[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 26 (Wednesday, February 12, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H429]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   MISGUIDED ADMINISTRATION POLICIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor this evening with a heavy 
heart. I came to Washington, D.C., in 1993 as part of the Clinton 
administration. We worked hard for 8 years. We passed on to the next 
administration a $5 trillion surplus. We passed on to the next 
administration peace and prosperity.
  Today it is not that way. The great country singer Merle Haggard has 
a song that he sings; it is called ``Rainbow Stew.'' One of the verses 
in there says when a President goes through the White House door and 
does what he says that he will do, we will all be drinking that free 
Bubble-up and eating that rainbow stew.
  When the President came here a few weeks ago and gave us the State of 
the Union, one of the things he promised was that we would not pass our 
problems on to another Congress or on to another generation. And yet 
just a week ago Monday we are presented with a proposed budget from 
that same President that is nothing more than an assault on our 
children, on working people, on veterans.
  We are asking our young men and women to go on the battlefield, and 
at the same time we just heard the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) 
tell us what the President is proposing to do to veterans.

                              {time}  1815

  He said, ``We're not going to pass this problem on to the next 
generation.'' Yet in his own budget, by his own Office of Management 
and Budget, we are faced with about another $468 billion in debt. Check 
with the CRS. The percent of the gross domestic product that the nation 
of Brazil has in debt is 60 percent. The percent of debt that the 
United States of America has of our gross domestic product is 62 
percent. And that is what we owe today. That does not include 300-plus 
billion-dollar deficits for as long as anyone can imagine. Yet the 
President presents us with this idea that we can have it all: it's 
rainbow stew. Just reach out there and grab you some. Have a big drink. 
It's free Bubble-up. We can cut taxes, we can fight at least two wars, 
maybe more, we can provide everything that anybody is going to possibly 
dream up, and nobody has to pay. We'll just keep borrowing money.
  I have a button back there at my desk that they told me I could not 
wear when I came on the floor to make a speech. It says, How much is 
the debt tax? How much are we going to pile on our children and 
grandchildren? How much of a debt are we going to continue to just put 
on our children and grandchildren that they cannot pay? No nation, I 
submit to you, Mr. Speaker, can be free and powerful and broke, and 
that is where we are headed.
  I have been on this floor many times. I have heard people make great 
patriotic remarks, declare their intense love for this country; and I 
share that love. I think the Founders, our Founding Fathers, would 
absolutely be disgusted with what we are doing right now, with the idea 
that we are going to borrow ourselves into financial oblivion by just 
continuing to borrow money and borrow money and borrow money and not 
even acknowledge that we have got a problem.
  It is time, Mr. Speaker, that we recognize that we cannot continue to 
do this irresponsible thing.

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