Gerald B. H. Solomon: “Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and in support of the balanced budget constitutional amendment. First, we…”

“Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and in support of the balanced budget constitutional amendment. First, we need to be clear about the nature of the problem. The debt we are dumping on our children and grandchildren is increasing every day. As we debate here, the debt is increasing at $433,000 per minute, or stated another way, more than $7,000 per second. And those numbers would be worse if we were not including the surplus in the Social Security trust funds as an offset, which we never should do. Mr. Speaker, the problem is not going away. Even by the projections of the House Budget Committee, we will add hundreds of billions of dollars to the debt every year, and the amount we are adding to the debt each year is projected to increase in fiscal year 1997 and the years following. Mr. Speaker, some of the other side of this issue have charged that the balanced budget constitutional amendment is somehow a gimmick, and Congress can handle the problem at any time by acting responsibly to control its big spending ways.”