Bart Stupak: “I rise today in support of the Wise-Price-Pomeroy-Furse substitute to House Joint Resolution 103. As a candidate for…”

“I rise today in support of the Wise-Price-Pomeroy-Furse substitute to House Joint Resolution 103. As a candidate for Congress, I pledged that I would support a constitutional amendment to balance the budget only after we had cast the tough votes that would bring down our deficit. Since that time, I and many of my colleagues have supported the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 which, despite predictions of doom, has gone further to reduce our deficit than any other single piece of legislation. I went further this year by supporting a budget resolution that stays within the discretionary spending caps set forth by the budget enforcement agreement. The news from OMB and CBO on the state of our deficit is the best it has been in years. At the end of fiscal year 1995, we will see a 40-percent decline in the deficit as a result of these votes. As I have repeated many times, however, the question of debt and deficit in our country will not be solved overnight. It will take persistence, consistency, and, most of all, time. Therefore, I will support Wise-Price-Pomeroy-Furse, a tough and reasonable balanced budget initiative, that will ensure that when the budget is balanced at the end of the next 7 years, we will not start all over again to saddle our economy with debt and deficit spending. Perhaps most importantly, this substitute exempts Social Security from budget decisions.”