[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 34 (Wednesday, March 17, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H1207]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      ADDING TO THE NATIONAL DEBT

  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, that great country singer and philosopher 
Merle Haggard has this wonderful song called ``Rainbow Stew.'' And the 
words go something like this: ``When a President goes through the White 
House door and does what he says he will do, we will all be drinking 
that free Bubble Up and eating that rainbow stew.''
  Now, there must be a barrel of Bubble Up in the Republican cloakroom 
tonight because, if I did not know better, the last two speakers on the 
Republican side, I would suspect that they might have gotten here by 
falling off a turnip truck on Independence Avenue. I have never heard 
such ridiculous goings on in all of my days.
  Now, I know that they have not been here very long, and I understand 
that. What we need is a little bit of sanity. This would be 
hysterically funny if it was not so painful for the next generation. 
What we need is a little credibility. What we need is a little honesty 
from the gentlemen on the other side of the aisle that just voted today 
to support a budget that will raise the debt ceiling over $8 trillion. 
And then they come down here and talk about some ridiculous deal that 
they do not even know what they are talking about and blame the 
Democrats for it.
  The Republicans have been in charge since 1995 in this place. And it 
is the Democrats' fault? Some of these fraud cases that they are 
talking about were contracts that were administered by the current 
administration. You have got to wonder when the turnip truck got 
through the barricades out here.
  When the President came in this January of 2001, the Blue Dogs went 
to him, we said, We want to work with you. We will work with you to cut 
taxes. That is all we ask. But if you are going to cut taxes, cut 
spending. Let us agree on that. Let us work together, and we will do 
it. And we will all be proud of our work when we get through.
  They sent Vice President Cheney down here in room 122, downstairs. I 
will never forget it. And he said this: ``We think you all are nice 
people, but we do not need you and we are going to do what we are going 
to do.'' And they can.
  Now, look what we got, a budget that was voted for by the gentleman 
from Texas this afternoon that is going to borrow another $700 billion 
from our children and grandchildren. Now, you talk about waste, fraud, 
and abuse, that is it. There is not any proposal in there to cut 
spending in a responsible way.
  The Blue Dog Coalition has worked and worked and worked to try to get 
the other side to sit down with us and let us do the responsible thing. 
We have proposed raising taxes. We have proposed balancing the budget 
in a responsible way. Then they sent Mitch Daniels, the head of the 
Office of Management and Budget, and he told us, ``Do not worry, we are 
going to have so much money after we cut taxes we are going to pay off 
all the debt. The biggest problem we are going to have is you will not 
be able to buy any U.S. Treasury bonds; they will not be a safe 
investment.'' They did just about fix it with the U.S. Treasury bonds: 
they are not a safe investment anymore. I just wonder what in the Sam 
Hill these people are thinking about.
  But I can tell you this: you can keep trying to fool the American 
people which will not be successful. You can keep doing what you are 
doing which is add to the debt load of our children and grandchildren 
in such an irresponsible way that it will be a horrendous day when the 
payday comes. And you will be the one that suffers, because I am so old 
I will probably be dead when it happens. But the young man from Texas 
over there that is sitting there smiling in such a cute way, he is 
going to still be around. And he is going to have to pay this tax.
  The one tax that you cannot repeal is the interest on the national 
debt. Now, they want to raise that one as much as they can. And, boy, 
they are doing it great.
  I just cannot imagine why. That is the great mystery to me. Why would 
you want to do such a ridiculous but, more importantly, irresponsible 
thing to our children and grandchildren.

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