[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 95 (Tuesday, July 8, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H4895-H4903]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    DEBT REDUCTION: WHERE WE WERE, WHERE WE ARE, WHERE WE ARE GOING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Cooksey). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann] 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. NEUMANN. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to bring my colleagues 
and the country as a whole up to speed on where we were, where we are 
now and where I hope we are going to in this country.
  I left a very good job in the private sector. I had no experience in 
public life, I had no one I knew that was in politics and I left the 
private sector, I left a very good business, because of this picture 
and this chart.
  What this chart shows is the growing debt facing the United States of 
America. This shows how much money our Federal Government has borrowed 
on behalf of the American people. It shows a pretty flat line from 1960 
to 1980. The debt did not really grow very much from 1960 to 1980. But 
in 1980 forward, the debt has just grown right off the chart. I would 
just point out to the folks that are watching this evening that we are 
currently about here on

[[Page H4896]]

this chart. It is a very serious problem facing our country, and it is 
why a lot of us came here in the class of 1994. It is now the sophomore 
class. For all the folks out there that are watching going, ``1980, 
that's the year Ronald Reagan took over,'' they are blaming the 
Republicans for this, I say, ``OK, I am hearing you.'' For all the 
people out there that are saying, ``Well, the Democrats spent out of 
control in those years,'' that is OK, I am hearing that, too, because 
the parties have been blaming each other for this problem for the last 
15 or 20 years.
  I personally think it is time we stop blaming each other and figure 
out what we as Americans can do to solve this problem. The debt today 
stands at about $5.3 trillion. The number looks like this. I used to 
teach mathematics, we used to do a lot of things with this number in 
our math classroom. $5.3 trillion is the amount of money that the 
Federal Government has borrowed on behalf of the American people. Here 
is what we used to do in my classroom. We used to divide that number by 
the number of people in the United States of America to see how much it 
would be if each one were to pay off just their share of the Federal 
debt. It turns out the Federal Government has borrowed $20,000 in 
behalf of every man, woman and child in the United States of America or 
for a family of five like mine, they have borrowed $100,000.
  Here is the kicker in this thing. The interest alone, just the 
interest on that Federal debt, we really owe that money to individuals 
who buy T-bills, to foreign countries. We saw the Japanese threaten to 
call their notes and the stock market plunge here a couple of weeks ago 
and I saw threats from the Chinese today that they were going to call 
in their notes. We actually owe that money to people and we are paying 
interest on it.
  The interest alone for a family of five on average is $580 a month. 
It is not all in income tax. A lot of it they do not really see. It is 
like when you walk into a store and you buy a loaf of bread, the store 
owner makes a small profit on that loaf of bread and part of that 
profit gets sent out here to Washington and gets applied toward this 
interest. When it is all over and done with, an average family of five 
in the United States of America today is paying $580 a month in the 
interest on this Federal debt.
  I would like to concentrate on what brought me here to Washington and 
talk about the past, and the people out there are a little cynical as 
we talk about some of these issues and for some reason they do not 
believe everything that they hear from Washington, D.C., and rightly 
so.
  When I came to Washington, I was very frustrated because the people 
in Washington promised continually we were going to have a balanced 
budget. Then they promised another balanced budget and they raised 
taxes. They did all of these things supposedly to get us to a balanced 
budget, but the balanced budget never materialized.
  I would like to start with this chart that shows the Gramm-Rudman-
Hollings promises of 1985. This blue line shows the promises that were 
made by the Congresses then to get us to a balanced budget by 1991. The 
red line shows what actually happened. I emphasize again this is the 
past. This is pre-1995. This is 1994 and before. The promise was made 
to balance the budget. That is the blue line. The red line is what 
actually happened. Deficits ballooned.
  So in 1987 they figured out they were not going to be able to follow 
this path, so they again promised the American people they would 
balance the budget and the blue line again shows the Gramm-Rudman-
Hollings fix, but again we see the red line is what they actually did, 
and the deficits exploded.
  The amazing thing to me is that the people in this community cannot 
quite figure out why the American people are so angry at Congress and 
at Washington. Here is the reason. Washington has repeatedly made 
promises to the American people that they were going to deal with this 
very serious problem, the growing national debt, and in the past, and I 
emphasize in the past, they were not able to accomplish their goal. So 
they made these promises back there in the late 1980s and the early 
1990s. In fact, the deficits ballooned when they were supposed to be 
getting to zero.
  In 1993, Congress got together and they decided what they ought to do 
to bring these deficits down and they passed the largest tax increase 
in history. Gasoline taxes went up, Social Security taxes went up, 
taxes on taxes went up, all taxes went up. All the people paid more 
taxes with the idea that somehow if Washington took enough money out of 
the pockets of people and brought it out here to Washington, somehow 
that would lead us to a balanced budget.
  When we start talking about and thinking about the past, the people 
are very cynical because they have received promise after promise that 
we get to a balanced budget, and then in 1993 the people got together 
in this community, in Washington, and said well, the only way we can 
get to a balanced budget is to raise taxes and they passed the biggest 
tax increase in history. I emphasize again, this is the past. This is 
pre-1995, this is before the Republicans took over in the House of 
Representatives and in the Senate. This is the track record that had 
been laid down.

