[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 30 (Thursday, March 8, 2001)]
[House]
[Page H744]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   WRITE A BUDGET, THEN GIVE TAX CUTS

  (Mr. HILL asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HILL. Mr. Speaker, a politician's first instinct is to promise 
everything to everybody. It is a lot easier for politicians to say yes 
to everybody and put off the tough choices until later. That is why 
this House set up a budget process that forces us to make tough choices 
between our competing priorities. It is the same process every 
responsible American family and business follows. Before they start 
spending money, they sit down and figure out how much they have.
  In a perfect world we would have all the money we needed to take care 
of all our priorities. But this is not a perfect world. We have to make 
tough choices. If we want to give people bigger tax cuts, we will have 
to take some money out of Social Security and Medicare. If we want to 
pay down more debt, we will have to restrain spending or tax cuts.
  Let us do the hard work first. Let us write a budget, laying out our 
priorities, then let us give people tax cuts. President Bush and the 
Senate are debating tax cuts within a budget framework and we should be 
doing that in the House as well.

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