[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 13 (Wednesday, January 31, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H990-H991]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           A BALANCED BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. 
Dingell].
  Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, interest rates will rise. Prices of U.S. 
Government obligations will fall. Interest rates will rise on municipal 
bonds, State securities, and private debt, corporate and individual.
  Prices of bonds will drop. The securities markets, both stocks and 
bonds, will fall. The credit rating of the United States will be 
impaired. Employment will rise. Home mortgages will be thrown into 
disarray. Homeowners will find the value of their real estate 
declining. Pension funds will be impaired by reason of the loss of the 
value of their equity and the loss of earnings. Perhaps high 
unemployment in this 

[[Page H991]]
country and around the world will occur because of a significant 
breakdown in the world money markets and the world currency markets.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues on the Republican side, if they are 
going to play with fire, to burn only themselves, but be careful of 
what they do.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I have been listening 
to some of the debate that is going on over here, and it is really 
amazing to me that we have adults here masquerading as Congressmen that 
will not accept the responsibility for their own actions.
  I can remember back when my children were young. One of the things 
that I tried to teach them was if they take an action, do something, to 
accept the responsibility for what has been done. But what we find here 
among the Republican majority is that they will not accept the 
responsibility at all for shutting down the Government. They want to 
blame it on somebody else.
  Mr. Speaker, I have known of people that way. They do things and they 
think of all kinds of reasons to blame somebody else for what has 
happened to them instead of accepting responsibility for their own 
shortcomings.
  Come March 15, I want to see the President continue this Government 
in those areas that expire by March 15. There is only one group that 
can do that, and that is the majority in the House. Senator Dole cannot 
even do it on a continuing resolution. It is an appropriation that has 
to originate in the House. Only the Republicans can originate a bill of 
appropriations. If they do not do it, like they did not do it in 
December, they did not do it, and, for not doing it, the Government 
shut down. The same thing happened in November. When they did not do 
it, the Government shut down.
  That is all it amounts to, folks, and now they tell us that all this 
big fight is over a balanced budget, that the President has not 
submitted a balanced budget. But the President has. And not only the 
President, the Democratic Coalition submitted a balanced budget that is 
a lot better than the Republican balanced budget.
  The Congressional Budget Office tells us that the Democratic 
Coalition budget, by the year 2002, that Federal debt is $66 billion 
less under the Democratic Coalition budget than under the Newt Gingrich 
Budget. No, they will not take that.
  Know why? I will say why, Mr. Speaker. Because it does not have a tax 
cut for the wealthy in it. It does not have a tax cut at all. Some of 
us believe that we should not be cutting taxes until we see a balanced 
budget. All I am doing and my colleagues are doing in these balanced 
budget resolutions is estimating that by the year 2002 there is going 
to be a balanced budget.
  There is not one person in this world that can guarantee that there 
is going to be a balanced budget. So let us wait until we get to a 
balanced budget, then we will do tax cuts. They say: Oh, no. We want 
the tax cut now. We want the tax cut now.
  What that tells me is that they really want a tax cut more than they 
want a balanced budget. That is what it tells me. They are more 
interested in seeing a tax cut. Let us wait and see the debt limit. I 
hear talk now that the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Archer] is going to 
put some of those tax cuts on the debt limit. That tells me something. 
That tells me that that tax cut is really important, more important 
than the credit of the United States.
  That is what my colleagues are taking a risk with doing, by doing 
that. It is more important than the balanced budget. It is the most 
important thing of all among the whole area, this whole year, is the 
tax cuts. That is what the Republican majority really wants.
  Mr. Speaker, it is not really the balanced budget. If they wanted 
that, they could have had that a long time ago. We gave that to them, 
the Democratic Coalition. CBO says, yes, it just does not have the tax 
cut. And if they really want a debt limit increase, I suggest that they 
pass a clean one. Once they do not, the Senate will add all kinds of 
amendments. If my colleagues add some, the Senate will add a bunch 
more, and we will not have it done.

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