[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 18 (Wednesday, February 12, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1252-S1254]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
OUR CHILDREN AND THE BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT
Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, I want to talk a little bit this morning
about the balanced budget amendment and really how important it is to
our children, our grandchildren, and really to the future of this
country.
As a nation, we find ourselves at a very critical juncture. The
choices we face today are stark: It is either stagnation or growth,
poverty or prosperity, hope or hopelessness for our Nation's children.
Throughout the history of this world, great nations have risen and
great nations have fallen. Many have perished simply as a result of one
fatal fiscal miscalculation at a critical time--a time at which we find
ourselves today.
We must move forward because we have a moral obligation to pave a
trail and to light the way. Yet, a single misstep as we enter into the
21st century could cast our children off the path and into darkness.
Now, despite the improvement of our short-term fiscal outlook in the
past decade, we face great danger from the fiscal imbalances ahead that
swing over us like a sword dangling from a thread. Without a balanced
budget amendment to address these risks, I am afraid that the national
debt will destroy this Nation.
The debt today stands at over $5.3 trillion, and the cumulative
damage of the national debt to the economy over the past 40 years has
been enormous. Our Nation has fallen from its perch as the world's
greatest creditor to become the world's greatest debtor Nation in
history.
A child born today enters the world already $20,000 in debt and faces
an additional $1,300 every year just to pay the interest on that debt.
By the year 2007, the national debt will rise to $8.5 trillion, and
children born then will inherit a share of nearly $30,000. That is
$30,000, whether poor, middle-class, or well off. Every child in every
household in this land is affected.
Now, as historian John Steele Gordon writes in his new book,
``Hamilton's Blessing: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Our National
Debt,'' the size of the debt itself is not the problem--it is the fact
that we have run it up to such extraordinary levels without
justification.
Gordon's research shows that in the first 184 years of our
independence, the Nation borrowed a total of $300 billion to fight the
wars that made and preserved our Nation. But he goes on to say that, in
the last 36 years, we have taken on more than 17 times as much new
debt--at first, in an attempt to maximize economic output, but in
recent years, as he explains, no good reason whatsoever has been the
cause behind this.
Mr. President, the imbalance between the Government's entitlement
promises and the funds it will have available to pay for them will
alone bankrupt this Nation.
Now, the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform has
warned us that in the year 2012, projected outlays for entitlements and
interest on the national debt will at that time consume all tax
revenues collected by the Federal Government. In 2030, projected
spending for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and Federal employee
retirement programs alone will consume all of our tax revenues, leaving
nothing to educate our kids, to keep their streets safe, to cure their
diseases, or to protect the environment.
Shortsighted politicians repeatedly refuse to make tough choices, and
the knowledge that we have no clear public policy to address this
imbalance darkens our future even more.
Although the solutions to our problems are anything but simple, we
must not shy away from them any longer. The balanced budget amendment
will force Congress and the administration to work together to defuse
this time bomb. Without it, the deficit spending will continue, and
that is despite all the rhetoric from both Congress and the White House
to the contrary.
Even if we indeed balance the budget through a statutory requirement,
we all know that this is not a guarantee that our budgets will balance
in the future. Our national debt will take several generations to
eliminate now. We not only need the will to balance the budget, but we
also need the means to follow through, to keep the budget balanced, and
to begin to return the borrowed money. We need the balanced budget
amendment. Talking about the protection of our children, without
addressing the long-term risks that are poised to imprison them is
corrupt.
Mr. President, I have heard my colleagues many times on the other
side of the aisle this week raise the word children as if it were a
protective shield. ``We can't enact the balanced budget amendment,''
they say, ``the education of our children will suffer.'' ``We can't
enact the balanced budget amendment, the nutritional health of our
children is at stake.'' ``We can't enact a balanced budget amendment,
our children's medical needs will go unserved.''
They have also used the phrase that we have attacked children because
they are the path of least resistance. Well, we know the work that we
undertake every day in this Chamber has a profound effect on every
American child, just as it affects every taxpayer, every working
family, and every senior citizen. I am certain there is not a single
Senator in this Chamber who would deny a child a good education, deny a
child a hot meal, or deny a doctor's tender care.
Yet, through our own greed, we have denied that very same child a
future free of a debt that they did not incur and which they do not
deserve to bear.
Now, I ask you this, Mr. President: Who was protecting our children
while Congress amassed a debt of $5.3 trillion? Those children were not
here to be able to say don't do that. We took the path of least
political resistance when we put our children into debt. They did not
have a voice on this Senate floor to stop us from doing that.
Who stood up for America's children while Congress signed their names
to a mortgage that they will never be able to escape?
