[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 11979-11980]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              GOVERNMENT SPENDING AND THE GROWING DEFICIT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 20, 2004, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, for a moment, I want to talk 
about what our decision should be in this United States Congress as we 
approach another budget year. One of the big challenges of the Congress 
of the United States is the overspending of government, because it adds 
to the debt. Over promising adds to unfunded liabilities, and the 
question becomes, when is it time for Congress and the White House to 
start faxing and reducing the growth of the Federal Government?
  I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the time is now. We should start 
next year making changes in the programs, such as Social Security, 
Medicare, and Medicaid, where Congress has overpromised and does not 
have the revenue coming in to pay for these programs in the long run. 
That includes Social Security.
  The reason I suggest now is a good time is because the economy is 
growing very rapidly, and I quote from an article in the U.S. News & 
World Report by Editor-in-Chief, Mort Zuckerman. ``New jobs are being 
generated in large numbers, income is growing at twice

[[Page 11980]]

the rate of last year, and the acceleration is such that we will 
probably see a 5 percent growth in the gross domestic product. Sixty-
one percent of private industries surveyed have added workers. That is 
the highest in 4 years. Business confidence has surged to a 20-year 
high, and business spending is exploding. The productivity boom, 
meanwhile, has made it possible to keep inflation under 2 percent, 
saving consumers billions. This has been due not just to technology but 
to tighter and better management controls. We are on a trajectory 
toward extraordinary growth in the second half of 2004 that will beget 
stronger job and income growth.''
  So the situation that we have been facing is increasing the deficit 
over $500 billion a year. A deficit is the overspending in one budget 
year of the Federal Government; spending that exceeds all revenue 
coming in. This year, we are looking at $536 billion. For the next 3 
years, at least, it is going to be over $500 billion at the rate we are 
going.
  And let me put that in a little bit of perspective. We are a country 
that is about 228 years old. It took the first 200 years of this 
country to accumulate a debt of $500 billion. Now we are going deeper 
into debt, more than $500 billion every year. It is time that Congress 
and the White House did what every family has to do, what every 
business has to do, and that is tighten our belts and not continue to 
spend more than the revenue coming in.
  Some suggest we should simply increase taxes to accommodate increased 
spending. I am suggesting that we should prioritize spending, start 
slowing down the growth in spending, so we are not increasing the size 
of government by more than three or four times the rate of inflation.
  Overspending is one issue that we are laying on future generations; 
the other is overpromising. Overpromising is what the budget people 
call unfunded liabilities. Unfunded liabilities are promises that 
Congress and the White House have made over and above the revenues 
coming in to pay for those promises. The major categories are Medicare, 
Medicaid, and Social Security. The experts predict that unfunded 
liabilities of this country now amount to over $73 trillion. The money 
is not going to be there. And so the only ramification is to load our 
next generation and our young people with either the responsibility of 
paying for the interest on that increasing debt or increasing taxes.
  It is irresponsible for Congress and the White House not to face up 
to some of the promises that we have made instead of pretending that 
the problem somehow is going to be paid for by future generations that 
are going to have their own problems.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I would just simply suggest that every voter 
in America, when they go to candidate forums, ask that individual 
running for Congress or for the United States Senate or for President 
what their plans are to save Social Security and their plans to stop 
the overspending. The kind of debt that we are passing on to future 
generations is unacceptable.

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