 
to give the government?'' Then I got a little better idea of what he 
was asking.
  So I asked the question--in fact, I would be a little embarrassed to 
tell you the answer that I gave the gentleman that was here from 
Moldavia. He was so proud. And he said, ``In Moldavia, we have a new 
democracy. We have new freedoms. And when we''--they have some type of 
a tax collection system where every 3 months or so they collect the 
taxes. And he said, ``Every time we make a dollar, we get to keep 20 
cents.'' In other words, they have to pay 80 cents out of every dollar 
to support the government there. And he was rejoicing because this was 
the new freedom that he had discovered.
  I got to thinking and looking at the facts, that I do not think 
anyone will refute, and that is that if we do not do something now 
about changing this pattern that we established back in the Great 
Society days of the middle 1960's, that someone who is born today will 
have to pay not 80 cents out of every dollar but 82 cents out of every 
dollar just to support government.

  I bring that up today because today is a day that a very important 
person is to be born, and that person has the name or will have the 
name--and maybe as we speak has the name--of James Edward Rapert. This 
will be my third grandchild. So it becomes a much more personal thing 
when you think of someone coming into this world--such as the Presiding 
Officer who recently had a young child named Daniel born in his 
family--all of a sudden it becomes personal. It comes out of the realm 
of the normal discussion as to the various social programs that the 
various Senators have stood on the floor of this Senate today talking 
about--the education programs, the social programs, the poverty 
programs, the nutrition programs, and all of these--and it becomes an 
issue of, what are we willing to do to those who cannot be heard, those 
for whom there is no lobby, such as James Edward Rapert?
  I understand that yesterday the House, by a very decisive margin, 
with many, many of the Democrats, voted to reaffirm the commitment we 
have to a balanced budget by the year 2002 using real figures, not 
smoke and mirrors, but using real figures and using the CBO figures. In 
fact, I cannot imagine when I go back to Oklahoma, such as I was this 
weekend, everybody saying, well, what is there to debate? I mean, we 
have the Democrats who ran for office on a balanced budget. We have a 
President of the United States who ran for office on a balanced budget 
to the Constitution. And everyone is for it. Who is against it? And I 
tried to explain the reality up here is not always what it seems to be 
at home because this, in fact, is Washington.
  So we are in a situation--I know there are several who want to be 
heard tonight. I just want to make a comment about a statement that was 
made by a very distinguished Member of the other body, John Kasich. The 
other day he said, ``We're in a frustrating situation where we have a 
balanced budget amendment or Balanced Budget Act that we passed in both 
the House and Senate, and it was vetoed by the President, and yet we 
don't have anything from him.'' And he said, ``It is like going 
Christmas shopping and going up and saying, `I want to buy this tie. 
How much is it?' And they will not tell you.
  So he said, `I will give you $100.' They said, `No, that's not 
enough.' `How much more?' Well, they will not tell you.''
  That is the situation we find ourselves in right now. So we have 
probably the second most significant issue facing us that we will face 
for maybe the last 10 years, and that is doing something about a 
balanced budget. We have an opportunity that is coming up any hour now, 
any day, certainly I hope it is going to happen prior to Christmas. 
When that time comes, I hope we will all remember not ourselves, not 
all the nutritional programs, not all the things we talk about and how 
we can wisely spend the people's money that we are borrowing from 
future generations, but I hope we think of James Edward Rapert who will 
be paying for all this fun that we are having.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

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