[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 50 (Thursday, April 24, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H1858-H1865]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
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PROBLEMS FACING AMERICA THAT MUST BE ADDRESSED NOW
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Mica). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann]
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. NEUMANN. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about an issue that
I think is very important. It is really the issue I came here for in
the first place.
Up until 1989 I had never been involved in any politics in any way,
shape, or form. In 1980 my wife and I started a business in the
basement of our house. The business grew. It was real estate. In 1986
we started a homebuilding company, and we understand fully if we had
lost money in the second year and the third year, that the banks would
have taken that business away from us. It is that kind of background
that I bring here.
But instead of losing money in the second year the homebuilding
company turned around. After building 9 homes our first year, providing
18 jobs in southeastern Wisconsin, we wound up building about 120 homes
4 years later, making a legitimate profit in our business and providing
250 job opportunities in southeastern Wisconsin.
I bring that background here because when I think back to those
years, the late 1980's and even 1990, and I think about that business
and how it grew and prospered and provided job opportunities, I
sometimes forget why it was that I left that business that was going so
well to come to Washington, and then I look at this picture. It reminds
me of the future that we have for our children if something is not done
about the growing debt facing the United States of America today.
I always look at this chart as one of the best charts that I have
ever seen that shows actually what is going on in our country. This
shows the growing debt facing America. From 1960 to 1980 one can see
that the debt did not grow hardly at all, but from 1980 forward we are
on a very, very steep climb that is going to destroy the future of this
Nation for our children.
I like to point out that at this point in time we are about here on
this chart, and the debt continues to grow and grow and grow. I rise
tonight to remind my colleagues of that, because there are a lot of
bills going on right now in this community that relate very directly to
this picture that I have here with me.
In fact, the debt today is $5.3 trillion facing the United States of
America. The legacy that our generation is going to pass on to the next
generation of Americans; that we, the people that are working today are
going to pass on to our children and our grandchildren, that legacy is
of a $5.3 trillion debt.
Let me put that into perspective so we keep in mind what that really
means. That debt translates into $20,000 for every man, woman and child
in the United States of America today. For a family of five, like mine,
the United States Government has borrowed $100,000 basically in the
last 15 years.
Let me translate that into what that really means. That means that an
average family of five, like mine, is paying $600 a month into this
Government to do nothing but pay the interest on the debt. An average
family of five, like mine, pays $600 a month to do nothing but pay the
interest on the Federal debt.
A lot of people say, do not worry about me, I do not pay that much in
taxes. The reality is when you walk into the store and you buy
something as simple as a loaf of bread, the store owner makes a profit
when you pay him for that loaf of bread or her for that loaf of bread,
and part of that profit comes into the U.S. Government in the form of
taxes.
One way or another, every family of five in the United States of
America, every group of five people in the United States of America
today, is paying $600 a month toward the interest only. That does not
count Social Security or Medicare or defense, or any of the other
important programs our Government runs. That $600 a month does nothing
but pay the interest on the Federal debt.
Why is that significant? Right now there are a lot of things
happening out here in Washington, DC. Two years ago a group of people
came here, 73 freshman Republicans came here with the idea that we were
going to solve this disastrous problem and what it means for the future
of our country. We have committed ourselves to shrinking the size and
scope of Washington, and shrinking the involvement of this Government
in the lives of real American, of everyday people, the people that get
up every morning and go to work.
Our goal was to get this Government smaller, so those people could in
fact look forward to the opportunities that exist if this debt was not
there, keeping that extra $600 a month in their own pockets. That is
what our goal was 2 years ago.
Now today it is 2 years later, and a lot of the freshmen that came
here 2 years ago and a lot of the others in this Congress have kind of
forgotten, it seems, sometimes what we came here for. In fact, the
heart and soul of one of the things we came here for, making Washington
smaller, the funding of Washington committee staff, is a bill that is
being considered as we speak this evening right here and now.
The Washington committee staff proposal this year was to increase
spending for Washington committee staff by 14\1/2\ percent. To me, that
is contrary to everything that we came here for and everything we came
here to be about. The concept of increasing Washington committee staff
spending by 14\1/2\ percent is against everything that I believe in and
everything we came here for. That is making Washington bigger and more
intrusive into our lives, as opposed to what I believe Republicans
stand for, and that is making Washington smaller.
When I look at this debt picture, it reminds me of how important it
is that we win these battles to keep Washington shrinking, as opposed
to turning around and letting it start growing again.
There is another looming battle. This battle is even tougher. It is
the supplemental appropriation bill. For those in America that do not
know exactly what that means, Mr. Speaker, that means it is a spending
bill of American tax dollars. Washington people are going to spend your
money.
I have to say that this supplemental, we are spending it on some
legitimate things. There are flood victims all across America, and
those flood victims need help. When I talk to the folks back home in
Wisconsin, the vast majority of those people are willing to help others
less fortunate than themselves, like the folks in North Dakota that we
have been seeing on TV, where a city of 50,000 is literally under
water.
The city of Janesville, WI, where I come from, is about the same size
as that city, so it is very easy for us to imagine what this means, and
this is a legitimate need. This is a legitimate program for the
government to step into and help these people.
[[Page H1859]]
But this is the dilemma. The dilemma is here. As we realize that we
have a responsibility to help these people in North Dakota or Ohio, or
where the flood victims are around America, we also realize our
responsibility to the future of this country, our responsibility to our
children to prevent this chart from continuing its growth of debt.
This is a very tough dilemma. We have a legitimate reason to spend
money, to help people who are truly in need in this Nation. On the
other hand, we have this responsibility to the future of America to
stop the growth in debt that is so clear in this picture, a
responsibility to our children to make sure that this does not
continue, so they have the opportunity to live the American dream that
we have had.
What do we do about that? In Washington what is going on is they are
proposing that we simply go and spend more money, that we spend $4.8
billion, add $4.8 billion to this debt legacy we are going to pass on
to our children.
There is another alternative. We do not have to just go and spend the
money. What we could do is go and spend the money to help those flood
victims and find other parts of the budget that are less important,
other areas we are spending money on and not spend that money.
Let me give an example of how this might work. Currently, today, the
U.S. Government hires people to push elevator buttons for Members of
Congress, so as they leave their office and come over to this floor to
vote, they do not have to push the buttons in the elevators themselves.
