Gutknecht: Public Debt Is The Greatest of Evils
May, 1997
Excerpts from remarks delivered by Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R-Minn.) on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives during the budget debate on April 9, 1997.I was born in 1951. When I graduated from college, the speaker at our commencement address was the Director of the U.S. Census. ... He said that there were more kids born in 1951 than any other single year. So, I represent the peak of the baby boomers.
What is going to happen when we... baby boomers start to retire? All of a sudden Medicare expenses go up dramatically and Social Security goes from a significant surplus to huge deficits. ...[T]his should be a siren song for all of us--we have got to do something now. If we take modest action now, if we take responsible action now, we can save the budget, we can save our children, we can save Social Security, and we can save Medicare.
Yet unfortunately, there are people in this town who would prefer to put their heads in the sand and pretend that it is not real, that the numbers are not real, and that somehow there is a tooth fairy out there that is going to save us. The only thing that will save us is responsible action. Jefferson was correct: this is a moral issue, and the public debt is the greatest of evils to be feared.
What we are trying to do is awaken some of our colleagues here and awaken the American people to say that this has got to stop. All it takes is some moral courage to say this is wrong. And we are going to have to say no.
In some of my town hall meetings, I use this little story. What I ask people to do sometimes is to close their eyes and pretend for a minute that they go home from work, or they go home from school, and they open their mailbox, and there is a letter there from a law office far away. They open up the letter, and all of a sudden they realize they have been named an heir to an enormous fortune from somebody they did not even know was related to them. And so I say to them, "Think about that and what it would be like. And then think about the fact that this is a windfall, and you would like to give a significant portion of this windfall to help your fellow human beings or to help children. Think about that, envision that. Think about this happening to you. And then think about where you would give that money." And after they have thought a minute, I ask the people,"Now, how many of you honestly--liberals, conservatives, Republicans,Democrats, independents, whatever--how many of you, the first thing that you thought was, I know! I'll give the money to the Federal Government!?" The answer to that in every town meeting is laughter. No one would give the money to the Federal Government. Why? Because I think we all instinctively know that the Federal Government is a poor bargain and that the Government is one of the most inefficient ways to spend money or to help people.
What I have said, I said then, and I say now. The real debate is not about saving money. In the end it is really about saving people,saving families, and saving children from one more generation of dependency and despair.
What we are really saying is, let us break that cycle. Let us slow the rate of growth in Government, and let us preserve Social Security, and let us pay down and pay off ultimately that national debt so that we can leave our kids a debt-free future. That is what Thomas Jefferson believed in. I think that is what most Americans believe in, and hopefully we can get more of the Members of Congress to believe in that as well.
The first time I came out here as a candidate for Congress, I wore a little pin that said, "Carpe Diem: Seize the Day." And the one message that came through loudly and clearly at my town hall meetings that I had when we were home [recently] was that the American people--the people of my district--want us to regain the initiative. They want us to seize the day. They understand that good habits are hard to get a hold of, bad habits are easy to fall into, and they want us to get back into those good habits of forcing fiscal discipline. I was proud to be part of the 104th Congress.... I think we made some real progress. But there is a real fear I have that it is easy to fall back into those old habits of saying "yes" to all the various interest groups who come out here to Washington and want more of our children s money.
I do not want to paint too dark a picture, because good things are happening....
[But one reminder:] When I was growing up, most of us grew up in families where only one person had to work, and that was because the tax rate was something like 4 to 5 percent of my folks gross income. Today,the average family spends more for taxes than they do for food, clothing,and shelter combined. If tax increases were the answer to these growing deficits, we could have had a balanced budget years ago.
The truth of the matter is we have to control our appetite for more spending. If we are willing to do that, if we are willing to face up to special interest groups, if we are willing to say that if we want new programs we have to eliminate some of the old programs that are not working, we can solve this budget problem.... We can do all of these things, but we must have the courage to seize the day.
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