[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 95 (Monday, July 15, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H4658]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE NATIONAL DEBT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, as we read about the scandals 
in the private sector and as we hear the President go to Wall Street to 
try to get them to do a better job with their accounting practices, it 
strikes me that the President would have much better spent his time if 
he had given that speech here in these halls. You see, as we talk about 
false billing and cooking the books going on on Wall Street, there is 
no more false billing and there is no bigger cooking of the books than 
right here in the halls of Congress and in the other body. I guess the 
average American would be dumfounded to know that the taxes that they 
pay every month called FICA, their Social Security taxes, they think is 
being set aside for their Social Security, would they not be surprised 
to find out that as of this moment, our Nation owes the Social Security 
trust fund $1.3 trillion. There is not a penny in that account, nothing 
but an IOU of some government securities. Folks who pay taxes know that 
on that pay stub is a tax for Medicare. They presume it is being set 
aside to pay for their medical expenses when they get older. They would 
be shocked to find out that as of this moment, if you could find that 
imaginary lockbox, that we owe the Medicare trust fund $271 billion. 
For folks back home, I realize a billion is a lot of money, so I walk 
you through it the way I have to remind myself. A billion is a thousand 
times a thousand times a thousand, and in this instance again times 271 
is how much is owed to the Medicare trust fund.
  Every year money is taken out of the Department of Defense budget 
with the promise that it will be set aside to pay military retirement 
pay. I am sure that after what the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. 
Shows) said, and rightly so, that they would be aghast to find out that 
if you were to find the so-called military retiree fund, all you would 
find there is an IOU for a thousand times a thousand times a thousand 
times 168.
  The civil servants, the people on the Border Patrol, the people who 
work for Customs, the FBI agents who are out there trying to find 
kidnapped kids, the ATF agents who get shot at on a regular basis 
trying to keep violent people from building bombs that would harm other 
Americans, they have a retirement plan. They pay into it. The 
government pays into it. That money is supposed to be set aside just to 
pay for their retirement. If they could find that mythical lockbox, 
they would find that what is missing is a thousand times a thousand 
times a thousand times 540. $540 billion.

                              {time}  1945

  In fact, I guess the average Joe would be a little surprised that 
after coming to Congress and promising to balance the books, that in 
the approximately 1,286 days that Dennis Hastert has been the Speaker 
of the House, that the Federal debt has grown by $511,040,208,939.15, 
which is more debt than was accumulated in this country from the day 
that George Washington became President until 1975. Our Nation went for 
almost 199 years and accumulated only as much debt since Dennis Hastert 
has been Speaker.
  I say that to express my severe disappointment that in those 1,286 
days, Speaker Hastert has not allowed, and he sets the schedule for 
floor debate; only bills that he approves come to the floor and bills 
that he disapproves do not come to the floor. He has never set a day of 
debate for a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution of the 
United States. So that regardless of which party, be they Democrats, be 
they Republicans, or whoever is controlling the House, and regardless 
of which party controls the Senate, and regardless of who is the 
President, they are going to spend no more money than is collected in 
taxes.
  In the 23 years my daughter has been alive, this Nation has added $5 
trillion to that debt. We could have gone all the way from the day 
George Washington became President to the day Ronald Reagan became 
President and our Nation was only $1 trillion in debt. In just 23 
years, this much has been added. I think the American people are 
rightly demanding that Congress spend no more than they collect in 
taxes. Because no good parent would go out and buy a car and say, by 
the way, I have a 6-year-old child and let them pay for it, plus 
interest, when they grow up. No good parent would go buy a house, the 
most expensive house, because they are not going to pay for it, they 
are going to stick their grandkids with the bill.
  That is what you have been doing, Speaker Hastert; and I think it is 
time we had a vote on a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution 
to stop this Congress and stop future Congresses from doing that. This 
is a message that I am going to deliver every day until we get a vote 
on the Balanced Budget Amendment.
  I want to encourage Americans to check my sources. Because unlike 
those guys who were talking about big budget surpluses last year, but 
never followed it up with the facts, I want Americans to check these 
numbers because they will be as shocked and appalled as I am. So please 
look for the monthly statement of the public debt, June 2002, under 
http//www.publicdebt.treas.gov, and see for yourselves how broke our 
Nation is. And then when we hear the politicians ranting and raving 
about irresponsibility on Wall Street, maybe you will encourage them to 
look in the mirror.




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