I find this a ridiculous expenditure of the taxpayers' money.
So rather than just going and spending this money on flood victims
without finding other areas less important in the Federal budget, why
do we not go and spend the money to help the flood victims who
legitimately need it, and go to other parts of the budget and find ways
to reduce spending to offset that legitimate expenditure to help flood
victims?
The flood victims, I maybe understand this a little better than some
other issues. My son happens to be going to school in New Ulm, MN. I
know one night he called me up and said that that day he had been out
filling sand bags to help protect that city in Minnesota from the
floods that were coming.
This is a legitimate reason, and people in Wisconsin are willing to
help other people around the country. I am willing to help people
around the country. What we need to do, though, is go and find areas
where we do not have to be spending the taxpayers' money, eliminate
those expenditures, and redirect the money over here to the flood
victims.
Make no mistake, that is not the current proposal. The current
proposal is to simply go and spend more money, just let the debt keep
growing, add it to the legacy that this generation is passing on to the
next generation, and I say that is wrong and that is inexcusable. I say
we have a responsibility to future generations of Americans, that if we
are going to spend the money, we have to find other parts of the budget
that we can reduce spending in.
The second reason I rise to speak tonight is with that growing debt
picture looming, several other Members of Congress just ahead of me
this evening talked about the Social Security issue. The second reason
I am rising tonight is to speak to the Social Security issue, and
exactly what is going on. The new report coming out today repeats how
important it is that we solve the Social Security problems today, not
in the future.
Social Security today is collecting about $418 billion out of the
paychecks of Americans. Anybody who has a job today pays into the
Social Security system. When they are all done collecting that money
out of the paychecks, they are collecting $418 billion. They are
writing checks out to our senior citizens of about $353 billion. That
sounds pretty good. If you think of this as your own checkbook, if you
are taking $418 into your checkbook and you are only spending $353,
that is a pretty good setup. In fact, there are 65 bucks left in your
checkbook when you are done. That is good news for senior citizens,
that is good news for America.
The idea is this, that extra money that is left in the checkbook, the
difference between the $418 they are collecting and the $353 they are
paying out, that extra money is supposed to be set aside into a kitty,
because not far down the road the baby boom generation gets to
retirement, and they will not be taking enough money in to make the
payments back to our seniors.
The idea is this: At that point in time the money is supposed to be
sitting there in a savings account, so when there is not enough money
coming in to make good on the payments, when there is not enough coming
in to make the payments out to our seniors, they then go to that
savings account that is supposed to be built with this surplus that
exists today, the $65 billion.
I have good news for the seniors. If this were being run the way it
is set up, the Social Security system is solvent and works all the way
to 2029. That is the good news. The bad news is in Washington, DC, when
they see this $65 billion, they do the Washington thing. I think
anybody watching tonight, all of my colleagues, know what the
Washington thing is to do. They see that $65 billion sitting there in
the Social Security trust fund, and instead of putting that $65 billion
into the trust fund, they put it into the general fund. They then spend
all the money out of the general fund, leading us to the deficit.
There is another way to think of this. They take the 65 bucks, put it
in their big checkbook, they then overdraw the checkbook, that is
called the deficit, so they take this $65 billion, put it in the
general fund, overdraw the general fund, and there is no money left to
put actual dollars into this savings account that is supposed to be
there to preserve and protect Social Security. As a result, at the end
of the year they simply write an IOU, technically called a non-
negotiable Treasury bond, and they put that down here in the trust
fund.
What does this really mean? This really means if you go and look at
the Social Security trust fund today, that there is nothing in it
except IOU's; that entire savings account that is supposed to be there
to protect our senior citizens, there is absolutely nothing in this
except a pile of IOU's.
I am happy to report this evening, and I am going to ask our
colleagues to join it, and ask the people around the country to call on
our colleagues and ask them to support this bill, the bill very simply
is the Social Security Preservation Act. It is not an Einstein kind of
bill. It is very simple and very straightforward.
It simply says that that $65 billion that is being collected to
preserve and protect Social Security is to be put directly into the
Social Security trust fund, instead of being directed into the big
Government checkbook to be spent on other Government programs.
The bill is H.R. 857, and I strongly encourage our colleagues to join
the 60 of us that have already cosponsored that bill; call, ask them to
join us as a cosponsor of that bill, so as American people we can solve
the Social Security problem and make it solvent.
Again, what that bill does is very simple. It is very simple and
straightforward. It simply takes the money that is being collected over
and above what is being sent out to our seniors in benefits and puts it
directly into the Social Security trust fund. If that would happen, if
that would happen, there would currently be $550 billion in the Social
Security trust fund. That number would build all the way to $1.2
trillion by the year 2002.
Social Security would then be safe and secure for our senior
citizens, but it goes beyond the senior citizens. People that are in
their forties and fifties need to understand that if this bill is not
passed, we are going to reach a crisis point sometime between the year
2005 and the year 2012. That crisis point occurs when there is not
enough money coming in to make good on the payments, and there is no
money over here in the trust fund to get the money to make good on the
payments to seniors.
So from 2005 to 2012, what are we going to do as a Nation? We have a
couple of choices. One choice is to go to senior citizens and say, we
cannot make good on the promises that have been made to you regarding
Social Security. I think that is a lousy choice. It should be ruled
out.
A second choice, and now I am going to bring another generation in
here, it is not only the folks that are seniors
[[Page H1860]]
and the people in their forties and fifties, I am now going to talk
about the young people and what this means to them, because the second
choice when we reach that crisis point, 2005 to 2012, the second choice
is to go to our young families and say, we have to take more money out
of your paycheck because we were not able to set the money aside when
we were supposed to back in the 1990's. So the next choice affects our
young people and affects them directly.
My oldest son is a sophomore in college. My daughter is a senior in
high school. My youngest is in eighth grade. When I think about our
kids and the time when they are going to be married and starting their
own families, and all the other kids just like them across America,
when I think of these kids, it is about the same time that this Social
Security crisis hits.
I, for one, do not think it is responsible for us as a Nation to go
blindly forward spending the Social Security money, knowing that in the
near future our young families are going to be saddled with even more
of a burden as we try to deal with this Social Security crisis that was
supposed to be dealt with in the 1990's.