  I would like to yield to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. 
Gutknecht], who is also going to talk a little bit about the past and 
how government spending happened in the past.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. I would like to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin. I 
have a chart of my own I would like to show. I really like the way we 
are going at this, by talking a little bit about where we were, where 
we are and where we are going. I think the gentleman is absolutely 
right.
  I was home over the Fourth of July break. We were in about six 
parades, at a lot of community festivals, including Spam Jam, had a 
wonderful time in Austin, MN, on Saturday, but in talking to a lot of 
folks, there is a good deal of cynicism. On one hand I think they are 
very happy that they think that we are getting closer to a balanced 
budget, but they have had their hearts broken before.
  I want to show this chart, and I hope people can see this, because 
what it shows is a history. Benjamin Franklin said, ``I know no lamp by 
which to see the future than that of the past.'' The track record of 
Washington and the track record of Congress over the last 30 or 40 
years has not been very good. What this chart shows is between 1975 and 
1995, the red lines show how much Congress spent for every dollar that 
it took in. What it really translates to on average between those years 
of 1975 and 1995, for every dollar that Congress took in, they spent 
$1.22. That is the bad news and it is the truth. But if we look at the 
blue lines, that is since the gentleman and I came to Congress. We said 
that we are going to change the way Washington works, we are going to 
make the Federal Government go on a diet, we are going to eliminate 
wasteful Washington spending, and we are going to balance the people's 
books.
  I am happy to report that we are making real progress. If we look at 
these blue lines, there are two things that I think are good news. 
First of all, the amount that we spend in excess of what we take in is 
coming down dramatically, and frankly we are ahead of schedule. I think 
the gentleman may have another chart on that.
  But if we look at it since we came to Washington, the average is 
about $1.075 as opposed to $1.22 over the last 20 years. So we are 
making progress, but I think the American people have every reason to 
be cynical. But as Patrick Henry once said, ``The price of liberty is 
eternal vigilance.'' The real critical path is that we stay on this 
path as we go forward.
  The bad news is that if we had not made some serious changes in the 
way Washington works, if we had not been willing to make some changes 
both in entitlements and in domestic discretionary spending, the truth 
of the matter is we were going to absolutely consign our kids to a life 
of debt, dependency and despair and a lower standard of living. For the 
first time a growing number of Americans were saying that they believed 
that their kids would actually have a lower standard of living than 
they have enjoyed. That is just plain wrong. That is the essence of the 
American dream. The bad news is Congress had not done a very good job 
over the last 40 years. We have not done everything right. I certainly 
do not want to say that we have not made some

[[Page H4897]]

pretty serious mistakes, but I think on balance we are heading in the 
right direction. We have eliminated something like 289 Federal 
programs, we have saved the taxpayers in excess of $50 billion, and 
thanks to that, there is more consumer confidence. It is not just 
consumers, but there is more confidence on Main Street and on Wall 
Street and in the business community. We are seeing more investment, we 
are seeing more jobs, and so we are taking in more revenue. The real 
name of the game, you cannot tax yourself to prosperity. What we need 
is economic growth. As a result of the growth that we have seen over 
the last couple of years, yes, the deficit is coming down dramatically, 
we are on the right path, we are ahead of goal, we are under budget and 
we have got to keep the pressure on to stay that way.
  Mr. NEUMANN. I would point out, the gentleman is kind of moving into 
the present. I would just like to sum up this picture of the past and 
then move forward into the present. When we sum up this picture of the 
past, I just keep coming back to this chart and I just keep thinking of 
these promises. This is where the deficit was going to get to zero in 
1991, the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings promise of 1985 and this is what 
actually happened. The deficits exploded. Then they made a new series 
of promises to the American people. Again the deficits exploded.
  The past is not a very good track record of keeping their commitment 
to the American people. So in 1993 what happened, biggest tax increase 
in American history. I think it is real important to point out that 
that tax increase passed in the House of Representatives by a single, 
solitary vote. Lots of people in this community knew that raising 
taxes, taking more money out of the pockets of the American people was 
not the right way to deal with this problem. It went over to the Senate 
and in the Senate that 1993 tax increase passed by a single, solitary 
vote again, and we got the biggest tax increase in American history as 
their plan as to how we could get this under control.
  That brings us kind of to the present. The present I am going to 
define as from 1995 to now. I am going to define it as the time when 
the Republicans took over out here and look at just exactly how 
different it has been from before, from this picture of the past to 
what has been going on in the last 3 years. A lot of folks do not 
remember that in 1995, when the Republicans took over, we laid down a 
plan to balance the Federal budget, too. Our plan was a 7-year plan to 
balance the Federal budget. We are currently in the third year of our 
7-year plan, and I think it is more than fair for the American people 
to look at our projections and see whether or not we have kept our word 
to them. So I brought a chart, and this chart shows what the projected 
deficit was, that is the red column, that was what was in our plan back 
in 1995. The blue column is the actual deficit. The first two columns 
here are 1996. That year is over and done with.
  The first year of our plan, we were not only on track, but we were 
roughly $50 billion ahead of schedule. Contrast that to those charts I 
had up here before where they never hit the targets. First year, on 
track, ahead of schedule. Year 2, 1997, this fiscal year is about to 
end. This year we projected a deficit of $174 billion. The actual is 
going to be, we are now hearing, as low as $45 billion. Again over $100 
billion ahead of schedule.
  I think it is real important to note what happens. The government was 
projecting that it was going to borrow out of the private sector $174 
billion. Instead, it borrowed $100 billion less, $67 billion, and maybe 
even less than that. What happens? When the Federal Government did not 
go into the private sector to borrow that money, that meant the money 
stayed available in the private sector. When the money was available in 
the private sector, that meant the interest rates stayed down and when 
the interest rates stayed down, of course, people bought more houses 
and cars, and when people bought more houses and cars, of course, that 
was job opportunities. So they left the welfare rolls and went to work 
and this is what has led to the strong economy that we have right now 
today.

  We are now going into the third year. This is what we are spending 
our time on out here in Washington right now. We are in the third year 
of this 7-year plan to balance the Federal budget. The facts are in the 
third year, once again we will be ahead of schedule, ahead of what was 
promised back there in 1995, a strong contrast between the broken 
promises of the late 1980's and early 1990's and what is going on now, 
where we are not only hitting our targets but we are actually ahead of 
schedule. It is a very, very different Washington from what was here 
before 1995.
  I will go a step further. I think we also need to contrast the tax 
increases of 1993, the other side's solution to this problem, with how 
we have gone about solving the problem. The other side said the only 
way we can hit these targets, the only way we can get to a balanced 
budget and reduce the deficit is to take more money out of the pockets 
of the people and bring it out here to Washington.

