[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 41 (Wednesday, April 9, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H1374-H1375]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn] is 
recognized for the remainder of the hour as the designee of the 
majority leader.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I do agree with the position of the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Rohrabacher] and will be supporting his 
position on the House floor.
  I wanted to take a minute to address those in our country who are 
interested in our budget. If in fact they do not believe that a 
balanced budget is important, then they should not pay attention to 
anything that I am about to say. But if in fact they think we ought to 
live within our means, then I think consideration of some of the 
information that I am about to relate to them they will find 
interesting.
  In 1972, our entire budget was $241 billion. This year we will spend 
$17 billion more than that on interest on the national debt alone. So 
what we are really faced with in our country is a threat. The threat is 
not very popular to talk about. The threat is not easy to focus on.

                              {time}  1500

  But, nevertheless, the threat is great, and the threat is this: If 
the people who work and vote in this body fail to recognize the 
importance of not balancing the budget, what in fact they have done is 
ruined the future for our children and our grandchildren.
  To the seniors who would be listening who suffered through the Great 
Depression, who were the valiant men and women who allowed us to win 
World War II, they are the ones who hold this debate in their hands, 
the fate of a balanced budget.
  For what will really happen to our children as they pay out the 
$200,000 each that they now owe, both in terms of debt and interest, 
which does not begin to recognize the internal debt that we owe the 
Social Security System, from which we borrowed, actually stole, $69 
billion last year to run the Government, their living standard will be 
nowhere close to what we experience today. Their opportunity to have an 
education, to own a home, will vanish in the midst of our 
irresponsibility.
  How big is the threat? The threat is the largest threat we have faced 
since the end of World War II. It is a very subtle threat. It is one 
that is hard for people to get excited about, yet it will undermine the 
essence and the greatness of the American dream.
  What do we have to do to win this battle? The first thing we have to 
do is recognize that career politicians from both parties are not 
necessarily interested in doing the right thing. Martin Luther King 
said in his last speech, his last major speech before he was 
assassinated, that cowardice asks the question: Is it expedient? And 
vanity asks the question: Is it popular? But conscience asks the 
question: Is it right? Washington has a way of avoiding the last 
question and running to the first two: Is it expedient? Is it popular?
  It will not be popular to balance the budget. It will not be 
expedient to balance the budget. But it is right to balance the budget.
  What is the psychology of the rationalization that we have in our 
country today that says we will balance the budget sometime in the 
future? How did we get to the psychology of saying we do not have 
enough money to pay our bills and it is fine to jeopardize and mortgage 
the future of our children because we do not have the courage to make 
the hard decisions that are required to eliminate that threat for our 
children?
  What I would ask my fellow Americans to do is to think, as a 
grandparent or a parent, what are the most important things in their 
lives, and usually we will answer, our children or our grandchildren. I 
have an 18-month-old grandchild, and as I look at her, I look to see 
what possible future can she have if we fail to do the right thing, the 
thing that our conscience would

[[Page H1375]]

dictate, which is not taking away their future for us now.
  We hear from organizations like AARP that we should dare not touch 
the cost of living index, the CPI, regardless of the fact that most 
economists would agree that it overstates the incremental increase in 
the cost of living. The idea of selfishness has now displaced the 
concern for our children and our grandchildren.
  The same thing for special interests that get funded by the Federal 
Government every year. There is going to be a debate in not too long on 
the National Endowment for the Arts. Regardless of what our feeling is 
on that, how can we spend money in that area when we know that our 
children will pay back that $90 million three or four times what it 
cost because we do not have the money to pay for it?
  How in the world do we justify and rationalize our ability to not do 
what is right? We cannot. We cannot face our problem; we cannot stand 
up and do the hard thing. And, unfortunately, the reason that we will 
not is, many people in this body are more interested in getting 
reelected, and their careers and their decisions about coming back to a 
place of power have become more important than their children and their 
grandchildren. So we see greed and selfishness for ourselves is 
starting to displace the very unique qualities that made America great.
  Alex de Tocqueville said of the American people that America is great 
because America is good. When America ceases to be good, America will 
cease to be great. I would put forth to the American public today that 
the way we measure our goodness, the way we measure our compassion, is 
by doing the right thing and doing the right thing now.
  We will hear a lot of people scream and say we cannot cut certain 
programs, that we cannot balance the budget, that we cannot do it 
today. But I would put forward the belief that if we faced an external 
threat in this country, not an internal one but an external threat to 
this country, that we as Americans would rally around, we would come 
together and say: What do we have to do to defeat this threat? And if 
it required sacrifice of us all, we would make that sacrifice, we would 
pull together, we would demand that every aspect of our Government 
become much more efficient, that they would accomplish the same task 
with less cost and more efficiency.
  The fact is, we have a subtle threat. We are not willing to address 
this threat, and so, consequently, we are not about to do that.
  I do not hold much hope for a balanced budget because I do not hold 
much hope that people will make a decision based on the right things, 
their conscience. And I do, unfortunately, feel that too many of the 
Members of this body will make a decision based on cowardice and 
vanity, much as Martin Luther King talked about.
  The only way we balance the budget is if the people of this country 
say we must balance the budget. So those that hear what I am saying 
today have to become an active part, a participant in this process. 
They have to demand that those that represent them make the hard 
choices, the difficult choices, the choices that are morally right.
  It is immoral to steal from our grandchildren and our unborn 
grandchildren. The only way we solve this problem is for the American 
public, the citizens of this Nation, to demand the courage and the 
proper representation of their Members of Congress to accomplish this 
task.

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