I think it is inexcusable that we do not pass the Social Security
Preservation Act. Again, the Social Security Preservation Act is very
important across all generations. Would it not be nice if there were
really $1.2 trillion in the Social Security trust fund, and we had
enough money there that we could go out and see our seniors and say,
look, your Social Security really is safe? Here is the passbook savings
account, here is the savings account to make sure you are going to get
your Social Security check? Then we could begin the discussion of going
to our young people and say, would you rather do something other than
pay into the Social Security system?
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Because, you see, if the savings account was there and we could
genuinely go to our seniors and tell them their account was safe, we
could then go to the younger people and ask them if they would like to
do something different.
Very interesting thing happened the last couple weeks in my own
family. My 8th grade son went out and mowed lawns this past summer. He
earned 900 bucks mowing lawns this past summer, and it came tax time,
April 15. I said: Matt, you have to fill out a tax return, you earned
900 bucks.
It turns out he did not really owe any Federal taxes for anything
except Social Security. And when his tax return came back to him, his
Social Security tax, being that he was self-employed, for earning $900
was over 120 bucks. So my 8th grade son was asked to pay $120 into the
Social Security system, and he has no hopes whatsoever of seeing that
money back.
The Social Security Preservation Act needs to be passed. It is a
fairness situation. It needs to be passed in the very near future. We
need to start setting this money aside so that our seniors are safe, so
that the people in their forties and fifties are safe and so that the
young people can start thinking about doing something different.
If we let this go, if we let this go in the 1990's and our generation
looks the other way and continues doing the Washington thing and
spending this money instead of putting it away, let the burden be on
our shoulders when we have to go out to our families and ask to collect
even more taxes than right after the turn of the century.
The issue gets even more interesting when you look at how the Social
Security issue really impacts and affects the budget as a whole. You
see, in Washington when they report the budget they report this blue
area. In fact this year we are reporting a budget deficit of about $107
billion. What they do not tell you is that is how much the checkbook is
overdrawn. Well, the checkbook is overdrawn by $107 billion but they
wrote an IOU to the Social Security trust fund. So in addition to the
deficit that Washington reports to the American people, they do not
tell you that in addition to that they have taken the Social Security
trust fund money.
The real deficit this year is not $107 billion. It is $107 billion
plus the money taken out of the Social Security trust fund or in
reality about 172 billion.
I come from the private sector. I am a home builder by trade. I have
to tell you, if we tried this in the home-building business, not only
would the banks reject our argument; I would be locked up in jail if I
took the money that was supposed to be set aside for pension funds for
my employees, spent it on other programs and put IOUs in their pension
funds. It would be illegal in the private sector. It should be illegal
here in Washington, DC. That is what H.R. 857 is all about. It makes
this illegal.
Mr. Speaker, when people in Washington talk about balancing the
budget, virtually all of America has now heard that the people in
Washington are going to balance the budget by the year 2002. Virtually
everybody in America has heard that that is going to be done. I think
it is real important that we understand what Washington is talking
about so we fully comprehend what Washington means when they say they
are going to balance the budget because what Washington means by a
balanced budget and what people in Wisconsin mean are two things
different entirely.
When Washington says they are going to balance the budget, what they
mean is they are going to get rid of this blue area; that is, they are
going to get rid of that $107 billion debt. So let me make this as
clear as I possibly can. When Washington, DC. says they are going to
balance the budget by the year 2002, what Washington, DC. actually
means is they are going to go into the Social Security trust fund, take
out $104 billion of surplus that year, put that money in their
checkbook and call their checkbook balanced. You see, in the year 2002,
when Washington says the budget is balanced, they have still got the
$104 billion that they are using out of the Social Security trust fund.
That is inexcusable.
It does not have to be this way. The worst part of this whole picture
is that absolutely it does not have to be that way. We have out of our
office with the support of many groups here in Washington as well as
many of my colleagues here in Washington proposed a budget that would
stop this from happening. Our budget is very straightforward. It
assumes CBO revenues. It assumes a revenue stream that is being
estimated out here in Washington. It allows the American people to keep
more of their own money putting $500 per year back into the pockets of
our working families, per child. It allows for capital gains tax
reduction, which is really a job creation bill.
It reforms the estate tax so that when people pass away they are not
taxed on something they have already been taxed on. And at the same
time, it sets aside the Social Security trust fund money. Now if that
sounds too good to be true in a budget plan this year, the important
thing to understand, as you, the American people, and my colleagues out
there in all the districts they represent, the economy is stronger than
anyone expected it would be. As a result of the economy being stronger,
there is more revenue coming into the Federal Government than anyone
anticipated.
Our budget, in a nutshell, accepts the President's Medicare proposals
or at least the numbers that he has proposed and Medicaid and other
mandatory but it throws out all of the new Washington spending ideas in
the President's plan. It throws out all the new Washington spending
ideas, in all fairness, in the Republican plans as well.
Mr. Speaker, our budget plan is very straightforward. We can balance
the budget, set aside the Social Security money and we can do it if we
simply say no to new Washington spending. When Washington saw these
additional revenues coming in because the economy was doing so well,
Washington again did the Washington thing. They looked for ways to
spend that revenue and they proposed new spending programs. So instead
of looking at this chart and saying, we need to set that Social
Security money aside, instead of doing that, they came up with new ways
to spend the money. Under our budget plan, we simply say no to new
Washington spending programs, and in fact we can then get to balance
without using the Social Security trust fund money.
One more thing that our budget does is very different than any other
plan in Washington. After we get to a balanced budget, we cap spending
growth at the Federal Government level at a rate 1 percent below the
rate of revenue
[[Page H1861]]
growth. Revenue grows because of inflation and real growth in the
economy. We cap spending increases at 1 percent below the rate of
revenue growth. What this does is create a small surplus. If you are at
balance, revenues go up by 5 percent, spending goes up by 4 percent;
that creates a small surplus. That surplus is used to start paying down
the Federal debt because, you see, even if we get to a balanced budget,
we still have a $6.5 trillion debt hanging over our heads.
