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Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Chairman, the Speaker of the House has admonished us to review our American history. Among other books that he referred us to is de Tocqueville 's `Democracy in America.'
I say to my colleagues, I think you will find in a review of those volume that we are admonished against allowing a minority to direct the course of the majority. Yes, there is reference to and explanations of the dangers about the tyranny of the majority, but that has to do with the capacity of the individual to express his or her rights; that is to say, to put forward their argument. Those sets of documents of de Tocqueville and those of the Framers of the Constitution specifically reject what is being proposed here.
I give the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm] credit. I am not familiar with the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Schaefer, in the same manner that I am with Mr. Stenholm in terms of discussion about the amendment before us. I give him credit and Mr. Schaefer, by extension, credit for saying something that is being failed to be put forward to the American people tonight.
This amendment makes clear that all receipts and all expenditures are to be counted, and that does include Social Security, that does include Medicare, that does include veterans' benefits. It does include all those things, and they should be addressed. I am not saying that is being hidden here. Quite the contrary. The gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm] to my knowledge has never been reticent about saying he wants to face up to these things squarely.
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But I can assure you of this: That should this amendment pass, should the balanced budget amendment pass, that the small States will be the losers. The American people are not prepared as yet to understand what the full implications are going to be. The small States will lose out.
When it comes to balancing the budget, there are going to be regional groups that will be put together, there will be States with the votes in this House that inevitably will find themselves voting together to see to it they are taken care of at the expense of the small States. If we want to talk about what we are forcing ourselves into, that is what it is going to be.
I find it passing strange that we should be talking and some of the leadership that is on the side of this amendment is talking about extending credit, unfunded mandates, if you will, extending credit to Mexico, at a time when we are unwilling to extend it to ourselves when we think it necessary.
I think it is passing strange that some of us who will be voting for this amendment tonight have voted to extend credit, extend funding, to States where disasters have taken place. This is the kind of thing we will find ourself in great difficulty with it.
Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Payne].
(Mr. PAYNE of Virginia asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. PAYNE of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the bipartisan Stenholm-Schaefer balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
Behind me is one of the strongest arguments that I can make for this amendment.
It is a check for $3,100. That is what the typical American family sent to the Treasury last year just to pay their share of the interest on the national debt.
It is not their total tax bill. It is just their portion of the $203 billion in net interest payments that the Government made last year.
That is money that will not be used to send the kids to college, or to build a comfortable retirement, or to invest in a new home.
It is money that will go directly to investors--many of whom are located overseas--who bought debt instruments of the U.S. Government.
This $3,100 check is a dramatic testament to the failure of this government to live within its means and to act responsibly.