                              {time}  2015

  When the Republicans took over we said, ``No, no, that's not how 
we're going to do it. We're going to curtail the growth of government 
spending. If we curtail the growth of government spending, government 
doesn't spend as much, we should be able to get to a balanced budget 
without raising taxes.'' And in fact that is exactly what has happened.
  This red column shows the average growth of spending in the last 7 
years before the Republicans took over. Spending at the Federal 
Government level was going up by 5.2 percent. This blue column shows 
how fast it is going up, and I would point out that this is not the 
draconian cuts that the other side would like you to believe are going 
on. Spending was going up by 5.2 percent. It is now going up by 3.2 
percent.
  There are a lot of folks in this community, myself included, that 
would like to see this government spending go up by even less, but the 
point is it is still going up but it is going up at a much slower rate 
than what it was going up before.
  Government spending has been curtailed. The growth of government 
spending has been curtailed to a point where we can both balance the 
budget and reduce taxes on the American people. That is the good news.
  And I just point out for those that are interested in the inflation-
adjusted dollars, before the GOP took over in 1995 spending was going 
up at an inflation-adjusted dollar increase of 1.8 percent. That has 
been reduced by two-thirds in the GOP plan.
  So we have effectively curtailed the growth of government spending, 
not the draconian cuts that they would like us to believe, but 
curtailed the growth of government spending to a point where when we 
look at charts like these we see that we are not only hitting our 
targets but we are ahead of schedule, and we are now able to continue 
hitting our targets and remain ahead of schedule while at the same time 
reducing taxes on the American people.
  And maybe we should throw it open to a little bit of discussion about 
these tax cuts. It is real important when we talk about the tax cuts 
that we realize we are still on track to our balanced budget, we are 
not breaking the agreements like they did in the past. We are certainly 
not raising the taxes like they did in 1993. In fact, we are on track 
to a balanced budget and reducing the taxes at the same time.
  And here in this discussion about the present, let us just pause a 
little bit and talk about the tax reductions for the American people, 
letting the people keep more of their own money.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. If the gentleman would yield, let me go back to a 
couple of points, because again we understand why the American people 
are cynical. They should be cynical. But let us just talk about a 
couple of numbers, and I think you were the first one to really 
discover this, and in fact I think we should also point out that I 
think all of your charts have been verified by the Congressional Budget 
Office. I mean you did not make these numbers up. Those are the actual 
numbers, and the Congressional Budget Office is the nonpartisan, 
bipartisan group which is in effect the official scorekeeper for 
Congress.
  So when we talk about budget numbers, when we talk about limiting the 
growth of Federal spending to 3.2 percent, that is what the 
Congressional

[[Page H4898]]

Budget Office says. And more importantly, another point that is many 
times demagogued is that we are making these huge cuts. The truth of 
the matter is Federal spending is still growing at faster than the 
inflation rate.
  And what we said, I know when I first ran I said we could balance the 
budget if we would simply limit the growth of Federal spending to 
slightly more than the inflation rate, and still allow for those 
legitimate needs of the people who depend on the Federal Government and 
our legitimate needs for national defense and so forth. We can do all 
that and make room for a modest amount of tax relief for working 
families, and that is exactly what we are doing.
  But you are the first one to really discover how much a difference we 
have actually made because, as you recall, back in 1995 we said that in 
fiscal year 1997, which we are in right now, this Congress would spend 
$1,624 billion. Well that, you know, is what we said 2 years ago, and 
that was legitimate, and I think those were honest numbers. The truth 
of the matter is this Congress is going to spend $1,622 billion. We are 
actually going to spend less money in this fiscal year than we said we 
were going to spend 2 years ago.
  Now I would ask my colleagues and anyone else who may be watching 
this special order to ask themselves when is the last time that 
Congress actually spent less than it said it was going to spend. I 
cannot remember a time in my lifetime when that has actually happened.
  You also mentioned something else that I think we need to really 
emphasize because I think the American people understand this, and 
frankly I had a very interesting meeting yesterday in my office with a 
gentleman who is very closely affiliated not only with our welfare 
system but with many people who are on the system, and I do not want to 
disclose his name because some of the things he said were very, very 
intriguing.
  And I think the American people have been way out in front of this 
whole welfare reform debate for a long time because they know that if 
you encourage people to become dependent, unfortunately what you do is 
you make people even more dependent, and the tragedy of our welfare 
system has not been that it has cost too much money, although that 
certainly has been a by-product. The real tragedy of the welfare system 
that we have in this country was that it destroyed peoples' initiative 
and it destroyed families, it undermined work and it undermined 
personal responsibility.
  Well, the good news about not only our budget but our welfare reform 
plan which requires work, requires personal responsibility, encourages 
families to stay together; well, the President went on the radio the 
other day, and he said by his own admission there are over a million 
families that are no longer dependent on the welfare system in America 
today. That is an enormous victory, and I do not care if the President 
takes credit, I do not care if the Republican Congress takes credit, 
and I really think the American people should take credit. But that is 
an enormous victory, and again it is not about saving money, it is 
about saving people and it is about saving families and it is about 
saving children from one more generation of dependency and despair.
  Mr. NEUMANN. If the gentleman would yield one second on the welfare 
issue, I was in a place in Kenosha where it was kind of a one-stop help 
find job and get them off the welfare rolls all at the same time, 
Kenosha, Wisconsin, and it was one of the most exciting conversations I 
have had in a long time, and it illustrates what you are saying. When 
people are on welfare they are depending on the Government for their 
raise, they are depending on the Government for everything they get.
  In this place they were taking me around, they were showing me how 
people left welfare and got their first job. But they did not talk to 
them just about their first job after they leave welfare. They were 
showing them their second and third and fourth job, they were all the 
way down the line to where their fourth job would be and how much money 
they could earn as they move through this process.