In our budget plan, we would literally pay off the debt so we could
pass this Nation on to our children debt free by the year 2023, and
then think what that means. That means instead of going to our families
and collecting $600 a month to do nothing but pay the interest on the
Federal debt, we would not need that money anymore. We could instead go
to our families and say, keep that extra money. Go ahead. Put it away
for your kids for college. Go ahead, put it aside if you want your kids
to go to private school, go ahead send them there. Here is the $600 a
month that you were paying in interest on the Federal debt.
This can all happen. It is not far-fetched. In fact, under that pay-
off-the-debt plan, spending at Federal Government level would still go
up faster than the rate of inflation. A lot of my colleagues do not
like that, but the reality is even with spending going up faster than
the rate of inflation at the Federal Government level, we would pay off
the debt so we could have massive tax cuts. It is not only the tax
cuts. That puts more money available out there in the private sector.
More money in the private sector means looser money supply. Looser
money supply means lower interest rates. Lower interest rates means our
families can afford to buy houses and cars. And of course when they buy
houses and cars, that means other people have to go to work building
the houses and cars.
In Janesville, WI, there is a General Motors plant where we assemble
Suburbans and Tahoes and Yukons. That is extra jobs for those people
because of the interest rates down and people can afford to buy those
cars that are being made. So it is a complete picture here of how we
can restore this great Nation of ours. It can be done. It should be
done. I just sincerely hope that the folks in Washington have the nerve
that it takes to follow through on our commitment from 1994 to the
American people.
I yield to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Scarborough].
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for talking on
this important issue. In just listening to it, it sounds too good to be
true. It sounds too easy to be true but actually it is not. You look at
the numbers and they actually all add up. With somebody that has a
grandmother that depends on Social Security, that depends on Medicare,
that depends on the assistance that she paid into for so long and
somebody that has parents and in-laws that are coming of age where they
are depending on a solvent system, this makes too much sense.
How can we continue to steal from the Social Security trust fund
money that they paid into the fund simply to balance the books, so
called, balance the books? Balancing the books the way Washington
defines balancing the books. This is a real crisis. You hear so many
people making complaints, yelling back and forth.
We had a shameful episode over the past few years regarding certain
people trying to scare senior citizens for their own political gains
but it comes down in the end to numbers and to demographics. There is a
saying that circulates around now that says demographics is destiny.
With the case of Social Security, that is the case. Back in the 1950's,
we had 15 people working for every one person on Social Security. Today
we have four people working for every one person on Social Security.
Twenty-five years from now, there is going to be one person working for
every one person on Social Security. So we need to save every cent of
this surplus. If we do not, the consequences are going to be absolutely
detrimental.
A lot of times you throw numbers around like this and you throw
charts around like this, and it makes sense to us; but I have had a
couple people come up to me lately and tell me what all this means. One
person came up telling me what the huge Federal debt means to us and
adding onto that debt, what that is going to mean to us.
They told me that they had figured out that, if you made a million
dollars every day from the day that Jesus Christ was born until today,
a million dollars every day, you would not make enough money to pay off
the Federal debt. A million dollars every day for 2000 years. And then
they got their calculator out again and continued calculating. And they
said: And then we figured out that, if you made a million dollars every
day until the year 14,000 A.D., made a million dollars every day for
14,000 years, you still would not make enough money to pay off our
Federal debt.
Mr. Speaker, and still we have people coming to this floor every day
telling us what a great job we are doing in balancing the Federal
budget and that the budget negotiations that are going on now are so
difficult and we are doing such heavy lifting. Yet they are not doing
anything. They are not doing anything that is going to address how we
keep Social Security solvent, how we keep Medicare solvent, how we keep
Medicaid solvent, and how we prevent our children from paying a
tremendous debt. During the campaign I talked about this. And my
opponent acted outraged saying: How dare you try to scare children, how
dare you try to tell them that we are depriving them of their future.
That would not happen in America.
I said to him: I have some very bad news for you. Not only could that
happen in America, that is happening in America, and unless we get
disciplined it will continue to happen in America.
The one number I gave him that I think carried the day in that debate
was the number 89 percent. That number comes from Bob Kerrey, a
Democratic Senator's independent commission on entitlements back in
1994. The conclusion, using independent numbers, using Congressional
Budget Office numbers was this: that if we continue down this path of
tax and spend, tax and spend, tax and spend, that our children, your
children, I have seen them, my children, my 9-year-old boy, my 6-year-
old boy will be paying a tax rate of 89 percent to the Federal
Government by the year 2025 when they are in their thirties. Barely my
age, they will be paying 9 out of $10 in taxes.
Mr. NEUMANN. I was in an appropriations meeting today. I heard time
and time again how we need to do this or that or the next thing to help
the children of this Nation.
I just point out that, if we do not get to a balanced budget, if we
do not do what is right to stop this growth of debt, the opportunities
for the children of this Nation are going to go away.
The most important thing we can possibly do is make sure that we do
get to a balanced budget so that the government is not taking all of
this money out of the private sector that should be out there to keep
the money supply available so interest rates stay down.
And make no mistake about it. I noticed in a newspaper on the way out
here this week, the headlines, two sections, headlines were good news
about the economy because the deficit was down. When the deficit is
down, they do not take as much money out of the private sector. When
the Government is not confiscating that money out of private sector,
there is more money available out there for people to borrow. And when
there is more money available, the interest rates stay down. When the
interest rates stay down, people can afford to buy houses and cars.
This is what we need to do for our children.
When the interest rates stay down and people buy those houses and
cars, that means that there are job opportunities for young people
right here in the United States of America, not the Government stepping
in to take care of our children but rather our children having the
opportunity to get a job and the opportunity to get a promotion and to
create a better life for themselves and their family.
That is what this ought to be all about. It is about whether or not
the next generations of Americans are going to have the opportunity to
live the American dream. It is about whether or not we in our
generation are going to be able to fulfill our commitments to our
seniors, my parents, your parents. It is about whether we fulfill those
commitments to our seniors.
[[Page H1862]]
Most important, I have to say, it is about our children and our
grandchildren. It is whether or not there are going to be American job
opportunities for those kids when they reach the age where they are
making a decision on where they are going to go.
