[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 34 (Wednesday, March 17, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H1209]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         ASSURING FISCAL HONESTY AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACT OF 2004

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bradley of New Hampshire). Under a 
previous order of the House, the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Case) is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CASE. Mr. Speaker, good evening and aloha.
  Tonight, I rise to address again the single most important issue 
facing our country, now, next year, and well into the next generation, 
and that is our crushing budget deficit and the fiscal corruption of 
our Nation's finances; and yes, I do not use that word ``corruption'' 
lightly because that is what is happening.
  I do so in solidarity with my fellow Blue Dog Members, people of 
sincerity who I respect and who have stood here for years and decades 
and argued for fiscal responsibility and with whom I today cointroduced 
the Assuring Fiscal Honesty and Accountability Act of 2004. That is the 
subject that I want to address briefly here tonight because I can 
assure my fellow citizens, beyond any semblance of doubt, that fiscal 
honesty and accountability have no place at today's seat of power here 
in Washington.
  Perhaps I am overly simplistic, but on any issue I like to ask: 
First, is there a problem? Second, what exactly is it? Third, what is 
the solution? Fourth, how do we accomplish it?
  The act that we introduced today addresses the fourth question: How 
do we accomplish it? And it starts with the fourth question because I 
do not know how anybody can doubt that we have a problem. We know we 
have one, and we know exactly what it is, the systematic pillaging of 
our Nation's fiscal and budgetary integrity and resources for short-
term political gain. We know the general parameters of the solution, 
and today we have had a good interchange on that.
  We know we have to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse, wherever it is. 
We know we have to balance revenues and spending, but the reality is 
that we have lost our way on just how to get there.
  We learned once in the eighties and the nineties that for us to have 
a realistic discussion and to make realistic decisions on the 
incredibly tough issues that go with the fiscal discipline territory, 
whether to raise or lower taxes and on whom, who and what to spend 
taxpayers hard-earned money on, and who not to spend it on, we had to 
set the rules of engagement and institute some basic checks and 
balances on natural political tendencies arising out of our reluctance, 
our abhorrence, of saying no. These rules were necessary, even though 
we had already placed limits on the amount of total national debt and 
required a separate vote to breach that national debt.
  Those votes had become, as they are today and as we proved again 
today in the Committee on the Budget, a superfluous pro forma exercise 
as we now break through the $7.5 trillion total debt barrier. These 
rules had fancy names like discretionary spending caps and pay-go or 
pay-as-you-go, but they all stood for the same basic concept, a concept 
we are all familiar with in our personal and business finances: Set the 
ground rules, the overall boundary of the finances as a responsible, 
achievable, sustainable level before making individual decisions, and 
then match those decisions to those rules. The caps were just that, 
overhaul caps or limits. We could move around under caps, but we could 
not breach the caps, and pay-go just said if we break the rules in one 
area, if we exceed in one area, we have to make it up somewhere else, a 
pay-as-you-go. It all has to balance one way or the other. And these 
rules worked up until 3 years ago.
  We had reversed a fiscal decline and were heading towards surpluses, 
but then what happened was something inexcusable, and it was on the 
watch of the current administration because that is when people around 
here in the majority and downtown decided they did not like those 
rules, because those rules got in the way of radically reducing 
revenues, while at the same time busting spending up to record highs. 
Yes, let us not talk about whose responsibility the spending increases 
were. The rest is history; record deficits as far as the eye can see, 
record total debt, material risk to our very fiscal foundations.
  The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) again said tonight a saying 
that I am fond of: In order to get out of the hole, you have to stop 
digging. That is what this bill says: Let us stop digging right now by 
using techniques that worked in the past and let us start climbing.
  One would think the majority and the administration would be falling 
all over themselves to get out in front on this issue. After all, I 
hear tell they are the party of fiscal responsibility. What an 
incredible surprise here in Washington to discover that that is 
anywhere but the truth.
  So, lo and behold, they are not. They do not mind discretionary 
spending caps, as long as it is only the programs that they do not 
like. They do not mind putting caps on them. But, by the way, the 
programs that they want to raise, the programs that are busting our 
budget, no, we cannot afford discretionary spending caps. They do not 
mind pay-go, sounds good, as long as it does not apply to those 
programs, as long as it does not apply to evaluations of revenues and 
taxes.
  Well, any fool can see that when you set the rules, they have to 
apply to everyone. When you balance a budget, you cannot leave it with 
so many outs, so many holes, that it is dead on arrival. And that is 
what the absence of this discretionary spending caps and pay-go rules 
has done.
  So our bill says to everybody, hey, simply, you say you stand for 
fiscal responsibility, prove it. Set some rules that work and then live 
with them.
  I urge this bill's prompt passage. And to my colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle, who have stood here today talking about fiscal 
responsibility, I invite their cosponsorship. I think we can form a 
good team to provide some realistic budget rules.

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