[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 37 (Tuesday, April 5, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H1756]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         FEDERAL BUDGET DEFICIT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, the Federal budget deficit is one of the 
gravest problems that our Nation faces. It is one of the largest it has 
ever been. It is $412 billion this past year. It is likely to continue 
at that size for the foreseeable future.
  $412 billion is a whole lot of money, but the truth is that the real 
budget deficit is even higher than that because, due to the Social 
Security surplus of about $155 billion this last year, that is used by 
the administration to disguise the true size of the deficit. So that 
means the true deficit is not $412 billion, even though that is a near 
record setter. The true deficit this last year was $567 billion.
  We have a real problem in America because each annual deficit turns 
into debt, debt that we have to pay interest on. We have no choice 
about that because America has never defaulted and will never default 
on its obligations.
  Those interest costs add up. It took the first 204 years of our 
Nation's history to get us the first $1 trillion in debt, 204 years to 
do that; but now we add another $1 trillion every 2 or 3 years.
  Mr. Speaker, we do that because our Nation is simply not paying its 
bills today. It is too easy to spend money that we do not have, too 
easy to spend money that we are borrowing increasingly from dangerous 
countries like China. We are borrowing $1.3 million a minute, over $1 
billion a day; and, Mr. Speaker, that adds up to a terrible debt burden 
for our children and grandchildren.
  We have got to do something about that. It is sad but true that it is 
unlikely that the Congress this year will even have a budget. We passed 
one in the House of Representatives and the Senate passed one, but the 
two are so different they are probably irreconcilable.
  Guess what, Mr. Speaker, last year we did not have a budget either. 
So how is our Nation, the greatest nation in the history of the world, 
going to proceed without a budget, meanwhile running some of the 
largest deficits in American history, adding, as I said earlier, $1 
trillion to our children's and grandchildren's debt every year or two 
now?
  Well, most Americans are not informed about this, and that is an 
outrage because what the leadership of this House has done is they 
eliminated any votes on raising the debt ceiling. That used to be a way 
that the American public could tell when the debt was being increased 
dramatically, when we bumped up against that debt ceiling. Now there 
are few, if any, recorded votes on that. No news to report. It just 
happens automatically.
  Mr. Speaker, everybody talks about spending cuts as a way to get out 
of the deficit hole. That is a great idea; but, Mr. Speaker, it is 
unlikely that a body of 435 in this House and 100 in the Senate is 
going to come up with spending cuts. We need Presidential leadership, 
and that has been conspicuously lacking for the last 4 or 5 years.
  Mr. Speaker, President Bush is the first President in the United 
States since James Garfield never to have vetoed a bill. Not one single 
piece of legislation has President Bush vetoed, the first President 
since Garfield, who served back in 1881; and poor Garfield was only in 
office for 6 months before he died. We are now in the 5th year of the 
Bush Presidency, and he has yet to veto a bill.
  To give President Bush credit, he says he really needs the line item 
veto, the special narrower form of veto that would enable him to cut 
individual programs out of larger bills. That would be a wonderful 
thing for the President to have, but the Supreme Court has ruled it is 
unconstitutional. It would take at least 2 or 3 years to pass a 
constitutional amendment. Meanwhile, we would have another President.
  But what the President has not acknowledged is he has got rescission 
power which is just about as good as the line item veto power; and 
guess what, just like the real veto, he has never used the rescission 
power either.
  President Clinton used rescission power 163 times, and he won 111 of 
those cuts; but President Bush, in his 5 years as President, has never 
asked for a rescission power. Period.
  Well, that is an outrage. So not only are we not seeing Presidential 
leadership on the veto, we are not seeing Presidential leadership 
regarding rescission power either.
  I think the American people need to ask. We want Presidential 
leadership and he has provided excellent leadership in a number of 
areas, but regarding our Federal budget deficit, there has been almost 
no leadership.
  We need to start a clock saying when is the President going to 
finally veto a bill and try to discipline a Congress that likes to 
spend money too much? When is the President going to rescind spending 
and start disciplining Congress? The American people deserve to know 
the answer.

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