[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 84 (Tuesday, June 17, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H3853-H3859]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  NATIONAL DEBT REPAYMENT ACT OF 1997

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Metcalf). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann] 
is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. NEUMANN. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about a bill which 
will be introduced later in this week. It is called the National Debt 
Repayment Act of 1997. But before I begin, I want to just pause and 
recognize some very special people in this country.
  Sunday was Father's Day, and children all across America, myself 
included for my own father, we paused to say ``thank you'' to our dads 
for what they have done.
  Tonight, I want to pay special tribute to some other very important 
people in this country, and that is father-in-laws. Many times father-
in-laws provide the insight and wisdom that contribute so much to the 
success of our families all across America.
  So before I start the debate on the National Debt Repayment Act this 
evening, I wanted to just start by paying tribute to a very special 
person in my life, my father-in-law, and to others like him all across 
this country who have done so much to make it the great country that it 
is.
  Having said that, I want to address the national debt, where we stand 
and what we can do about it, and how the National Debt Repayment Act 
might have something to do with it.
  To begin with this evening, I want to take a look at how the debt has 
been growing. The debt facing this Nation from 1960 to 1980 did not 
grow very much. It is a pretty flat line from 1960 to 1980. But from 
1980 forward it has been growing at a very, very rapid rate.
  And to all my colleagues out there, I know the Democrats say, well, 
1980, that is the year Ronald Reagan got elected, so let us blame him. 
And to all the Republicans out there, I know they say, well, in 1980, 
there was the Democrat-controlled Congress and they spent too much 
money, and so all the Republicans blame the Democrats.
  Well, the bottom line on this thing, when we look at this chart, we 
are way up here on this debt chart right now. Here is 1999, 1998, 1997. 
We are way up near the top of that debt chart. It is time we stop 
blaming Republicans and Democrats, depending on which side of the aisle 
we are on, and start addressing this for the problem it really is, a 
problem that is facing the American people, a problem that has the 
potential to bring this great Nation to its knees if it is not 
addressed.
  For the folks that have not seen how serious this debt problem really 
is, we currently stand about $5.3 trillion in debt. The number looks 
like this, and it is a pretty big number, but let me translate that 
number back into English. Before I came to Congress, I was a math 
teacher. And here is a math problem we used to do in our math 
classroom.
  We took that total debt and divided by the number of people in the 
United States of America. That is to say, every person in the United 
States of America is responsible for $20,000 of this debt. Or put 
another way, the Federal Government has borrowed $20,000 on behalf of 
every man, woman, and child in the country.
  For a family of five like mine, I have three kids at home, one is 20 
now, another 18, another one 14, for a family of five like mine, they 
have borrowed $100,000 basically over the last 15 years. It is a 
staggering sum of money.
  The kicker in this whole thing is really this number right down here. 
The average family of five in America today, or any group of five 
people in America today, they are paying $580 a month, every month, to 
do nothing but pay the interest on the Federal debt. Let me say that 
once more, because it is important to understand how much money is 
being taken out of the pockets of American citizens and sent to 
Washington, DC to do nothing but pay the interest on the Federal debt.
  The average family of five in America today sends $580 a month to 
Washington to do nothing but pay the interest on the Federal debt.
  I know a lot of my colleagues out there go, ``Well, a lot of the 
families I know, they do not pay that much in taxes.'' But the reality 
is every time we walk into the store and we buy a loaf of bread, the 
storeowner either makes a small profit on that loaf of bread or he is 
going out of business. So we hope he or she is making a profit. When 
they make a small profit on that loaf of bread that we just bought in 
the local grocery store, part of that profit gets sent to Washington 
and it is used to pay this interest on the Federal debt.
  So the reality is we are currently in a situation in this country 
where an average family of five is sending almost $600 a month to 
Washington to do nothing but pay the interest on the Federal debt.
  The American public seems to be a little cynical about what we are 
doing about this. And in fact they have had so many promises made to 
them in the past that, frankly, I understand why they are cynical.
  In the 1980's, I was not in politics. In fact, I had never been to a 
political

[[Page H3854]]

event at that point in time. So in the 1980's, I watched something 
called the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings bill, and I watched it with great 
interest because under the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings bill, passed in 1985, 
we were promised by the people out here in Washington that we would see 
a deficit stream that follows this blue line. In fact, it would lead to 
a balanced budget by the year 1991 under that original plan.
  The problem is the deficit did not follow that blue path. In fact, 
they hit their target only once and then the deficit skyrocketed. So 
the people in Washington decided, well, we could not really hold the 
line on spending out here in Washington, there are too many new 
programs we want to institute from out here in the District of 
Columbia, so what we will do is make the American people a brand new 
promise. We know we cannot keep our first promise, so we will make the 
American people a brand new promise, and they wrote the Gramm-Rudman-
Hollings fix of 1987.
  Again they promised the American people a balanced budget with 
deficit streams following this blue line, but again deficits did not 
match up. They did not hit their target.

