Norman Mineta: “I rise in strong support of the so-called Wise-Price-Pomeroy-Furse amendment, and I want to especially commend the…”

“I rise in strong support of the so-called Wise-Price-Pomeroy-Furse amendment, and I want to especially commend the gentleman from West Virginia for his leadership on this important issue. Mr. Chairman, 49 States do it. That is right, 49 States require a balanced budget. This amendment does the same thing--it requires that total Federal operating outlays must not exceed total receipts in any fiscal year. Mr. Chairman, 49 States have it. That is right--they have separate accounts in their budgets to distinguish long-term capital investments from current operational expenses. This amendment includes a capital budget to permit the Federal Government to do the same. And, do not be misled--we are not talking about taking capital investments off-budget. Quite the opposite, the Wise amendment insists that we pay for the current costs of those investments by making them part of the operating budget, which must be balanced every year. Again, Mr. Chairman, 49 States require it--they include the current costs of capital investments in their annual operating expenditure calculations. In addition, Fortune 500 corporations have capital budgets to distinguish investments from operations, and small businesses follow the same approach because that is the sensible thing to do. But what we have in the Federal unified budget today is absurd.”