Congressional Record, Volume 150 Issue 123 (Monday, October 4, 2004)

[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 123 (Monday, October 4, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H8009-H8015]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

THE NATIONAL DEBT

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Murphy). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I come here to the floor tonight to talk
about something that is not very pleasant to think about, much less
talk about, but as President Jimmy Carter once said, the highest office
in this land of ours is that of citizen, because the citizen makes the
determination as to the course that our country's leaders take. All of
us are citizens, and therefore, all of us ought to be aware of what I
consider to be a grave and growing danger, maybe second only to
terrorism in our country tonight. The issue that I am referring to is
our Nation's overwhelming Federal debt. I do not believe most of our
citizens, the highest officeholders in this land, realize just how bad
this debt and deficit is and how much it is rapidly deteriorating in
terms of our Nation's financial balance sheet.
We have embarked for the last 4 years on an unprecedented and
unsustainable borrowing binge that is going to place our citizens in
hock not only from the standpoint of paying ever-increasing taxes just
to service the debt, much like we do our credit card debt, but what we
are doing to ourselves, to our country and to our children and
grandchildren.
Let me talk to you a little bit about mind-numbing figures, numbers.
I will try to limit that, but let me just try to explain. We hear two
different debt numbers. We hear of our Federal debt being $7.3
trillion, and it is. That is the total obligation of our country vis-a-
vis our deficits, our budgets and so on. About $3 trillion of that $7.3
trillion is money basically that we owe to each other; we owe to the
Social Security

[[Page H8010]]

trust fund that we have borrowed from; we owe to the veterans'
organizational trust funds that we have; the airport trust fund; the
highway trust fund; on and on. That $3 trillion is money that we the
people, the citizens, owe to the various trustees, and we have to make
good on that in the future. That is not the part of the $7.3 trillion I
want to talk about tonight. I want to talk tonight about the $4.3
trillion that I call hard money, hard dollars that we have actually
borrowed from individuals and corporations in this country and from
around the world that we will talk about in a few minutes. I hope
before you turn off listening to us, you will listen to what we have to
say about that, because it is truly frightening.
I do not know, reading history, of any country that has managed to
remain strong and free and bankrupt. My friends, my citizens, that is
where this country is headed. The deterioration of the Federal balance
sheet in the last 4 years is truly breathtaking. These numbers right
here, we have borrowed in the last 45 months or so $1 trillion if we
add all of this up, $1 trillion. I do not have to tell all of us,
myself included, who have debt on our house, our car or our credit
cards, what $1 trillion means. It means, at 5 percent interest, we have
actually increased taxes on the American people in the last 45 months
by $50 billion a year each and every year. That is called a debt tax
that we will talk about later. It must come off the top. It must be
paid. It cannot be repealed, and that is where we have put ourselves
collectively in the last just 4 years.
This second chart shows how much the debt limit levels have increased
just since 2001. In 2001, the debt ceiling was $5.9 trillion. In 2004,
it will be $8.07 trillion, and by 2014, according to the Congressional
Budget Office projection, that is assuming that everything stays the
same, it will be $13 trillion. I suggest to you that, if you are in an
airplane, you are in a death spiral financially on this chart right
here. If you do not do something different, if we do not do something
different, if you do not demand that the leaders of this country in
this one-party government we have now do something different, we are
going to hit the ground. There is no way this country can sustain and
service this kind of debt.
I talked about servicing the debt. Last year, on this $4 trillion
plus, we paid $159 billion in interest. We wrote checks for $159
billion. This will go on as we see under present law. By the end of
2008, we will be spending $1 trillion a year just to service our debt.
It is clearly unsustainable. There is no way that you can take that
much money out of our economy just to service debt for which we get no
military prowess, no education, no health care, no highways, no
bridges, no anything but just the privilege of paying taxes so we can
pay debt.
At this point, I want to again emphasize, if you are just talking
about debt, we are in an unprecedented and unsustainable headlong dive
into bankruptcy. I want to ask my friend from Texas now to talk a
little bit about what we do. But after he does, please stay tuned
because we are going to talk about who owns it, and that is truly
frightening. My friend from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) is one of the leaders
here in the Congress for financial responsibility, for commonsense
approaches to government in terms of what we can afford. He has been so
for over 20 years. He is the father around here of the balanced budget
amendment. He introduced it, I guess, as soon as he got here, and he is
one who has unquestioned credibility and credentials on our Nation's
debt, deficit, financial balance sheet, you name it. I am glad the
gentleman has joined us tonight.
Mr. STENHOLM. I thank my friend from Tennessee for yielding and thank
him for taking this hour tonight. I not only want to thank him, but I
want to thank USA Today for what they did today on the front page of
their newspaper. We have been in this Chamber several times this year
talking about this, but nobody pays any attention. You would think that
you are making this up, what you have just shown, how the deficit has
turned around. We have listened to the explanations from our friends on
the other side who are in control of the fiscal matters of this country
right now. Here is the paper, front page: $84,454 is the average
householder's personal debt, as you mentioned. We have got home
mortgages. If you are in small business, you borrow money. Your
personal family, you borrow money. You have got credit card debt. You
have got a car loan, et cetera. So the average per household is
$84,454. The average debt that you are talking about tonight plus the
unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare, and I found it
rather fascinating that the previous 1 hour did not ever mention the
debt that is associated with the Medicare program right now, that did
not mention that we were kind of misled, and I was one of the
bipartisan supporters of the pharmaceutical drug Medicare reform bill,
and I supported it because of the rural hospital components, but nobody
mentioned the fact that we were misled about what the cost of that bill
was going to be, those of us who supported it. We were not told 100
percent of the truth, and that is another story for another day.
But you are going to get into something in a minute that I think is
going to get even more the attention of the American people. I
remember, 1981, when we in this body in a bipartisan way increased the
debt ceiling to, I believe, $980 billion. We are talking tonight about
$7.3 trillion. It was $980 billion in 1981. We did not worry too much
about that at that time because we owed most of that money to
ourselves. When you owe money to yourselves, I remember the debate very
clearly, it is not a problem because we are just taking it out of this
pocket and putting it in another one. But, today, it has changed a
little.
I think that leads into the point the gentleman was wanting to make.
I want to talk more about this unfunded liability again, things we are
not doing in this 108th Congress.