                              {time}  2115

  The reason I came to Washington, the reason I left a good business in 
the private sector to run for office in the first place is because I 
got kind of fed up with the promises that were being made out in this 
city that were not being kept. It seemed to me that this Government 
should be made up of people of integrity, that when they told the 
American people they were going to balance the budget they would 
actually do it.
  I know all the pressures to do something different, and I understand 
the huge pressures on the people here to spend more money and to allow 
these deficit here to spend more money and to allow these deficit lines 
to go anywhere but along the path to balance the budget. But there is 
an interesting thing that happened. In 1995, a whole new group of 
people came here. They were elected in 1994. And that group of people 
said, we are not going to tolerate this. We are going to balance the 
budget. And we made a hole bunch of promises to the American people.
  This fact is almost unknown. We promised the American people a 
balanced budget, too. This red line shows what we promised for a 
deficit in the fiscal year 1996. This blue line shows the actual 
deficit. Please note, the red is taller than the blue. What that means 
is we not only hit our deficit targets for 1996, but we are ahead of 
schedule.
  So we are now in fiscal year 1997 and it is almost over. We promised 
the American people a deficit line along this red column again. We not 
only hit our projection in fiscal year 1997, but we are $100 billion 
ahead of schedule. So the facts are we now are in the third year of 
this plan to balance the budget, the promise made in 1995, and in fact 
in the third year of this plan, we are once again ahead of schedule. 
And under the budget resolution with the guidance of the gentleman from 
Ohio [John Kasich] that was just passed out here, we will stay ahead of 
schedule right straight through to the year we balance the budget.
  We are going to talk more about that later. Because the facts are we 
are so far ahead of schedule in this plan right now, we may actually 
balance the budget sooner, not later. Let me say this once more because 
it is really important. There is a huge difference between 1988 and the 
Gramm-Rudman-Hollings bills and today, 1995, 1996, 1997.
  The promises made back there in the 1980's made the American people 
very cynical. When people in Washington talked about balancing the 
budget they said, yeah, sure we have heard that before. Folks, things 
have changed out here in Washington. In fact, we are not only on track 
to balancing the budget; here is what we promised for 1996. Here is 
what happened. We are ahead of schedule. Here is what we promised for 
1997. Here is what happened. These are not promises anymore. These are 
in the bank. There are done. These years are finished. We are ahead of 
schedule in both of the first two years and we are now working on the 
plan for the third year, and we are going to stay ahead of schedule by 
at least $50 billion again in the third year.
  How did all this happen? In 1995, we came here with a theory. The 
theory did not go, like 1993, how much taxes should we raise? How much 
more money can we take out of the pockets of the American people? We 
did not come here with the idea of increasing taxes to get this thing 
under control. We came here with this theory, and the theory went like 
this: If we can just control the growth of Government spending so 
Government spending did not keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger, 
if we could control the growth in Government spending, that would mean 
the Government would spend less, therefore, borrow less from the 
private sector. When the Government borrowed less out of the private 
sector, that meant that there was going to be more money available in 
the private sector.
  Well, this does not take Einstein to figure it out. Where there is 
more money available, interest rates stay down. That is a looser money 
supply leading to lower interest rates. Lower interest rates meant 
people bought more houses and cars than anyone expected. And when they 
bought more houses and cars, of course that meant somebody had to go to 
work to build the houses and cars. And when those people went to work 
building the houses and cars, they left the welfare roles, thereby 
reducing the cost from Washington and they started paying taxes in.
  So this working model of reducing Government spending, meaning less 
borrowing, leaving more money available in the private sector, keeping 
the interest rates down, so people buy more houses and cars and other 
things and other people go to work building those houses and cars, led 
to lower numbers of people on welfare, more people working, and of 
course that meant less cost and more revenue coming in.
  And the results are very, very clear. This is no longer a theoretical 
model. The results are clear. Our promised deficit for 1996; our actual 
deficit. We are ahead of schedule. Our promised deficit for 1997; our 
actual deficit. We are ahead of schedule. We are now onto year three 
and again we are projecting at least $50 billion ahead of schedule in 
year three.
  Folks, this is great news for the future of this country. This means 
a whole bunch of things. The most important, of course, is that we will 
get to a balanced budget. But beyond that, it means that we now have a 
group of people in Washington who have made promises to the American 
people and those promises in year one and year two, they have been 
kept. It is not a question of will they be kept. They have been kept. 
It is history now, it has been done.
  So now we are into year three and we are back into the promises. We 
are in the third year of our plan to balance the budget. Sooner or 
later, though, the American people need to understand that we are into 
the third year, 2 years under our belt, 2 years of successes, and we 
need to start accepting the fact that this is actually going to happen 
in the not too distant future.
  Again, how did this come about? Well, it did not come about by 
raising taxes. We did not go back to 1993 and start this discussion, 
how much more money can we get out of the pockets of the people and 
which taxes should we raise this highest. That was not the discussion. 
The discussion in this city in 1995 was how do we control the growth of 
Government spending? Can we just get this Government to a point where 
it is not growing bigger and having more and more influence over all 
the lives of the people? Can we get to a point where the influence of 
the lives of the people is back in the homes where it belongs? Can we 
get Government spending under control? That is what it was all about.
  This chart shows what happened. In the 7 years before 1995, spending 
was growing at an average rate of 5.2 percent, the red column here. In 
the first 7 years after 1995, we are in the third of those 7 now, in 
the first 7 years after 1995, spending only grew at 3.2 percent. That 
is a 40 percent reduction in the growth of spending. This theoretical 
model of slowing the growth of Government spending is working. And that 
is very, very important as we look forward to future years.
  In fact, if we adjust for inflation, we would find that the rate of 
growth of Government spending has been reduced

