[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 109 (Tuesday, July 29, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S8216]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE BUDGET COMPROMISE

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Minnesota 
has now arrived.
  Let me just remind colleagues once again. When we look at the 
concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 1998--we wouldn't 
put that entire conference report in the Record, obviously. But I ask 
unanimous consent that section 5 on page 4, which only contains some 
seven lines, be printed in the Record at this particular point.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       (5) Public debt.--The appropriate levels of the public debt 
     are as follows:
       Fiscal year 1998: $5,593,500,000,000.
       Fiscal year 1999: $5,841,000,000,000.
       Fiscal year 2000: $6,088,600,000,000.
       Fiscal year 2001: $6,307,300,000,000.
       Fiscal year 2002: $6,481,200,000,000.

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, it shows the public debt for the fiscal 
year 2001 at $6,307,300,000,000, and it shows for fiscal year 2002 the 
public debt has increased to $6,481,200,000,000, an increase of $173.9 
billion. It does not show a balanced budget. It does not show, I 
emphasize, a balanced budget in the fiscal year 2002. We all know from 
the agreement last evening that rather than cutting taxes only $85 
billion, it was a net tax cut of $90 billion. So we have increased the 
loss of revenue some $5 billion. We also know that the spending under 
the particular 1998 budget agreed to last evening increased some $52 
billion.
  So what we have done since we made that agreement--and the conference 
report was adopted last month--is to actually increase spending more, 
and reduce the revenues more. So we know that come the year 2002, we 
will not have the first balanced budget in 33 years. The document 
itself shows it is in deficit because the debt increases that last 
year. Why will the debt increase if we had a balanced budget?
  It is quite obvious that we have not taken significant steps for the 
middle class or the working Americans as has been described here. If we 
really wanted to help working Americans, we could have cut payroll 
taxes. But the truth of the matter is that we cut capital gains taxes 
for the rich. We cut the inheritance tax for the rich. So we didn't do 
it for working Americans. We kept that high payroll tax up. We left out 
the working Americans, and we agreed on both sides to call it balance, 
which is a total fraud.
  I yield the floor.

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