[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 59 (Thursday, April 12, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H3204-H3205]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       ADDRESSING FISCAL DEFICITS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from California (Mr. Khanna) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. KHANNA. Mr. Speaker, I am here on behalf of the Congressional 
Progressive Caucus, and I want to just state our opposition to the 
balanced budget amendment.
  It is worth reviewing the history on this topic. When President Bill 
Clinton left office, he left this country with surpluses. He had 
reversed the policy of Reagan economics, which had some of

[[Page H3205]]

the largest structural deficits in the 1980s and during the first 
President Bush's term.
  And then we went from record surpluses back to deficits. And what was 
the reason for those deficits? There were two very simple reasons. One, 
we made a strategic mistake in Iraq and spent trillions of dollars, 
which even President Trump has acknowledged was a blunder, and that 
ballooned the deficit. And secondly, we made a decision to provide tax 
cuts for the very wealthiest Americans.
  Now, the Democrats supported the tax cut for the middle class, for 
folks making $50- to $75,000, but we said you don't need to provide tax 
cuts for people making $1 million, $500,000; you don't need to provide 
tax cuts for those who are already paying capital gains tax rates at 20 
percent and don't need additional tax breaks.
  So those two decisions, the intervention overseas and our continued 
interventions overseas and these extraordinary tax breaks for the very 
wealthy, have led us to the deficits that we have today, have led us to 
the $20 trillion debt.
  No one wants that kind of debt. We don't want to see interest rates 
continue to go up and crowd out private investment. We don't want to 
see people's savings lose value. But the solution to that is not a 
gimmick of a balanced budget amendment where the Republicans have 
doubled down on more tax cuts for the very wealthy, where they haven't 
stopped our interventionism abroad. We still actually have escalation 
in Afghanistan, escalation in Iraq, escalation around the world, in 
contradiction to what this President promised on the campaign where he 
said that he would focus on developing our domestic economy and stop 
the interventionism, and we just have symbolic votes for a balanced 
budget amendment.
  The question is how? How can you vote for extraordinary tax cuts? How 
can you vote for more overseas interventionism? How can you vote for 
huge spending bills and then just say you are for a balanced budget 
amendment? The math just doesn't work.

  And so what Democrats have said is, instead of having a balanced 
budget amendment, instead of constraining our policy or economic policy 
to spend more at times of war or times of recession--which, by the way, 
Roosevelt did, which Woodrow Wilson did, what many of our Presidents 
did--that what we ought to do is have sensible government, that we 
ought to stop the foreign interventionism, we ought to repeal these tax 
breaks and giveaways to the very wealthy, and instead we ought to 
invest in the middle class, invest in our education, invest in our 
infrastructure, invest in our schools, invest in new technology that 
will grow the economy.
  That is how you reduce the structural deficits. But, by the way, this 
is not a theoretical debate, because Bill Clinton showed that when you 
have that kind of ``people's first'' economic policy, you left this 
country with surpluses, and the trickle-down Reaganomics has always 
left this country with deficits.
  It is not enough to just vote for balanced budget amendments while 
piling on debt. A far more responsible policy would be to end the 
foreign interventionism, to repeal these massive giveaways to the 
wealthy, and to invest in the middle class.
  That is why my colleagues and I opposed the balanced budget 
amendment. That is why we have offered the Congressional Progressive 
People's Budget that will lead to greater economic growth than anything 
that the President has proposed, and that will also reduce our Nation's 
debt.
  Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers, and I yield back the balance 
of my time.

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