[[Page H3855]]

by two-thirds. Now, I have to pause on this chart also and I have to 
just mention that I have heard so much discussion out there about 
Government cuts and cuts in Government spending and then name your 
program. Well, the reality is we have not cut Government spending. Even 
under the Republican plans where we are controlling the growth of 
Government spending, it is still going up 3.2 percent a year.

  There are a lot of people out here, myself included, that think we 
can do much better. But the fact that we have improved it by 40 
percent, that is a good step in the right direction. It has been done 
in two short years. And I think we will do better as we go forward. But 
the reality is this is a huge win for the American people.
  By reducing the growth in Government spending by 5.2 to 3.2 percent, 
or in real dollars from 1.8 to .6, at two-thirds reduction in the 
growth rate of this Government, that means people will maintain more 
control over their own money and over their own lives. And that is what 
this chart is all about. It means people keep control over their own 
money and their own lives in their own homes where it belongs. And that 
is what should be read into this chart, and that is the direction we 
are headed.
  And frankly, when we look at this and we see that growth of 
Government spending controlled, that is how come we are ahead of 
schedule, that is how come when we said we were going to have deficits 
of one number we were ahead of schedule in both years, and that is how 
come it is different than back in the 1980's with the Gramm-Rudman-
Hollings Act.
  The reality is we are doing it and it is happening, and it is very 
exciting. Something else that is about to happen and this brings us to 
the national debt repayment act, because even after we get to a 
balanced budget, whenever that occurs, we still have a $5.3 trillion 
debt hanging over our head. And that brings us to the National Debt 
Repayment Act.
  Now, I brought one more chart with me and there are a lot of numbers 
in this chart, but I am going to point out just a couple of them so we 
get a handle on why this National Debt Repayment Act is so important. 
First off, the National Debt Repayment Act, after we reached a balanced 
budget, caps the growth in Government spending at a rate of one per 
lower than the rate of revenue growth. So if revenues were to go up by 
6 percent, spending growth would be capped at 5 percent, still faster 
than the rate of inflation but capped at one percent below the rate of 
revenue growth.
  If we do that, the entire Federal debt, all of it, is repaid by the 
year 2025 and we can pass this Nation on to our children debt free, 
which means that our families a generation from now, instead of sending 
$500 a month to Washington to pay interest on the debt will be able to 
keep that money in their own homes.
  We hear so many discussions out here about education and about things 
that families could do with this money like education. Would it not be 
great if we had a zero debt and instead of sending $500 a month to 
Washington to do nothing but pay the interest on the debt, you could 
keep that out there in your house. That is the National Debt Repayment 
Act. But it does something else that is very important, too.
  As we are repaying the debt, we are also putting the money back into 
the Social Security trust fund. I see I am joined by my good friend, 
the gentleman from Arizona, J.D. Hayworth.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to my good friend.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. 
Neumann] and those who join us coast to coast in this Chamber this 
evening. I just wanted to say that my colleague from Wisconsin [Mr. 
Neumann] offers a very commonsense approach to the next step. And I 
think the gentleman from Wisconsin in his introductory remarks has 
pointed out and offered to us a very reasonable approach here based on 
what has happened before.
  And certainly we understand, coming from outside the Washington 
merry-go-round, as so many people called it for so many years, outside 
the beltway, that there is a lot of cynicism out there. And I 
appreciate the fact that my colleagues pointed out that our budget 
agreement really projects very modest growth and that is why we have 
the realistic point of view.
  But even more so, the notion that we can repay the national debt is 
vitally important. Because when I go across the width and breadth of 
the 6th District of Arizona, an area in square mileage about the size 
of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and hold town hall meetings, 
people will come and, yes, they will talk about the annual deficits, 
but inevitably someone steps to the microphone and says, Congressman, 
that is fine. But how do we get a handle on this five plus trillion 
dollar national debt that we are leaving our children?
  I just think, Mr. Speaker, that my colleague from Wisconsin [Mr. 
Neumann] offers a lot of commonsense based on his background as a math 
teacher, based on his business acumen as a home builder; and I just 
appreciate this foundation, if you will, of a practical, commonsense 
plan to make sure that our children have a debt-free future.
  And I cannot help but remark as I heard my colleague from Wisconsin 
talk about his father-in-law, I think about my father-in-law down in 
Yuma, AZ, someone who spent his years in the Marine Corps defending 
this country away from home for years on end, and I think about the 
legacy of those who have gone before, many of the veterans I visit with 
in the 6th district, veterans of World War II, the Korean war, Vietnam, 
Desert Storm, people would have answered the call. And do I believe, as 
President Franklin Roosevelt said, to different generations fall 
different responsibilities.
  And God willing, if we can avoid a major worldwide conflict, and 
certainly we hope and pray with a strong national defense and 
reasonable approaches worldwide we will be able to do so, but our 
challenge, our rendezvous with destiny will be a reconciliation and 
elimination of this national debt after we take the first step of 
eliminating these annual deficits.
  So I just wanted to come down here and tell my colleague from 
Wisconsin, Mr. Speaker, and those who join us that this plan bears 
definite consideration and support as we ask the reasonable, logical, 
and practical question: Where do we go from here? For these reasons, I 
salute my colleague from Wisconsin.
  Mr. NEUMANN. Mr. Speaker, I think we should jointly here show the 
American people just how positive and how close we really are to a 
balanced budget and how far ahead of schedule. If we look at the 
average Federal revenue growth, how much Government growth, revenue, 
money coming in, your money, the American people's money, how much 
money has been coming in each year, average Federal revenue growth, in 
the last 3 years it has been going up by 7.3 percent average. The last 
5 years it has been going up by 7.3 percent average. The last 10 years, 
6.2 percent average; 17 years 6.8.
  I read those numbers off because I think it is significant in the 
budget resolution we just passed, we did not project 7 percent growth 
or 7.3 or 6 percent growth, we only projected 4 percent growth. So I 
asked the question, what would happen in fact if instead of 4 percent 
growth in revenue, it did what was more historical here. I did not even 
put in 7 or 6.8. I only put in 6 percent. And in fact if revenues to 
the Federal Government do grow by 6 percent, not as much as they have 
been going up, but by 6 percent, we will in fact have a balanced budget 
by the year 2000.
  This is almost inconceivable in this community. If revenues keep 
going up the way they have been going up and we hit our spending 
targets, and this is the challenge of course, but if we just hit the 
spending targets that are in that budget resolution and revenues grow 
by 6 percent, we in fact have a surplus in the year 2000. Our first 
year of a balanced budget is the year 2000, and we would in fact run a 
surplus. And that is when the National Debt Repayment Act would kick 
in.
  The act would do two things. First it would cap growth in Government 
spending after that first balanced year at a rate 1 percent below the 
rate of revenue growth. That guarantees a surplus. Because if we are at 
balance and spending goes up 4 percent, revenue would have to go up 5 
percent, at least a 1 percent gap. That guarantees us a surplus.

