[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 204 (Tuesday, December 19, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2415-E2416]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 ENFORCING THE PUBLIC DEBT LIMIT AND PROTECTING SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST 
                   FUND AND OTHER FEDERAL TRUST FUNDS

                                 ______


                               speech of

                          HON. J.C. WATTS, JR.

                              of oklahoma

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, December 14, 1995

  Mr. WATTS of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, article I, section 8 of the 
Constitution clearly states that it is the Congress who has the power 
``to borrow money on the credit of the United States,'' not the 
President or the executive branch. The problem that continues to 
trigger increases in the debt limit is the failure to balance the 
Federal budget. Balancing the budget is the first step in paying off 
the ever-mounting debts that have accumulated for future generations.
  Passing the Balanced Budget Act of 1995 could be the best gift we 
ever give our children but this cannot be done without the President's 
help. We offered the President a balanced budget which included a 
raised debt ceiling but the President vetoed it.
  Instead of negotiating a balanced budget plan, the President 
permitted the Treasury to raid two Federal trust funds--taking a total 
of $61.3 billion from the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund 
and the Federal Employees Thrift Savings Fund [G-fund]. By shifting 
these funds, the President bought more time to allow the Government to 
skirt the debt limit and avoid a default.
  While no one wants a default, disinvesting retirement funds to free 
up room under the debt ceiling circumvents the debt limit as well as 
Congress' role in authorizing Federal borrowing. Moreover it allows the 
administration to avoid having to change its spending habits--a change 
which the American people have demanded.
  The administration says that those funds will be repaid with interest 
but that interest is going to have to come from somewhere. Every dollar 
the administration removes from the trust funds can then be spent by 
issuing new debt to the public. Again, we are left with another 
Government bill with more interest payments at taxpayers' expense.
  To better envision the significance of the debt limit and balancing 
the budget, I like to use the analogy of a credit care limit. When one 
has spent one's maximum spending/credit limit, one cannot keep on 
spending. Instead, one must take steps to balance his or her budget so 
that the output does not exceed the input. In other words they must 
change their spending habits.
  Living within one's means is the financial reality that individual 
Americans confront everyday. People cannot simply keep calling the 
credit card company asking it to raise their 

[[Page E2416]]
credit limit. That is essentially what the administration wants this 
Congress to do. It wants Congress to raise its credit limit or the debt 
ceiling without any strategy for paying off its debt.
  Balancing the budget is a step in the right direction; it diminishes 
the continuing need for having the debt or borrowing level raised. The 
Federal debt or credit card bill is now about $5 trillion, and that 
does not include the interest. The fiscal year 1996 budget estimates 
that the U.S. Government will spend about $256 billion in 1996, or 
about 16 percent of the budget, just to pay the interest on this debt.
  H.R. 2621 is a bill to enforce the public debt limit and to protect 
the Social Security and other Federal trust funds. It ends the debt-
ceiling smoke and mirrors. With the $21 billion in the G-fund, $365 
billion in the Social Security Retirement Fund, $143 billion in the 
Medicare Trust Fund, and $483 billion in the Social Security Trust 
Fund, there is money for the administration to disinvest and build up 
more and more debt with more and more interest payments thereby 
sidestepping the Constitution. This bill ensures what the Constitution 
says about the authority to issue debt--Congress is vested with the 
``Power . . . To borrow Money on the Credit of the United States.''
  The reason we are having this current confrontation in Washington is 
not simply over how the Government keeps its books, or when we reach a 
balanced budget. The true confrontation is changing the way Government 
operates. We are in the midst of a revolution as dramatic as Franklin 
Roosevelt's New Deal and its expansion of Government into every aspect 
of our lives. The question is whether we will have more Governmental 
control over our lives, higher taxes, more borrowing, and more interest 
payments, or whether we will go back to what made this country great--a 
frugal Government and individual responsibility. I agree with the views 
Thomas Jefferson expressed in his letter to Elbridge Gerry nearly 200 
years ago--``I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple, 
applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the 
discharge of the national debt; and not for a multiplication of 
officers and salaries merely to make partisans, and for increasing, by 
every device, the public debt, on the principle of its being a public 
blessing.''
  H.R. 2621 not only protects our retirement funds from senseless and 
expensive manipulation, it sends the President a clear message that the 
American public and this Congress is serious about balancing the 
budget.

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