Who came to the floor of this Chamber crying out for the children
when we sacrificed their financial security for another piece of pork,
or another Federal program?
I will tell you this, Mr. President. The same Senators who today
raise the shield of children as their argument against the balanced
budget amendment were nowhere to be found when America's children
needed them most.
Only the balanced budget amendment will protect our children from the
suffocating excess of a Congress free to spend dollars that it does not
have.
So, Mr. President, the legal authority of the balanced budget
amendment will ensure that we do not drown our children in a sea of
debt. The moral authority of a higher power demands that we do nothing
less.
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the remainder of my time.
Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Minnesota
for his remarks on behalf of the balanced budget amendment to the
Constitution. I think he makes a very poignant statement when he
alludes to the condition of our children in the future. I have always
enjoyed reading Thomas Jefferson's admonitions about
[[Page S1253]]
the future of the democracy. I can't state it with the eloquence with
which he did, but he makes the point that the Senator from Minnesota
makes, and I think it is worth revisiting. He essentially said that it
is morally wrong for a contemporary generation to make decisions about
debt for future generations. It is morally wrong, Mr. President, for a
contemporary generation to use the resources of generations yet to
come. In essence, any time a contemporary generation is in the business
of consuming the resources of those yet to come, they are engaged in
abrogating the freedom of those yet to come, which is an unconscionable
act for Americans because this is a Nation that was born in freedom and
independence and has invested unlimited sacrifice to preserve it.
Yet, we seem to want to overlook it when we look at these 28 budgets
from Republican and Democratic Presidents, all of whom in their own way
were a part of abrogating freedom of somebody yet to come because they
all used resources of people who have no voice--nothing to say. Our
legacy is to hand them debt. And how terribly inappropriate it is.
I was reviewing some financial policy recently. I think it is called
generational economics. What that means is something like this. My
mother and father kept 80 percent of their lifetime wages to do the
things that we have always depended on and asked for the American
family to do. It has been the core ingredient in terms of taking care
of America, and they raised myself and my sister; got us through school
gracefully; housed us all through our medical needs and trying to
prepare us for stewardship. My sister, who is 10 years younger than I,
will keep about 45 percent of her lifetime wages--her parents 80 and
she 45. Currently, an average family in the State of Georgia can keep,
after direct taxes and cost of government, about 45 percent of their
wages. So she has half the resources. A lot of it she does not get is
in this pile of 28 budgets. But worst of all is the fact that a child
who was born on January 1 of this year, 1997, will keep, under the
current scheme of things, 16 percent of their lifetime wages. In other
words, it will take 84 percent of their wages to fulfill these
obligations that continue to mount. I would have to say, Mr. President,
that that child born on January 1 of this year could never be
considered to be free by any definition in our Constitution or in the
basic tenets and fundamentals of American life.
So from the turn of the century we have gone from a family that keeps
80 percent of the fruits of its labor to contemporarily keeping about
45 percent, to a child today faced with having to forfeit 84 percent of
what their life's earnings are to fulfill the largess of all of these
budgets.
I don't know what kind of proof we need to advise us that we need to
change the way we manage our financial affairs just to look at the
generational impact, and then to go back and be reminded that Thomas
Jefferson said what we are doing right here is an abrogation of freedom
and independence and that we are in the business of denying freedom for
Americans yet to come.
The 80, 40, 16 says it all to me. If you want to just talk about
monetary circumstances, we are headed toward doubling the deficit,
which means we are piling more paper on this pile right here. Just in
the term of this President we are going to double the deficit. We are
going to add about another $100 billion to it. Then, after that, it
looks like a NASA space shuttle. It just skyrockets. So the fuel and
the engines of using the future resources seem unchecked and
unbalanced.
So if these 28 years of evidence are not enough to compel somebody to
understand that we need to change the way we manage this debt, then you
can simply look at the current budgets before us and see that we are
going to continue to add debt on debt on debt.
Sometimes when you talk to people in America about the scope of what
we have been doing, about the 80, 40, and 16 percent, about the size of
the current debt, which I think is $5.3 trillion looking at the big
picture--of course, I have been talking about 7 minutes or so, but it
is probably closer now to $5.4 trillion--it is depressing and sobering.
And I always like to leave the message with more optimistic tone.
I point out that balancing our budgets, moving to a balanced budget
path, passing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, does not
require draconian effort. Actually, they represent modest, sound, and
reasoned steps to take control of our financial affairs, which saves
the country for the future, which is laudable, and for which every
generation of Americans have been charged of doing--take steps to
guarantee that they turn the country over to the future in good hands
rather than crippled--that by taking these reasoned steps, balanced
budgets, a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, that it not
only saves the country for the future, but it creates the immediate
positive effect on every citizen today. Every family, every business,
and every community has an immediate positive effect. It lowers
interest rates. It makes more capital available for businesses to seek
and generate more business. More businesses will be started,
particularly small businesses. The job lines will be shorter. It will
be easier to get a job. If you are graduating from high school or
graduating from college and you are in the job market, or there has
been a change, it is going to be a lot easier.