[[Page H3856]]

                              {time}  2130

  The first thing this bill does is it caps the growth in Government 
spending 1 percent below the rate of revenue growth. The second thing 
it does is it tells the treasurer what to do with that surplus money 
because my fear in this community is that they are going to want to 
spend that money. So what the second thing our bill does is it says 
that two-thirds of that surplus goes to pay down the debt, and one-
third goes back to the American people. It is, after all, their money. 
All we are doing is letting them keep it out in their homes instead of 
sending it on down here to Washington, DC.
  When we start paying down the debt, a very important thing happens. 
Social Security has been collecting more money than it has been paying 
out for a long time, since 1983, collects more money than it pays out 
to seniors in benefits. That money is supposed to be sitting here in a 
savings account. It is not here. All that is here is a bunch of IOU's. 
That is part of the debt, though. So when we start paying down the 
debt, we also put real money back in the Social Security trust fund so 
Social Security is once again solvent.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. If the gentleman will yield, I do not think this point 
can be stressed enough. I know that I joined with the gentleman in the 
Social Security Preservation Act with this purpose in mind. I am glad 
to see this notion incorporated into the National Debt Repayment Act, 
so that we have real funds, tangible funds and not some sort of slips 
of paper that say IOU when we are dealing with something as sensitive 
and as important as Social Security, something else that affects my 
parents, affects my colleague from Wisconsin's parents and obviously 
affects many of our constituents. Again, I salute this very rational, 
reasonable framework.
  Let me just depart for a second, because I think this is important, 
too, because, Mr. Speaker, ofttimes when we come to this floor for 
purposes of explanation, and certainly given my colleague's ability to 
explain these concepts in very simple, easy-to-understand terms, there 
is a temptation by those who oppose us to claim that we have simply got 
on our green eyeshades, to claim that we are simply sitting here with 
calculators. Indeed there are those critics who would claim that within 
our chests beat calculators instead of human hearts. Let me assure, Mr. 
Speaker, those who might rise in opposition to us that it is precisely 
because of compassion that we offer this, that it is precisely because 
we want a firm foundation and to fulfill promises made by this 
Government to our seniors but also to provide for those generations who 
are younger, for those generations yet unborn a reasonable framework 
and a reasonable, rational way that they can have a constitutional 
republic and enjoy the freedoms that we have had. And so that is what I 
think is important to stress. This is not something that needs to be 
necessarily caught up in decimals and in dollar signs, if you will, but 
with a very real, compassionate, tangible goal. That is, the 
preservation of this country, the preservation of this constitutional 
republic to silence and to diminish this very genuine, silent killer, 
if you will, the twin maladies of annual deficits and the national 
debt. That is another reason we have to look at this with great 
interest, because it is the ultimate act of compassion. While of course 
it is inevitable that we talk about numbers and explain this in a 
common sense term, undergirding all of this is the example and the 
notion of true compassion. As my colleague from Wisconsin mentioned 
earlier, as we cannot say too often, Mr. Speaker, the money belongs to 
the people that earn it. The money does not belong to this government. 
Our job, our mission here poised for the next century is to realize and 
act upon that basic truth. The money belongs to the people of the 
United States. They should hang on to more of it and send less of it 
here to Washington, DC. That is a point that I think we should 
reemphasize.
  Mr. NEUMANN. I cannot emphasize enough how strongly I agree with the 
gentleman. The gentleman is right. There are a lot of numbers up here. 
I think we do have to have a plan in place that is going to lead to 
this, but it is not about these numbers. It is about the families that 
get to keep $500 a month more instead of sending it down here to 
Washington to put as interest on the Federal debt. It is about those 
families and what they can do with that $500 a month. Our current tax 
cut package, I have talked to a lot of families in our district, I 
really get a kick out of the people out here who say the American 
people do not want tax cuts. Wrong. When I talk to folks in our 
district, family friends from church, three kids, one headed off to 
college, I say, ``Do you think you're going to use that $500 per 
child?'' They have got two kids still at home so it is $1,000. The 
college tuition credit, of course, is another $1,500. They are looking 
at receiving $2,500. They are not rich people. They are middle-income 
folks, probably $40,000, $50,000-a-year kind of people, nice friendly 
Janesville kind of people from Wisconsin. When we talk to them about 
keeping $2,500 more a year in their pocket, they understand these tax 
cuts. When we start thinking about the National Debt Repayment Act, can 
the gentleman see this vision of America where instead of sending that 
$500 a month down here, and now we are not talking about a year, we are 
not talking about the $500 per child per year now, we are now talking 
about our families keeping $500 a month because that is how much this 
interest is, that is what these numbers really mean, they keep that 
money in their own homes to buy education for their kids, to buy the 
things that are most important to their family. The National Debt 
Repayment Act also means our seniors do not have to go to sleep 
wondering whether or not there is going to be Social Security. When we 
talk about this Social Security issue, one problem is that the money 
needs to be in that savings account so we can continue making the 
payments to our seniors. But the other thing is that if there is no 
money in the trust fund and we reach a point where we do not have 
enough money to pay out Social Security benefits, and that will happen 
sometime between now and 2012, that is a given, if we reach that point, 
the people in this town are only going to have two choices, get more 
taxes out of the working people or cut Social Security benefits. So the 
other very, very important thing that happens here is we restore the 
Social Security system to solvency, we put real dollars in the trust 
fund instead of the fictitious IOUs that are currently in there. As we 
keep going, the other thing that happens here when people fill up their 
cars with gasoline, every week or whenever you fill your car up with 
gas, you pay Federal gasoline tax. Some of that tax money has not been 
spent to build roads. It has been taken and spent on other programs. 
There is a highway trust fund, sort of like Social Security where they 
have collected these tax dollars when you fill your car up with gas, 
but instead of spending it to build roads like we would expect, it has 
been spent on other programs and they put an IOU in the highway trust 
fund, too. As we are paying on down the national debt, part of that 
debt is the highway trust fund. We would restore the highway trust fund 
as well. The other thing is we hear so much about the environment and 
how important the environment is to the future of this country. The 
environment trust funds exist also, trust funds for like cleaning up 
Superfund sites. Those areas have trust funds that have not been 
restored either. We have collected money but the money has been spent 
on other Government programs and there are IOU's in those trust funds, 
too. As we pay down this national debt, we are looking at restoring the 
Social Security trust funds so our seniors are safe, we are looking at 
the highway trust fund being restored so we can have a safer and more 
efficient road system in this country, a better infrastructure, and we 
are also looking at the environmental groups having the money that was 
supposed to be put into their trust fund actually spent to improve the 
environment in this great Nation.

