David Price: “last year we passed an historic budget resolution-reconciliation bill which started putting our fiscal house in order.…”

“last year we passed an historic budget resolution-reconciliation bill which started putting our fiscal house in order. Now, there were some naysayers, people who stood in the well of this House and gave dire predictions about the ruinous effects of this budget plan. They talked with doom and gloom about how the economy was going to fail because of what we were doing. And they did this despite the fact that our budget offered $70 billion more in deficit reduction than its Republican competitor. Not surprisingly, we have not been hearing a lot of that talk lately, as business investment has gone up, housing starts have gone up, unemployment has gone down. Representative Kasich last year even said that if this thing worked, maybe he would have to join the Democratic Party. So, I would like for him to know that the seat is warm over here. We have had some good economic news. We have gotten this deficit down, and if we can pass the budget resolution for 1995 reported by the Budget Committee, we can keep the deficit on a downward path for the third year in a row. This budget resolution aims to reduce the 1995 deficit to $175 billion. We need to remind ourselves that a year ago the estimate for the 1995 budget deficit was over $300 billion. So, we have reduced the projected deficit by 40 percent in 1 year, partly because of the 5-year budget plan and partly because of the economic recovery it has supported.”