Proposing An Amendment to the Constitution of the United States Requiring A Balanced Budget for the Federal Government
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, let's talk about that Clinton budget.
Clinton's budget passed when the deficit was $290 billion. The Republicans fought it tooth and nail, and didn't deliver a single vote on that budget. When it finally got down to about $10 billion, the Republicans jumped on the bandwagon just before it was going to balance, whether they agreed to it or not. They were prancing around like peacocks, like it was their idea all the while.
They could get credit for ten of the $290 billion of Clinton's deficit reduction. For years, Republicans have been talking about reducing the deficit and doing nothing about it.
If you look at what they did last year, they added trillions of dollars to the debt in that big, ugly bill. In fact, every Republican administration since Nixon has made the deficit worse and delivered a worse deficit to their Democratic successors and every Democrat since Kennedy has produced a better deficit.
The reason we have a deficit today is because the Democrats haven't been able to clean up the mess as quick as the Republicans can make it. Now they come up with a so-called balanced budget amendment. It doesn't produce a balanced budget. In fact, it will make it more difficult to produce a balanced budget. It requires a two-thirds vote to pass the budget.
Let's get serious. You are not going to balance the budget cold turkey in 1 year without tax increases. We are talking about a two- thirds vote. Which is more likely: Balancing the budget cold turkey or having a two-thirds vote without any limit to how bad the deficit gets?
I think people have been around here long enough to know that it is going to be the two-thirds vote, and it is going to be a horrendous deficit. Republicans have used their time to enact massive tax cuts for big corporations and the top 1 percent. They have exploded the deficit in the process. To balance the budget, Congress has to make the tough decisions to actually balance the budget. It is not going to balance itself.
Mr. Speaker, this amendment will actually make it more difficult to do, and that is why we need to defeat this amendment.
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