  The kicker of all of this is at the same time, we get to reduce taxes 
even further on the American people because one-third of the surplus 
goes to tax cuts.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. If my colleague will yield further, again that points 
to one of our other aims as there have been changes in this Congress as 
we rethink the future, and that is the notion of transferring the 
money, power, and influence out of the hands of Washington bureaucrats, 
back to people at

[[Page H3857]]

home, beginning with the family but also including those local and 
State governments, those who are on the frontlines. Janesville, WI, 
differs greatly from Scottsdale, AZ. Indeed within Arizona in my own 
district which spans from Franklin to the four corners, to Flagstaff in 
the west, there are different circumstances and different challenges in 
an incredibly diverse district. So much the better, then, that we are 
able to establish a framework that pays off the debt that puts the 
trust back into these ironically named trust funds. If there is one of 
the oxymoronic phrases of Washington, DC, certainly as we stand here at 
this juncture of our history, it would be the notion of trust funds 
since so much of those funds have gone to other matters, pressing 
matters to be sure but matters for which those funds were not 
originally intended. We put the trust back into those trust funds but 
most importantly we have the money stay in the pockets to working 
Americans. That is vital.
  Mr. NEUMANN. This whole vision that we are talking about here for the 
future of our great country, it is so different than the 1980's where 
there were promises made under Gramm-Rudman-Hollings and those 
promises, for whatever reasons, could not be kept or were not kept or 
however we want to put it; they did not meet those targets to get us to 
a balanced budget.
  When we talk about trust, it is not only the trust accounts, it is 
the trust of the American people once again in their government, 
because after all this is their government, it is not you and me out 
here, it is the people's government out here.
  As we are now in the 3rd year of a 7-year plan to balance the budget, 
we are ahead of schedule in the 1st year, we are ahead of schedule in 
the 2nd year, we are ahead of schedule in the 3rd year. Some of that 
trust needs to gradually be restored and some of that cynical attitude 
out there that occurred because of what happened in the 1980's where so 
many promises were made and so many promises were broken. Is that not a 
great vision? We not only get to a balanced budget so that we quit 
spending our children's money and our children have hope for a future 
in this country, but we also pay down the national debt so our children 
inherit a nation debt free. When we are paying down the debt we put the 
money back in the Social Security trust fund, and by doing these things 
we restore the faith in the American people back in this institution, 
back in their government, because it is their government. It that not a 
great vision for the future of this country?
  Mr. HAYWORTH. As my colleague offers this scenario, I concur 
wholeheartedly. I also salute my colleague because, again, the 
temptation is when you come to this town, and obviously there are some 
philosophical differences, I find that many of us can oftentimes end up 
in partisan arguments that are almost pointless games of what if, or 
what happened in the past.
  I think it is worthwhile and quite candidly refreshing, Mr. Speaker, 
that my colleague from Wisconsin comes here not to point fingers at 
that side of the aisle or necessarily to try and gain partisan 
advantage, but simply to offer a plan that people of all political 
labels should seriously consider as we say, OK, what is past is prolog, 
that has gone before, we can continue to play these games of 
revisionist history, or we can deal with the problems that we have 
encountered with the simple notion that my colleague and I learned in 
Scouts: Try to leave this a better place than we found it.
  Really is it just as simple as that; that we can play the hand we 
have been dealt, that yes, we have made some changes; that yes, those 
changes have us on the road to a balanced budget much more quickly; 
that yes, last week in the House Committee on Ways and Means we were 
able to fashion a tax bill that does not offer as much tax relief as I 
would like or my colleagues from Wisconsin or indeed many folks would 
like, but is an important first step. Moving on that, we can build.
  Mr. NEUMANN. Is it not a wonderful fight we are going to have out 
here over which taxes we should cut and how far we should cut them? 
Think back to 1993. Does the gentleman remember 1993? The question was 
which taxes should we raise and how far should we raise them. This body 
by one vote passed the largest tax increase in American history. Then 
it went over to the Senate and the Senate by one vote cast the largest 
tax increase in American history.
  We are not talking about raising taxes to balance the budget. We are 
talking about reducing taxes and at the same time reducing the rate of 
growth of government spending because when the government grows less, 
we do not have to take as much money out of the pockets of the people. 
What a wonderful fight we are going to have out here as we debate which 
taxes should be reduced and how far we should reduce them and what a 
huge contrast we have between 1993 and 1997. Is it not a wonderful 
debate?
  Mr. HAYWORTH. I absolutely agree with my colleague from Wisconsin. I 
am heartened by the fact that as we take a look at the tax bill that 
moves out of the House Committee on Ways and Means that I was pleased 
to vote for last week, last Friday, 93 percent of those tax cuts go to 
families earning under $100,000; 75 percent of those tax cuts go to 
families earning less than $75,000. Though there is a temptation, and I 
heard earlier tonight when I had the privilege of sitting in the 
Speaker's chair for a previous special order, though there is the 
temptation to try and tinker with the numbers and cast a partisan light 
on them, these conclusions are drawn by the bipartisan Joint Tax 
Committee.
  So we have Republicans and Democrats taking a sober, practical view, 
not for political gain, simply saying that without a doubt, these tax 
cuts go to help working Americans more than anyone else. It is an 
important first step.
  Mr. NEUMANN. I think it is important that all of our colleagues 
understand part of this tax cut debate that is about to occur. What is 
being asked out here in Washington, DC, is can we cut taxes for people 
that are not paying taxes? When is a tax cut not a tax cut?
  Does the gentleman realize that we are about to enter into debate, 
that there are going to be people telling us that we should cut taxes 
for people that are paying no taxes. Let me explain how this might 
work. If you are on welfare today and you have got two kids in your 
house, you are not paying any taxes, you are already receiving a 
welfare check. There are some people out in this community that would 
like a tax cut to include those folks that are already on welfare and 
not paying any taxes in. To me, if you cut taxes on people that are not 
paying any taxes, does that not become a welfare program as opposed to 
a tax cut?

