[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 28 (Wednesday, March 13, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H888-H894]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE DEBT CEILING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, today I want to take this time to continue 
a discussion that we, the so-called Blue Dog Democrats, the Blue Dog 
Coalition, have been carrying on for the last 2 or 3 weeks talking 
about the urgency of this body in dealing with the debt ceiling and 
dealing with our economic game plan that has now pushed us once again 
into a position of having to borrow on the Social Security trust fund 
for the next 10 years.
  Just a little bit of a reminder or a refresher on everyone's mind 
tonight. It was just 1 year ago that we were on this floor advocating a 
budget, an economic game plan for this country that was different from 
what the majority and the administration wished. The thing that we said 
was that this $5.6 trillion was projected surpluses, and we emphasized 
projected. These were guesstimates. Most everyone agrees we cannot 
predict tomorrow, much less 10 years. But we lost. What we suggested 
was let us take half of that projected surplus and pay down our 
national debt. We were told we were in danger of paying it down too 
fast. That was somewhat laughable to most of us, the idea that you 
could pay down debt too fast, when you owed $5.6 trillion.
  When we have an unfunded liability in the Social Security trust fund 
of $22 trillion, we also proposed in our budget plan that the first 
thing that we should do as a body is fix Social Security and Medicare; 
that we should deal with those two problems first before we begin 
making any other decisions as to how much money we spend. Again, we 
lost. We have not seriously addressed Social Security as of this 
moment, and we will not do so until at least next year.
  But now we find, again contrary to what we were told a little over 1 
year ago, that we were not going to need to increase our debt ceiling 
for at least 7 more years; that in December, the Secretary of the 
Treasury, Mr. O'Neill, wrote and said we must increase our debt ceiling 
and do it immediately by $750 billion. Now, where are we tonight? As of 
the close of business Friday, March 8, the debt subject to limit stood 
at $5.924 trillion, leaving about $26 billion of room left in our debt 
ceiling.
  Now, what does this mean to the average layperson? It is kind of like 
a student going to their parents with a $6,000 credit card bill. Of 
course the parents will pay, because they do not want the kids rating 
to be damaged and probably their own, because they are responsible for 
their child; but they will work out an arrangement with that child that 
includes reducing his allowance, getting a part-time job, making 
promises for less partying, and on and on. That is what concerns us 
Blue Dogs and why we are here again tonight. We are being asked to 
increase the debt ceiling by $750 billion without a plan, without a 
plan to deal with these deficits that now have, in the President's 
budget, a projected raiding of the Social Security trust fund for the 
next 10 years.
  We do not believe that is an acceptable game plan. We are prepared to 
support our President, and we are prepared to work with our friends on 
the other side of the aisle on a new plan. But so far nothing has come 
forward. One would think that the budget that we are going to be having 
on the floor next week would address this. Instead, we are told that we 
are not even going to have a budget that is in balance anytime in the 
future.
  We are being told now that this budget that is going to be presented 
to us will be scored by OMB. The last time we had a fight on the debt 
ceiling, one of the things that we agreed to was that we would use CBO. 
In fact, 1995, the last time we had this difference of

[[Page H889]]

opinion on how we raise the debt ceiling, 48 Democrats joined with the 
Republican majority to insist that President Clinton submit a plan that 
was balanced under CBO numbers.

  Now, I am saying to the leadership of this House, and we again would 
welcome someone from the other side to come and join in this discussion 
tonight, we hope that the 148 Republicans who voted for that 
legislation in 1995, who are still in the House, will stay consistent 
and insist that before we raise the debt ceiling that we have a plan 
that gets us out of it. Is that unreasonable? Does that not make sense? 
If so, why are we now talking about doing the same thing that Secretary 
Rubin did in 1995 that had the majority threatening to impeach him? Now 
we are talking about perhaps doing the same thing, and now it is okay.
  Again, all we are saying tonight is increasing the debt ceiling by 
$750 billion to borrow money for what? Now, let me point out very 
clearly, we support the President's request for additional funding for 
defense and are perfectly willing to include that in any debt ceiling 
increase. If the President proposes to borrow the money rather than to 
pay for it, we are behind him, and that includes the domestic defense 
as well as the foreign. That is not an item in dispute.
  What is in dispute tonight is why should we increase the debt ceiling 
$750 billion without putting a plan in place to deal with it, just like 
the father and son or father and daughter would certainly do if it was 
in their household budget? I find most American people agree with that 
rationale. We are puzzled why we are not having that bill on the floor 
next week.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to yield the 
balance of my time to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd), and that 
he be allowed to control that time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Texas?
  There was no objection.

