[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 205 (Wednesday, December 20, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H15258-H15259]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            BALANCING THE BUDGET IS A MILESTONE FOR AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Foley] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FOLEY. Mr. Speaker, to respond for a moment to the prior speaker, 
it is not about ruining the holidays for Federal Government employees, 
it is about restoring faith in America. It is about people coming to 
Washington and honoring their commitment to balance the budget.
  It is interesting when we have votes on the board whether Democrats 
and 

[[Page H15259]]
Republicans will seek to balance the budget. Overwhelmingly, both 
parties join in saying, yes, we want a balanced budget. The President 
wants a balanced budget. He said it many times.
  In reviewing the document that the President submitted to this 
Congress, the only difference is that it incurs hundreds of billions of 
dollars of budget deficits for the next 7 years. That is not balancing 
a budget. Maybe in Washington spending $115 billion more than we have 
next year is balancing a budget, but in real America, in the real 
business community that is bankruptcy. That is out of business.
  So as we approach the season of Christmas, the Speaker and Members of 
Congress have committed to staying here as long as it takes. That is 
not good news for families. It is not good news for anyone that 
Congress would work in session through Christmas. But I think we must 
honor the tradition of this House.
  When we run for elections we tell voters if they will send us to 
Congress, that we will do the heavy lifting; that we will bring back a 
balanced budget and restore fiscal unity and dignity to this Nation. So 
we cannot just say, oh, well, it is almost Christmas. We have to be 
home. We have to leave Washington. We cannot be here. We cannot be away 
from the house, our districts, because certainly the balanced budget 
can come later.
  This is a milestone in our Nation. This is a unique opportunity. As 
Mr. Gingrich says, this is gut-check time, whether we have the 
fortitude to bring down overspending or do we want to just keep playing 
games.
  We have heard the Medicare scam, and many people have talked about 
it, but we have seen the tapes, we have seen the visuals of Mr. and 
Mrs. Clinton saying we should bring it down to 6 or 7 percent a year. 
Well, we are doing 7-plus percent a year in Medicare spending per 
recipient. So it is not a cut. We know that. We have proven that. We 
will go on to the next issues.
  Wasting taxpayers' dollars, though, is legendary around this process. 
We have appropriators, authorizers, the Committee on the Budget, all 
working somewhat together and then, at times, apart.
  Mr. Speaker, I had an interesting opportunity to kill the gas turbine 
this year, which was an exciting year for me and an exciting project 
for me, because it had spent hundreds of millions of dollars a year. 
Always killed in the Senate, denounced by three Presidents, but here in 
the House it survived year after year. We killed it here in the House, 
went over to the Senate and killed it there, and, finally, the gas 
turbine no longer finds its way into our budget. The same Government 
that had the Department of Defense procurement system paying $450 for a 
hammer.
  We just heard from one of my colleagues, the gentleman from Kansas 
[Mr. Tiahrt], talking about Secretary O'Leary's trips. As I recall, we 
started the Department of Energy during the Carter administration 
because we had a gas shortage, a crisis, and they wanted to make 
certain that the thermostats would stay at 78 degrees. Now we are 
traveling the globe trying to seek out whatever we are trying to look 
for and spending hundreds of millions of dollars to do it.

  I think the Cabinet Secretary needs to reexamine her priorities, 
reexamine why the Department was created and show some leadership and 
some frugality and not spend the taxpayers' money as if she is, in 
fact, a corporate executive on the shareholders' nickel.
  Yes, Congress has failed to act. Many people look back at the Reagan 
years and say, oh, it is Reagan's fault for running up massive 
deficits. Hey, the buck stops here in Congress, folks. The buck stops 
here in Congress. The Congress are the appropriators. They are the 
authorizers. They are the check writers. They are the fiscal 
clearinghouse for this Nation. So Congress has to accept the 
responsibilities.
  The President submits a budget, and we have sure seen his. It does 
not look like it is going to reduce the debt, but, no, he gets a chance 
to submit it and he gets a chance to veto, which he has done.
  I was proud today, Mr. Speaker, when we came to the securities 
legislation, that a number of our colleagues, both Democrats and 
Republicans, overrode his veto. We are sending him a message that it is 
time to start working and stop vetoing messages and then sending hollow 
bills back to this floor suggesting he is committed to deficit 
reduction.
  We have a lot of problems in America and we have a lot of problems we 
can solve together, and I think there has been a great bipartisan 
spirit on a number of issues. But I do think it is time for all of us 
to end the charade, end the political games, end the characterizations 
and assaults against the Speaker, and on both sides of the aisle. The 
Republicans do not need to fire missiles over to the Democrats, and I 
think the Democrats need to cease and desist.
  Mr. Speaker, I listened to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. 
Frank] talk about the exonerations of the Clintons. The same thing is 
happening to the Speaker on the numerous charges being filed by the 
other side of the aisle, in order to tie up the process, in order to 
try to impugn his reputation and trying to do a number of things.
  So I think if this Congress is serious about Christmas, about the 
holidays, and about the future of this Nation, that we will put aside 
personalities and get down to balancing the budget initiative, and we 
will work on it successfully, like we should. We have all voted for it, 
we have all supported it, and now let us do the heavy lifting and 
provide the leadership necessary in order to pass it.

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