                             {time}   2145

  And that is what we got to watch out for as we go forward here. These 
tax cuts are designed to reach the people that get up every morning, 
make a lunch, go off to work, work hard all day and come home. This is 
money that we want them to keep in their own pockets as opposed to 
sending out here to Washington, DC.
  Tax cuts are designed for people who pay taxes.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. I again just want to comment on my colleague from 
Wisconsin making this very practical common sense point. How do you 
offer a tax cut to those who pay no taxes, and, Mr. Speaker, although 
there are those who might misunderstand, this is not standing here 
pointing the finger of blame toward any one segment of the society. It 
is simply asking the very practical question. It would seem to me that 
only in this town, with some who champion the notion of government 
being the source of so much, that even the notion would be advanced 
that those who pay no taxes should somehow receive a tax cut. But 
again, when you leave this Beltway and the culture that has grown up 
around this Capital City, and travel to the Sixth District of Arizona, 
or travel to the great State of Wisconsin, or places in-between, and go 
to any town and talk to any taxpayer, they will reaffirm the absurdity 
of the notion of offering tax cuts to those who pay no taxes.
  And again, Mr. Speaker, and this is something again not to cast a 
pall of partisanship, but to simply rejoice in the fact that here in 
this institution we can debate reasonable differences in a reasonable 
fashion. It astounds me, quite candidly, to look at some of the other 
figures that have been proffered

[[Page H3858]]