{time} 2215

It has been now labeled, and I think correctly, the biggest do-
nothing Congress since 1948; i.e., we have been in session less this
year than any Congress since 1948. And that means that we have got an
energy bill we have not passed. That means we have got a budget we have
not passed. That means that, sometime this week, we are going to reach
the debt ceiling of $7.384 trillion, which means we have got to up our
credit card limit, or we default on these notes that we have got. And
so all of this time, nothing is being talked about until today on the
front page, some newspaper, some media, paid a little bit of attention
to it.
But when we talk about debt, we do not owe it to ourselves anymore,
and one of the most frightening aspects of this debt today is the one
that the gentleman is just about to talk about.
Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman
for his comments.
I hope that we have communicated the breathtaking magnitude of this
federal debt, $7.3 trillion in a $10 trillion economy. We cannot
sustain that. It is like, if one makes $50,000 a year and they owe 70
percent of that in debt, they are in deep trouble, and I will talk
about that in a minute. But the gentleman from Washington has joined
us.
Mr. Speaker, would he like to say something before I get into whom we
owe?
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. TANNER. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I think it is rather unusual that the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr.
Tanner), and I are all up here today talking about the same issue
because I really think it is time to get some real value out of the
administration's color-coded warning system. It is time to declare a
code red on the Nation's debt crisis.
The front page story today, which has been alluded to, from USA Today
analyzed the financial obligations facing Americans because of
government debt. USA Today called it the hidden debt, and it totals a
staggering $53 trillion. That translates into $473,456 per household.
This money we need right now to meet the future obligations for
programs like Medicare, Social Security, and government pensions. It
grows by $1 trillion a year as long as this administration's budget
binge continues.
The bills come due in earnest beginning in 2008. That is not very far
away.

[[Page H8011]]