Specifically, Mr. President, a balanced budget amendment would
produce around $2,000 new disposable income, putting it into the
checking account of every Georgia family, and, Mr. President, every
Kansas family. I suppose the average family in our two States is pretty
similar. They make about $40,000 a year. Probably both parents are
working. And as I said, by the time the Government marches through
their checking account, they have less than half of that left. That
gets them down to around $20,000, $23,000 to do everything we ask them
to do.
Now, think about it. What is the effect of putting $2,000 back into
that checking account? That is the equivalent of a 10-percent pay
raise. And we all know the kind of stagnation that has occurred,
because of this kind of activity, in those checking accounts over the
last several years.
Think of the opportunity that this creates for school and education
and health care, which we have been talking so much about, for
children, to have $2,000 of new resources for every average family
across the country. Look at it as if you are a mayor or county
commissioner. We would likely save about $333 million in lower debt
service in the State of Georgia or $103 million for the capital city of
Atlanta, GA. Every school district, every county, every municipality,
every State will immediately begin to benefit from our taking these
kinds of steps to rein in and manage our budget.
We had a host of people down here suggesting you just do not need a
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution; you just need the will.
I do not know how many years we have to discuss our lack of will to
understand that we need to change the rules. We passed the line-item
veto for the first time, and that is a new tool. That is on the right
track. A lot of people were concerned: Would a Republican Congress give
the Democrat President the line-item veto? They did. They did because
they believed we do need new disciplinary tools to manage our financial
affairs.
I have to say that I have concluded--and I think, on balance, this is
correct--if you are against a balanced budget amendment to the
Constitution, you are really not for balanced budgets. The President
has told us we should have balanced budgets, and he ought to be
supporting us in this effort. I have to say, Mr. President, that if
this fails--I hope it does not; it is going to be close, but if it
fails, the President will bear the responsibility for it because he has
decided to fight this. The power of the President is enormous. But if
you are for balanced budgets, then you are for a balanced budget
amendment to the Constitution.
Mr. President, I do not think you know any individual, and I doubt
that you know any family, nor any business, that has been successful in
achieving that which it needs to do, its mission in life, that has
abused his or her, their, its financial health. You just do not know
anybody like that or you will not know them very long. So it is with
nations.
I was speaking yesterday to a group of foreign ambassadors and
dignitaries who are visiting the United States on
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an educational program to try to understand our Congress, our
Government, and our Nation. I told them that if you really want to
understand the nature of the decisions and the environment in the
United States, you have to understand her domestic financial crisis.
You have to understand what the Senator from Minnesota said. He talked
about the fact that the bipartisan entitlement commission has shown us
that within a very short period of time, just a handful of Federal
programs consume 100 percent of our Treasury.
I was simply telling these foreign visitors that to have an
appreciation for what is happening in the debate over the resources we
devote to our national defense and to world order, to the debate over
what we can make available to foreign assistance, it is being driven by
this pile of 28 different budgets that are out of balance and that this
generation of Americans, you and I, Mr. President, and all of our
citizens, are going to be charged with dealing with this dilemma. We
have known about this problem all these years, but it was always going
to be somebody else to work it out. There is no generation for us to
give the baton to. We are the last watch. It is you and I. We are going
to make the decision, whether it is indecision or decision, on our
watch that will determine what kind of country we give to the next
generation.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I note the Senator from West Virginia is
going to be recognized at 11. I wonder if the Senator from Georgia is
going to take the full time until 11 o'clock.
Mr. COVERDELL. Does the Senator from Vermont need a moment or two? I
would be glad to yield the remainder of my time--
Mr. LEAHY. I need about 2 minutes.
Mr. COVERDELL. To the Senator from Vermont.
Mr. KYL. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. COVERDELL. I am sorry; I did not see the presence of the Senator
from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. I would advise the Senator from Georgia, I have about 3
minutes of remarks.
Mr. COVERDELL. Let me ask this, I say to the Senator from West
Virginia. The Senator from Kentucky used about 2 minutes of the time
under our control, and I wonder if I might ask unanimous consent that
our time last until 11:02, and I would grant 2 minutes to the Senator
from Arizona and the closing 2 minutes to the Senator from Vermont.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The
Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. I thank the Chair. I thank the Senator from Georgia.
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