  In other words, if they were willing to take responsibility for 
themselves and work hard, they could actually get ahead in America. 
That is what made this Nation great, and it provides hope and 
opportunity for their families to live a better life than they thought 
they could. Well, they had only the government to rely on. What a 
wonderful statement as we look at welfare reform, to look at an 
organization that is showing people not only their first job, but what 
the potential is as they improve their lives and the lives of their 
family, looking at their second job and their third and their fourth 
job opportunities and how that improved lifestyle can make things so 
much better for their families.
  That is what welfare reform is about.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. And frankly that is what many of our colleagues were 
talking about for a number of years before we came here. They were 
talking about moving away from the welfare state and to an opportunity 
society, and we are making real progress in that direction.
  In fact, in meeting with particularly small business employers in my 
district, the biggest problem that I hear at virtually every stop is we 
cannot find people. We have; in fact I have had a number of businesses 
say we turn away business, we simply do not have enough good people to 
get the product out the door or to get the job done so we are turning 
away business, and is that not a wonderful problem to have? And that 
people with modest amounts of skill now are able to get out there to 
become self-sufficient.
  And I have often said this, and I really believe this, that a job is 
more than the way you earn your living. A job helps to define your very 
life. It is about a sense of self worth. And what we are giving to over 
a million families today is something they did not have a year ago, and 
that is a job, a future, real hope and real opportunity.
  And if I could I want to share one more story, I know that you go to 
schools often, as well as I do. I often go to schools, I read to kids, 
I listen to kids, and we can learn a lot sometimes from kids. And I was 
at a school a few months ago in my district, and one of the teachers, 
after the kids went home, we were meeting with the teachers. We were 
talking about welfare and what it has done to families and what it was 
doing in their particular school, and actually she was quite 
congratulatory.
  She said, ``I think you guys are doing the right thing about welfare 
reform,'' and she said, ``I'd like to tell you a story. There was one 
of my students who came in. He has just started acting better.'' His 
behavior was better, he was carrying himself better, everything about 
him was better. His deportment was better, his studies were better, his 
grades were better. So finally the teacher said, ``You know, Johnnie, 
is there something different at your house?''
  And Johnnie said, ``Yeah, my dad got a job.''
  I mean it has an effect on families, and so by getting the economy 
moving stronger, by increasing consumer confidence, by getting 
Americans to believe once again that Congress can balance the budget, 
that we can live within our means and we can allow Americans to keep 
and spend more of what they earn, we have done a lot more than just 
balance the budget. It is about helping families to really have more 
hope in their futures.
  Mr. NEUMANN. I think again we should emphasize that we are now 
talking about the present, what has happened from 1995 to 1997 and how 
things are different, and certainly the concept of able-bodied welfare 
recipients leaving the welfare rolls and going to work so they have 
hope and opportunity in their life is certainly significant. I think it 
is important that we continue to contrast the present to the past, to 
show how different it is now, in 1995 to 1997 through the present, to 
what it was before.
  And remember the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings broken promises of a balanced 
budget versus now, where we are not only on track but ahead of schedule 
in our third year of our plan to balance the budget. And the tax 
increases of 1993, biggest tax increase in American history, passed in 
this institution by a single vote, went over the Senate in 1993; again 
it passed the Senate by a single vote. Taxes went up, the gasoline tax, 
social security tax.
  I would like to just point out as we talk about these families and we 
think about our families out there, that not

[[Page H4899]]

only are we in the third year of a 7-year plan to balance the Federal 
budget and on track and ahead of schedule, we are also about to pass 
one of the biggest tax cuts, at least in the last 16 years and maybe 
ever, and we are doing that at the same time that we are balancing the 
budget. These tax cuts are very real.
  And you know I hear all the demagoguing out in this city, and they 
try to muddy the waters to a point where nobody seems to understand. 
But you know what? I found out in Wisconsin they do understand.
  A family of five that I see in church every Sunday, they got 3 kids, 
one headed off to college and 2 kids still at home. They are middle 
income folks, probably earning between $40,000 and $50,000 a year. They 
understand what these tax cuts mean. They know that for each one of the 
kids that are still at home they are going to get $500 back to put into 
an account.
  And it was real interesting. I was having a conversation with the 
parent, and she said, ``When I get that $500 it goes immediately into 
an account to pay for their college,'' and that is what this is all 
about. They sure understand that they are going to get their $500-per-
child tax cut.
  And they also understand, the one that is off at college, the one 
that started college, they are going to get $1,500 to help pay the 
tuition at that college.
  Now their son happens to be headed to the same college I think my 
daughter is headed to, so we sure understand about the cost of going to 
college. This family of 5, they may not have understood all this 
demagoguing that is going on out here, but they understood the idea 
that they were going to keep a thousand dollars, $500 for each of the 
kids at home, and get $1,500 help to pay for college; they understood 
that very, very well.
  So when all the demagoguing is done out here in this city and the 
people actually see the money coming back or, better yet, it is their 
money, they get to keep their own money; when they see that actually 
happening, they are going to understand perfectly well that it is not 
about the demagoguing. It is about them keeping more of their own hard-
earned money instead of sending it to Washington. It is about them 
knowing better how to spend their own money than the people in 
Washington, and that is what these tax cuts are about.
  Capital gains, we started talking to some folks that had invested in 
some real estate, and they are thinking of selling the real estate, and 
some people that had pension funds, and virtually every American has 
some sort of a pension fund. When they cash in the pension funds, the 
capital gains reduction kicks in.
Before, if you would have made a $10,000 profit on your pension fund 
over a 15- or 20-year period of time, you would have sent the 
Government $2,800 out of that $10,000 profit. Now you only send them 
$2,000, you keep the extra $800 in your own house, in your own pocket.
  That is what these tax cuts are about. They are about the American 
people keeping more of their own money in their pockets instead of 
sending it to Washington.
  I would add one other thing to this, that the death tax is being 
reformed so that the estates that are being passed on from one 
generation to another are not being taxed again when someone dies, and 
that is very, very important as we look at what these tax cuts are 
really all about.
  I see my good friend the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon], has 
joined us.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I want 
to thank you in particular for the hard work you do here on this budget 
issue. I think you have clearly stood out in our class as somebody who 
has worked very, very aggressively to rein in the deficit monster.
  And I was sitting over in my office, and let me just add, by the way, 
that the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht] as well has been 
doing a super job fighting for--and you know this is not just a fight 
for us. This is a fight for the working people all across America, 
working families who have trouble making ends meet, who do not know how 
they are going to pay for the braces, who do not know how they are 
going to pay for college when, you know, the little girl and the little 
boy who is getting big gets to that college age. How are they going to 
do it?

