[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 18]
[House]
[Page 25395]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                               GOOD NEWS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Madam Speaker, I want to share with my colleagues and 
those who are watching in their offices some incredibly good news that 
appeared yesterday in many newspapers around the country, USA Today, 
many of the national newspapers. I know the St. Paul Pioneer Press back 
in my State carried the story, but it is incredibly good news, and I 
would like to read just the first paragraph or so.
  It says something symbolically enormous may have happened today. The 
Congressional Budget Office announced that the government may have 
balanced the budget in fiscal year 1999. Now that is the one we just 
completed October 1 without spending Social Security money.

                              {time}  1845

  It goes on to say, if so, it would be the first time that that has 
happened since 1960 when Dwight Eisenhower was President, gentlemen 
sported fedoras, and women wore fox stoles.
  Madam Speaker, this is incredibly good news for all generations. In 
fact, there were some other things that happened. To put this in 
perspective, the last time the Federal Government actually balanced the 
budget without using the Social Security trust funds, Elvis was just 
getting out of the army and going back to recording. The television 
show Bonanza was just going on the air. Apples sold for 18 cents a 
pound. The French company introduced the Renault Dalphine to the 
American market for about $1,400 per automobile. The minimum wage was 
$1, and some may even remember that Bill Mazeroski hit a home run in 
the bottom of the ninth to power the Pittsburgh Pirates to a world 
series win over the New York Yankees. I might add, and this is what 
really got my attention, the last time that the Congress and the 
Federal Government balanced the budget without using Social Security 
Trust Fund money, the last time that happened was 11 years before 
Congressman Paul Ryan was born. That really puts this into perspective. 
This has been a long time. In fact, I would like to say that we have 
been wandering in the wilderness of growing deficits for 40 years and 
finally, we have crossed the River Jordan, and I hope that we will not 
turn back.
  Let me just show my colleagues another chart. This is what the 
Congressional Budget Office told us when I came here just five years 
ago in 1995. I was elected in 1994. But what they were saying was that 
in 1994, the Congress borrowed $57 billion from the Social Security 
Trust Fund, and then it went to $69 billion and then to $73 billion and 
then to $78 billion, and they were projecting that had the Congress had 
not gotten serious about controlling the growth in Federal spending and 
actually balancing the budget, they were projecting by this year we 
would be borrowing at least $90 billion from the Social Security trust 
fund. Again I say, this is good news.
  Now, we are in a great budget debate right now with the White House 
in terms of whether or not we are going to continue on this path. Are 
we going to balance the budget? Are we going to steal from Social 
Security? Are we going to raise taxes? In order to get what we think 
needs to be done in terms of balancing the budget without using Social 
Security, we really only have three choices. We can raise taxes, and of 
course the President was out today saying that we need to raise taxes. 
In fact, he is proposing a tax on cigarettes. Now, I am not a fan of 
cigarettes, I do not smoke cigarettes, I wish no one smoked cigarettes. 
But the truth of the matter is that when we raise taxes on cigarettes, 
it is a very regressive tax. We know who ends up paying those taxes. It 
generally is people who can least afford to pay additional taxes.
  The second option is to steal from Social Security. We have said that 
is not acceptable. The Democrats here in Congress have said that is not 
acceptable, and the White House has said that that is not acceptable. 
But that really leaves us with only one choice and that is to cut 
spending. We think that the fairest thing would be to cut spending 
across the board, all departments throughout the Federal bureaucracy. 
Some people say, well, that cannot be done. We cannot make the Federal 
Government tighten its belt by one notch. Well, I think those of my 
colleagues who represent farm districts know that farmers are 
tightening their belts by not one notch, but by perhaps 10 or 15 
notches. So asking the Federal bureaucracy to tighten its belt one 
notch we believe is fair, is responsible, it is doable, and I think 
anybody outside of the beltway would agree that there is more than 
enough fat in the Federal budget to tighten it one percent across the 
board to make certain that we balance the budget without raising taxes 
and without raiding the Social Security Trust Fund.
  I also want to mention a couple of other things. The President is 
very quick to spend our money, whether it is in Kosovo or Bosnia or in 
other places around the world. A couple of days ago, the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Cunningham) told us that already his estimates were 
that the efforts in Bosnia and Kosovo have cost us nearly $16 billion. 
Now, we did not budget for that. We have had to find other ways to pay 
for those special expenditures. But balancing the budget without 
raising taxes and without raiding the Social Security Trust Fund is 
going to become more and more difficult if the President continues to 
run a 911 service without the help from our allies.
  I would remind all of my colleagues that when President Bush led us 
into the Gulf War, he got our allies to help pay for it. As a matter of 
fact, under some of the accounting that I have seen that actually, the 
net cost to the taxpayers in the United States of the Gulf War was 
virtually nothing.
  So Madam Speaker, I just want to reiterate what great news this is, 
that for the time, we have balanced the budget in fiscal year 1999 
without using the Social Security Trust Fund, and I want to say that it 
is great news for all generations of Americans: for senior citizens, 
for baby boomers, and more importantly, for a brighter future for our 
kids. I hope we stay the course. Let us not raid the Social Security 
Trust Fund.

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