[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 2 (Thursday, January 4, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H163-H164]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    PRESIDENT CLINTON HAS SHRUNK GOVERNMENT AND REDUCED THE DEFICIT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, we are in a bad 
situation. We are in a situation that the majority leader of the U.S. 
Senate, a Republican, I am a Democrat, said I do not see any sense in 
what we have been doing. That is the Republican leader who said I do 
not see any sense in what we have been doing.
  We are in a bad state. I am a supporter of the constitutional 
amendment to balance the budget. I was a supporter of the 7-year CBO-
scored real balanced budget known as the coalition budget. I believe 
that we ought to have a balanced budget by the year 2002.
  Why are we here? I came to Congress in 1981, and that is when it 
started, frankly. Under Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan had a Democratic 
House and a Republican Senate for three-quarters of his term, 6 years 
out of the 8, and during that period of time he quadrupled the national 
debt. Why do I say he did it? Well, we both did it, the Congress did it 
and the President did it.
  In point of fact, Ronald Reagan asked for more spending than the 
Congress gave him. Hear that. Ronald Reagan asked for more spending 
than the Congress gave him. And, in fact, when he submitted his 
budgets, he built in large deficits. He projected them. George Bush did 
the same thing. So, collectively, we ran up a debt of over $4 trillion, 
now about $4.8 trillion.
  Now, that is a serious matter, which is why I am for an amendment and 
why I want to see us balance the budget. But contrary to those who 
would say it is a crisis requiring the most drastic unsensible steps, 
this country has been in debt far above what we are in debt now, just 
after the Second World War, as it relates to our gross domestic 
product. That is the money we have to pay the debt.
  This President, President Bill Clinton, took office and knew we had a 
problem. He put a bill on this floor in 1993, a tough bill, and for the 
first time since 1948, that economic program resulted in reducing the 
deficit each year in the 3 years that President Clinton has been 
President, unlike Ronald Reagan and unlike George Bush. The 

[[Page H164]]
deficit has fallen during each of those years, from $290 billion, when 
he took over, to $255 billion, then to $203 billion, and now to $164 
billion.
  What is my point? My point is, we have not gotten there yet, but, 
boy, are we going in the right direction. That deficit is going down. 
So this is not a crisis where we see that we are out of control and we 
have not addressed the problem. Do we need to do more? Yes, we do and I 
am supporting that we do more.
  The fact of the matter is some said we had to get Government under 
control and shrink its size. President Bill Clinton proposed that we do 
just that. In 3 years we have reduced the Federal level of employment 
by 185,000 people, smaller than under either President Reagan or 
President Bush.
  We are going in the right direction. But in 1994, we had some 
revolutionaries win an election. What do revolutionaries want to do? 
They want to overthrow governments. In fact, Speaker Gingrich said in 
June he was going to close down, shut down the Government, and that, in 
fact, is what he has done.
  Bob Dole said I do not see any sense in what we have been doing. 
Amen. Bob Dole was right. So he passed a CR over to us, unanimously. 
Not partisan bickering or rancoring. They knew closing down the 
Government to accomplish a balanced budget did not make any sense. Why? 
Because they are not related. In fact, shutting down the Government 
exacerbates, makes worse, the debt.

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