William Tauzin: “Mr. Chairman, in terms of the debate today on the balanced budget amendment I would like the Members of the House to…”

“Mr. Chairman, in terms of the debate today on the balanced budget amendment I would like the Members of the House to focus just for a second on what is special about this debate on the Barton-Tauzin amendment. This debate today focuses not necessarily on whether or not one supports the concept of a balanced budget amendment. I believe a great majority of this House does. This debate focuses on how we are going to achieve that balanced budget amendment. This amendment, the Barton-Tauzin amendment, is very much like the Stenholm amendment. The only difference in the balanced budget features of this amendment and the Stenholm amendment is the year 2000 date for the accomplishment of the balanced budget goal. But the major difference, the thing we ought to be focusing on today, is the feature of the Barton-Tauzin amendment that provides for some restraint on tax increases as a vehicle for achieving balanced budgets. Now what restraint is in here? The restraint that is in here is a simple provision that says in achieving the balanced budget that all of us, or a great majority of us, I think, want to achieve that. We ought to do it without raising taxes any higher than, any greater than, the income of Americans is growing at the time we raise taxes. In other words, Government should not grow faster than the pocketbooks of Americans, Americans individually and American businesses.”