It is a blink of an eye in real terms. So far, the answer out of this
administration seems to be a strategy of letting the financial crisis
reach epic proportions and then renege on the promise that the country
has made to the greatest generation. And that, in my view, is not
right.
When Americans need their government most, at retirement, the
administration has not put forth a credible plan to honor our
commitment to senior citizens. When Americans are most vulnerable,
entering retirement after a lifetime of hard work and sacrifice, this
administration is budget binging and simply cannot go on.
What will they say to seniors? Well, we would not do the math. Or we
did the math and left it to the next administration to be responsible.
The road the administration has put this Nation on is a fast track to
catastrophe. This is far from a dire warning.
Economists and other experts on both sides of the aisle know the
consequences of what USA Today is reporting today. The nonpartison,
independent CBO looked at the President's budget. The CBO concluded,
``These long-term budget projections show clearly that the budget is on
an unsustainable path.'' That is not rhetoric. That is a dose of
reality about where this administration has taken the country.
It gets even worse if a major disruption in oil supplies or another
terrorist attack shakes the world's confidence in America. There is a
major crisis at America's doorstep, but this administration serves up
anecdotes instead of answers.
America's national security cannot be separated from America's
economic security. And knowing that this Nation faces a looming debt
load surpassing $53 trillion, the administration simply denies the
crisis and keeps rewarding the rich with increasing tax cuts. Every day
that the administration pretends everything is rosy is another day
closer to a crisis when decisions will be forced, not made. That is
because America is being run on borrowed money as much as borrowed
time.
America is increasingly dependent on foreign governments to finance
the U.S. Government spending. Is that the administration's idea of how
to keep America secure? The way the administration is going, our
insatiable appetite for foreign capital to keep the United States going
will match our insatiable appetite for oil. Dealing with one is bad
enough. Dealing with both is downright scary.
What happens when foreign countries decide to push the limit and
demand more and more of us, not in dollars but in policies? If anyone
doubts that carrot-and-stick approach, I would say look back on our own
recent history. How many times has the United States tied economic
assistance to another nation for concessions on something we want in
return? The answer is, too many times to count.
National security depends upon economic security and is not built on
top of an international debt or a mountain of international IOUs. We
owe the greatest generation something more than a than an IOU. We owe
the next generation something more than an anvil of debt hanging around
their necks. We owe it to ourselves to face the reality that is facing
us this day.
Here is the scale.
America is the greatest economic engine on the face of the earth.
Last year, America's entire economic output was $11 trillion, as has
been mentioned before. That was the total gross domestic product. As
impressive as that is, the GDP pales in comparison to the $53 trillion
coming due. Last year's entire economic output of the greatest country
on earth is a mere one-fifth of the debt load America faces. Common
sense ought to tell us where math like that gets us.
The war on America's debt is going to challenge us in ways we have
never seen before. The danger is the economic policies set in motion by
the current administration will pit one generation against another; the
seniors against the folks in our age group against our kids. Every day
the administration denies the problem is another day the war on debt
becomes harder to win. We can act while we are still responsible to
make choices. Or America can wait until we make or are forced to make
draconian cuts.
The Greatest Generation made the greatest sacrifice on behalf of
every generation. America owes them a debt of gratitude, not a mountain