In this day and age we live in, you can get from here to Japan or
China, anywhere else in the world in a relatively easy manner on a
plane. Those kids are going to have the opportunity to go elsewhere in
the world. If we mess this up to a point where it is not affordable for
them to live here in the United States, they are going elsewhere.
Because kids are dynamic. This is a dynamic Nation. And for generations
there have been entrepreneurs that have built this great country of
ours.
And if we mess this up to the point where the tax rate is 89 percent
of all of their earnings or to a point where interests rates are so
high they cannot afford to buy a house or car, they will be in a
different country and they will raise our grandkids somewhere else
other than America.
{time} 1730
That is what this is about. It is about getting our financial house
in order so our children have the opportunity to live the American
dream.
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. And if the gentleman will continue to yield, the
gentleman talks about children, and I know he has seen and I have seen
and others have seen people pile on to the floor over the past 3 years
since we came here in 1994 and they talk about children. And Washington
is great. Any time somebody has a program that they cannot pass on its
merits, they put on the children's tie and they come out and start
talking about how much they love children.
It seems to me that some of the people come to this floor so much
talking about how much they love children, and they love children so
much that the first pockets that they go to to pay for their new
Federal Government plans are our children's pockets. We can make no
mistake of it, they are reaching down into the pockets of my children,
the gentleman's children, children from across America, and they are
stealing more money from the pockets of our children.
That may sound a little bit blunt, but it is the truth. We have
already stolen, this body over the past 40 years has stolen $5.6
trillion from future generations, and it is future generations that
will have to pay that bill after the gentleman and I are retired.
Mr. NEUMANN. Reclaiming my time, I would say to the gentleman that we
are about to do more of it. The supplemental appropriations bill, and I
mentioned this earlier in the hour, is for a legitimate purpose, to
help flood victims, those folks in North Dakota. They have a problem
with the flood. It is real and it is genuine, and there are other
people around the country that have real problems.
People in Wisconsin do not mind helping them, but when we are doing
that, is it right that we take our children's money to help them, or
would it be more fair to take money from our generation and help them?
And we can do that by going to other parts of the budget and reducing
spending elsewhere in the budget so we can help the flood victims.
But that is not the decision we are making in Washington. What we are
doing in Washington is saying, forget it, we will add to the debt the
kids will pay. We cannot keep doing that or the debt will get worse and
the problem will compound itself to a point where we cannot deal with
it any more.
That is a decision being made next week, and I sincerely hope my
colleagues will join me in our efforts to make sure that rather than
simply saying the flood victims need help, we have to help them, let us
do it so that we will have our children pay for it; that instead of
that, they will say the flood victims need help, let us do it, here is
a less important Government program that we can cancel to help pay for
the flood victims.
That is an entirely different concept. Right now we are intending to
go to our children and say let the children pay, and that is just
absolutely wrong.
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. I know that as a businessman, as a father and as a
husband, there have been times when the family, we have put our
families around the kitchen table, and I remember my parents did it
when I was growing up, we do it at our home, and we look at the family
finances and say, gee, we have these two credit cards and we are
spending more money than we can afford to spend on the credit cards.
And not only is it how much we are charging on the cards that we have
to pay back, but it is the interest that keeps accruing, and we come to
a decision as mature, rational middle-class Americans and we say, OK,
listen, we are going to have to pay down these credit cards. We will
have to cut a couple of them up, and we are going to have to spend only
as much money as we bring in.
I remember looking at the wonderful example of my grandmother, who
recently passed away, lived 93 years, and she raised a family of six in
the Great Depression. That work ethic, that belief that one should
never go into debt because there are disastrous consequences, that
ethic was passed on to my parents, who passed it on to me, and I am
just wondering when that ethic is going to infiltrate Washington, DC.
We thought in 1994 that the American people had sent a message, not a
radical message, because radical, radical is a funny word. We were
called radical because we believed in this: We believed that Washington
should only spend as much money as it took in, and for that we were
called radicals. We were called extremists. We were called
reactionaries.
Let me tell my colleagues that where I come from a radical is
somebody who believes they can spend more money than they take in, that
a spending increase is called a spending cut, and that a spending cut
actually amounts to a spending increase. And we heard all three of
those arguments last year when we were told that a 7-percent increase
in entitlement programs were massive cuts, when we were told that
eliminating entire Cabinet agencies would actually drive up the debt.
I mean this was logic from people that have lived in never-never land
for too long, and it was Alice in Wonderland-type reasoning and the
type of reasoning that we came here to change.
Mr. NEUMANN. I was going to mention to the gentleman, he was talking
about the values passed on to him by his grandmother and this concept
that a debt is an inappropriate thing as one goes forward. This is more
than an issue about numbers and whether we need to pay down the debt or
balance the budget. It is an issue about morals, and it is one of many
moral issues facing America today.
When a generation concludes that it is all right for them to spend
the next generation's money, we have more than a numbers problem, we
have a moral crisis facing America today. And this is just one part of
it. The moral crisis facing our Nation is even bigger than what we are
looking at here today.
I would go into one other area, but first I want to yield to my good
friend from Minnesota. I would mention, however, that my son is filling
sandbags over in part of the gentleman's district. I was just
commenting that one of the districts in the gentleman's district was
flooding and how important it is that we handle this issue properly
here in Washington.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I
just came from a meeting with our Governor and the rest of the
Minnesota delegation to talk about what has been happening in our
State. I think we all, from both sides of the aisle, and whether we
calls ourselves liberal or conservatives, recognize that there is a
need, as the gentleman from Florida a few years ago can attest, when
the hurricane came through southern Florida.
In some respects, my district has been spared all but just the edges
of the serious flooding, but the folks up in northwest Minnesota, it is
a devastating thing to have entire cities literally under water. And it
is the kind of situation where who would have ever predicted that a
relatively small river like the Red River would be 25 feet above flood
stage.
So I think that we are going to do what we can to make certain we get
the aid that we can to those people to begin to rebuild the
infrastructure in those areas, but I think there is also a new ethic in
this Congress, that we should figure out a way to help pay for that as
well out of this budget. That is going to be tough.
[[Page H1863]]
I know that the gentleman is doing what he can on that front, because
I think there is a different ethic, and we will have to say that some
projects will have to be delayed because this is a much higher priority
project.
