David Minge: “we are in the strange position of all agreeing that we wish to balance the budget in 7 years, but then quibbling over…”

“we are in the strange position of all agreeing that we wish to balance the budget in 7 years, but then quibbling over some of the details, and also over the design. I think it is important to put in bold relief the difference between the coalition plan and the Republican plan and the President's plan. I think that perhaps nothing speaks more eloquently to this than the comments of the last speaker. That is, how much are we actually making in terms of sacrifices and cuts in these early years, when we are serving in Congress and we are answerable for our actions? I submit that both under the President's plan and under the Republican plan, we are being asked to postpone the tough decisions until later, when we are perhaps not even in office. It is not responsible, I submit, to take this attitude, but instead, we should ask that realistic cuts and sacrifices be made now, in 1996, 1997, 1998. Under the Republican plan, approximately $90 billion of deficit reduction has to occur in the last 2 years. It is unrealistic to think this will happen. We all agree that we ought to be cutting taxes, but tragically, when we attempt to cut taxes, we borrow money to finance that cut. The Republican plan has $137 billion less deficit reduction than the coalition plan, as a result. I urge support for the coalition plan.”