that actually take on another absurd notion when there are those who 
come to this Chamber and talk about these very modest tax cuts, 93 
percent of which go to families making under $100,000, that somehow 
anyone could characterize those as what is that tired, sad phrase we 
hear? Tax cuts for the wealthy? Simply is not true, but using some of 
those peculiar numbers people are incorporating what homeowners would 
earn in rental income on their own homes.
  My colleague, who is a home builder, who understands the intricacies 
of mathematics far better than I do, can simply attest to the absurdity 
of that notion which is being proffered as a reason to oppose our plan 
and our very modest array of tax cuts.
  Mr. NEUMANN. You know, all this discussion about tax cuts, we 
sometimes get lost in the fact that we are even having a debate about 
cutting taxes as opposed to raising taxes from 1993. Whenever I am out 
with folks back home and I have got a problem conveying to them all the 
technical details of the tax cuts, I challenge anyone. Just walk into 
your church on Sunday and find one of the families with 3 kids, and 
when they are walking out of church just ask them if they understand 
the idea that they are going to get $500 back for each one of those 
children. It is their money to start with. They get to keep $500 more 
for each one of those children, and if one of them happens to be going 
off to college, they are going to get up to $1500 to help pay that 
college tuition, which is a huge problem for many families in America 
today. They understand that. They absolutely understand that they get a 
tax , they get to reduce the taxes they are going to send to Washington 
by a thousand bucks for the 2 kids still at home, and they absolutely 
understand that they get to keep $1,500 to help pay for college 
tuition. They understand that.
  And you can have all the jargon you want out here. They understand 
that they are going to get to keep more of their own money in their own 
pocket instead of sending it to Washington, and that is what this is 
all about.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. And that is the basic common wisdom of those who 
involve themselves in the process, not to get caught up in micro or 
macro economics, but simply to provide for their families, to answer 
the call to duty, whether it is found in wearing the uniform of one of 
the branches of service in this country or contributing in other ways 
to our economy and to their communities and to their families. That is 
the simple elemental, yet vital, wisdom behind the plan that we are 
offering that essentially provides tax cuts for life, those child tax 
credits, those credits that help youngsters go on to college, those 
ways to save through those saving years that my colleague from 
Wisconsin and I found ourselves in as we are trying to provide for our 
children, also prepare for that final phase of life, those retirement 
years. And that is what is so appealing about this modest first step in 
tax reduction.
  And again, as my colleague from Wisconsin points out, Mr. Speaker, 
here we are poised to offer the American people the first tax cuts they 
have really enjoyed in a decade and a half, and the thing that we 
should note about this, the wonderful thing, is that this will actually 
help our economy grow, this will actually help raise the revenue rates, 
as again in a bipartisan fashion, as President John F. Kennedy said in 
the early 1960's: ``A rising tide lifts all the boats.''
  And so it is in that spirit that we offer this based on historical 
perspectives, not only the Reagan presidency, but before that with 
President Kennedy, so that people from both sides of the aisle 
understand the value of cutting taxes, allowing people to hang onto 
more of their own money and really conferring, as if this government 
had to confer, the honor and the privilege and for all practical 
purposes the money that belongs to the people in the first place, 
keeping it there in their pockets and taking less and less of it for 
what has grown into a Federal leviathan here on the banks of the 
Potomac.
  Mr. NEUMANN. I think I will conclude my part of this by just 
reminding the folks one more time how different 1997 is versus the 1985 
Gramm-Rudman-Hollings bill where they said they are going to balance 
the budget and they missed their targets. They never got on track. They 
fixed it in 1987. They hit targets once, but they never stayed with it. 
The deficits just ballooned.
  We are now not in our first year and not in our second year; we are 
