[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 147 (Thursday, October 15, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H10923]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1030
                 TAKING CREDIT FOR BALANCING THE BUDGET

  (Mr. PAYNE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Speaker, let me take a minute to look at this question 
of a balanced budget. We hear our Republican colleagues talk with pride 
about the fact that they passed a balanced budget and we have a 
surplus.
  Let us go back five short years ago when there was a bill in 1993 
before this House. The bill said let us cut $250 billion of programs, 
and let us increase $250 billion of taxes on the top 2 percent of 
Americans. Ninety-eight percent of the Americans were exempt from that 
tax increase.
  At that time, not one single Republican vote was cast for that plan 
that President Clinton gave to the American people. It was passed 
overwhelmingly by Democrats, without one single Republican vote, a $500 
billion process that put us on the target now where we have over 16 
million new jobs, a $70 billion surplus and many other positive things. 
We did it, not them.

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