                              {time}  2030

  This is not about numbers. This is about families. This is about how 
American families are going to make ends meet.
  I want to thank both of the gentlemen. I was sitting over in my 
office, and I was watching the charts they were displaying and the way 
they were explaining all of this. I wanted to come over here and just 
join in. I just want to ask a question if I can, I would say to the 
gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann].
  That chart that is on the floor there, if we could just put that up, 
I have a question about that. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman, 
is he saying that spending prior to our arrival in January 1995, when 
the 104th Congress got sworn in, when all three of us arrived, spending 
was increasing here at almost 2 percentage points ahead of the 
inflation rate?
  Mr. NEUMANN. Yes. Yes. Spending was growing much more rapidly than 
inflation, almost twice as fast as the rate of inflation.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, 
in the last 20 years Government spending at the Federal level has 
increased to nearly double that of the national inflation rate. That 
had been the pattern. The gentleman almost quoted a good old farm 
fellow in my district who said it so clearly. He said, the problem is 
not that we do not send enough money in to Washington. The problem is 
that Congress spends it faster than we can send it in.
  So raising taxes to try to balance the budget has never worked. What 
really has to happen is we have to limit the growth in spending, allow 
spending to increase but at a much slower rate, and we cannot only 
balance the budget then but we can actually allow American families to 
keep more of what they earn.
  Mr. NEUMANN. There is a big danger in this chart. This is where some 
of our conservative friends look at this and they see that Government 
spending is still increasing faster than the rate of inflation. They 
look at this chart and say, why is Government spending still increasing 
faster than the rate of inflation? I personally agree with them. I 
would much prefer to see this even smaller than what it is.
  But there has been a huge change in the growth of Government spending 
from what was here before and what is here now. It is this curtailing 
the growth of Government spending that has allowed us to be in the 
third year of our 7-year plan to balance the budget and be ahead of 
schedule, and now be able to come out to the American people and say, 
look, the budget is going to be balanced in 2000, maybe even in 1999, 
and we are going to reduce taxes.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to 
yield, I think a lot of this gets right at the issue of what is right 
and what is fair. I rose on this floor over an hour ago and I was 
talking about the President's criticism of our decision to index 
capital gains to inflation. He is going around saying that is going to 
explode the deficit.
  I just take real offense at him saying that, and some of his staff 
saying that, because the problem was created by too much spending. The 
charts that the gentlemen have put forward make that very, very clear. 
The issue of indexing capital gains to inflation is a very simple one. 
If you are a working man and you manage to set aside $1,000 for an 
investment, let us say it is for your children's college, you have an 
8-year-old, and in 10 years they are going to be in college and that 
doubles in value to $2,000. But if inflation has been such that it has 
really only gone up about $500 in value, we say you pay capital gains 
on that $500. Bill Clinton wants you to pay capital gains on the whole 
$1,000 increase in your investment. In effect you are paying capital 
gains taxes to Washington, DC, on inflation.
  I just think that is dead wrong and it is an issue of fundamental 
fairness. Likewise, it is just wrong and unfair for elected officials 
to come up here to Washington and to vote over and over again to 
increase spending and then throw up their hands and say we have to 
raise taxes to balance the budget.

[[Page H4900]]

  Mr. NEUMANN. That is the past. That is 1993 that we were talking 
about, where they did literally throw up their hands and pass the 
biggest tax increase in history. I would just add, as we are discussing 
what President Clinton is throwing out here in these tax cuts, the 
other big argument going on here in the community is, if a person is 
not paying any taxes today, can they receive a tax cut.
  In Wisconsin people start laughing when I ask that question. Of 
course, if you are not paying any taxes today you cannot receive a tax 
cut. But that is the other big argument in whether or not this tax cut 
package passes. If a person is paying no taxes today, the other side 
wants to give them a tax cut. It is not really a tax cut; what they 
want to do is send them a check, which actually becomes welfare.
  So the other big argument, it is the indexing argument the gentleman 
mentioned, and the argument about whether or not a person who is not 
paying taxes should receive a tax cut. Most of our hard-working 
families that are paying taxes think it would be unfair for people not 
paying taxes to receive a tax cut. It comes back to this fairness 
issue.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to 
yield again, I am aware that the President wants to do that. He wants 
to give the $500 per child tax credit that is in our bill to people who 
do not pay taxes, so it essentially amounts to $500 per child. We can 
call it a welfare check, we can just call it benevolence, but this is 
somebody who is not paying any taxes, no Federal withholding at all. He 
wants to turn around and give them the $500 per child tax credit.
  I agree with the gentleman that the $500 per child tax credit should 
go to people who are paying taxes. It should not be turned into a 
welfare program.
  One of the other things that is really bothering me about what the 
White House is doing is they are doing some very, very strange 
calculations on people's income. They are doing something that totally 
boggles my mind, where if you have a house and you have a family income 
of $30,000 a year, but if you lived on the street and you rented your 
house out for $500 a month, then they do $500 times 12 and they get 
$6,000 and they say, really, your family income is $36,000.
  Mr. NEUMANN. Could the gentleman go through that once more? I want to 
make sure I understand it. If a family is earning $30,000 a year and 
they are living in this house, the Government does not say you are 
earning $30,000 a year. The Government, under the Clinton 
administration, is saying that if they lived in a tent in the backyard 
and rented the house out and then collected $500 a month, or $6,000 for 
a year, they are going to say that they have to count that rent toward 
their income?
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Let me just clarify, OK? It is not the 
Government in the sense that the Congress is not saying that, the 
Congressional Budget Office is not saying that.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Not even the IRS says this. Only the Treasury 
Department uses this convoluted system called imputed income.
  Frankly, I have to say, and I think I am a fairly well educated 
person, I was in politics before I came here, I had never heard the 
term ``imputed income'' before I came to Congress.
  It is worse than just the $30,000 example. What they have done is 
taken a family at $44,000, they have assumed they could rent their 
house for $1,000 a year, which adds $12,000 to that income, brings them 
up to $36,000, and then they assume someone in that income bracket 
would probably have at least a $20,000 capital gain.
  So they take someone who has approximately the median family income 
in the United States, and all of a sudden they have imputed them into 
the wealthy category, making more than $75,000 a year. It is one of the 
most convoluted, crazy things I have ever heard in my life, and yet 
only here in Washington can a crazy idea like that have any credence.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield 
further, only at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue does that have any credence, 
because I believe people like the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. John Kasich, 
and the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Bill Archer, do not use these kinds 
of convoluted figures.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. We actually had some Members of this Congress come 
before the House not too long ago and say, in effect, with those 
numbers, that our tax cut was targeted at the rich.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. If the gentleman will continue to yield, does 
he mean Members of the House of Representatives?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Yes, colleagues of ours from States the gentleman 
would recognize.
  Mr. NEUMANN. On the other side of the aisle, I might add. I think 
that is real important.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. The IRS does not use that. Frankly, in all of this 
discussion, and the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann] and I were 
talking, earlier, frankly, what we need to do is get, and I think the 
Senate Finance Committee already has an electronic work sheet on a web 
site and we hope to have it on a web site very, very soon, and we will 
have work sheets available, and perhaps by the next time we have a 
special order we can have a chart made up so average American families 
can calculate for themselves; do not take my word for it, do not take 
the Treasury Department's word for it, calculate it for yourself.
  I will give a classic example. The same story. I came home a couple 
of weeks ago, there was a family going to a garage sale, they had three 
kids. That is $1,500 more they would have to spend. Those kids, when 
they go to college, it can be up to $1,500.
  Do not take our word for it. We ought to have a work sheet, whether 
it is on a web site so people who have access could do that, or an 
actual written work sheet so people can calculate their own tax. It is 
not what it might be worth to somebody else, but what is it worth to 
the average family in the gentleman's district? To the average family 
in my district it is worth over $1,000 a year.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to 
yield, that gets back to what I was talking about before. This is not 
about numbers. We tend to spend a lot of time here in Washington 
throwing around numbers, but this is really about moms and dads in 
Minnesota, in Wisconsin, in Florida, where I come from, having more 
money to buy clothes, to buy braces, to set aside for college 
education.
  One of the points that I really want to stress is we, the Republicans 
in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, are delivering on a 
Clinton campaign promise of 1992 to provide a middle class tax cut.
  One of the things that motivated me to run for Congress back in 1994 
was that Bill Clinton had campaigned on ending welfare as we know it, 
and then just did not follow through on that. He campaigned on a middle 
class tax cut and he raised taxes. Of course, it did take us to pass 
welfare reform, and now we are following through on another Clinton 
campaign promise, to provide that middle class tax cut. Our tax cut is 
a middle class tax cut.
  What boggles my mind is to have Members on the other side of the 
aisle get up day after day and tell us that, if we would just let them 
do the tax cut, that they would do a better tax cut. These are the 
people who raised taxes in 1993, who did not want to cut taxes in 1993, 
or 1994, or 1995, or 1992, or 1991. They want to increase spending, and 
increase spending, and raise taxes, and raise taxes.
  For them now to come before this body, to come before the American 
people straight-faced and look us in the eye and say their tax cut 
would be a better tax cut, or their tax cut would really, truly be a 
middle class tax cut, to me is absolutely amazing.
  It is the Republican Congress, the Republican Senate, and yes, we 
have been working with the administration on this, and this is a 
cooperative effort and he is agreeing to go along with us, it is a 
Republican initiative to finally deliver on the Republican promise of 
1994 and the Clinton promise of 1992 to provide a middle class tax cut.
  Mr. NEUMANN. Mr. Speaker, it is true, everything the gentleman is 
saying. But I think the most important outcome here is that it is good 
for the American people. That is what this is all about. The gentleman 
has gone back and hit on those past things. I think it is important.
  We remember the broken promises, where Gramm-Rudman-Hollings is

