[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 23 (Thursday, February 27, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H695-H696]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Collins). Would the gentleman suspend? 
The Chair must remind the Member that he is to refrain from references 
to Members of the other body and to direct his remarks to the Speaker.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, I was not making references to any 
specific Member, and I might use this not to address this Speaker, but 
I must suggest that I am offended by the continued double standard that 
appears to be occurring in this Chamber where just 2 hours ago a 
Republican Member was mentioned by name several times and the Speaker 
did absolutely nothing --not this Speaker, but another Speaker did 
absolutely nothing when this speaker was mentioned by name several 
times. And yet when I mention by reference another Member, then all of 
a sudden I am called down.
  I have seen this occur for 3 years, and I am getting a little tired 
of it--not from you, sir, but from other people in this Chamber.
  The fact of the matter is that another Member's name was mentioned 
repeatedly by a Democrat. I did not hear a Parliamentarian say anything 
about it, and I counted seven times while watching on TV. I finally had 
to call the cloakroom to get something done.
  I come here today, and I mentioned somebody in the abstract; nobody 
would even be able to identify this Member that I brought up. And yet 
my words are called into question. I am not questioning my colleague. I 
am just questioning what has been occurring for the past 3 years.
  I ask for a little fairness and a little evenhandedness. I will 
refrain from any more specifics.
  But I will say that there have been several Members that have made 
promises on the campaign trail, have promised their people, looking 
into their eyes: I will support the balanced budget amendment. And then 
they get elected, and they break their word, they break their oath, and 
it has happened up here over the past few years time and time and time 
again.
  Mr. Speaker, I really do not care whether they are Republicans or 
Democrats, conservatives or liberals, Senators or Congressmen. All I 
care about is the impact that these broken promises are going to have 
on my two boys and on the next generation.
  I ask the question, is there any shame left in America when people 
can just talk out of both sides of their mouth, knowing that the end 
result will be a future economic calamity for America and for America's 
children? Regretfully, I have got to say that time and time again we 
have seen it happening, and it has got to stop.
  There is a letter that was written to Members of Congress and was 
written by the Secretary of Agriculture. He wrote in this letter to 
Members of Congress: ``A balanced budget amendment would in all 
likelihood set up a fierce struggle for limited Federal resources.''
  Now let us just examine the words limited Federal resources. Do you 
know how limited the Federal Government's resources are? Does anybody 
know how much money we give the Federal Government every year? It is 
$1.7 trillion, and where does that money come from? Well, it comes from 
middle-class Americans who are now spending 50.2 percent of their work 
year to pay off taxes, fees, and regulations put on them by the 
Government. It also comes from businesses, from corporations, from 
people that are creating jobs. Unfortunately, we take it from the dead, 
we take it from the productive members of society who actually make a 
profit and create jobs. But in the end, most regretfully, we take it 
from our children and our grandchildren, and we steal not only from the 
living but from the unborn, from future generations.
  There is nothing limited about the Federal resources that we have, 
nothing limited at all as we continue to pay farmers not to plant their 
crops, as we continue in America to pay people not to work, as we 
continue to shovel corporate welfare across this Nation and across the 
globe, as we continue to pay for foreign aid.
  Just a couple of days ago, weeks ago, decided that we wanted to get 
involved in family planning and funding abortions across the globe. Do 
not tell me that our resources are limited. Our resources are not 
limited. It is our discipline that is limited.
  We do not face a deficiency in the wallet, as George Bush said. He 
had it backward. We face a deficiency of will. We face a deficiency of 
discipline. We face a deficiency of honor. And if we do not get a 
handle on this financial crisis that is robbing from my boys and your 
children and your grandchildren and future generations, they are the 
ones who are going to have to pay and they are the ones that are going 
to ask you 30 years from now: What did you do about it? What difference 
did you make? And you can make a difference; every Member in this 
Chamber, Mr. Speaker, can make a difference. But they are going to have 
to have a little discipline, they are going to have to be a little less 
selfish.
  I asked for leadership from the President of the United States. In 
1994 the President opposed our efforts to balance the budget. In 1995 
we put the first

[[Page H696]]

plan in a generation on this floor and passed it to balance the budget 
for the first time in a generation.

