C. Cox: “We need a balanced budget amendment, because spending is running out of control. Take a look at this chart. In 1969…”

“We need a balanced budget amendment, because spending is running out of control. Take a look at this chart. In 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, and 1973, a 5-year period, the total Federal spending was $1.1 trillion. In 1994, Bill Clinton's budget for 1 year is far more than the 5 years from 1969 to 1973, the guns-and-butter years of Vietnam, the height of the Vietnam war. Look at this number, 1994 through 1998, the Clinton budget, $8.1 trillion in spending compared to what George Bush and this Congress did, $6.6 trillion in spending over 4 years. We are not cutting things. They are getting more and more and more expensive. And we are financing it, yes, with the largest tax increase in American history, because that is what happens when we spend this rapidly, but also, with increased borrowing from the Treasury, that gives us a national debt that is setting a record. We are told that we should not have a balanced budget amendment. What we should have is a capital budget. A capital budget would let us achieve the appearance of a balanced budget by moving the goal posts. We would define away most of our spending and call it investment. And if spending is investment, then we get to borrow in order to pay for it. In short, a capital budget would provide the intellectual underpinnings for still more deficit spending.”