[[Page H4901]]

going to get us to a balanced budget, and it did not happen; in 1993 
where they said they were going to cut taxes but instead they gave us 
the biggest tax increase in history. And I think it is very important 
we contrast that to the present, and we look at the fact that we are 
fulfilling our campaign promises for 1994. We are actually doing what 
we told the American people we would.
  I would like to kind of wrap up the discussion of the present and 
turn our focus to the future with this chart. This chart shows when we 
came here what the deficit stream was projected to be. Deficits were 
headed up over $300 billion. If we had come here and played golf and 
basketball instead of doing our job, this is where the deficit line 
would have gone. Twelve months in the yellow line shows how much 
progress was made. The green line shows our hope to balance the Federal 
budget. This is our Republican plan laid into place in 1995 to balance 
the Federal budget.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. That was the original 7-year plan.
  Mr. NEUMANN. The original 7-year plan to balance the Federal budget. 
We were to get to zero in the year 2002. We are now in the third year, 
and it is important to note that the deficit is significantly under 
those projections. We are in the third year of a 7-year plan to balance 
the Federal budget and we are not only on track, but we are 
significantly ahead of schedule. It is very, very important to note the 
contrast between what was here before and what is happening now. We are 
laying down this track record so the American people can once again 
have some faith in this institution.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. If the gentleman will continue to yield for a 
question, Mr. Speaker, I want to look to the future. As the gentleman 
knows, I represent an area of Florida that includes the Kennedy Space 
Center, an area that has always had its eyes looking to the future.
  The question I have for the gentleman is, I believe if we remain 
committed to our principles that that black line that is showing there 
will come down to the zero mark and we will have the budget balanced. 
If we stay true to our principles and hold the line on spending, we 
will actually start showing a very small surplus. Is that not correct?
  Mr. NEUMANN. That is absolutely correct. I think the gentleman is 
coming to the significant question here of, after we balance the 
budget, then what? Is our job done?
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. That was the question I wanted to ask the 
gentleman. Go ahead.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. If both Members will yield for a second, the gentleman 
from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann] and I both serve on the Committee on the 
Budget. We actually have gotten the CBO and others to run some numbers. 
If our economic growth rate remains even close to the level it is at, 
in fact, it could drop dramatically from what the economic growth rate 
has been for the last year, we will balance the budget on our current 
path not in the year 2002, not in the year 2001. I believe, and I think 
the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann] will probably agree with me, 
we are going to balance the budget by the year 2000.

