[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 163 (Wednesday, November 17, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H12114]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    ACROSS-THE-BOARD CUT IS A REASONABLE APPROACH TO FEDERAL BUDGET

  (Mr. SMITH of Michigan asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks and include 
therein extraneous material.)
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, just as a follow-up to the 
previous speaker, I wish everybody, Mr. Speaker, could read the 
editorial in the Wall Street Journal today. It conveyed the message 
that part of the reason this economy is doing so well is Congress is 
staying out of its way. And yet some people say, let us pass more 
legislation. Let us do more things, increase taxes, make it tougher for 
business to succeed and end up increasing the tax revenues that come to 
this government.
  We have been working at this budget for the last 9 months. Now we are 
saying after all of the gives and takes, the compromising here is our 
best effort level of spending prorated among different programs. Now we 
have calculated that in order to save the Social Security surplus, we 
need to cut about 1 cent out of every dollar that is now proposed to be 
spent across the board for discretionary programs. Not leaving it up to 
the President to cut Republican programs, not leaving it up to the 
Republicans to cut Democrat programs.
  Mr. Speaker, an across-the-board cut is reasonable. Let us do it and 
get on with this budget and let us have a new beginning to save Social 
Security.




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