                              {time}  1830

  Mr. BOYD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for filling 
in.
  The gentleman from Texas has been a leader in this House for, I 
guess, 23, 24 years now on this issue of fiscal responsibility. One 
thing we know about him, his message has always been consistent, that 
we ought to be willing to pay for those programs that we as a nation 
want to have, have the government fund, and we ought not to be in a 
position of deficit spending and asking our children to pay for those 
programs that we have.
  I want to thank the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to call on another leader, the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Sandlin).
  Mr. SANDLIN. I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding. Let us 
stand up for fiscal responsibility in this country and conservative 
budgeting and conservative spending.
  Last year we were worried about paying off the debt too quickly. That 
seems long ago. What does it say now that we are looking at raising the 
debt limit in this country?
  The administration's request to raise the debt limit by $750 billion 
confirms the warnings of the Blue Dogs from last year, that it was 
dangerous to make long-term commitments to tax cuts or new spending 
programs based on shaky projections of surpluses over a 10-year period. 
It is impossible to make those 10-year projections in your home, in 
your business, and it is certainly impossible to make them in this 
country.
  Last year, the Blue Dogs proposed taking the on-budget surplus and 
immediately paying one-half of that available fund on the debt of this 
country. To pay down the debt, we proposed taking one-quarter of that 
surplus and making it available for tax cuts for working families here 
in America, and taking one-quarter of that surplus and making that 
available for investment in areas such as agriculture, defense and the 
education of our children.
  Instead, we enacted a budget consuming 100 percent of the projected 
surplus, not the surplus but the projected surplus, we used risky and 
too-rosy projections, and we left absolutely no margin for error in our 
projections. We have things such as national emergencies, natural 
disasters, wars. We made no provisions for those changes. So we put 
ourselves on a course for budget deficits once the circumstances 
changed and our projected surpluses disappeared for a number of 
reasons.
  The vote to raise the debt in part is an acknowledgment that we have 
broken our pledge on Social Security, and the Social Security lockbox 
is now wide open; and we are going to leave it open to raid it time and 
time and time again unless we enact fiscally responsible budgeting 
principles in this country.
  The war and the recession represent a part, but only a small part, of 
the reason the debt limit needs to be increased. We are willing to 
authorize debt to cover the cost of war. Our fighting men and fighting 
women across the world need every advantage, every piece of equipment, 
every bit of technology, every bit of training that is necessary to 
root out terrorism. But we are not willing to allow the government to 
continue on deficits as far as the eye can see without a budget, 
without a plan, without any forethought.
  The last two increases in the debt limit came when Congress and the 
President were negotiating on a bipartisan basis to balance the budget. 
Many of us were here in 1997, and that led to the balanced budget 
agreement of 1997, a strong bipartisan effort. But presently, instead 
of working with the Congress to put the budget back on track, the 
administration's request for an increase in the debt limit is included 
in a budget which projects deficits financed by borrowing from the 
Social Security surplus for the next decade and beyond.
  It avoids making difficult choices. It extends and expands existing 
tax cuts. It increases the long-term obligations of this country. And 
it results in more borrowing, just what we do not need.
  Blue Dogs do not want to see the country in default on the debt, but 
we do not want to give out just a blank check, a blank check with no 
plan, with no budget, with no forethought. An increase in the debt 
limit must be accompanied by a plan to put our fiscal house in order.
  What is wrong with asking for a plan? What is wrong with asking for a 
budget before we make these decisions?
  In 1997, a Member from the other side of the aisle said, ``We said 
from the beginning of this Congress that we want to negotiate with the 
President, but we cannot negotiate with a President who does not want 
to balance the budget. We do not want to negotiate over whether to 
balance the budget or not; we want him to submit a budget that balances 
by CBO what he called for. We will negotiate with him in the parameters 
within that balanced budget. But if the President cannot submit one, 
how do we negotiate apples with oranges? You know, the saying goes, `If 
at first you don't succeed, try, try again.' ''
  We agree with those statements. We hope that the current President 
agrees with those statements and that we can hold the President and the 
administration to the same standard. It is certainly reasonable. We 
want to work with the administration.
  We propose that in the interim, the Congress pass a short-term debt 
limit increase equal to an amount that the President tells us is needed 
to fight the war. We want to listen to the President and support him in 
his efforts in fighting terrorism and speak with one voice when we 
leave the shores of the United States of America. So we want to pass 
short-term limits, that is, in an amount that he tells us is needed; 
not that it is extravagant, but needed. We want to continue the lawful 
government obligations and functions of the United States Government.
  Any additional debt limit, other than those two things, fighting the 
war and our obligations, must be passed and would be contingent upon 
successful completion of a comprehensive and complete budget plan. That 
is fiscal soundness. That is fiscal responsibility. That is putting our 
house in order. We need a budget.
  A long-term budget plan should reestablish a glide path for a 
balanced unified budget. We need to put everything on the table to look 
at when we are talking about the finances of this country. We have to 
control spending and include that in our long-term budget plan. And we 
have to ensure that we do not continue to be the parents borrowing from 
our own children.