I also want to, if I could quickly, talk about, and it is not just
the people in my area, but I think this is an ethic of Americans all
across our country. My wife told me that about 36 hours ago now one of
the radio stations in my district announced a program to try to raise
some money for the folks up in the Red River Valley and they set a goal
of raising $10,000. I think my numbers are correct, that within 24
hours they already had pledges and cash totaling over $21,000. I think
that is going to happen all over the upper Midwest. And we are
demonstrating that charity begins at home and that we will find people
willing to help out. I think that is a great thing.
In the bigger picture, I do not think we should say, well, this is a
new program, we will just have to add more debt to our grandchildren.
There are certainly projects still in the Federal budget that are going
to be delayed, that should be delayed in order to pay for this, and we
hope that we can figure out ways to offset that spending as well.
And I thank your son for being one of those who are volunteering on
the sandbag lines. Literally there are thousands of volunteers from
Wisconsin and Minnesota, the Dakotas, and all over the upper Midwest
helping those people save their homes.
Mr. NEUMANN. I want to mention, and we have talked about this a
little, how this is really a tough dilemma, because on one hand we have
flood victims who are truly in need of help, and on the other hand we
have the responsibility to the future generations as well as to our
senior citizens to make sure we are able to fulfill our commitments to
seniors and to Medicare and also our commitment to our future
generations to not leave them with a debt so big they are paying 89
percent of their total income in taxes.
So what do we do in this type of dilemma? I will give my colleagues
an example, because this occurred today. In the Committee on
Appropriations meeting I suggested that rather than simply saying let
the children pay, or do a spend-now-pay-later kind of idea, where the
children literally get this $4.8 billion, $4,800 million passed onto
their backs, that what we do is this: We, as Members of Congress, make
a commitment, and our commitment is this, and do not laugh when I say
this. Rather than have elevator operators, who sit in elevators and
collect tax dollars, push elevator buttons for us as we travel from our
office buildings to the House floor to vote, that rather than use the
salaries for them, instead of asking our children to pay, we no longer
have elevator operators push the buttons as we travel from one place to
another in this community.
Many people in America do not realize this, but there are literally
people that sit in the elevators and push the buttons so that Members
of Congress do not have to push their own elevator buttons. So my
suggestion was, why do we not take the money that we are using in those
salaries, and those folks can be reassigned. I know them and they are
very capable and responsible people, and they can easily be reassigned
elsewhere as people retire, and so on, to fill the place of people who
are retiring. So we take those folks that were sitting in the
elevators, Members of Congress are perfectly capable of pushing their
own elevator buttons, and they take that salary money and apply it to
offset the cost of helping the flood victims.
Now does it not sound reasonable to my colleagues that instead of
spending the money on elevator operators that we would help flood
victims instead? And does it not seem reasonable that instead of
passing this debt on to our children and simply going, let the kids
pay, spend now, pay later, instead of letting the kids pay that we find
things like the elevator operators that we can do without?
Certainly, Members of Congress, if they figured out how to get
elected, are perfectly capable of figuring out how to push the elevator
buttons. I have great confidence. I say that tongue in cheek, but the
reality is I know that we do not have to spend $500,000 a year of the
taxpayers' money on this particular topic in Washington, DC, and that
money could be applied to help the flood victims rather than simply
saying we are going to spend the money, let the kids pay.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. If the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann] would
yield, I think that there are plenty of examples. The gentleman from
Wisconsin has illustrated one. But I think perhaps even to the point,
we are paying to rebuild villages and countries all over the world; and
I think this is one example where we probably have got to rebuild some
of our villages and our cities first.
It really is a matter of priorities. I applaud the Committee on
Appropriations for what it is doing, but I do not think we should get
away from the basic goal of balancing the people's books. Partly, as
the gentleman says, it is a moral issue. It is not just an accounting
exercise, it is about preserving the American dream for our kids.
Every time something comes along where we say we want to balance the
budget but, we would balance the budget but, we have just got to
eliminate those ``yes, buts.''
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, I heard the gentleman from Minnesota
[Mr. Gutknecht] say that charity begins at home. I believe that the
ethic that the gentleman was talking about and that my colleague, the
gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann], is talking about also begins at
home, that we, as Members of Congress, should save this country
$500,000 by pushing our own elevator buttons for automatic elevators.
Let me take it a step further. I certainly hope I do not make some
fellow Members uncomfortable, but we had quite a showdown a couple
weeks ago because we believe that this Congress should abide by the
same rules that middle-class Americans abide by; and if you do not have
money, if you are $5.4 trillion in debt, then you do not raise the
spending for your own committees and for your own appropriations.
That is going to be a pitched battle. I have seen some reports in the
paper today that I know have to be inaccurate that talk about how our
leadership is actually going to some of the most liberal Members in
this House in trying to strike a deal because they are so desperate to
get committee funding increased that they would rather deal with those
that spin us into debt for the past 40 years instead of talking to
those of us who believe that one only spends as much money as one takes
in.
I know that those news accounts are inaccurate. I have full
confidence in it. I know that our leadership is going to come back here
and they are going to say, if we want the American people to only spend
as much money as they take in, then we are going to live by those rules
ourselves, that the ethic that got us through the Great Depression, the
ethic that got us through World War II, that made America the last
great hope for this dying world, that we will live by those same rules.
Mr. NEUMANN. Reclaiming my time, is it not nice to have confidence in
the Republican leadership to know that Republicans do not stand for
increasing the size of Washington committee staffs; Republicans stand
for making Washington smaller and less intrusive in our lives?
So certainly, Republican leadership is not going to bring us a bill
with a 14\1/2\-percent spending increase. Republicans stand for getting
to a balanced budget. That was our issue a long time ago. We really do
mean that we want to get to a balanced budget.
So I know that our Republican leadership is not going to allow a bill
to come to the floor of the House that spends now and passes the
spending debt on to our children, the spend-now-pay-later plan of
spending $4,900 million of our children's money.
{time} 1745
I know our Republican leadership understands that we have to go
elsewhere in the budget and find wasteful spending to offset this new
spending for a legitimate reason.