of debt that imperils everything they fought for. It is time to put the
common good ahead of uncommon gain in this country. We have done it
before, and we can do it again.
I think the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner) ought to be
commended for coming out here and raising this issue. At 10:30 at
night, the people of the west coast are still watching, and I am sure
people in Tennessee are watching, and people in Texas are watching, and
they have got to think about this. This is not being discussed in this
campaign. But George Bush has run us off the road. So my hat is off to
the gentleman for coming out and talking about this.
Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman
for joining us. I got interested in this, it has been 2 years ago now,
and I have learned more about the Nation's debt structure and so forth
than I ever thought I would. And the more I think about it, the more
concerned I become. And we are talking about this gross federal debt.
Let me try to boil it down. Of the last year, we paid gross interest
on the $7.3 trillion of $318 billion. If we do the math, that is, 17.8
percent of every dollar that comes into this town is going out in
interest. That is a 17.8 percent mortgage on our country. If we just
talk about the $4 trillion, the hard dollars, and take away the money
we owe each other, we have got almost a 9 percent mortgage on the
country now, and it is going up every single day.
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, who is financing it?
Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I am going to answer that question, and I
guess now is as good a time as any. The foreign-held debt in January of
2001 was $1.01 trillion. The foreign-held debt in July of this year was
$1.81 trillion. That is a difference of $800 billion since 2001, a 79
percent increase in what foreigners hold.
If we look at this chart, in 1980, of our debt foreigners held 17
percent of it. Last year, they held 37 percent of it. That is over a
23-year period.
But look at this one. In just 1 year, through July of 2004, it has
gone from 37 to 42. That is what I am talking about when, on page 2 of
the story, we will hear this, oh, well, this deficit is not any greater
than it has been in times gone by as a percentage of the gross domestic
product. That may be true, but what they do not tell us is that, in
those times before, it was Americans buying war bonds. It was Americans
buying T-bills and Americans buying notes. That is not true any longer.
We are now dependent on the infusion of foreign capital to buy our
notes, our T-bills and our bonds to finance this government. This is a
recipe for financial disaster. It has to be.
One of the heart-breaking things about this is that people just do
not focus on it and do not understand the magnitude of the problem. We
think about the foreign aid bill. Do my colleagues realize that this
year we will ship overseas four times the amount of the foreign aid
bill in interest alone? Eighty-four billion dollars we are shipping out
of this country to foreign-held debt. This is something that I think
people ought to be aware of.
And this chart will show who owns our debt. In July of 2004, we owed
the Japanese $695.8 billion. We owe mainland China $166.9 billion;
United Kingdom, $130.4 billion; Caribbean banking centers, $90.9
billion; Korea, $61.5 billion; Taiwan, $57.6 billion; Hong Kong, $50.4
billion; Germany, $49 billion; Switzerland, $48 billion. We owe OPEC
$43.9 billion. We owe Mexico $34.1 billion; Canada, $33.3 billion;
Singapore, $26.1 billion. We owe Luxembourg $26 billion; Ireland, $18.2
billion; Brazil, $16.2 billion; Italy, $15.7 billion; Turkey, $15
billion; India, $14.9 billion; the Netherlands, $14.6 billion; Belgium,
$14.6 billion; Thailand, $14.3 billion; Israel, $13.8 billion; France,
$13.6 billion; Spain, $11.9 billion; Sweden, $10.4 billion; Australia,
$9.7 billion; others, $7.5 billion. We owe $1.813.1 trillion out of the
$4 trillion to people who are not Americans and who may not see the
world as we see it in the future. And therein lies, I think, an
unacceptable risk that we are putting our country in. We are creating a
financial risk to our country that is, in my view, unacceptable.

