Martin Hoke: “Today we are going to accomplish a great thing for the American people. We are going to stop using phony numbers in the…”

“Today we are going to accomplish a great thing for the American people. We are going to stop using phony numbers in the Federal budget process. We are going to require that the Congressional Budget Office makes its financial projections the same way that American families and American businesses do. If we propose to spend more taxpayer money on a program in 1995 than we spent in 1994, we will have to call it a spending increase. Politicians will be forced to use the English language with the same meanings that working Americans do. Ultimately, when politicians can no longer deceive voters with words that lie, when politicians can no longer claim as spending cuts what are in fact spending increases, when politicians can no longer pretend that a 20-percent increase in domestic spending over the next 5 years is deficit reduction, as the Clinton administration has for the past 2 years, then voters can make their own evaluations of programs, of budgets, and ultimately, of the politicians who create them, with the clarity and the confidence that they need to make independent, intelligent, and informed choices.”