[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 16 (Tuesday, February 10, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H417-H418]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 BUSH BUDGET LACKS CREDIBILITY, AND BALLOONING DEFICIT LEFT TO FUTURE 
                         GENERATIONS IS IMMORAL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Hill) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HILL. Mr. Speaker, back in the 1980s, a budgetary theory was 
advanced called ``supply side economics.'' Some called it voodoo 
economics back in those days. It was the theory that you cut taxes, 
increase spending and, somehow, you get more money in. It did not work 
back then, and it has not worked again, because we have supply side 
economics all over again.
  On January 28, 2003, during the State of the Union last year, the 
President said, ``This country has many challenges. We will not deny, 
we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other 
Congresses, to other Presidents, and other generations.''
  Last week, Members of Congress received copies of the President's 
proposed budget, and it is already clear this budget fails to meet the 
standards the President outlined last year. Today, my friends in the 
Blue Dog Coalition, a group that is well-known in Washington for our 
work on balancing the budget and reducing the deficit, are going to 
join me here to outline the dangerous course this budget outlines for 
our Nation.
  This budget makes it clear to my constituents in southern Indiana and 
Americans across this country that this White House and Congress are 
mortgaging our future to pay for today. As this chart shows, we are 
backsliding into a deficit ditch, and there is no end in sight. Look at 
this: 1989. These are figures where in the year 2000; we had an actual 
surplus of $236 billion. We had an election in the year 2000, and look 
what has happened in the last 3 years. We have gone from a $236 billion 
surplus to this year, a projected $520 billion deficit. It is 
incredible that this could happen so quickly. In only a few short 
years, we have gone from record surpluses to these record deficits.
  By 2009, the national debt will have eclipsed $10 trillion. Put it 
another way, that is nearly $40,000 for every man, woman, and child 
living in the United States today. It is simply immoral to strap future 
generations with trillions of dollars of debt that they did not create. 
It is immoral to increase the debt tax, the mandatory costs we must pay 
up front every year to cover the interest of the national debt, that 
every family is going to have to pay on the debt.
  I have a second chart. The President's budget raises the debt tax 
dramatically. In 2004, right here, a family of four will owe $4,367. As 
my colleagues can see, over the next 10 years, each family will go from 
$4,367 of our national debt to $10,368 of our national debt.
  Ballooning deficits are going to impose some impossible choices on 
future generations. Without a show of fiscal responsibility, we will 
squander away any hope for future generations to address pressing needs 
of their time because they will be stuck cleaning up the multitrillion-
dollar mess we are making for them today. Leaving future generations 
with huge debts is immoral, but that is not the only problem with this 
budget. This budget simply lacks credibility.
  The President proposes to limit spending this year. That is good. I 
agree with the President that Congress should limit spending, but that 
is not the whole truth. Spending in Congress is out of control today. 
In 3 years, with almost complete control of the Congress and the White 
House, this side of the aisle has increased spending as a percentage of 
the GDP every single year. And in 8 years, under the prior 
administration, spending decreased in relation to the Gross Domestic 
Product 8 years in a row.
  So, yes, we must control spending, but we have to do more than that. 
We must mean it.
  This budget fails to include a dime of spending for troops in Iraq 
and Afghanistan, and we should make it clear to the troops stationed 
overseas on 12-

[[Page H418]]

month rotations that we will provide the resources they need, rather 
than playing games with the budget to artificially hold down the size 
of this deficit on paper.
  As my colleagues in the Blue Dog Coalition have said, we believe 
everyone, Democrats and Republicans, Congress and the White House need 
to sit down, put everything on the table, and get our economic house in 
order, not mortgage our future to pay for today.

                          ____________________