[[Page H890]]

  This will not be done overnight and there are legitimate arguments 
about the fact that we could reach a critical point before there is 
adequate time to develop a plan and develop a budget and approve a plan 
which meets the criteria. This is why we have proposed, as Blue Dogs, 
the short-term debt limit increase while the planning is going on.
  Certainly, Blue Dogs do not want to threaten the United States' 
credibility or expose United States taxpayers to risks associated with 
defaulting on the debt. We do not believe in brinksmanship. We do not 
believe in political posturing. We believe in fiscal responsibility. We 
do not want the government to continue to function and meet its lawful 
obligations in a risky manner. And we absolutely refuse in every case 
to jeopardize our troops or our homeland security or undermine the war 
effort in any way.
  However, we do not want to simply write a $750 billion blank check 
absent concrete actions and concrete plans to restore discipline and 
return to fiscally responsible policies in this country.
  If we want to address critical issues such as Social Security, 
prescription drugs, veterans' benefits for those that fought to defend 
the country, a true and meaningful Patients' Bill of Rights, and 
education, we have to have a firm financial foundation in this country. 
We need fiscal responsibility.
  We are willing to work on a short-term debt limit increase. We are 
willing to do anything we can to encourage the economy. All we are 
saying is, let us please use proper planning. Let us enact a budget 
just like every home and business in America does. Let us get this 
country back on a path of fiscal responsibility.
  Mr. BOYD. I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for his work on 
behalf of this country.
  I would like now to recognize the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Phelps), who represents a very large rural district. I think his people 
back home certainly understand about fiscal responsibility.
  Mr. PHELPS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida and my 
fellow Blue Dogs for their comments and for giving me this opportunity 
to speak out on such an important issue. It is good to know that 
Florida and Illinois can kind of balance out the Texans that have come 
before us with their input, which is so valuable.

  All of us here this evening have certain concerns with increasing the 
debt limit. Of course we do, because we are a group of Democrats who 
focus on being fiscally responsible. It is obvious that questions are 
going to be raised by Treasury Secretary O'Neill's request that 
Congress increase the debt limit by $750 billion, especially since this 
request comes 7 years earlier than predicted when the budget was 
submitted last year. As a fiscal conservative, this increase request 
makes me wonder not only about the current fiscal condition or state of 
our Nation, but what this means for the future. What does it mean for 
the future?
  As a former teacher, a father, and a grandfather, I have always tried 
my best to do what is right for future generations. We do not want our 
mistakes to leave our children and our grandchildren in a mess that 
they cannot clean up. I do not want my grandson, Nolan, who just turned 
4, to wonder what his grandfather was doing when he served in Congress, 
when all this mess was created, or could have been addressed.
  The administration says the publicly held debt would begin to 
gradually decline again in 2005. Even if the debt does start to decline 
and the government does their part in beginning to pay it down, we 
still need to remember the impact this is having on our system of 
Social Security. This is where our children are going to be impacted 
the most.
  From my understanding, the total debt of our Nation is going to 
continue to increase. That is right. Even though the administration 
suggests that the publicly held debt will begin to decline, the fact is 
the total debt will continue to rise due to the fact that we have not 
kept the commitment to save the Social Security trust fund surplus.
  The President's proposed budget does nothing to solve the problem 
with the declining Social Security trust fund. In fact, the proposed 
budget calls for tapping the Social Security trust fund for other 
government programs every year over the next 10 years for a total of 
$1.5 trillion.
  In other words, over the next 10 years, the Social Security surplus 
will not be used for paying down the national debt, which would 
actually strengthen Social Security's long-term solvency. Not one 
Member of Congress who ran for election ever varied from that focus. 
They promised that that is what we should do. Every campaign speech, 
let me remind you, every one of you, as well as myself, gave our 
honorable word that we would work toward this end. Now we abandon it.
  It is not a secret that our Nation's Social Security system is in 
trouble. It is up to us to do what we can do to look at the future and 
try to save the Social Security trust fund.
  I completely understand and support the need for spending what is 
necessary to win the war on terrorism and ensure the protection of my 
fellow Americans here at home. We must do that. We will. And we are 
doing that. We are united and we will stand united on that front. 
However, we need to work together on developing a plan that will fight 
the war on terrorism and will also protect the Social Security trust 
fund for the benefit of future generations. We really do need to start 
thinking about our children's future.
  We can do both. We can defeat terrorism; we can be prepared for 
homeland security. But the security that is most important to those who 
have invested their dollars for what might come in the near future, 
when they do not expect to hear these kind of reports, when we can, and 
we should, defeat any kind of threat to our Social Security system. 
That is where we need to come down today.
  I stand with my Blue Dog friends in trying to raise the alarm for the 
administration to consider the budget in these terms.
  Mr. BOYD. I want to thank my friend from Illinois for his thoughtful 
work and his leadership in our group, the Blue Dog Democrats.
  Next, I want to call on the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner) who 
serves in our group, the Blue Dog Democrats, as the cochair for policy.
  Mr. TURNER. I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding. I thank 
him for his leadership tonight on the floor.
  It is good to see a good group of Blue Dog Democrats here speaking 
out for fiscal responsibility. I know that each of us, in our own way, 
has fought long and hard to try to be sure that we have a balanced 
budget here in Washington. It only makes sense that the Federal 
Government manage its financial affairs the same way that we all expect 
our own households to be run.