[[Page H8012]]

The percentage of debt that was in foreign-held hands when President
Bush took office has gone up, as I said, $800 billion. And the
percentage of the 2003 deficit last year that we had, do my colleagues
know what happened? Seventy percent of our deficit last year was
financed by foreigners.

{time} 2230

Not us. We are not paying for it. We are not paying for anything.
Foreigners are financing our deficit spending. And if you do not think
that is dangerous, then you have not studied history.
I yield further to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm).
Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I hope our colleagues are paying a little
attention to this tonight, because when we have been on this floor
offering to be part of a solution, if people are watching this right
now, folks are beginning to think, I would hope, okay, what should we
do about it? What do you propose we do about it? How do you stop this,
or is it no problem?
Well, I do not think anybody can come to the conclusion that this is
no problem. If they do, they are living on a different world than the
gentleman is or I am. It is a problem. It is a major problem.
Not only is this foreign debt, but then when you look at the unfunded
liabilities of our Social Security system, for our children and
grandchildren, and I want to emphasize right here, no one watching this
has to worry about your Social Security check today. That is not the
problem. It is our children and grandchildren that have got to worry
about it. The Medicare situation right now is a $30 trillion unfunded
liability. That is the more immediate problem.
But our point tonight is in emphasizing this body, the 108th
Congress, has done nothing to address the problem the gentleman is
showing, has done nothing to address the Social Security unfunded
liability, has done nothing to deal with Medicare, other than dig the
hole deeper; and that is the concern that we bring tonight.
It is time that we start doing something about it. Sometime this
week, it is estimated that on Friday the United States of America will
reach our credit card limit, $7.384 trillion; and when you reach that
limit, you cannot borrow any more.
Now, the Blue Dogs, we have written a letter to the gentleman from
Illinois (Speaker Hastert), saying Mr. Speaker, we will vote to
increase the debt ceiling, we will provide some bipartisan support for
doing that, and we ask you to bring it to the floor and do it out in
the open, with one proviso: reinstate one small rule that worked in
1990, 1992 and 1997, pay-as-you-go.
It says if you are going to spend more money for any purpose, you
have got to pay for it. If you are going to cut taxes, you have got to
cut the spending first; not just say you are going to do it, but
actually do it before you cut the taxes so you do not dig the deficit
hole deeper.
We think that is a reasonable compromise. The gentleman and I and 36
of our colleagues have said on this side of the aisle, we will do that.
Instead, what we hear from the leadership of this House is we are not
going to vote on it until the lame duck session. We are going to put
the Treasurer of the United States, who has asked us to increase the
debt ceiling, we are going to put the good faith and credit of the
United States into requiring the Treasurer of the United States to use
every gimmick at his disposal, borrowing the Civil Service trust fund
dollars, again, they have already been borrowed and spent, but we are
going to do it again, because, as you know, these trust funds are a
figment of imagination of anybody.
The military, the irony tonight, is that for the next 6 weeks we are
going to force the Treasurer of the United States to borrow the
military trust funds. The men and women who are putting their lives on
the line tonight for us in Afghanistan and Iraq, work in paying into
their trust fund for their retirement, we are going to manipulate that
for the next 6 weeks just to keep us from voting to increase the debt
ceiling. That borders on immorality. We hear a lot about that around
this body, and it is wrong.
It is time for us to start dealing. You will find, Mr. Speaker, there
are some considerable number of Democrats that will work with you would
you allow us the opportunity to do so.
Finally, on the point the gentleman is making here, the gentleman
mentioned debt tax awhile ago. All we hear about around here is tax
cuts, tax cuts out the gazoo.
What the gentleman has shown tonight is the largest tax increase that
this country has ever seen, because once you owe $7 trillion, let us
round it off now because it will be $8 trillion within the next year,
$8 trillion, a 1 percent increase in the interest rates of this
country, a 1 percent increase is a $80 billion tax increase, and where
are we going to send 42 percent of that tax increase? To our good
foreign neighbors that are financing our spending binge in this
country.
This is the biggest not only tax increase, but, as the gentleman
pointed out tonight, the biggest foreign aid bill that this country has
ever passed. And yet you would not believe it based on the rhetoric we
hear in this body night after night.
Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I see our friend from Mississippi (Mr.
Taylor) has joined us. I thank the gentleman for coming down. Some of
us sometimes feel like a canary in a coal mine. They send a canary in a
coal mine to see if it can live because of the gases and so forth. We
have been talking about this, the Blue Dogs and others, for at least a
year.
I think maybe with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), what he
said about USA Today, maybe we are getting through now and people are
beginning to see. As I said earlier, the citizens of this country need
to know this. I do not think they really fully know, because nobody has
talked that much about it, but we are on a road to financial
Armageddon. What we are doing around here is just plain wrong.
I thank the gentleman from Mississippi for joining us tonight.
Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for
yielding.
Later on this week there will be a debate between the two candidates
for President. I distinctly remember the incumbent telling me a little
over 3\1/2\ years ago that he could increase spending, decrease taxes
and pay down the national debt.
Having watched this body for decades have huge annual operating
deficits, I did not think it could work. It just did not make sense. It
took fiscal restraints, it took some tax increases that I voted
against, but it took both of those things to balance the budget. And
here he was coming in saying, I am going to spend more, I am collecting
less, and I am going to balance the budget.
So on the night of my son's 13 birthday, they passed the President's
budget. At that time our Nation was $5,643,283,000,000 in debt and owed
over $1 trillion to the Social Security trust fund, and yet he said
what we needed to do was spend more and collect less.
In slightly over 3 years the national debt has increased by
$1,735,784,685,911. To put that into context, if you went all the way
from the American Revolution, the cost of the American Revolution, the
cost of the War of 1812, the cost of the Mexican American War, the
Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korea and
Vietnam, all the things that happened in those years, all the way up to
1979, our Nation borrowed $1 trillion. In a little over 3 years, our
Nation has borrowed $1.7 trillion. Where did it come from?
The gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner) has done a great job of
talking about we borrowed it from the Communist Chinese. By the way, if
you are concerned about Taiwan's independence, imagine a scenario where
the Chinese are getting ready to invade Taiwan and say, By the way, if
you defend Taiwan, we are calling in the note for $160 billion you owe
us, plus the note for the other $50 billion you owe to Hong Kong, since
we now own them also. So we are calling in the note for over $200
billion if you defend Taiwan. I have got to tell you, I do think that
is part of their strategy. I have said that here on the House floor. If
you think big deficits are a good idea, then you like borrowing money
from the Communist Chinese.
But worse than that, every single American who has a job, from a kid
who is working at a snowball stand to Bill Gates, everybody pays at
least on

