[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 22 (Wednesday, February 26, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H644-H645]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           THE BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Wise] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WISE. Mr. Speaker, an earlier speaker today referred to the 
balanced budget amendment that will be on the floor sometime in the 
near future as being very important for our families, our businesses, 
the States, and particularly for our families, and I agree with him in 
that regard that what this vote will be about is very important to the 
families.
  Mr. Speaker, let me ask, what family thinks it makes much sense to 
say that you have to pay for your house in 1 year that you cannot 
mortgage over 20 years. You cannot borrow to buy that house, instead 
you have to pay for it in 1 year. What business could operate if you 
told it that it cannot borrow, and it cannot amortize over several 
years for those expensive buildings or pieces of equipment or whatever, 
but it must pay for them in one. What State government can operate if 
you told it that it could not borrow or issue bonds for the roads, the 
bridges, the infrastructure, the water, the sewer systems, the airports 
that make it grow?
  The reality is that if you went to any business, State, or family and 
said you have to live by the terms of this balanced budget amendment 
that this Congress is about to put into the Constitution, they would 
say, you are crazy, because we all know that we have to borrow for 
those things that bring longer return. We have to borrow for the roads, 
the bridges, we have to borrow for the business equipment, the shell 
buildings, the industrial parks, and we have to borrow to put our 
children through school and we have to borrow for our mortgage.
  I was attending a meeting recently at Shepard College in West 
Virginia in which a student talked about why she had borrowed thousands 
of dollars, receiving financial assistance, and the reason is because 
she knew that was her future and that thousands of dollars would be 
repaid countless times over. That is what this is about.

[[Page H645]]

  No business, State, or family would voluntarily accept the terms of 
this balanced budget amendment that will be voted on by this House, 
because they know they could not operate under it. It is bad enough 
that the Federal budget currently operates this way. It is even worse 
that some would think of putting this into the Constitution of the 
United States. If you are going to put it into the Constitution of the 
United States to have this kind of requirement, then set it up like 
businesses and States and families do. And that is, you have capital 
budgeting. You permit a separate account for the investments in the 
roads, the bridges, the water, the sewer systems, the airports.
  I was delighted to see last night and to receive a call from the 
White House last night that President Clinton has created a Capital 
Budgeting Commission. This is similar to legislation that I introduced 
and a number of my colleagues here in the House cosponsored last year 
to set up a commission to look at and evaluate capital budgeting for 
the Federal budget. This makes possible the investments and the 
infrastructure, the physical infrastructure that are so crucial, and I 
look forward to seeing whom the President names to this Capital 
Budgeting Commission and the report that it makes.
  Once again, if you are going to have a balanced budget amendment in 
the Constitution, at least look at the substitute that I have offered 
the last two times and will be offering again that would require a 
capital budget.
  Likewise, to take Social Security off budget. The fact is that Social 
Security runs a $60 billion surplus this year and has for the last few 
years. That is $60 billion more coming in because of Social Security 
than Social Security is paying out. That money is necessary for the 
year 2019 and the years thereafter when you do not have as much coming 
in. So why should that not be off budget, because if you do not take it 
off budget then it masks the size of the true deficit.
  Every one of my colleagues, I dare say, or almost everyone who has 
been here longer than 6 months, has voted sometime in the past few 
years, we do it usually about once a year, to take Social Security off 
budget. We have passed more resolutions and statutes and budget 
resolutions and budget language saying Social Security is off budget. 
So if it ought to be off budget, then why should it not be off budget 
in a constitutional amendment that deals with balancing the budget? 
None of this will take it off budget in 2005 or something. What 
happened to it up until the year 2005?
  So those are the reasons that many of us oppose the language that 
will be voted on here today. Indeed, we have been actively involved in 
balancing the budget. That is why the budget deficit has dropped from 
$300 billion to $107 billion, why it is at the lowest point it has been 
since 1974, why it is the lowest in the industrial world right now, is 
because of the deficit reduction efforts that have been made over the 
past several years on a bipartisan basis. But if we are going to have a 
balanced budget amendment in the Constitution of the United States, 
then we are saying we are doing it because we want the Federal budget 
to be balanced like States balance their budgets, like businesses 
balance their budgets, like families balance their budgets, then for 
Pete's sake at least put in the same mechanisms by which States, 
businesses, and families balance their budgets, and that is to have a 
capital budget, an investment budget to permit borrowing for those 
long-term items that give you back far more than you ever pay.

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