Cord Byrd: “Will the Senator allow me to answer the question? Where do we stop? We have to, in order to stop it, we will have to…”

“Will the Senator allow me to answer the question? Where do we stop? We have to, in order to stop it, we will have to swallow some tough medicine. We have already seen the Republican Senators turn tail and run when it came to tough medicine in the 1993 budget deficit reduction package. Well, that was tough medicine. I assume, by what my friend has said, it was tough medicine because it raised taxes. The Senator must come to a conclusion at some point in time that this budget cannot be balanced simply by cutting, cutting, cutting. Discretionary spending has been cut to the bone. There has to be at some point in time, a combination of cuts and tax increases. There has to be. I heard a Senator on the Republican side of the aisle the other day say he would never, never vote for a tax increase. Well, he has the right to take that position if that is the way he feels. That kind of an attitude is never going to get this budget in balance. The Senator talks about our children and grandchildren. I suppose then, that rather than vote for a tax increase we should just put this burden of debt over on our children and grandchildren. I have children, I have grandchildren. Are we going to stand here and say to them, ``You children, you future generations will have to raise taxes because we do not have the guts to do it''? We have been on a national credit card since 1981. I can remember those good-feel messages that used to be issued during the Reagan years from the oval office.…”