                              {time}  1845

  That is, if we have money coming in that we can spend or invest or 
save, we make those choices; but in the end, we make sure we do not 
spend more than our income.
  Washington, as we all know, spent more money than it had coming in 
for 30 years; and finally, when several of us here on the floor were 
first-term Members of this Congress, we cast the most significant vote 
I think this Congress has cast in many years, and that is we passed the 
Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Through that action, we had 3 years of 
surpluses in the Federal budget.
  Now, with the President's new budget submitted to the Congress, we 
are back into deficit spending, back into spending more money than we 
take in every year.
  Some people may say, well, what is wrong with deficit spending? 
Deficit spending is bad for several reasons. It is bad because it 
passes debt that we are creating by deficit spending on to our 
children. It seems to me that if we are going to make wise decisions 
and if we are going to have fiscal responsibility in Washington, we 
should not be spending money and incurring debt that our children are 
going to have to pay for some day. But that is where we are once again 
here in this Nation's Capital.
  Another reason that we should not engage in deficit spending is 
because it simply creates larger debt, and larger debt means we have 
greater interest to pay every year. What a waste, to be consuming so 
much of our Federal budget every year just paying interest.
  A lot of people do not realize that the interest alone on the Federal 
debt runs almost $1 billion every day. I did not misstate that: $1 
billion every day, just

[[Page H891]]

to cover the interest on our national debt, which is approaching $6 
trillion.
  What a waste in resources. We could fund the President's requested 
budget increase for defense many times over if we were not paying $1 
billion a day in interest on our Federal debt.
  Another reason it is wrong to deficit spend is because when you are 
deficit spending, you are raiding the Social Security trust fund. If 
any corporation in America were to dip into the employees' retirement 
trust fund to cover the business losses of that corporation, those 
business executives would be prosecuted. They would be indicted and 
sent to prison.
  In Washington, we seem to be able to get by raiding the American 
people's retirement fund, Social Security. When we are deficit 
spending, we are taking Social Security payroll taxes and we are using 
it, not for Social Security, but we are using it to run the rest of the 
government, and that is wrong. That breaks a promise, a covenant, that 
this government has with the American people to protect Social Security 
for this generation and for generations to come.
  Finally, deficit spending is wrong because when we increase the 
national debt, which happens every time we run an annual deficit in the 
Federal budget, we undermine the public's faith and confidence in the 
economy of the United States.
  How big a debt can the United States run before there is some crisis 
of international proportions? I do not have the answer to that, but I 
know that $6 trillion in debt is an awful lot of debt to be passing on 
to our children and grandchildren; and I know paying $1 billion a day 
in interest is a waste of Federal taxpayer dollars, and I know that 
when the national debt increases, it means that the government is 
borrowing more and more of the available credit out there in the 
economy; and it has the effect of pushing up interest rates for all of 
us. When interest rates go up, it costs the American family more to buy 
a new car on credit, to buy a home and finance it through a home 
mortgage. It costs more to borrow money to send your children to 
college. It costs more money when you charge to your credit card.
  Lower interest rates are good for the American economy, and one way 
to get lower interest rates in the economy is to be sure that the 
government, the Federal Government, is not consuming a larger and 
larger share of the available credit in our economy.
  For all of those reasons, deficit spending is wrong. Common sense 
tells us that the Federal Government ought to be managed like our own 
households, our own businesses; and if we do not do that, we are doing 
a disservice to the American people, and we are encumbering our 
children with a debt that they may never be able to get out from under.
  We believe as Blue Dog Democrats that we need to support the 
President in fighting this war. We need to commit whatever resources 
are necessary to win the war on terrorism. But the only people that are 
having to sacrifice today in that war are those young men and women in 
uniform who are defending our country tonight. The American people need 
to be ready to sacrifice as well, and that means that we need to pay 
the bills to fight that war, and not pass those bills on to our 
children.
  I again thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd) for his 
leadership tonight, and I am proud to join with my Blue Dog colleagues 
in standing up for fiscal responsibility.
  Mr. BOYD. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas, 
particularly for his leadership in the Blue Dog Democrats as the policy 
cochair. It is his responsibility to work with our members to develop 
policy. I am sure we will be seeing more from him as this budget 
discussion unfolds.
  Mr. Speaker, next I want to yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. 
Israel), one of our newest members, one of our Blue Puppies.
  Mr. ISRAEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for 
giving me the honor of being the only member of the New York 
congressional delegation to have joined the congressional Blue Dogs. I 
am proud of the work we do and the agenda we advance for fiscal 
responsibility and budget responsibility.
  Mr. Speaker, like any household and business in America, when the 
government's revenues do not match its expenses, it faces some choices. 
It can cut spending, it can increase revenues, it can borrow.
  The administration is telling the American people we do not have 
enough money to meet our expenses. We need to spend $1 billion a month 
in Afghanistan. That is $1 billion a month we must spend. The 
administration is making the argument, an argument I agree with, that 
we need to spend more on our national security. The administration is 
making an argument that I agree with that we need to spend more on our 
homeland security; and the administration says in order to pay for 
these critical necessities, we cannot raid Social Security, we cannot 
increase taxes, so we have to lift the debt ceiling in order to meet 
those needs.
  But there is another way, and it is a much fairer way. Rather than 
finding revenues by borrowing money from our children, let me suggest 
exactly where the administration can find those revenues to meet those 
expenses right now at this very moment: in Bermuda, in the Island of 
Bermuda, where the New York Times reports that many American 
corporations, big businesses, are paying nominal fees to register their 
corporations all to avoid paying their fair share of corporate taxes 
here in the United States, to avoid paying their fair share of the war 
against terrorism, to avoid paying their fair share for senior citizens 
who are being kicked out of their Medicare HMOs. They are putting 
profit ahead of patriotism.
  Let me share a quote from the New York Times articles about these big 
businesses that are fleeing for Bermuda in order to escape their fair 
share of corporate taxes. The New York Times said: ``Becoming a company 
in Bermuda is a paper transaction, as easy as securing a mail drop 
there and paying some fees while keeping the working headquarters back 
in the United States. Bermuda is charging Ingersoll-Rand just $27,653 a 
year for a move that allows the company to avoid at least $40 million 
annually in American corporate taxes.''
  No wonder we are being asked to increase the debt ceiling. There are 
plenty of other companies as well.
  The New York Times went on to say: ``There is no official estimate of 
how much the Bermuda moves are costing the government in tax revenues. 
The Bush administration is not trying to come up with one.''
  Now, according to the Wall Street Journal of March 1, finally the 
Treasury Department has agreed to do a study. But we should not have 
had to bring them in kicking and screaming all the way.
  This is common sense. They want us to raise the debt ceiling, to 
borrow from our children; but they were hesitant to find out how much 
this corporate greed was costing the American taxpayer today.
  Mr. Speaker, I voted to deliver tax relief to the families I 
represent. I voted to repeal the marriage penalty. I voted to repeal 
the death tax. I voted to reduce marginal rates across the board for 
working families. I was one of only a handful of Democrats in this 
Chamber to support the administration's economic stimulus measures, 
because working families and small businesses deserve that relief.
  But this spring, over the next few weeks, those same working families 
and those same small businesses will sit around their dining room 
tables or meet with their local accountants and struggle over their 
income taxes, and struggle over paying their fair share to support our 
military and to save Social Security and to help senior citizens who 
have been kicked out of the Medicare HMOs. And the people that I 
represent, in Babylon and Huntington and Islip and Smithtown, they do 
not have the option of registering themselves in Bermuda in order to 
avoid their fair share of income taxes. That is not a choice for them. 
They are simply told, pay up, do your duty, support our troops.
  Meanwhile, the biggest businesses in America are shifting the tax 
burden to them; and even worse, Mr. Speaker, the biggest businesses in 
America, the irresponsible ones who flee for that tax shelter in 
Bermuda, are shifting the burden to our children.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the Treasury Department has 
changed its mind; and despite its earlier reticence, it is going to 
study the loss of

