Congressional Record, Volume 143 Issue 84 (Tuesday, June 17, 1997)

[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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