[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 16 (Tuesday, February 10, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H419]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      WE WILL PAY FOR OUR TAX CUTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, just 3 years ago the state of our economy 
was strong. We had just seen 20 million new jobs created. We had seen 
the fastest growth in 30 years, the lowest unemployment in 30 years, 
the lowest poverty rates in 20 years, and the first back-to-back 
surpluses in 42 years, up to a surplus of $236 billion.
  Alan Greenspan and others wondered aloud about the danger of an 
America that was debt free. What we would do, what we would give to 
have an America that is debt free now. But instead, our economy is in a 
different place. Instead, we have lost 2.2 million jobs in the last 3 
years; and despite a rise in the stock market and productivity gains, 
there are no new jobs. People are searching for work longer and finding 
less.
  This result was not unforeseeable. For years, members of the Blue Dog 
Coalition warned we were spending money we did not have, that the 
administration had no economic plan, that tax cuts alone were not a 
substitute for an economic plan for our country's future. Last year, 
this Congress voted to pass an increase in the national debt. At the 
same time we took up the increase in the national debt, we took up a 
further round of tax cuts.
  I remember standing here on this House floor and pointing out the 
awful irony that in the same week we voted to raise the national debt 
we voted to cut taxes further. And it was plain we were borrowing the 
money to cut taxes further. A tax cut that is not paid for is not a tax 
cut at all. It is merely a deferral of the obligation to our children, 
to the next generation.
  So we have reached an unfortunate milestone in our Nation's history 
where we have the largest deficits we have ever had, $521 billion for 
this year alone, and no plan, no plan in sight to put our fiscal house 
in order.
  In fact, the administration's budget makes a bad problem worse, by 
failing to include the costs of the war in Iraq, by failing to include 
the costs that we will incur 5 years from now when this deficit will 
mushroom, by calling for a trillion dollars in new tax cuts without 
paying for them.
  If your family or mine budgeted this way, we would all go bankrupt. 
Our families know what it is like to balance the checkbook at the end 
of the month, the end of the year; and it is time the Federal 
Government did the same. It is not too late to avoid leaving our 
children a crushing debt. It is not too late to create new jobs and put 
Americans back to work. It is not too late to end our dependence on 
foreign financing of our Nation's debt. But it is time to put our 
fiscal house back in order, by paying our bills as we go. The 
administration wants another tax cut? Fine. Let us pay for it. The 
administration wants to spend more? That is fine. But let us pay for 
it.
  If we have not the courage to ask the American people to sacrifice at 
a time of war, let us not add the indignity of asking our children to 
bear the burden alone.

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