[[Page H892]]

revenues as a result of this Bermuda tax shelter. But a study on a 
shelf cannot replace real action by this body. We need to stop 
companies who wrap themselves in the American flag to sell their 
products and then strangle our budgets by registering themselves 
abroad, who escape their fair share.
  As the ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means said, 
``Supporting America is more than about waiving the flag and saluting. 
It is about sharing the sacrifice.''

  That is true of soldiers, citizens; and it should be true of big 
companies too. Raise the debt ceiling? How about making sure that every 
big company in America does what every working family in America does, 
pay their fair share. Maybe then we will not have to mortgage the 
future of our children. All we ask is fair play, all we ask is a fair 
share, and all we ask is a shared sacrifice at a time of war.
  Mr. BOYD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York for his 
thoughtful remarks.
  Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield to the gentleman from Mississippi 
(Mr. Taylor), one of the leaders in this House on defense-military 
issues. He has a very unique perspective on this whole notion of fiscal 
responsibility and borrowing from the trust funds that belong to the 
American people.
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman 
from Florida and those of you who are watching back home for the 
opportunity to talk about the President's desire to raise the debt 
limit.
  One of the most moving books I ever read was called ``The Winds of 
War.'' It is a novel, but it talks about the events leading up to World 
War II, the American participation in it.
  One of the many things that is going on in this book is a family 
member of the participants who is in a concentration camp, and he is 
thinking to himself, how can it be that the Americans do not know that 
this is going on? We have smuggled information to America showing the 
Jews and Gypsies and other people that the Nazi regime wanted to get 
rid of, that these horrible things are happening, and somehow the 
Americans are not responding.
  The author called it ``the will not to believe,'' and I guess, to a 
certain extent, it hits all of us, whether it is finding out that a 
family member has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, or maybe your 
favorite football team lost to a team you did not think they could 
possibly lose to.
  I bring these numbers to the floor tonight that have been updated as 
of the end of this month to show the American people what I keep in my 
congressional office. It is a constant reminder sitting right by my 
desk as folks come to me and say can you help us with this tax break or 
can you help us with this additional spending. It is a constant 
reminder that I point to as different constituents come to visit me of 
just how far in debt our Nation is, how much farther in debt we have 
gotten in the past 12 months, because it really is within all of us.
  I see it in my town meetings, when I walk the Wal-Marts and the 
KMarts and the hardware stores in my district, when I visit with 
shrimpers, or people at the other end of the economic scale.
  It is just hard to believe that our Nation is now $6 trillion in 
debt. In fact, last year at this very time the President of the United 
States and a lot of folks in the media were running around saying 
Washington is awash in money. There are surpluses as far as the eye can 
see.
  Well, apparently the people who said that, both inside and outside of 
government, never took the time to look at this, because one year ago 
right now, our Nation was $5,735,859,380,573 in debt.
  Unlike the previous speaker, I voted against most of those proposals 
that came up last year, because none of them paid for themselves and 
almost all of them would add to the debt. That was my gut conclusion. 
It turns out my gut conclusion was better than whatever economists the 
President and some others were calling on, because the amount of debt 
increase in just one year, in the past 12 months, is 
$267,593,636,009.87.

