[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 38 (Tuesday, March 19, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H2323-H2324]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS ON THE BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Smith] is recognized during 
morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, there is good news and bad news 
in the President's budget that we received today. Let me go with some 
of the bad news first. Some of the bad news is that he has greater tax 
increases and that he has more spending for the Federal Government. In 
other words, some of the same old policy of tax and spend. In fact, on 
taxes, even though he has a temporary tax cut, the tax cut is done away 
with by the year 2002, and he has actually a tax increase of over $10 
billion by the time he gets to 2002.
  Now, I think that old tax and spend and borrow philosophy is the bad 
news. Here is the good news. It is the Republicans, by hanging tough, 
have now changed the frame of the debate in Washington, so the 
President's budget still says through their figuring that this budget 
balances by the year 2002. And that is good news.
  Let me point out why I think it is such good news. It is because 
borrowing has obscured the true size of Federal Government. If the 
American people had to pay the taxes that are required for this huge 
overbloated, overregulating Government that we have now, they would not 
stand for it. They would say, ``Wait a minute. Get rid of that fraud 
and abuse. Get rid of some of these programs, because we do not like 
you talking 50 percent of every dollar we earn for taxes at the local, 
State, and national level.''
  Let me display this chart a little bit that shows the pie of the way 
we divide up Federal expenditures. Now, for this current fiscal year, 
it is a little over $1.5 trillion. The blue portion of this pie that 
now represents about 50 percent of total government spending is in the 
so-called welfare entitlement spending. That means if you achieve a 
certain criteria of age or poverty, the money is automatically going to 
be there. The Congress does not appropriate that money every year. The 
only way we can reduce the cost of these welfare entitlement programs 
is having the President sign a bill, or override his veto.
  So if we are going to achieve a balanced budget, that means that we 
are going to have to achieve some changes in the welfare and 
entitlement programs. Some of the welfare recipients are going to have 
to start working. Our welfare programs have been successful in 
transferring wealth, but, too often in the process, we have taken away 
their self-respect. We have taken away their drive to get up every 
morning, even when they do not feel like it, and go to work and 
contribute to the economy of the United States. So they have been 
recipients of other taxpayer spending.
  That has to be changed. We have sent one bill to the President. He 
has vetoed it. We sent another welfare reform bill to the President, 
and he has vetoed it. What we have got to start doing is having 
cooperation, or the kind of a President that is going to say yes, some 
of these changes need to be made.
  Let me just briefly go around the rest of this pie chart. We have got 
interest on the Federal debt. The Federal debt is now about $5 
trillion. That interest is also on automatic pilot. We have got the 
defense in green. The defense programs now, even the hawks and the 
doves, the Republicans and Democrats, the liberals and conservatives, 
only disagree on about plus or minus 8 percent deviation. In other 
words, everybody agrees we need a certain amount of defense in this 
country, so there is very little flexibility.
  What is left? What is left for Congress, what they have control of, 
is the 12 appropriation bills that represent the discretionary spending 
outside of defense.
  In this little red pie chart area, we have been successful in the 
last 14 months of cutting $40 billion out of spending. That is a good 
start. And the reason we have accomplished this, the reason the 
President and the Democrats and the liberals are now at least saying we 
need a balanced budget, is because we have changed the frame of the 
debate by saying look, we are not going to pass this kind of increase. 
Even if you veto it, Mr. President, even if you shut down Government. 
And are not going to give you a clean debt ceiling increase, because we 
are concerned with the debt of this country going over $5 trillion, 
unless we make some of those changes.

[[Page H2324]]

  Here is my point, Mr. Speaker: If we continue to stick to our guns, 
if we continue to hang tough, using the leverage that we have of 
increasing the debt limit, of being very frugal in the appropriation 
bills that we pass, we can achieve it. We can do it. It is not this 
overspending and overborrowing. Borrowing has obscured the true size of 
Government. It needs to be changed. Let us hang tough, let us stick in 
there, let us do it.

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