George Miller: “Mr. Speaker, I was reading this weekend an article by Professor William Quirk of the University of South Carolina Law…”

“Mr. Speaker, I was reading this weekend an article by Professor William Quirk of the University of South Carolina Law School, and he reminds us that in the year 2002, when the budget is supposed to be balanced, we will owe $450 billion in interest payments on a $7 trillion debt; and at that same time, the discussion is how much are we going to give away in tax cuts to individuals. No more important decision will be made by this Congress for future generations as to whether or not, when we engage in the process of cutting taxes, whether or not we can control ourselves and resist the political instinct to hand out goodies and to hand out tax cuts that are disguised in the first years and then only to explode in the later years and then to cause an explosion of the deficit that this Congress and this Nation has worked so hard to bring into balance. We have got to be very clear that tax cuts should go to those who need them the most and tax cuts should be constrained in their growth and that tax cuts should not upset the balance of the budget in the year 2002.”