                              {time}  2045

  Frankly, it may even be 1999. I want to come back to one of the 
points you made. You said this is not just about numbers. We talk about 
12.3 percent and 174 billion. It flies past most Americans like a Nolan 
Ryan fast ball. It is about people, but more important, I think what we 
are doing really is all about preserving the American dream for our 
kids. What kind of a country are we going to give to our kids? That is 
why it is important that we talk a lot tonight about the National Debt 
Repayment Act. You have spent an awful lot of time on this. You have an 
awful lot of cosponsors. That is where we are really headed in the 
future. That is why it is important.
  I wonder if you would share about the National Debt Repayment Act.
  Mr. NEUMANN. Mr. Speaker, I put another chart up here because I think 
it is important that we recognize the differences between the past and 
the present, but we also realize that once we get to a balanced budget 
we still have this $5.3 trillion debt. That debt is going to be passed 
on to our children if we do not do something about.
  That brings us to the future. That brings us to, after we balance the 
budget, then what? The answer to that question is the National Debt 
Repayment Act. The National Debt Repayment Act does this. After we 
reach a balanced budget, it caps the growth of government spending at a 
rate 1 percent below the rate of revenue growth. It caps, after we 
reach a balanced budget, it caps the growth of government spending 1 
percent below the rate of revenue growth. So if spending goes up by 4 
percent, revenue goes up by 5, that creates a small surplus. That 
surplus is then used one-third to further reduce taxes and two-thirds 
to pay down the national debt.
  So we create the surplus by capping the growth of government 
spending. We take one-third of the surplus, let the people keep more of 
their own money, additional tax cuts, two-thirds goes to repay the 
national debt. If we do that, by the year 2026 the entire Federal debt 
will be repaid in its entirety and we can pass this Nation on to our 
children debt free.
  In doing so, when we repay the national debt, we are also putting the 
money back into the Social Security trust fund that has been taken out. 
Every year the Social Security system collects more than it pays back 
out to seniors in benefits. The idea is, we are supposed to be building 
this savings account, a savings account that, when we do not have 
enough money coming in, is where we are supposed to get the money to 
make good on payments to seniors.
  The problem is, the money has not been going into that savings 
account. It has been spent on other Government programs. In fact, that 
trust fund, that Social Security trust fund, is now all part of this 
$5.3 trillion debt. So under the National Debt Repayment Act, we create 
the surplus after we have reached a balanced budget, two-thirds goes to 
repay the debt and, as we are repaying the Federal debt, we are also 
putting the money back into the Social Security trust fund. And we pay 
off the debt in its entirety so we can give this Nation to our children 
debt free. Instead of them sending $580 a month out here to do nothing 
but pay interest on the Federal debt, they can keep that in their own 
home in their own family and decide how best to spend their own money 
rather than sending it out here to Washington, DC.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to 
yield, as I understand it, we are paying out about $340 billion to pay 
interest on that debt. So with your legislation, which I am a cosponsor 
of, not only would we be able to pay off the national debt and take 
that burden off of our kids and the future of our children and not only 
would we be able to provide more tax relief for working families, but 
we would no longer be paying these $300 billion a year interest 
payments; is that correct?
  Mr. NEUMANN. That is correct. For a family of five, that translates 
into $580 a month to do nothing but pay interest on the Federal debt.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. In effect it is a win/win situation that 
taxpayers would get to keep more of their hard-earned money and we 
would pay off the debt and we would not have these big interest 
payments. And we would actually have more money within the Federal 
budget to pay for roads, for example, or say maybe a manned mission to 
Mars, for example?
  Mr. NEUMANN. And do not forget the other part of that, that is that 
the Social Security trust fund is restored. It is so important to look 
at this because if the money is not in the Social Security trust fund, 
Social Security is bankrupt in the year 2012. So it also solves the 
Social Security problem at least through the year 2029.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. I am really glad you brought this issue up, 
the National Debt Repayment Act, because that was one of the reasons I 
came over to join you and Mr. Gutknecht. I want to thank you for 
allowing me to join you in this conversation. I think it has been very 
informative.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I just want to talk a little bit about 
the National Debt Repayment Act. A lot of people I think are going to 
look at this and some of our critics on the other side of the aisle 
will say this cannot happen. I want to remind them, these are the same 
Members who said we

[[Page H4902]]

cannot balance the budget, we cannot reform welfare, we cannot reform 
Medicare, we cannot reform the Medicaid system. We cannot do all of 
that and balance the budget and provide tax relief. And yet we are 
proving that it can be done.
  And what the National Debt Repayment Act shows is that by again just 
limiting the growth modestly of Federal spending, and I think I am 
correct in this, Federal spending under the National Debt Repayment Act 
will still continue to increase. We are not talking about pulling the 
rug out from senior citizens and people who need legitimate services 
from the Federal Government. Spending will still go up.
  Mr. NEUMANN. Faster than what I would like, I might add. But 
absolutely. Spending would still go up and could go up faster than the 
rate of inflation. It is important to remember that revenues to the 
Federal Government grow because of real growth in the economy but also 
because of inflation. So it is really kind of two things happening 
simultaneously. Revenues, in fact, increase.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Show that chart. I think people are astonished when 
people see the numbers, the average Federal revenue growth over the 
last 17 years.
  Mr. NEUMANN. The average increase in revenue to the Federal 
Government over the last 3 years was 7.3 percent. Inflation is only 
2\1/2\, 3 percent. So it is going up at over twice the rate of 
inflation. Revenue to the Federal government. This is the amount of 
money that came in this year compared to last year; 5-year average, 7.3 
percent increase; 10-year average, 6.2; 17-year, bottom line revenue to 
the Federal Government has been growing at a very significant rate over 
the last 17 years. It has not been revenue that is the problem. The 
problem has been spending that is out of control. This chart also shows 
that the budget agreement that we signed, a lot of people said it 
was pie in the sky, it was not.