now in the third year of our promised plan to balance the federal 
budget, and we are not only on track, we are ahead of schedule. The 
theoretical model that we dealt with back in 1995, this idea that if we 
control the growth of government spending, that meant the government 
would spend less, which meant they had to borrow less. When they 
borrowed less out of the private sector, that left more money available 
in the private sector. More money available in the private sector meant 
less money supply and lower interest rates. Lower interest rates meant 
people bought more houses and cars, and I get excited when I talk about 
this part because when people buy more houses and cars, somebody has to 
go to work to build those houses and cars, and that is job 
opportunities. That meant people left the welfare rolls and went to 
work and started paying taxes in, and it becomes a snow ball down a 
hill where this thing gets easier, and easier, and easier to make it 
happen.
  We are in the third year of a 7-year plan to balance the budget. We 
are not only on track, we are ahead of schedule, and this leads us to 
our vision for the future of this great Nation that we live in. Our 
vision not only includes balancing the Federal budget so we are not 
spending our children's money any more, it includes paying off the 
Federal debt because when we pay off the Federal debt, it means our 
children a generation from now instead of sending $500 a month to 
Washington to do nothing but pay interest on a Federal debt, they can 
keep that money in their own homes.

  A generation from now, just think about this. If we just capped the 
growth of Federal spending 1 percent below the rate of revenue growth, 
just 1 percent, that means we pay off the entire debt by the year 2025, 
and that means a generation from now our families do not have to send a 
$500 check every month to Washington to do nothing but pay the interest 
on the Federal debt. They keep that in their own homes to spend on 
their own families.
  You know when we talk about a divorce rate at 68 percent today and 
one out of every three babies born out of wedlock, do not you think 
that allowing the hard-working families to keep more of their own money 
would relieve some of the burden, some of the pressures in this family 
and allow more of our American families to stay together a generation 
from now? I mean this becomes a very, very bright vision for the future 
of this country, a balanced budget so we quit spending our children's 
money, pay off the debt so that a generation from now our children 
receive this Nation debt free and they do not have to send $500 a month 
down to Washington. And that vision includes putting the money back 
into Social Security trust fund that has been taken out because then 
our seniors know that their money is safe and secure, and it includes 
additional tax reductions for the American people.
  So a vision of a balanced budget, paying off the debt, our children's 
families keeping $500 a month more of their own money in their own 
pockets instead of sending it to Washington, restoring the Social 
Security Trust Fund so that our seniors do not have to worry about 
whether or not their social security checks; that is a bright vision 
for the future of America. That is a vision of hope, that is a vision 
of prosperity, that is a vision that includes an opportunity for my 
children to have a better life than we have had, and it has been a 
great country to grow up in.
  And we have had a great life, but this vision puts it back at a point 
where our generation can look to our children and start thinking about 
our children having opportunities to have an even better life than we 
have had in this great Nation ourselves.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Again I thank my colleague from Wisconsin for taking 
this time, Mr. Speaker, to explain this very important, I believe, 
exciting and necessary concept of the National Debt Repayment Act, and 
again what undergirds this when you get past the math, when you get 
past the micro and macro economic models, is a very simple motion. 
People work hard for the

[[Page H3859]]

money they earn. They ought to hang onto more of it, send less of it 
here to Washington D.C., and in the process as we prepare for a new 
century we ought to focus on the notion of transferring money, power 
and influence out of the hands of Washington bureaucrats and back home 
to the families, to the local communities, to governments on the front 
line who confront these several problems.
  I thank my colleague from Wisconsin.

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