[[Page H8013]]

their first $68,000 of income on their Social Security. There was a
solemn promise made back during the Reagan Presidency when those taxes
were increased that that money would be set aside for no other purpose
than paying Social Security benefits.
Right now, our Nation owes the Social Security trust fund $1.6
trillion with no plan to pay it back. The past 3 years, they have
stolen an additional $521 billion from the Social Security trust fund.
So if you watch the debates Thursday night, and I hope some
television commentator somewhere is watching this, how about a great
question: How do you plan to pay back the $1.6 trillion that has been
stolen from the Social Security trust fund, including the $521 billion
that has been stolen in just over the past 3 years? Because if you do
not have a plan to pay it back, then you stole it.
So in order to get about $600 billion in tax breaks, $521 billion
stolen from the Social Security trust fund, the rest is borrowed from
the Communist Chinese. A heck of a deal.
As a matter of fact, if you take a look at it, for every dollar the
American people got back in tax breaks, our Nation has borrowed three.
That is a heck of a sound business decision.
So if you have watched the House floor in the past couple of weeks,
you know that we have had votes on things like gay marriage, which I
opposed. We have had votes on things like burning the flag, which I
oppose. We have had a lot of talk of morals; we have had a lot of talk
of patriotism.
So let me pose to my Republican friends who vote for most of these
things, a moral question: Is it moral for you to spend money that you
are going to stick your kids with the bill? What moral father, what
moral mother would go out and buy a house or a fancy car and say, I
don't care what it costs, because my kids are going to pay for it.
What moral grandparent would go out and buy something and say, I
don't care what it costs. My grandkids are going to pay for it.
Mr. TANNER. Or just pay the interest on it and let them pay it off.
Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Right. Talk about patriotism. What patriot
would bankrupt the country he loves? That is exactly what has been
going on for the last 3 years.
We hear talk about sound economic principles. Really? What is so
sound about borrowing $3 for every $1 the citizens got back in tax
breaks? New York loan sharks do not charge that kind of interest. Yet
it is what we continue to pay.
So I think the questions that I would hope the press will be asking
Thursday night are how did we get into this jam and what is your plan,
both of you candidates, for getting us out it?
What is my plan? Number one, I think we need a constitutional
amendment to protect the trust funds. We have a solemn promise. If we
take money out of a person's paycheck and say it is going towards
Social Security, then it should go towards nothing but Social Security.
If we take money out of a person's paycheck to pay for Medicare, then
it should go towards nothing but Medicare. It is pretty simple. If we
tell a Federal employee we are going to take money out of their
paycheck and set it aside for their retirement, then we ought to do
just that.
But what you do not know and probably do not want to hear is that as
of this moment this Nation owes you, every Social Security recipient, a
total of $1.6 trillion has been taken out of your trust fund. For those
of you who paid into Medicare, and every working American has, we owe
you $270 billion. If you are a Federal employee, we owe you $622
billion in your retirement fund.
By the way, if a private sector employer had done that, if a private
sector employer had dug into his employees' retirement fund for any
reason, no matter how good, whether it was to help a crippled child,
whether it was to help someone go to college, whether it was to pay a
disaster loan, if they borrowed into it for any reason, they would go
to jail. Yet the people who run our country continue to do that with
absolutely no remorse for what they have done, and, sadder still, with
absolutely no plan for paying it back.
So I say to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner), I do
appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight.
For you House employees, I hate keeping you here tonight. There is
one week left in this session. I promise not to do this to you on a
regular basis. I think these are things the American public needs to
know about. I think this is the time to talk about it.
Mr. TANNER. I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm).
Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I was just going to add a couple of points
here.
It is not just the three of us talking about this. The Comptroller
General David Walker, the government's chief accountant, is traveling
the Nation warning of the impending crisis. ``I am desperately trying
to get people to understand the significance of this for our country,
our children and our grandchildren,'' Walker says. ``How this is
resolved could affect not only our economic security but our national
security,'' which the gentleman has pointed out and the gentleman from
Mississippi (Mr. Taylor). ``We are heading to a future where we will
have to double taxes or cut Federal spending by 50 percent.''
Alan Greenspan has been begging this Congress and this administration
to deal with the deficit, but nobody seems to be listening.

{time} 2245

This is a major problem which requires a solution, and we just seem
to be ignoring it and sweeping it under the table like it is not there,
but it is there.
Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, if this has not depressed us enough, this
year, so far, in 2004, the increase in the privately held debt is $380
billion. The increase in foreign-held debt is $370 billion. Ninety-
seven percent of the increase in privately held debt is in the hands of
foreigners.
There is a fellow, Alan Sloan, who wrote not long ago in The
Washington Post about us financing our government with borrowed money
from anywhere on Earth where people will let us have some in exchange
for our IOU, and he said this: ``Whose bread I eat, his song I sing.''
What of course he was talking about is, as the gentleman from
Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) pointed out, when you are in hock all over the
world, but particularly to Beijing, and look at what they have done; I
cannot believe that this is just happenstance.
Just since 2000, they have increased their holdings of our debt 119
percent. Now, there is a reason for that, and it is not because they
see the world the same way the United States does every day. I am not
bashing China, other than to say, we are creating a financial
liability, a financial vulnerability that is tantamount to a national
security issue. There is no other way we can say it. To point that out,
there is a former official of the People's Bank of China, the country's
central bank, who was recently quoted and said the U.S. dollar is now
at the mercy of Asian governments.
I want to tell my colleagues, we not only have a horrendous balance
of trade situation with Asia but, if this is true, then we are no
longer the architects of our own destiny financially. There is no way
this country can be strong and free and put in the position we are in,
in hock all over the world, getting worse by the day. Mr. Speaker, 97
percent of the privately held debt this year increased by foreigners.
Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I want to make an observation right here,
because I know if any of our colleagues, and we have two on the floor
from our friends on the other side of the aisle right now, their
thinking right now, if it has been as it has been when we have had open
expressions of opposition to some of our solutions, is that you are
forgetting to say we are at war, and wars are expensive. No, we are not
forgetting for one second that we are at war, and 20 percent of this
problem is directly related to the war, 20 percent. I use as my
reference for that, Alan Greenspan.
The gentleman from Tennessee brought up another interesting point
that really is directly tied to the point the gentleman is making
tonight. How many times have we been on this floor worried about the
trade deficit? I rhetorically ask the question of my constituency back
home many times: How long can America keep sending over $500 billion,
exporting our jobs to other countries at the rate we are without the
law of economics taking over? I do not know the answer to that
question,