                              {time}  1900

  Now, most of this is because of the tax breaks that were passed last 
year by Congress. Some of it is because of the war in Afghanistan, but 
that is $1 billion a month. Mr. Speaker, $1 billion a month would be, 
since September about 6, $6 billion of this. The rest of it was 
increases in spending in the President's budget.
  And let us remember, the President got his budget. At the time it was 
proposed, Republicans controlled the House, Republicans controlled the 
other body; he got his budget. So please do not come back and tell this 
Member that, well, the reason we have this big debt is because you guys 
spent money that I did not want to spend.
  Mr. President, you got your budget. You got your tax breaks, you got 
your budget, and that is what you have added to the debt with your 
numbers.
  What really troubles me about that is, I am the father of three kids 
and they are going to get stuck with that bill and until then, our 
Nation is going to squander more money every day on interest on the 
national debt than we spend pursuing the war in Afghanistan. It costs 
us about $1 billion a month to pursue the war in Afghanistan. It costs 
us $1 billion a day to pay interest on that debt and much of it is a 
direct result of the budget from last year. That is the President's 
part.
  Now, what is particularly troubling about this, if I were to bring 
these numbers up from the 1st of January 1980, that would be a ``1'' 
and most of these would be zeroes. The first of January, 1980, our 
Nation was $1 trillion in debt. Now, that is a heck of a lot of money 
for a guy from Mississippi, but that is $5 trillion less than it is 
now. One of the reasons this has been allowed is that on a regular 
basis, Congress has come to this floor, different Presidents, both 
Democrats and Republicans, and have said, I need to borrow just a 
little bit more, I need a little temporary fix to get this monkey off 
of my back. Those are the temporary fixes, the accumulated problem that 
that has caused.
  Mr. President, I am not going to vote to raise the debt limit.
  I also want to point out that one of the reported stories that is 
coming from this is that your Treasury chairman is considering taking 
that money from the trust funds. Let me remind the American people that 
for all of the rhetoric, Democrats and Republicans, people inside the 
media and outside of the media, with this so-called lockbox for Social 
Security, and that is a line item on your taxes, that is taken out of 
your taxes with the promise that it is going to be put aside for your 
Social Security benefits, there is no lockbox. What there is, is 
somewhere an IOU that says that the United States of America owes the 
Social Security trust fund $1.23 trillion. There is nothing there.
  If you look on your pay stub, you also pay Medicare taxes. Again, 
that is supposed to be set aside for your Medicare benefits when you 
reach the proper age to receive them. It is supposed to be in a 
lockbox. The truth of the matter is, if you were to open up that 
lockbox, you will find an IOU from the United States for $256.3 
billion.
  Then there is the Civil Servants Retirement Fund. Civil servants, 
contrary to popular belief, do pay into their own retirement. That 
money is supposed to be set aside to do nothing but pay for their 
benefits when they retire. If you found that box and opened it up, you 
would find an IOU for $532 billion.
  Now, the reason I mention that one in particular is that the Treasury 
Secretary now says, Well, maybe we do not have to raise the debt limit 
if we just steal it from the Civil Service Retirement System. It is 
just temporary.
  The problem, Mr. O'Neill, with that is, you have already taken $500 
billion out of that account. Where do you stop taking it? At what point 
does the President come to this Congress with a budget that is 
balanced? At what time does this Congress pass a balanced budget?
  About 6 years ago we passed a balanced budget amendment to the 
Constitution. It went to the other body and failed by one vote. You 
would think a body that on a weekly basis is finding new ways to spend 
money and driving up the debt would try at least one more time in the 
past 6 years to pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
  I have recently signed on to the recent attempt by the gentleman from 
Arizona (Mr. Berry) to do that, and I

[[Page H893]]

