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[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 92 (Wednesday, June 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H5687]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

              CONSTITUENTS INTERESTED IN A BALANCED BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, during the 10 days that we were home for 
the break, the many constituents that I met with had concerns on a lot 
of different subjects, budget matters, they are very concerned about us 
balancing the budget. I said many, many times over the last 10 days 
that the third largest expenditure of our national budget is interest 
on the debt. And in 2 years that interest on the debt will exceed all 
military spending, all of the expenditures for the Coast Guard, the 
Army, the Navy, the Marines, and the Air Force and so forth. We will 
pay more money, more interest money to the bond holders on the national 
debt than we will for all of the armed services. I think this is 
absolutely atrocious, and found that most constituents agree. They want 
us, they are screaming for us to balance this budget. They realize that 
there will be some reductions in spending, some reductions in 
projections, and some elimination in consolidations of various 
programs, and yet what the folks of the First District of Georgia are 
saying is if you are going to balance the budget and you are going to 
do it across the board, that is fine. Do not do it on the backs of the 
veterans, do not do it on the backs of elderly, do not do it on the 
backs of children, do it across the board.
  When I explain to them the Kasich budget proposal, in most cases 
people said that is a balanced approach, that is the way to handle this 
tremendous problem, because as we look at spending over a trillion 
dollars more than the current budget allocation in the next 7 years, 
people understand that in many cases we are not talking about budget 
cuts but we are talking about reducing the projected increase.
                              {time}  2115

  And yet people want that budget balanced.
  They are also interested in this tax relief. It is a shame that the 
United States other body on the other side of the hall has not quite 
caught on the American people are sick and tired of paying taxes.
  The average middle-class family paid a 2 percent tax burden in the 
1950's as a percentage of Federal income tax. In the 1970's, that 2 
percent went to 16 percent. In the 1990's, it is 24 percent.
  The middle-class families of America today are paying 40 to 50 
percent of their income in taxes, and they are sick and tired of it. 
they cannot afford it.
  And most families, both spouses are working simply because of the 
economic necessity of paying taxes. It does not get them ahead, it just 
keeps them standing still and breaking even.
  The middle class needs relief. The tax relief bill passed by the 
House actually benefitted 75 percent of the American people in the 
middle-class category.
  We have got to help the middle class, and our package does that. But 
more importantly than that, giving the people their own money back, not 
confiscating it from them in the first place, allows them to buy more 
hamburgers, more CD players, more cars, more houses. When they do that, 
businesses expand. They create jobs. New workers create new revenue. 
History shows, and I went back to 1956, the Treasury Department 
numbers, and looked at it. Our revenues have increased every time taxes 
were low; the revenues to the national budget actually increased.
  And what is so important about that is that our projection is that if 
the economy grows over 1 percent more than the current projection, then 
in the next 7 years we will have another $640 billion of revenue added 
to the current budget, and if that is the case, it will be a lot easier 
to balance the budget without further reductions and caps and so forth.
  Although many people are saying, ``Do not worry about those cuts,'' 
because one of the major objectives we want out of the 104th Congress 
is to reduce the size of government. People are tired of government 
micromanagement. They are tired of Washington bureaucrats 
telling them how to run the show. They are saying, ``We can handle our 
problems just fine on a local basis. Let our local nonprofits or our 
for-profits handle it. Let our local city councils and county 
commissions handle it. Let State governments do it. Take things, 
particularly major decisionmaking, out of Washington.''
  Another thing I found that the folks in the First District of Georgia 
are very concerned about is welfare reform. Simply put, they just do 
not want people who are able to work paid for not working. The middle-
class families are out there working 40, 50, 60 hours a week, breaking 
their back. They are tired of doing it for the benefit of a huge 
Washington bureaucracy and able-bodied public assistance recipients. 
They are tired of it.
  If somebody needs a helping hand, we want to help them. But if they 
are just going to take a free ride, then it is time to tell them to get 
off the train and help start fueling the engine with the rest of us.
  Madam Speaker, I found these things over and over again, not just 
during the current district work break but all along as I have been in 
public office, that people are saying this is what we want, this is 
what we want out of Washington, ``We want less; we want more personal 
freedom.''

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