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. If the gentleman will yield, of course, they would
have to. Because how could one say on one hand, we have got to balance
this budget, we have got to get by on less, we have got to freeze
discretionary spending, and then turn around and increase your own
budget by 15 percent? These are some very intelligent people,
[[Page H1864]]
and I have confidence that the same fire that brought this party to a
majority in 1994, the same visionary leadership, the same visionary
courage that had men and women across the country saying we will live
by the same rules that middle-class Americans live by, that sounds so
simple in Washington, DC. I know they are not going to back down now.
Because to do so would be sending a dangerous message, and I know they
are not going to do that. I am glad to be a member of a party that has
such courageous leadership.
Mr. NEUMANN. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. To change the subject slightly, there was a Pepsi
commercial that used to say life is a series of choices. And really
Congress is about making choices. We may have to have some different
priorities. It may mean that we will have to delay the purchase of some
of the B-2 bombers. It may mean that we are going to have to pull our
troops out of Bosnia sooner because we simply cannot afford $2.5
billion a year to keep troops in a country that may or may not ever be
at peace with itself.
There are a lot of choices that we are going to have to make in this
Congress, and they are not easy choices, but I hope that we will not
say to people, whether it be in Grand Forks, ND, or East Grand Forks or
some of those people who really are suffering that we are not going to
help you.
I really do think we have to help those people, but then we have got
to make the tough choices. And as I think what you are saying is,
Congress has got to lead by example as well. We are going to have in
the next several weeks a number of tough choices. I would hope that
within 2 weeks, this House will have on the floor a budget resolution
which will be the blueprint. Hopefully, it will be an agreement between
the White House and the Congress. And there are negotiations going on,
and we hear rumors that one day they feel like they are close, the next
day they are far apart. We really don't know, and they have been very
tight-lipped about what exactly the terms and conditions are that are
on the table.
But we hope there will be an agreement between the White House and
the Congress on a budget resolution. But even if there is not, this
House is going to have to pass a budget resolution very soon and it is
going to mean some tough choices. We are not going to turn our backs on
people, and particularly Americans who are desperately in need and then
say to other countries and other people around the world, well, sure,
Uncle Sam will be there to bail you out.
So we are not going to turn our backs on those people who are
suffering in the United States and continue to provide unlimited
foreign aid to some of these other nations.
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. If the gentleman will yield, he brings up a good
point. We talked about Congress negotiating with the President.
Obviously, we negotiate with the Senate also. Let me just say this:
This is something that gets lost in all the discussions about the
budget.
The Constitution says that this body, the people's House, as the
Speaker says, this body that is closest to the people has the
checkbook. And so we have to stop pointing our fingers at the Senate,
we have to stop pointing our fingers at the White House, and we need to
recognize that we have the checkbook, that all spending originates
here, all bills that have anything to do with spending originate here,
and so we have the ultimate responsibility.
We have got to take personal responsibility for that instead of
turning and whining about how the Senate moderates everything or how
the White House is addicted to spending. Whether that is true or not is
completely irrelevant. We have the checkbook in our hand. If we have a
checkbook in our hand and our children come up and say they want to
spend money on Nintendo games or they want to spend money on a trip
this summer, they want to go to Disney World, if we do not have the
money, we have the checkbook in our hand, and if we go ahead and write
a bad check to our children just because we are afraid of the
consequences, then we have no moral courage and do not have the moral
fiber that we have to have to make the tough decisions. We need to
always remember that. Unfortunately, it seems to me at times that
Congress has forgotten that.
Mr. NEUMANN. There is one thing the gentleman from Minnesota
mentioned; priority spending. There is kind of a myth going on out here
in Washington D.C., and I noticed it at our town hall meetings, we just
held about 20 of them. The myth has really penetrated to the public
that they believe defense spending has gone straight up and very, very
few people in this Nation recognize the fact that defense spending has
actually dropped, in actual dollars spent, dollars written out of the
checkbook from $300 to $266 billion a year from 1990 to 1996.
In real dollars, it has gone down even more. In real dollars, that is
dollars adjusted for inflation, it is comparable to a drop from $325 to
$242 billion over that 6-year span of time.
The other thing that is out there kind of as a myth is that with this
defense spending increase, and we are cutting all these other areas in
Government. Well, the reality is that is not true, either. The reality
is these other areas called nondefense discretionary spending have
risen dramatically from $165 billion in 1986 all the way up to $268
billion 10 years later. So over a 10-year period of time, it has nearly
doubled, in spending in these other areas called nondefense.
Everybody blames Social Security and Medicare and all of that stuff
for rising too fast. The reality is it is not just there. It is these
other programs, too, that have gone up by over $100 billion over that
10-year period of time. I, for one, would just take the opportunity
when you mention priority and spending to work again to dispel the myth
that somehow defense spending is the cause of the problem.
In fact, defense spending has dropped over the last 10 years in
either real dollars or actual dollars coming out of the checkbook. I
think it is important, because the threat is growing around the world.
We do need to maintain our defense.
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. If the gentleman will yield quickly, a couple of
quick numbers. We are spending less on defense today per ratio of how
much we have at any level since 1939, before World War II and Pearl
Harbor. The dire consequences are these: We have enlisted men and women
who are on food stamps. We have promises that are being broken to our
military retirees and our veterans. We cannot sustain the continued
cuts unless we want to face dire consequences in the 21st century.
We have to be concerned about a system that allows men and women that
are protecting this country to live on food stamps. The quality of life
right now for men and women in the armed services is absolutely dismal,
at its lowest level ever.
Mr. NEUMANN. I would just add in the defense area that defense is not
above wasting some money either and certainly is subject to our review
as we find areas of waste within defense so that those dollars can be
reallocated and better spent for the defense of this Nation.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. If the gentleman will yield, I would make this point
as well. We heard a lot about when we won the cold war, and frankly, I
think sometimes we are too timid to say, we won the cold war. The
military buildup of the 1980's was perhaps, in my opinion, one of the
greatest investments in the history of human beings because we
literally won the Third World War, the cold war, if you will, without
firing a shot. It was because of the buildup. Now, we are seeing some
of that peace dividend.