hope that we will have a speedy vote on this, Mr. Speaker, because I 
think this body should pass it. I think that the American people should 
know that that is how much we are in debt, that we are squandering over 
$1 billion a day on interest on that debt, and until then, we are 
continuing to rob from their Social Security trust fund, their Medicare 
trust fund, the Civil Service Retirement trust fund and the Military 
Retirees' trust fund.
  Mr. Speaker, that is why I am going to vote against raising the debt 
limit.
  The other thing I am going to ask the American people to do is check 
my facts. Last year when all of these people were talking about the big 
surpluses, did anyone ever tell you to check the facts? I would 
encourage, and I hope the camera can get this, because this is where 
the Treasury reports on a monthly basis just how broke our Nation is:
  http//www.publicdebt.treas.gov.
 Look it up for yourselves. I have been encouraging the American 
people to do this for the past year and not one of them has ever 
written me back and said, Taylor, you are wrong, because I am right on 
this one. I am not right on everything, but I am sure as heck right on 
this one.
  So I want to thank the gentleman for the opportunity to speak on 
this. If my colleagues would like a copy of this for their offices, 
when folks come to see you and tell you that we have all kinds of money 
and we have a project that we just cannot live without, maybe my 
colleagues here this evening can say, maybe we can live without it for 
just a little while until we find the money to pay for it.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd) for this 
opportunity.
  Mr. BOYD. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from 
Mississippi. He always brings a very unique perspective, and he always 
brings the facts. As he says, they do not lie; they really tell the 
story.
  I want to recognize at this time, Mr. Speaker, and yield to the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm).
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I wish 
my colleague from Mississippi did not have to leave the floor, but I 
wanted to point out that the thee of us, the gentleman from Mississippi 
(Mr. Taylor), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd), and I were the 
three votes against the stimulus package last week. The reason we voted 
no is that it was not paid for.
  The gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) has been one of the most 
consistent Members in this body over the last couple of years in doing 
what he showed us again tonight, and that is recognizing that our debt 
is going up; and this is a debt that our children and grandchildren are 
going to have to pay, and it should not be unreasonable to expect this 
body to deal with it.
  All we asked for in that bill last week, the three of us, and, boy, I 
have been ridiculed politically and otherwise as being one of the 
three, but I voted that way for a very, very important reason, and that 
is consistency in saying that we should now, the budget that we will 
debate next week, we should put ourselves back on track in balancing 
our Federal Government.
  Now, we got off track and, yes, part of it was the war, no question 
about that. No one foresaw 9-11-01. One of the reasons the Blue Dogs 
last year said, Let us set aside that projected surplus, was because 
something might happen unforeseen. We were not prophetic. We just said 
it was good, prudent business to set aside rather than expend it, 
whether it be in tax cuts or in spending.
  Mr. Speaker, it is interesting now, and I am puzzled by this: In 
1995, one of our colleagues, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman), in 
talking about, at that time, a different President in the White House, 
he said, It is not okay to play games with the $30 billion in payroll 
taxes that workers pay each month that retirees rely on to finance 
their benefit checks.
  The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) stood over here day after 
day after day, and on this particular day he said, Mr. Speaker, it 
seems unbelievable to me that we are sitting here debating whether the 
President can tap into the Social Security trust fund and the Civil 
Service Retirement fund. I find that it is almost unbelievable that the 
Democratic Party, who has been using the senior citizens all over 
America as their own cheap pawn, as their shield, to ram or resist any 
kind of legislation that comes up, now they want to take the money out 
of the senior citizens' trust fund.
  That is exactly what is being contemplated by the majority party in 
this body as of tonight, doing what they condemned Secretary Rubin for 
doing. If it was wrong then, it is wrong now.
  Some of us are willing to do the right thing. The right thing would 
be to increase the debt ceiling and do it clean. That is the right 
thing to do. But just as was argued by our friends on the other side in 
1995, it is inconceivable that anyone would vote to increase the debt 
ceiling without first putting in a plan that will get us back into 
balance and take us out of the Social Security trust fund. That is all 
we are asking, and we are willing to work in a bipartisan way to 
accomplish that goal.
  We do not want to play games. It is too important. The 
creditworthiness of the United States of America is on the line. It is 
too important to play games. But play games, we have in the past, and 
play games, it seems like the leadership of this House are willing to 
do again.
  They condemned us, and I was one of the 48 that stood up with you and 
148 Republicans still in the House and voted to increase the debt 
ceiling. I was there. Where are you tonight? Where will you be next 
week? Why are you insisting that now, in spite of the fact that you 
argued, even to the point of bringing this government down, which we 
did for weeks, shutting down the Washington Monument, doing all of the 
things that you felt were so important, because you felt like the 
President, President Clinton, would not, did not, would refuse to bring 
a balanced budget plan to you.
  All we are saying tonight is, we are ready to join with you, but do 
not change the rules. The rules are that the Congressional Budget 
Office is the official scorer. Do not change the rules and say OMB, and 
reduce the deficit and the debt by $40 million because OMB scores it 
differently. We agreed to play by those rules. Let us stay consistent.
  All we are asking again is, put up a plan. One unnamed staffer was 
quoted this last week on the other side of the aisle and was asked, are 
you going to present a balanced budget? Well, we are going to say we 
do, but it is really not. That was an honest answer.
  We are so close to doing good things for this country. We were there. 
We squandered it. Yes, the war was unpredictable; that is a part of it. 
The recession now, we are being told, was not nearly as deep as anyone 
thought, and I hope, just like I stood in this well 1 year ago and 
said, when we argued against the economic game plan that was put in 
place and we voted that way and we sincerely believed it was wrong, and 
we said at that time, I said, I hope I am wrong and I hope I get to eat 
the biggest plate of crow in this town. And I know that had I been 
wrong, I would have been served up, and I should have been.

