[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 143 (Sunday, October 11, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H10522-H10523]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT STILL TOO BIG, WITH A DEFENSE BUDGET TOO SMALL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Idaho (Mrs. Chenoweth) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Speaker, the Treasury Department will announce 
that the Federal budget is in surplus for the first time since 1969. 
Only 2 short years ago the President of the United States submitted a 
budget with a $200 billion deficit, as far as the eye can see, if 
Members will recall.
  What happened? There are a lot of Americans, and most Americans, 
including us, who really do not care where the credit falls, just as 
long as this Congress stays committed to a balanced budget and reducing 
the size of government. But it is important to understand how we got 
here, where we are today, so we can continue on the path of sound 
economic recovery.
  Remember when the country was faced with large, chronic deficits at 
the beginning of the 1990s? Congress faced a choice. To cut the 
deficit, lawmakers had one of two choices to make, to cut spending or 
to raise the taxes. President Clinton and his allies here in the 
Congress chose to, remember, raise taxes. Congress at that time was 
still under the control of the Democrats, so President Clinton was able 
to get through the largest tax increase in the history of this great 
Nation.
  Republicans, on the other hand, wanted to reduce the deficit by 
cutting spending. Republicans believe that government is too big and 
too bossy, and they believe that Washington wastes too much of our 
money. One would think that this is an obvious point to us, because it 
is to the American people. After all, even the President himself said 
in his 1996 State of the Union

[[Page H10523]]

Address that the era of big government was over.
  If only that were true, Mr. Speaker. We can see now that this 
declaration was nothing more than words. Big government is alive and 
well, and it is bigger than ever. In fact, the Democrats have come back 
with still more ways to increase the size and power of government every 
year since.
  While we can say that government is not quite as big as it would have 
been if the Republicans had not taken control of the Congress in 1995, 
the truth is that government continues to grow, and any attempts to cut 
government, no matter how wasteful and counterproductive the program 
may be, the liberals will immediately attack our resistance to more and 
bigger government as being extremist or mean-spirited.
  It has never occurred to them that it is perhaps mean-spirited on the 
part of a Federal government to have so little respect for the working 
men and their labor that Washington takes between one-quarter and one-
third of their precious money every month from their paycheck.
  So that still leaves us with the very important question, how did we 
go from $200 billion deficits, as the President had proposed, as far as 
the eye can see, only 2\1/2\ years ago, to the budget surplus that we 
now enjoy?
  Let me tell the Members, remember, it is true that there have been 
some reductions in spending, but almost all of them have come out of 
one place it should not have come out of, Mr. Speaker. That is the 
Pentagon. Defense spending is now dangerously low, and our military 
forces are not what they should be.
  Mr. Speaker, we know that to be the truth, but our Democrat 
colleagues, in their boundless faith in human nature, ignore history 
and simply do not believe in the fundamental precept that America must 
achieve peace through strength.

                              {time}  1500

  As for other spending, Republicans did manage to limit the number of 
new spending initiatives of President Clinton and the Democrats over 
the past few years. But the primary reason why the budget is in surplus 
today is because revenues are way, way, way up. Liberals will point to 
the President's 1993 tax increase as a reason why revenues are up, 
hoping that we will not examine the budget tables ourselves to see if, 
in fact, this is true.
  Revenues are up primarily from the number of people who are taking 
advantage of low tax rates on capital gains, the part of the economy 
that is the lifeblood of any dynamic growing economy.
  President Reagan cut the tax on capital gains, and the Republicans 
cut it again just last year. Savers, investors, entrepreneurs, and 
other job creators are taking advantage of that, and the economy is 
benefiting from that. Jobs are being created, and revenues have soared. 
That, Mr. Speaker, is primarily the reason why the budget is now in 
surplus when it was in deep red only a few years ago.

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