[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 19 (Wednesday, February 3, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H401-H402]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       WHITHER THE BUDGET SURPLUS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, earlier today I spoke on this floor in 
reference to the many, many promises the President made in his State of 
the Union speech and in the days just before and just after that 
speech. As Senator Everett Dirksen said many years ago, ``A billion 
here and a billion there and pretty soon it adds up to some real 
money.'' It is probably the easiest thing in the world to spend other 
people's money.
  It is also one of the easiest things in the world to promise 
government money for everything to everybody. Yet as the National 
Taxpayers Union pointed out after the State of the Union speech, the 
promises contained therein would require $288.4 billion in increased 
spending in the first year alone. The next week, last week, Newsweek 
magazine published a chart showing that all these new promises would, 
if enacted, cause a $2.3 trillion shortfall over the next 15 years.
  On election day of 1994 when control of the Congress changed parties, 
the stock market, the Dow Jones average, was at 3800. It has now 
reached as high as 9600. One of the main reasons our economy has been 
so strong over these last 4 or 4\1/2\ years has been that we finally 
started bringing Federal spending under control. We are even, 
temporarily at least, having some surpluses.
  But let me point out how big a change this is. A few months after 
President Clinton took office, Alice Rivlin, his Director of the Office 
of Management and Budget, put out a shocking memo. She said that if we 
did not make major changes in spending, we would have yearly deficits 
of over $1 trillion a year by the year 2010 and between $4 and $5 
trillion a year by the year 2030.
  If we had allowed that to happen, our entire economy would have 
crashed. No one would have been able to buy a car or a home. Our 
children of today would have seen their standard of living not even 
probably 5 or 10 percent of what it is when they are in the prime of 
their lives, if we had sat around and let the ridiculous and wasteful 
Federal spending that was going on continue.

                              {time}  1300

  Sometimes it is far more compassionate to not spend money and instead 
leave more money with the families of America to spend on their 
children as they see fit. Today taxes and government spending are at 
all-time highs. There is a misimpression by some that government 
spending has been cut in recent years. Really all we have done is slow 
down the great increases that were going on.
  When I first came to the Congress, every department or agency was 
routinely receiving 12 and 15 and 18, even 20 percent increases in 
spending each year. Everyone knew that we could not continue spending 
at that rate, everyone knew that that would lead very soon to a major 
crash of our economy, and so we were able to get things under a little 
better control and decrease or cut these increases in spending down to 
about 3 percent a year, something that we have been able to live with.
  But today the average person, the average family, spends about 40 
percent of his or her income in taxes and at least another 10 percent 
in government regulatory costs. A Member of the other body, Senator 
Fred Thompson from my State of Tennessee, ran some ads a couple of 
years ago which were so true. He said today one spouse works to support 
the government while the other spouse works to support the family. This 
is why we are talking about tax cuts.
  But if we allow all these promises and programs that have been made 
in recent weeks to be enacted, we will get back into trouble so quick 
it will make your head swim. We will get back just where we were a few 
years ago. We will not see these surpluses that are predicted for the 
years ahead. To enact bills that allow, as Newsweek said, a shortfall 
of $2.3 trillion over the next 15 years would just be unconscionable.
  And I want to place in the Record at this point a column on the State 
of the Union speech written by nationally syndicated columnist Charley 
Reese, which I think sums up far better than I have the situation that 
we will get back into if we are not careful:

               [From the Orlando Sentinel, Jan. 28, 1999]

     Don't Buy Into Lies on Top of Lies About a Nonexistent Surplus

                           (By Charley Reese)

       The first thing to keep in mind when evaluating Bill 
     Clinton's laundry list of promises, made in his state of the 
     Union speech, is that Mr. Clinton is a proven liar.
       As any misled wife can tell you, the practical problem in 
     dealing with a liar is deciding when, if ever, he is telling 
     the truth and when he is lying. Lying is far more serious 
     than liars would have you believe.
       Two main lies underlie his speech.
       One is the lie that Social Security needs saving. Well, 
     only from politicians. The current tax brings in more than 
     enough money to keep the Social Security Trust Fund solvent, 
     but Congress and presidents use the surplus to offset 
     deficits in other places in order to promulgate the second 
     lie--that the budget has a surplus.
       Both Republicans and Democrats are co-conspirators in this 
     con job.
       So, starting with two lies, Clinton then proceeds to spend 
     a nonexistent surplus stretching 15 years into the future. 
     Even if this year's surplus were real, there is no way to 
     predict that the surpluses will continue for 15 years into 
     the future. That is pure fantasy.
       Clinton's promising this and promising that, all financed 
     by a nonexistent future surplus, is a perfect example of 
     demagoguery. Furthermore, everything Clinton proposed, except 
     spending more on defense (again with the mythical surplus 
     money), is unconstitutional.
       Yes, I know that nobody pays any attention to the 
     Constitution except lawyers trying to get around the 
     democratic process. But, nevertheless, if you will just read 
     the document, you will notice that nowhere is the federal 
     government authorized to get involved in local land planning, 
     health care (long- or short-term), child care, urban sprawl, 
     education or discouraging kids from smoking tobacco. (God 
     knows they've done a poor job of discouraging them from 
     smoking dope).
       It's dismaying that more people can't see through this 
     thinly disguised con game Washington politicians are playing. 
     They do polls. They find out what folks are worrying about. 
     They promise to fix it. They pretend they can fix it, despite 
     a deplorable record of failure ($5 trillion and the feds lost 
     the War on Poverty; $40 billion and they lost the war on 
     drugs). They pretend they can do it at no cost. This year, 
     they will all be spending the mythical surpluses, which, like 
     psychics, they know will come in the future.
       All this amounts to is blatant vote-buying, as corrupt as 
     if they were standing outside the voting booths, stuffing $20 
     bills into people's pockets. It amounts to robbing Jane to 
     buy the vote of Betsy.
       Why should one working mother, who pays for her own child 
     care, be taxed to provide free child care to someone else?

[[Page H402]]

       The low-life, unprincipled politicians have turned 
     government in America largely into a racket, and it appears 
     that many Americans have become so corrupt themselves that 
     they don't care as long as they get a piece of the booty.
       Well, from the point of view of a paid observer, watching a 
     society collapse is probably more interesting than watching 
     one that is running smoothly, but nevertheless I don't 
     recommend it.
       I don't know of any greater civic sin a people can commit 
     then taking this great country, created and preserved at such 
     a great price in blood, sweat and tears, and tossing it away 
     just because Americans have become too damned lazy, timid, 
     greedy and irresponsible to preserve it for posterity.
       Despite what you hear, the state of this union isn't very 
     good.

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