[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

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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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