  Mr. GUTKNECHT. It was rosy scenarios.
  Mr. NEUMANN. The budget agreement only projects a 4 percent growth. I 
think it is real important to see that 4 percent number next to these 
numbers, what has actually been happening. It is very, very 
conservative. In fact, I asked the question, if revenues grow by 6 
percent instead of 4, what happens? In fact we find that we have a 
balanced budget by the year 2000. We run a surplus in the year 2000. 
That is when the National Debt Repayment Act would kick in, two-thirds 
of that surplus goes to pay down the debt, one-third goes to reduce 
taxes even further for the American people. And that is what this is 
all about.
  I think maybe we should conclude or start to wrap this up by just 
kind of briefly going back through the past, the present and the 
future. I always use this chart to talk about the past because I think 
it says it better than anything else we have. During the late 1980's 
and early 1990's, the American people were promised a balanced budget. 
This blue line shows how it was supposed to work. Deficits exploded. In 
fact we did not follow the blue line. They never hit their targets. 
They said, in 1987, we will fix that. And they gave the American people 
another whole series of promises, and they never hit that target 
either. The American people got cynical.
  In 1993, they looked at this picture and they said, well, we sure 
cannot curtail the growth of government spending. The only thing we can 
do to get this under control is to reach into the pockets of the 
American people and collect more taxes. So in 1993, by a single vote in 
the House of Representatives and a single vote in the Senate, they 
passed the biggest tax increase in American history and they thought 
that was the only way to reduce the deficit. The American people 
responded in 1994 and said we have had enough of this. We do not like 
those broken promises. We do not think you need more of our money. You 
are already getting enough of our money out there in Washington. They 
sent a whole new group of people out here and the GOP took over control 
of Congress.
  We are now in the third year under Republican control of Congress. In 
the third year of our plan to balance the budget, the contrast is so 
stark. The first year of our plan we promised a deficit, of our 7-year 
plan, we promised a deficit of $154 billion. It was actually 107. First 
year on track, ahead of schedule. Second year Republican control, 
second year of our 7-year plan to balance the Federal budget, we 
promised a deficit not greater than 174. The deficit was 67. Second 
year on track, ahead of schedule. Third year is what we are debating 
right now, deficit promise of 139, it will be under 90. Third year of a 
7-year plan on track and ahead of schedule.
  Notice the stark contrast. Not only are we on track and ahead of 
schedule to produce what we promised the American people, a balanced 
budget, we are not only on track and ahead of schedule, but we are also 
letting the American people keep more of their own money. That is the 
tax cuts. Five hundred dollars per child, $1,500 to help go to college. 
Capital gains coming down from 28 percent to 20 percent. Reducing the 
death tax so families can pass on their estates to their children.
  These are all things that are now coming about at the same time we 
are staying on track and ahead of schedule to balancing the budget. 
This has all been done not with the old theory, the 1993 theory that 
the people rejected in 1994, the idea that we have to raise taxes. This 
is all being done at the same time that we are lowering the taxes on 
the American people. It can happen. It is working beautifully. The 
American people are responding, the economy is responding in a very, 
very positive way. The future, that is past, present, the future after 
we get to a balanced budget, we have still got a $5.3 trillion debt.
  The National Debt Repayment Act, after we reach a balanced budget, 
will cap the growth of spending at a rate 1 percent lower than the rate 
of revenue growth. By doing that, we can then create a surplus. With 
that surplus, two-thirds goes to reducing the Federal debt, one-third 
goes to additional tax cuts. We can pay off the entire Federal debt 
under this plan by the year 2026 and pass this great Nation of ours on 
to our children completely debt free. So instead of having to send $580 
a month to pay interest on the Federal debt, our families can, in the 
year 2026, just keep that money in their own home, put it away to save 
for their kids' college or send them to a better school or buy a better 
house or better car, whatever they see fit, but not send the money out 
here to Washington.
  The National Debt Repayment Act then, the future, caps the growth of 
government spending at a rate 1 percent below the rate of revenue 
growth. Takes two-thirds of the surplus and uses it to repay debt and 
the other one-third to reduce taxes even further. And as we are paying 
off the Federal debt, it is important to remember that also will 
restore the Social Security trust fund money. All the money that has 
been taken out would be returned to the Social Security trust fund 
under the National Debt Repayment Act. That is a vision.
  That is what this is all about. Broken promises of the past, the tax 
increases of the past, those are days gone by. The American people 
rejected those ideas in 1994. In 1995, through the present, we are now 
in a situation where we are in the third year of a 7-year plan to 
balance the budget. We are on track and ahead of schedule. We are 
letting the American people keep more of their own money. It has been 
done by curtailing the growth of government spending as opposed to 
raising taxes on the people. The future holds very bright prospects for 
our children. It holds us paying off the Federal debt, reducing taxes 
even further, and making sure the Social Security trust fund is solvent 
for our senior citizens.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I think our time has about expired. I 
think you have summarized very well where we were, where we are and 
where we are going. The negative naysayers said you cannot balance the 
budget, you cannot provide tax relief, you cannot reform welfare, you 
cannot save Medicare, not all at the same time. Well, it is happening.
  This chart illustrates very clearly where we were. For the last 20 
years, we spent, this Congress spent $1.22 for every dollar they took 
in. We are now spending less than $1.04 for every dollar we take in. We 
are making real progress. We are on the right track. The American 
people understand that. And we are going to balance the budget and let 
people keep more of what they earn.

[[Page H4903]]

  Mr. NEUMANN. I want to wrap up this evening with a tribute to a 
church that I attended twice in the last 3 days here. The church held a 
very special service and they put in a huge amount of effort. A little 
church in Williams Bay. It is Calvary Community Church. What they did 
is they held a special worship service on two nights to honor our 
veterans. When I went there the first night, the church was absolutely 
packed. I got there about a half hour before the service started. There 
were 900 people there. I could not believe it. I walked in the place. 
It was absolutely jam-packed. All American citizens there to pay 
tribute to our veterans. What better place could they be to celebrate 
the Fourth of July weekend?

  I went back the second night, my wife and I. Sue and I were driving 
over to the church service and we said, they cannot possibly have 900 
people in this church again the second night in a row. They had 900 
people the second night in a row. What that does for me is it 
reinvigorates me, gives me hope for the future of this great country.
  We saw in two nights 1,800 people turn out to a church to pay tribute 
to the veterans that have done so much to give us this great Nation 
that we live in. I thought that would be a fitting way to wrap this 
discussion up this evening because they have done so much in the past 
to give us this great Nation that we live in today. It is now our 
responsibility, our awesome responsibility to do the right thing so 
that our children receive a better Nation than we received, so that we 
live up to our responsibility to pass this Nation on to the next 
generation in a fiscally sound way, a way that they can also look 
forward to living the American dream, hopes and dreams for their 
families and for their children and their grandchildren. That is what 
this is all about.

                          ____________________