[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12794-12795]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           THE NATIONAL DEBT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I know I am not supposed to 
address folks up there in the balcony, but they have got to find it a 
little strange that it is about 10:30 here in Washington and Congress 
is not here. In fact, in the whole of this week, Speaker Hastert 
scheduled 13 votes, flew 435 Members of Congress back from across the 
country, majority of them coming from California where there are 52 
Congressmen, for 13 votes. Today is the 1,281 day that he has been 
Speaker, and for not one of those days has he found the time to 
schedule a vote on what I think is the most important thing facing 
those young people in the balcony, those young people, my kids, 
everybody else's kids in America, and that is the national debt.
  At least one of those people up there is 23 years old like my 
daughter Sarah; and if a person is 23 years old, on the day they were 
born, our Nation was less than $1 trillion in debt. It means they have 
gone all the way from when George Washington became the President until 
just before Ronald Reagan assumed office, through the Civil War, let us 
walk through it, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, Mexican-
American War, the Civil War, Spanish American War, World War I, World 
War II, Korea, Vietnam, all the things that have happened along the 
way, the building of the interstate highway system, the building of the 
great barge canals in our country, all the great things that have been 
done for our Nation, the Nation borrowed less than $1 trillion. In the 
past 23 years, the Nation has borrowed over $5 trillion.
  Just 2 weeks ago in a straight party-line vote, every single 
Republican voted to raise the debt limit by an additional $400 billion. 
When folks stop me at the K-Mart or the Wal-Mart or

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the local hardware store, they say where does the money go, where does 
all that money go? They are absolutely dumbfounded when I tell them the 
biggest expense of their Nation is not defense, not health care, not 
taking care of our veterans. It is paying interest on this enormous 
national debt.
  Our Speaker in the 1,281 days that he has been Speaker has not even 
allowed us a vote on a simple constitutional amendment that says 
Congress cannot spend more than it collects in taxes. About half the 
States have that requirement. That is why most of the States have very 
low indebtedness. That is why they squander very little of our money on 
interest on the debt.
  President Bush introduced the very first $2 trillion budget this 
year. He increased spending by about 8 percent over last year because 
of his tax breaks. Revenues are down 16 percent; and the net result of 
that is in the past 12 months, the national debt has increased by 
$399,653,925,113.31.
  Why is that so horrible? How many of us as parents would go out and 
buy a car, go down to the car lot and buy the most expensive car on the 
lot and say I do not care what it costs, I do not care what kind of 
frills are put on it, and by the way, send the bill to my 6- year-old 
son when he turns 30, plus interest? How many would dream of going to 
the local Realtor and saying I want the most expensive house in this 
country, and I do not care what it costs and bill my 7-year-old 
grandson?
  That is precisely what our Nation has been doing, and yet the Speaker 
will not give us in the 1,200-plus days that he has been Speaker even 
one vote on a balanced budget amendment.

                              {time}  1100

  It came up in the House about 6 years ago. It passed. We got the two-
thirds votes necessary. It went to the other body. It failed by only 
one vote. So instead of forcing the other body to vote on this again 
and again and again until we do the right thing for the American 
people, our Speaker has chosen to run up the debt.
  Mr. Speaker, since you have become Speaker, our Nation has increased 
the national debt by $511,040,208,939. That is more debt than was 
incurred in this country from the day George Washington became 
President to halfway through World War II, on your watch. You are the 
man. You schedule the floor debate. You decide what we vote on and when 
we vote on it and you keep deciding we cannot have a vote on a balanced 
budget amendment.
  Mr. Speaker, my name is Gene Taylor. I represent the citizens of 
South Mississippi. For every day of the rest of this session, I am 
going to come to this House floor and tell the American people the 
truth, that you will not give us a vote on a balanced budget amendment 
and that you are the guy who is responsible for this debt, and I am 
personally going to make them aware of it, and I am going to let them 
decide in November if you have managed this House very well.

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