Real defense spending has dropped by over 30 percent in the last 5
years. A lot of people talked about the peace dividend. But I think
most of us would agree that that peace dividend ought to go to our
children rather than go into even higher domestic discretionary
spending. Unfortunately the gentleman from Wisconsin is absolutely
right. What we have seen is dramatic increases in domestic
discretionary spending along with entitlements as defense spending has
come down. But let me just say this, too, and I think this is an
important point, and we should have a healthy debate about how many B-2
bombers we really need. The gentleman from Wisconsin may disagree with
me and the gentleman from Florida may disagree with me, but I think we
probably have enough
[[Page H1865]]
B-2 bombers. But let us have that debate. Even within the Defense
Department, whether or not we need to move ahead with some of the other
new weapon systems or if they can be delayed. We live in a relatively
safe world. I do not want to cut defense irrationally, but on the other
hand I do not think any area of the budget should just be rubber-
stamped by this Congress. As I say, we have got to set priorities and
clearly at this point in time one of those priorities has to be people
who are hurting in disaster areas such as northwest Minnesota.
Mr. NEUMANN. We are nearing the end of the hour that we have reserved
to us this evening and I thought I would bring the discussion kind of
back to where we started, and that is this picture that shows the
growing debt facing this Nation of ours and maybe talk a little bit
about an issue that is very important, that is probably not now coming
to the floor of the House but we hope it does in the future, and that
is the balanced budget amendment. I have had a lot of people in our
town hall meetings again asking me the question, ``Do we really need
the balanced budget amendment?'' I have been asking those people back
when they ask me that question, I just point to this chart and point to
the growing debt, and then I ask them, if we did manage to get to a
balanced budget in 2002 and let us be optimistic and say we got to a
balanced budget without using the Social Security trust fund money, we
got Washington to stop spending the Social Security trust fund money,
we got the job done. Do you really think that in 2003 they would
balance the budget again? Or do you think we would go back to our old
ways? And even if we managed to do it in 2002 and 2003, how long would
it take before they went back to their old ways of this growing debt?
That is why a balanced budget amendment that has failed by one vote
three times in the Senate of the United States is so important. I hope
on the other side they decide to bring it back again and get another
vote on it so that we have what Wisconsin already has in its
constitution, a requirement that we do not spend more money than we
have. It is not about a balanced budget. It is about our children's
future and whether or not they can hope to have a future in this great
Nation of ours. Without a balanced budget amendment even if we manage
to get the job done by 2002, we have those after years, 2003, 2004,
2005, 2006, and so on to worry about. Fixing the problem temporarily by
2002 is not going to solve the long-term problem without the balanced
budget amendment to the Constitution.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. As I have said before, and one of the things I really
like about the budget plans that the gentleman and I have worked on,
and frankly the gentleman from Wisconsin has done a lot more of the
work than I have, but as a famous architect from Chicago said, ``Make
no small plans.'' I think we need a big vision, and I think the vision
should not be just to balance the budget by the year 2002. I think
the real vision and the real goal ought to be to pay off that national
debt. As the gentleman says, and I certainly agree, I can think of no
better thing to leave our kids than a debt-free future. We have an
opportunity to do that if we will exercise the discipline this year and
every year. As we have said before, balancing the budget is not
something you do next year. Balancing the budget is something you do
this year. It is something you do every day. That is why as we look at
this supplemental appropriation, I hope that the gentleman is
successful in the Appropriations Committee to make certain that we set
those priorities, that we rearrange some of the budget so that we can
take care of those people who are hurting and needing in certain areas
of our country and still stay on that glide path to balancing the
budget.
Mr. NEUMANN. Would the gentleman not say that is also true of the
Social Security issue? The issue where the Federal Government is
collecting out of paychecks about $65 billion more than it is paying
back out to seniors and that that money is supposed to be set aside in
the savings account but Washington is instead spending that money? Is
that not a day-to-day struggle also to prevent Washington from spending
that money?
When Washington talks about getting to this balanced budget in 2002,
we cannot accept getting to the balanced budget by going into the
Social Security trust fund and taking that money out, taking $104
billion out of the trust fund, putting it in the checkbook. That is not
good enough. That is not really a balanced budget. Is that not what
this fight is about day to day out here to stop Washington from
spending that Social Security money, get us to a balanced budget but do
it the right way without using the Social Security trust fund money to
get there? Are those not the battles that we are engaged in out here
day after day after day in this city?
Mr. GUTKNECHT. We are certainly in a wonderful position. We are given
a golden opportunity. We are at relative peace and relative prosperity
here in this country. If we cannot balance the budget and save Social
Security now, I do not know when we will.
Mr. NEUMANN. I thank the gentleman. I would conclude tonight with a
very optimistic picture for the future of this great Nation that we
live in. We have it within our grasp, within our means, within our
understanding to do what is right for the future of this country. We
have laid out a plan that gets us to a balanced budget by 2002, lets
the American people keep more of their own hard-earned money, sets
aside the Social Security trust fund money that estops Washington from
spending the money that is supposed to be in the Social Security trust
fund and at the same time looks past the year 2002 to 2003, 2004 and
beyond, looks at paying off the Federal debt so instead of taking $600
a month from our families of five in America, that instead of doing
that to just pay the interest on the Federal debt that we can look at
the families keeping that money, using it for education, using it for
things that are so important in our families in America today.
We do have a big vision for the future of this great Nation we live
in. It includes a balanced budget, it includes protecting and
preserving Social Security and fulfilling our commitment to our seniors
in Medicare. It includes letting the American people keep more of their
own hard-earned money. There is just no reason not to look past that
and look to the big picture and say, yes, we can pay off the Federal
debt and, yes, we can get to a point where our people do not need to
pay $600 a month to do nothing but pay the interest. Let our families
keep that money in their own pockets to spend in the way that they deem
most appropriate instead of sending it out to Washington to do nothing
but pay the interest on the Federal debt.
I see a very bright future for America because if we manage to
implement these sorts of plans, that means the Government is going to
quit borrowing the money out of the private sector, leave the money in
the private sector. When there is more money in the private sector,
that means the interest rates stay down and when the interest rates
stay down that is a bright picture because then people can afford to
buy houses and cars and all the other things that they do when the
interest rates are low, and that means somebody has to build those
houses and build those cars and that is job opportunities for the young
people in this great Nation that we live in. These are our hopes and
dreams for America's future. God bless you all.
____________________