                              {time}  1515

  We had a plan to balance the budget in 5 years and to start paying 
back future generations from the money we had already stolen from them. 
Yet it was vetoed. We were called mean-spirited. We had a President who 
said that he wanted to balance the budget, and yet he opposed the 
balanced budget amendment. Today we have a President who says he wants 
to balance the budget, and yet he opposes the balanced budget 
amendment.
  We have a President who says he wants to cut the deficit, and yet we 
have a President who presented a plan that allows the deficit to go up 
for 3 more years. Yes, we have a President who says he wants to erase 
the deficit and make that his top priority. Yet the budget he submitted 
just this month allows the deficit to go up an additional $40 billion 
to $50 billion.
  Mr. Speaker, it has taken a lot more than a Democratic President and 
a Democratic Party and ruinous policies by the liberal Democrats over 
the past 40 years of controlling this Congress to destroy our 
children's future. They had to have help. All too often some members of 
the Republican party were all too willing to help.
  I am here to say I do not care whose fault it was in the past. I do 
not care whose fault it is today. I am saying it is time for people on 
both sides of the aisle to put their children and grandchildren and 
future generations' children and grandchildren first, and stop worrying 
about paying off their political buddies, stop worrying about the good 
old system that has allowed us to accumulate a $5.6 trillion debt, and 
start worrying about their interests first.
  This past week we had a vote that I must admit caused me great 
concern. It seems that the Secretary of the Treasury may have made a $3 
billion miscalculation. That is what at least our leadership told us. 
They told us that the trust fund was broke because the Secretary of the 
Treasury made a $3 billion mistake.
  Do Members know what? An interesting thing happened. This time when a 
$3 billion mistake was made, for the first time since I have been here 
over the past couple of years, we had a choice to make. The choice was 
do we take the money away from the government to pay for this $3 
billion error, or do we take the money out of the American people's 
pockets?
  Unfortunately, we chose to take the money out of the American 
people's pocket. I voted against it. I think 78 other people voted 
against it. I can understand some of the leaders' concerns. I can 
understand that they were promised to have offsets in the future. I can 
understand their frustration in trying to deal with an administration 
that says one thing one second and changes the next time, and trying to 
pin them down.
  But I have to tell the Members what I do not understand. I do not 
understand why anybody in this leadership would decide that they would 
take money out of the pockets of the American people because of a 
mistake that the administration made. That is wrong. It goes against 
what the Republicans stand for. More to the point, it goes against what 
America stands for. We have got to start showing a little bit of 
discipline.
  Mr. Speaker, I got attacked in my local newspaper. They said that the 
Congressman voted against a bill that would have brought $4 million to 
his district, to airports that needed the money. That is great. I am 
not saying that airports do not need the money. I am not saying that my 
district is not any more deserving of these funds than anybody else. 
But what I am asking, Mr. Speaker, is whose money is it we are 
spending?
  We have gone beyond just spending the American people's money. We are 
spending the next generation's money. They are not able to hold us 
accountable. Until they are able to hold us accountable, until they are 
of age to vote, I think we have a responsibility to them to preserve 
for them the American dream that all of us were promised; promised an 
opportunity by our Founding Fathers, by Thomas Jefferson, George 
Washington, James Madison, by these great Founders that believed in 
America, that the individual had the right, had the opportunity, to 
pursue the American dream.
  That is what my parents taught me. They taught me: Work hard, obey 
the law, respect authority, I know that is radical these days: Respect 
authority, and you may have an opportunity to do something with your 
life. That is what I am trying to pass on to my children.
  It is not always easy. My father was laid off for a year, 1\1/2\ 
years, and I remember driving around the southeast as he was looking 
for gainful employment somewhere where he could support a family of 
five. It was during a tough recession. It was during the energy crisis 
in the early 1970's.
  But I do not ever remember him being resentful. I don't remember him 
teaching me: You cannot succeed, it is somebody else's fault. What we 
need, Joe, is more money from the Federal Government. That is why I am 
out of a job, it is the Federal Government's fault. Or it is the guy's 
fault down the street, who is more successful than we are. Resent him. 
Resent his big house. Resent his nice car. It is not our fault, it is 
their fault.
  That is the ethic we are teaching our children. That is the ethic we 
are teaching America. It is an ethic that will lead to our destruction. 
We have got to elect leaders who really do not care whether they get 
reelected or not. They only care whether their children have the same 
shot at the American dream that they had. For 35 years we have run up 
deficits, taken it out of our children's pockets, and basically thrown 
caution to the wind.
  I am telling the Members it is time to stop saying live and let live, 
eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may die, because tomorrow has 
come. It has come for our children.
  I hope, Mr. Speaker, that in the coming year the adults in this 
Chamber will begin behaving like adults and will look at their children 
and grandchildren when they go home on the weekends, and when they are 
going across the districts holding town meetings they will look into 
the eyes of those members of the next generation that are going to run 
this country, and say, yes, I care enough to make a few tough votes 
that may hurt in the short run, but in the long run, will help us all 
achieve the American dream.

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