[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 29 (Wednesday, March 15, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H1000]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 REPUBLICAN BUDGET PLAN PAYS DOWN DEBT

  (Mr. PITTS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, would my colleagues go on a huge credit card 
spending spree if they knew that they would be dead and gone once the 
bill came due and their children would be responsible for paying it 
off? Of course not.
  Most Americans work hard to make sure that they have some money to 
leave their children when they die. Most Americans would never dream of 
leaving their children a pile of debt for their inheritance. But that 
is exactly what the Federal Government has been doing for years.
  For 40 years, when Democrats controlled the Congress, they spent 
money on more and more Government programs and created bigger and 
bigger debt and they knew that their children would be the ones saddled 
with the bill, but they kept spending and borrowing and spending more. 
That was wrong.
  Republicans are putting an end to this kind of spending-now-and-
paying-later mentality. One of our priorities in this budget is to pay 
down the public debt. We want to pay off those bills so our children do 
not have to.
  Let us work together to make sure our legacy to our children is a 
sound economy, safe neighborhoods, and quality schools instead of 
decades' worth of bad debt.

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