[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 17019]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                       THERE IS NO BUDGET SURPLUS

  (Mr. HILL of Indiana asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HILL of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, as of this moment, there is no 
budget surplus. According to the Congressional Budget Office, we have 
an on budget deficit of $4 billion in the fiscal year of 1999. If we 
take away the surplus in Social Security, our budget is running a 
deficit. If we read the fine print of the CBO print, we will not have a 
real budget surplus next year either.
  CBO estimates that we will have a $3 billion deficit for fiscal year 
2000. I do not believe that it is fiscally responsible to spend money 
that we do not have and that we may not have in the future. After 30 
years of budget deficits, this Congress has still not learned that it 
cannot spend money it does not have.
  As we stand on the brink of finally balancing our budget and 
beginning to pay down our $5 trillion debt, the leadership of this 
House has put forward a bill that could blow a giant hole in our budget 
and create trillions of dollars of new debt that our children and 
grandchildren will have to pay. I urge this body to set aside whatever 
real surpluses we have over the next 3 years to pay down our God-awful 
debt and to protect Social Security and Medicare. This is the 
responsible thing to do.

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