[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 17976-17977]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



   REPUBLICAN BUDGET BETTER AT DEBT REDUCTION THAN DEMOCRAT PROPOSALS

  (Mr. BALLENGER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Speaker, I want to reiterate. The Republican 
budget contains $200 billion more in debt reduction than does the 
Democrat proposals. You heard that right. Our budget is better on debt 
reduction than the Democrat budget is according to the Congressional 
Budget Office.

[[Page 17977]]



                              {time}  1015

  But one would never know it from listening to some of my colleagues 
on the other side of the aisle, many of whom seem to be positively 
incapable of describing our tax cut proposal accurately.
  Republicans call for both tax relief and debt reduction in our 
proposal. Indeed, our plan would reduce the debt held by the public by 
slightly over $2 trillion over the next 10 years. To call that 
irresponsible is reckless or a bit odd. We have a balanced and fair 
plan that not only provides for debt reduction and tax relief, but 
insists on a Social Security and Medicare lockbox provision for the 
first time. One hundred percent of the retirement surplus would go to 
Social Security and Medicare.
  In other words, all FICA taxes would actually go towards the programs 
they were designed to go towards, Social Security and Medicare.
  Do Democrats really think that is reckless?

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