[[Page H8014]]

and I do not know anybody who does know the answer to that question,
but there is an answer, and the market is ultimately going to answer
that.
But now, tonight, the gentleman has shown, as Paul Harvey says, the
rest of the story. What happens to those dollars when we ship them
across to other countries? They come back. They have to come back. They
are buying our debt with those dollars. If they did not, we would have
a much more serious economic situation almost overnight.
Mr. TANNER. And if they stop, we have a crisis.
Mr. STENHOLM. That is the crisis.
Now, we hear folks saying, well, Charlie, this deficit is not the
largest in the history of our country as a percent of GDP, and I
concede that point readily, because that is a fact, if we will also use
the same GDP figures for spending and for revenue. And having been
around this body now for almost 26 years, I tend to go back and see,
well, what was it in 1978 when I was elected and what is it in 2004
today. And spending as a percent of GDP by the Federal Government for
all programs has gone down one-half of 1 percent. Revenue has gone down
by 5 percent. Therefore, we are perfectly willing to borrow from
foreign interests that which we demand the right to spend for all of
the purposes that we are spending today. And when we hear this, there
is another thing; and this is the point I wanted to make.
The current accounts deficit, the gentleman mentioned that, is the
largest that it has been in the history of our country today: 6.9
percent of gross domestic product in the current accounts deficit. Mr.
Speaker, 3.4 percent is where it was in 1987 when Black Monday occurred
and the stock market crashed because of something that happened. As USA
Today says today, an oil crisis, something happens, we have a problem.
We are double, 100 percent worse off today in the current accounts
deficit than we were in 1987.
Well, one other little figure, facts and figures. The gentleman
talked about the debt tax. Forty percent of all income taxes paid by
the United States citizenry last year went to pay interest on the
national debt. Forty percent of all of our taxes are going to pay
interest on the debt; and yet the debt, the deficit, and the rising
debt is of no problem to the leadership of this House. Mind-boggling.
Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Mississippi
(Mr. Taylor).
Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, it is funny how people
change. There was a guy who was a Representative from Illinois and he
believed in a balanced budget. His name is Dennis Hastert. Back when he
was just Member Hastert, he gave great speeches on the House floor
about the importance of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the
Constitution. So whether the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner) is
here, whether the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) is here, whether
I am here, whether the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) is
here, no matter who is here, the rules are that Congress cannot spend
more than they collect in taxes.
The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) he came to the floor back
then and said, Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of a Balanced
Budget Amendment. ``It is an amazing statistic that interest payments
on our national debt were 5 times higher in 1993,'' we are going back a
ways, ``than outlays for all education, job training, and employment
programs combined. Clearly, until our monstrous'' then ``$4.3 trillion
Federal deficit is eliminated, interest payments will continue to eat
away at the important initiatives which the government funds. I will
not stand by and watch Congress recklessly squander the future of our
children and grandchildren. Mr. Chairman, when I served in the Illinois
legislature, the fact that we had a balanced budget amendment to our
State Constitution enabled us to practice strong fiscal discipline. We
must have the same safeguard at the Federal level. The American people
have wanted a Balanced Budget Amendment for a long time because they
know it is the only way to force Congress to make the tough spending
choices.''
That comes out of the Congressional Record March 17, 1994. The
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) became Speaker in January of
1999, almost 5 years ago. In the 5 years that he has been Speaker, he
has not allowed a single vote on a Balanced Budget Amendment to the
Constitution. We have had a number of votes on amending the American
Constitution on things that I voted for, things like preventing gay
marriage, things like preventing flag desecration, but not a single
vote on what I consider to be the most important issue in America right
now, and that is passing a law that whether or not the gentleman from
California (Mr. Cunningham), or the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Stenholm), or the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner), or myself, the
Speaker, or no matter who sits in our chairs, those people who serve
the public will spend no more than they collect in taxes.
I say to the Speaker of the House, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr.
Hastert), we have about 1 week left in this session. I, for one, would
like the opportunity to vote on a Balanced Budget amendment. You have
blocked it for 5 years now. One of the reasons I will never vote for
you for Speaker is because what you said as a Member did not translate
into what you did as Speaker of the House.
I believe it is important. Almost every State has laws that say, you
cannot spend more than you collect in taxes. In my State of
Mississippi, city councilmen and county supervisors are held personally
liable if they spend more than they collect in taxes. And guess
what? They do not spend more than they collect in taxes. We need that
sort of responsibility here.