  But tonight we simply come back before this body with a message to 
our leadership: We think balancing our Federal budget, we think pay-go, 
paying for those new expenditures that we need, makes good economic 
sense; and we think that every bill that comes before this House, new 
and over and above that which we passed in the budget resolution that 
we are now operating under for this year, that we ought to give serious 
consideration to paying for them or voting them down. That is what the 
three of us did last week. Well, obviously three do not vote down 
anything.
  But here I have a real sincere, puzzling question. If we voted last 
week and the President signed the stimulus package that CBO has scored 
to increase our debt by $42 billion over 10 years and $92 billion over 
the next 3, and the reason for the difference is, the tax provisions 
make money in the outyears, projected; if we did that last week and it 
was signed into law, how can you possibly leave that out of next week's 
budget deliberations?
  How can you possibly say that that law that we passed that is going 
into effect that will increase our debt by $42 billion over the next 10 
years, and the 5-year budget will increase our debt by $100 billion, 
how can you possibly come

[[Page H894]]

to this floor and just ignore it? I mean, you talk about the 
Enronization of the budget process. This is it. Shifting offshore. 
Taking it off budget. Hiding it.
  Well, we will be back next week to talk about that. But tonight, I 
appreciate the gentleman yielding to me. The gentleman is a true leader 
of fiscal responsibility in this body, and it is a pleasure for me to 
join with the gentleman day after day in proposing what we believe are 
some of the better solutions.

                              {time}  1915

  When one is in the minority, one loses. But every now and then, as we 
showed on the farm bill, if we work with the other side, we find that 
you can get bipartisanship. It was not by accident that we got 290 
votes for the farm bill. That is what we ought to get on the budget 
next week. But if they ignore us, they will not do so. If they want to 
increase our Nation's debt without a new plan, count me out.
  Mr. BOYD. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Stenholm) for his leadership on the budget issues. The Blue Dogs have 
written a budget every year since I have been in the Congress. The 
first year was 1997. That actually was the year, as the Speaker may 
recall, that the historic Balanced Budget Act, the bipartisan act, was 
negotiated between the Republican-controlled House and Senate and the 
Democratic administration. That plan was a wonderful plan that got us 
into balance, and now we are headed in the opposite direction.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry).
  Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from 
Florida for the great job he has done in his leadership on budget 
matters and many other things, and the courageous stand that he takes, 
and also my distinguished colleague, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Stenholm). He has been working on these issues for all the time he has 
been in this body, and we all appreciate his leadership.
  The first thought that comes to my mind is this time last year the 
Blue Dog Coalition extended an opportunity to the administration, and 
we said we wanted to work with them. We want to do the right thing. We 
want to have a balanced budget, and we want to have tax cuts. We want 
to pay off the debt.
  They sent the director of the Office of Management and Budget to us. 
He said, we really do not need you. We can do whatever we want to do. 
We are in the majority, and we are going to pass this budget. We are 
going to do it like we want to do it. We will listen a little bit, but 
we have plenty of money. We have so much money that we are more worried 
about paying off all of the debt than we are what we are going to pass 
on to our children, which is a great debt, it has turned out.
  I would beg the administration and the Republican majority, please do 
not do this to our children and grandchildren. Please do not continue 
to run up debt and spend the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, 
and force our children into a totally impossible fiscal situation in 
this country 15 years from now.
  Please do not do that. Work with us. That is all we are asking. Sit 
down and work with us. Be honest, and give us a plan so we do not 
destroy the future of our children and grandchildren. We want to work 
with them, and it just does not make any sense what we are doing.
  We took $5 trillion last spring, piled it up in front of the United 
States Capitol and burned it. Now we are acting like that money is 
still there. We continue to spend the Social Security trust fund. We 
continue to spend the Medicare trust fund. We continue to borrow money 
to operate on, to pass this debt on to our children and grandchildren. 
It is not right. We should not do it. If we were not building up more 
debt, we would not need to raise the debt ceiling. It would not be 
necessary.
  So all we ask of them is, give us a plan. Let us work with them. We 
all want to do the right thing.
  Mr. BOYD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arkansas.
  In closing, I just wanted to say that we are all aware, and I hope 
that the viewers, our listeners, our constituents, are aware that late 
last year the Treasury Secretary, Mr. O'Neill, formally requested that 
Congress increase the statutory debt limit by $750 billion, from the 
current level of $5.9 trillion to $6.65 trillion.
  Mr. Speaker, this request comes a full 7 years earlier than the 
administration had predicted when it presented its budget 1 year ago. 
Again, I would say this budget, this debt limit increase, comes a full 
7 years earlier than was predicted by the administration when it 
presented its budget to us 1 year ago.
  Mr. Speaker, I tell my constituents back home every chance that I 
have to speak to whatever group it is that we are the most fortunate 
and blessed people in the world. We live in the greatest country in the 
world. We are the economic leader of the world. We are the richest 
country in the world. This country has 5 percent of the world's 
population and 25 percent of the world's wealth.
  We are the military leader of the world. All the other military 
hardware of the countries, all the countries around the world will not 
stack up to the firepower that this Nation has at its disposal.
  We ought to be able to figure out a plan to pay our bills. We ought 
not to have to dip into the Social Security trust fund to pay our 
operating bills. That is all that we are asking this administration and 
the majority, the Republican majority in the House, to do is to sit 
down with us and let us work together to develop a plan to get us back 
into balance with our Federal spending before we raise the debt 
ceiling.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the members of the Blue Dogs who have come here 
tonight and spoken so eloquently and succinctly on this issue.

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