John Spratt: “I cannot pass up the opportunity to observe, as I have before, why it is we are here at this moment. Five years ago, the…”

“I cannot pass up the opportunity to observe, as I have before, why it is we are here at this moment. Five years ago, the date I always pick as January 13, 1993, just before George Bush left office, his Economic Report of the President came to the Congress and it indicated, projected, that the deficit for that year, fiscal year 1993, would be $332 billion. Within a few months, we passed in the House and in the Senate and sent to the President a deficit reduction plan, only with Democratic votes, passed by the skin of its teeth, which sought to cut that deficit in half over the next 5 fiscal years. The results are a matter of record. The deficit fell in fiscal year 1993 to $255 billion, in fiscal 1994 to $203 billion, in fiscal year 1995 to $164 billion, and last year, September 30, 1996, the deficit was $107.8 billion. Both OMB and CBO projected that the deficit will be well below $75 billion on September 30, 1997, when we close the books on this fiscal year. So we can credibly say that we are within reach of a balanced budget because of what we did at some political expense in 1993.”