So I say to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner), thank you for
pointing out the evils of the debt. We have outlined some solutions
tonight. We are hoping guys like the gentleman from Illinois (Mr.
Hastert) or whoever the next Speaker is will give us a vote on that.
And I am ready to do that, I say to the gentleman from California (Mr.
Cunningham), and I hope he is ready to do that. But at the very least,
let us have a vote on it. Let us show the American people who is for a
Balanced Budget Amendment and who is not. Quit hiding behind the
Speaker of the House who, for 5 years now, has blocked that vote, even
though he came to this floor on any number of occasions and said how
important it was for our Nation to have that.
Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons why he has not brought
it up is we cannot have the kinds of budgets that have been here in
this body for the last 3 or 4 years and get to a balanced budget. We
have to change our overall budget philosophy and go back to pay-as-you-
go. It is pretty simple arithmetic. We cannot run this country on
philosophy. The banks will not lend us money on philosophy all of our
lives. At some point, the law of economics is going to take over and as
the charts the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner) has shown us
tonight, if it does not begin to get the attention, which I am glad
again today, USA Today put it on the front page, maybe now, tomorrow
night in the debates between the two candidates for Vice President,
this issue will come up.
Maybe Thursday or Friday night it will become part of the debate, and
people will start asking the question, what is your plan? The three of
us will be here, hopefully with three friends from the other side of
the aisle with a plan; and if we will start working together, we can
begin to address this problem. But we cannot do it with the game plan
that we are under today. The game plan today is giving the results of
what the gentleman is showing us right now in the charts.
Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues for coming,
and we will wrap this up. But there are three things that I hope people
who have listened to this tonight will come away with. Number one, we
are in an unprecedented spiral of debt. We are borrowing money now
faster than this country has ever borrowed it. There is not a reputable
economist in this land that thinks that growth can catch up to this
debt curve that is plunging us into bankruptcy. Not one reputable
economist will say that growth will catch up with this.
As I said earlier at the top of the hour, we are in an airplane; and
if we do not do something different, we are in a death spiral. It is
going to hit the ground. It is that simple. No question about that.
The second thing is I hope people will realize that as bad as this
is, what is

[[Page H8015]]

worse is who is financing it. Back in World War II, back in World War
I, back any time we had a national crisis in this country and we had to
raise money through borrowing, we did it with war bonds and so forth,
and people in this country invested in the good of the Nation. That is
not happening. We are now mortgaging our country, 90 percent this year.
It has gone up 79 percent in the last 4 years. We are borrowing from
people who do not have America's best interests at heart. I hope that
is the second lesson that comes out of this tonight. Please, if you
think that is important, if you know, as I do, that we are creating a
financial vulnerability second only as a matter of national security to
the war on terrorism, because we will lose control of our own financial
destiny, control of our economy if this is not quickly reversed.
And third, the way to reverse it is to immediately establish the
rules of pay-as-you-go. Every family does it. If I want to spend some
money over here, I have to cut somewhere over here. It is that simple.
We all do it. They refuse, the Republican leadership here refuses to
put what we call PAYGO rules back in. They work. If you have a good
idea, that is fine. How are you going to pay for it? You have to cut
somewhere else to do it. We ought to demand, the citizens, the highest
officeholders in our land must demand financial accountability that has
been sadly and, in my judgment, heart-breakingly absent here. I yield
to the gentleman from Mississippi.
Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, just along the lines of the
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner), and I am really reminded of it
when I see a great American hero sitting across the aisle from us,
someone who fought for his country in Vietnam, was an ace, probably has
some different views than what we do. But I will say this: I greatly
respect the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), and I greatly
respect everyone who has ever served our country. I have enormous
respect for all of those fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan tonight.

{time} 2300

But I will say this. Those of us who are fortunate enough not to have
to fight these wars, ought to at the very least be willing to pay for
them right now and not stick those young soldiers and their children
with the bill for this war.
That is what is going on. We are just kicking the can. We are asking
the kids to fight for us now, and, by the way, when you get home, here
is the bill. And if you cannot pay for it, your children and your
children's children will pay for it.
Almost every tax on the books, as regrettable as taxes are, almost
every tax on the books was put on during wartime. Never in the American
history has there been a tax break during a war, never, because every
other generation says, we have a challenge we are going to pay for.
This generation needs to step forward as other generations did. And
those of us who are fortunate enough not to fight this war ought to at
least be willing to pay for it right now.
Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, we want to thank the staff. We apologize for
keeping them here this late. This is a message that we hope people will
begin to think about.

____________________