Gene Taylor: “it is funny how people change. There was a guy who was a Representative from Illinois and he believed in a balanced…”

“it is funny how people change. There was a guy who was a Representative from Illinois and he believed in a balanced budget. His name is Dennis Hastert. Back when he was just Member Hastert, he gave great speeches on the House floor about the importance of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution. So whether the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner) is here, whether the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) is here, whether I am here, whether the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) is here, no matter who is here, the rules are that Congress cannot spend more than they collect in taxes. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) he came to the floor back then and said, Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of a Balanced Budget Amendment. ``It is an amazing statistic that interest payments on our national debt were 5 times higher in 1993,'' we are going back a ways, ``than outlays for all education, job training, and employment programs combined. Clearly, until our monstrous'' then ``$4.3 trillion Federal deficit is eliminated, interest payments will continue to eat away at the important initiatives which the government funds. I will not stand by and watch Congress recklessly squander the future of our children and grandchildren. Mr. Chairman, when I served in the Illinois legislature, the fact that we had a balanced budget amendment to our State Constitution enabled us to practice strong fiscal discipline.…”