David Minge: “this evening, I rise to address two subjects which I think are of great importance to our Nation and deserve emphasis…”

“this evening, I rise to address two subjects which I think are of great importance to our Nation and deserve emphasis here on the floor of the House. The first is the question of our budget policy in Congress and in the United States. The new Federal fiscal year started October 1, 1998. We are 5 days into the new fiscal year. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, we do not have a budget resolution in place for this fiscal year to provide guidance to Congress. Unfortunately, the deadline for adopting a concurrent budget resolution was April 15, 1998, almost 6 months ago. Unfortunately, we have had a failure of leadership in Congress when it comes to budget policy. We essentially have punted. We are talking about the budget being balanced. I submit that is because we do not understand the budget laws that we have adopted in this body. The budget is not balanced. We are still depending on at least $30 billion in the Social Security Trust Fund to offset other Federal spending. We are depending on the Social Security Trust Fund to establish a fiction that we have balanced the budget.”